Sushi, training in Carcassonne, and more fall leaves in the Alps

-
Our Church Week—We had our District Meeting in Pau (45 mins to our west) this week.  District Meetings are two times per transfer (6-week period).  One of the young Missionaries is the District Leader calls the meeting to order and conducts the 2-hour long meeting, and then it rotates from Missionary to Missionary over their course of 2 years.  For us, this is the beauty of the Restored Gospel:  On Sunday, Marc is the President of the Tarbes Branch; but throughout the week as a Senior Missionary, we belong to a District of Missionaries.  So during the week, he is then in the “student” position under a young Elder District Leader.  Any business items from the Mission President are disseminated and discussed under the direction of the Young Missionary.  We coordinate any baptisms and always brush up on our teaching skills.  At the end, the tradition is that we sing the mission song, take a picture of our District showing which transfer we are currently in and the Missionaries prepare a meal.  We bring the desserts.

This last District Meeting was unique because it was Elder Templeton’s last District Meeting.  This time, the Missionaries held him up in a reclining position; sometimes they stack 16 chairs (representing 2 years’ worth of transfers) and hoist him up on the stacked chairs.  Either way, it’s to honor their selfless service and commitment to a life time of serving their fellow man.  

Elder Templeton has become quite the cook these 2 years.  He’s adopted a few French recipes, namely Raclette…a favorite cheese dish and Sushi.  Over his 2 years, he’s bought a few of the sushi making reed rollers, chopsticks and special dipping dishes. We gave him a Sushi “maker” that says “MERCI MYSELF.”  We thought that was apropos for his French Mission and love for making Sushi.

Saturday, we had an 8-hour training meeting in back in Carcassonne.  We were quite saturated with French after 8 hours.  We are proud of what we do understand; but we are telling you it’s not 100%...far from it.  But we generally know the Church Organization and the new changes beginning in 2019, so that of course gave us a leg up. 
  
The French Alps and Geneva trip—Not much to report on this week by way of history or culture, just a continuation of fall beauty in France and western Switzerland over our many miles covered these past weeks.
     
A la prochaine. 


Fall in the Alps

 The sisters in our mission district

 Desert after the sushi




How to transport a mattress and carry missionaries at the same time

 Fall vine grows plentiful on homes; buildings

 Bishops, Branch Presidents and Stake Presidency on lunch break during training meeting

 The youth in the stake came together for games in fun in an event called Super Samedi 

 French desert, small but flavorful

The Bishop of the Carcassonne Ward and Marc


Love the large trees with fall color

Its also olive country

This rock sort of takes up a few too many parking spots

































































































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The beginning of our end; Quéribus Chateau; Chateau Peyrepertuseis, Montsegur; Foix

-
Image
Our Church Week —This week is ‘repas’ week and the theme was a regional food from France. It was Valerie’s idea and it was a perfect idea to celebrate France for us and for the Branch.  More on that below.  Apartment hunting —A lot of this week went to helping our Bayonne Elders find an apartment.  Let it be known, without technology, this would be an entirely different task.  Bayonne is 1 ½ hours from us and we are able to do all the searching and approving remotely.  The Bayonne Elder’s proprietor is selling the apartment so they need to find a place ASAP.  It can be tricky here in France because generally speaking, proprietors do not like to rent to organizations (e.g., the government who provides subsidized housing or handicapped housing).  The proprietors have had bad luck and make a blanket statement, a flat out “no”.  NO organizations.  It really puts a monkey wrench in the works for us, an organization (in their eyes). The Chu...
Read more

You could have heard a pin drop; Basque Country

-
Image
Our Church Week.  This week we re-traced our path right back past Lyon, where we were last week, on our way to and from Geneva, Switzerland.  We had two training sessions back to back with Elder Cook, one of the 12 Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was 6 hours of bliss. With the size of The Church of Jesus Christ growing to over 16 million worldwide members, it is not often that an Apostle comes to your area.  From humble beginnings, The France Lyon Mission has grown to  6 Stakes (about 60 congregations) in Southern France and French-speaking Switzerland.   In this instance, Elder Cook was coming to train those in leadership capacities in our 6 Stakes.   But..... The added bonus was that at the last minute he invited all missionaries from the Lyon, France Mission to come for a 2-hour meeting prior to the leadership training meeting for the stakes.  Now that was an event!  Getting some 160 mission...
Read more

Three Kings Day; Sainte Croix du Verdon

-
Image
6 January 2019 Our Church Week —What a full and rewarding week with lots of celebrating, French style.  The Christmas Spirit and The New Year still fill the air….cold as it is (turned 12 degrees F this morning).  We’ve had a very wonderful week gathering with different Church families and individuals since everyone is still off this past week.  Tradition continues to unite France’s people and it has been fun to celebrate age-old traditions. We’ve received yet more chocolate boxes and gifts.  We will be in good supply for many weeks, if not months, to come.  And of course French cooking, dinner dates and conversation is in extra supply these few weeks along with all the sweet treats. Earlier this week, we had Jean-Claude over to practice reading the Scriptures.  He has been taking the Temple Preparation classes and was planning to attend to attend the Bern Temple (Switzerland) this week with a friend over the holiday break.  We read an arti...
Read more