Left-overs: Carcassonne, “yellow vests” and the last of Fall

Our Church Week—This week, we traveled to several conferences.  To start, Saturday, we had 5 hours of instruction in Tarbes.  Then on Sunday the young missionaries walked over to our house at 7am and we drove together with them to Toulouse for the second day of instruction for our Stake Conference (10 or so church local congregational make up a stake).  Instead of driving homeward to the west only to return through Toulouse to our east, we continued on and drove across the country to Lyon, France for a large all day Missionary Conference (about 160 missionaries divided into 2 days). 

We know that to receive blessing we need follow the commandments that God has given us. So for every law or commandment there is a blessing (or sadly, a lack of blessings if we choose otherwise). One scripture (Doctrines & Covenants 130:21) says, "And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

Our Mission President shared a saying he learned on his mission: 

"If you almost follow a commandment…..you almost receive a blessing.”

What a wise quote!  Simple enough.  Life is about choices and we reap the results based on our decisions. 

With about 15 hours of inspirational instruction, we are on cloud nine!

Church was exceptionally good today.  The first Sunday is Fast and Testimony meeting where we abstain from food and water for 2 meals to grow more spiritually close to God, remember those without and give of our means used for those means (and then some) for the feeding of the poor.  The format of those Sunday meetings is different in that we share personal “testimonies” of how Heavenly Father has blessed us in our lives over the past month.  It’s always faith-promoting to hear from each other.  We also had a lot of good comments in our Sunday School and Men’s/Women’s meeting. Afterwards, there was choir practice for our Christmas Program and we taught a lesson to a 22-year old student who has been coming to Church for about 1 ½ months.  He just walked in off the street after watching a televised interview with our Mission President.

As for the “yellow vests” movement, we made it over to Toulouse then to Lyon fine with the demonstrations.  But since then there have been more rioting-type demonstrations in Paris.  Going over there were only 3 peaceful demonstrations en route.  Coming home, many more auto-route and round-abouts have demonstrators. The numbers have really mushroomed.  In a short week, Tarbes has joined the demonstrations and we were met with many demonstrators at our toll gates.  Most are just trying to gain support.  But they gather around a bonfire on the highways.  Many burn tires (for the black smoke) to express and show their “black” anger and of course it is more visible than a wood burning fire.  We still feel safe though we can see the movement is growing.  We travel with extra gas, food and warm clothing as a safety precaution.  Those against President Macron, in addition to the raised gas tax, are using the demonstrations more as a political platform to protest his views beyond the gas tax.  It’s VERY sad to see the violence and destruction in Paris and naturally the country is saddened by the destruction of property, civil unrest and the sentiment of anger attached.

This week’s pictures are a continuation of Carcassonne from a few weeks ago, the “yellow vests” and a few more fading fall shots.

A la prochaine! 

Marc and Jean-Claude at Stake Conference

 Sister missionaries at Stake Conference, young and less-young

Some of our Branch members having a sort of 'tailgater' after Stake Conference

 Attacking the ice with a drywall knife and squeegee

 Car elevator!  Space is tight in Lyon Church Building

 Lunch at our Mission Conference in Lyon

A few Senior missionaries at dinner at Hippopotamus restaurant in Lyon

 Our Mission nurse and our Elder Scharman

 Gilets jaune continues.  Goal is that people pay less taxes and receive more benefits....hmmmm 

 Gilets jaune camp out in the traffic circle

Marc's birthday card sent by our missionary daughter Nadya

Carcassonne

  

 Carcassonne

 Carcassonne castle, largest in France

 Looks cool, but too much work to extract what's edible

 A Jan Brueghel (the younger)

 We met some members of our church touring the world like we did last summer

From Gisèle....roses still blooming while fall leaves are falling

Marc carried this woman's VERY heavy bag of books; we chatted all the way like old friends.