Well That’s a First! More records Broken; Chateau Gudanes; Snow-covered Pyrenees

Our Church Week—We’re sticking to our story….no week is the same. We had to postpone our trip to Perpignan to do apartment inspections, as Marc had a set-back with this come-and-go flu. Do one thing too much and you have a setback. With Meg not able to share in the driving since her 1-year grace period is up in France with her drivers license, it seemed wiser to not push our luck.

But as events would have it, we were more needed here. Marc can operate remotely but this particular week we had more need to be in constant communication with many of our members, from moves to various hic-cups, to surgery.

The dominos begin to fall—several Branch members who are slated to move will be moving earlier than anticipated. The composition of our Branch will change greatly over the next 6 months.

Jean-Claude—is now in Colmar. He has been with us for over a year. He showed us the mountains when we first got here. He has a great love for nature and fitness. He is the second in our line-up to move.

Marc Mauré—is now in Bayonne on the Atlantic Coast. Marc was the first in the line-up to move. He will be doing some job training there and that was the purpose of his move. We thought we would visit him; but our boundaries just changed and he is no longer in our Stake.

Mondul—gave a tearful testimony today about Jesus Christ and the miracles that have occurred in his life. Both of his parents were killed during the Khmer Rouge years, so life has not been easy for him. Understandable, there is a certain sadness about him for the loss of his parents as well as being away from his family. Yet, he has a certain touching glow that radiates in him because of the new-found joy in Gospel. On 21 March, he will make a one-way trip this time to the capitol city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia to be with his family. He has sacrificed seven years of his life by living in France to save money for his 4 college-aged children. He lived a very frugal life here to provide for them there. All now have diplomas and he will be able to rejoin them.

The Church in Cambodia is growing very quickly and he will be a well-needed asset to the growing Church there.. Missionaries there tell us they have a waiting list 3-4 weeks out. And with the announcement of a temple last conference to be built there, they can quickly see the fruits of their labor. He is grateful beyond words for the relationships he formed here, for those who helped him learn French and were his family away from home for all these years. Sweet sorrow. P.S., Mondul worked his last day at his restaurant Saturday. I hear the restaurant is having trouble finding a sushi chef to replace him. Looks like we have a job opening here if any of you have any special skills in this area.

Richard—just informed us he gave his 3-month notice to his landlord that he will be moving. This was also an anticipated move, and Richard was set up here from the beginning as temporary. Richard is donating 2 years of his time to help his son set up his business in Paris and he just returned from signing the contract. Richard does the work of 3-4 people and still seems to have time and energy left over. He is always there, dependable and energetic. If his landlord finds a renter sooner, he will leave sooner. His daughter and family live here and will stay. So hopefully while we are still here, he will be making a visit to see them. We hope to see him in Paris at the end of our missions, go to the Paris temple and see his new store he is working on with his son. That will be very exciting!

Juliette—We think she is the next to move. She and her husband have started a new business in beautiful Pau, 45 minutes to our west. They are in the process of moving their equipment over and looking for an apartment to rent. Pau is a University town, so it’s an odder time to move since college is still in session. So they have to weigh out all their options, availability and timing. They are Tahitian and the Church there is larger with a big Tahitian population. That will be a good fit for them.

Jean Michel’s surgery—After 2 delays over 3 weeks, Jean Michel was finally able to have his open-heart surgery for his enlarging aorta. It was very stressful mustering up the strength and wherewithal only to be met with a delay. They are very glad to have it all behind them. The family has had a tremendous outpouring of support from the Branch and they are so grateful for the prayers, texts, gifts and emails wishing them well and God-speed on his recovery period. He will stay in the hospital for 2 weeks then go to a rehab center for a month. The main hurdle was the surgery. We can visibly see the weight lifted off Tatiana, his wife now that they have the surgery underbelt. Oh so glad.

One sick Elder—Now it is Elder Gardner’s turn for the flu. It’s gone through 50% of our Branch. We don’t envy him. The flu this year here has been very long and disabling and you have no choice other than to ride it out. His companion was sick with either a lighter form of the flu or a really bad cold. Time will tell which one it was. It’s always so hard when someone in your household is sick not to get sick ourselves.

It’s hitting everyone differently….some get all the symptoms in one miserable week; others have the symptoms drawn out over many weeks, more in phases. He’s been hit with the first variety. We took him some medicine, juices and variety of hard candies since he can’t keep much down. This flu is very weakening in and of itself; add in the stomach ailments and he is feeling doubly weak. Not fun. And when one Elder is sick, the other stays by their side until they are well…and will still be by his side 24/7 after he is well. Such is the life of a missionary companionship.

Our landlord—Monsieur Rey is our Landlord. And what a landlord he has been. We’ve never had anyone like him as a landlord. He’s more like a bed and breakfast host making sure everything is right for us. When we first moved in he was checking on us almost daily. Every Friday he drives 30 miles to vacuum the halls, clean the walls and patio, mow the grass and make himself available for anything we need. One time Meg said to him we’ve never had a landlord like him. His response: “I see it like this: you pay me money and I provide a service for you. It’s not just to make money; you are people and with pleasure, I do my best.” Try to beat that!!

Monsieur’s Rey’s Doctor told him it’s time to quit. With 3 back surgeries, and 2 knee surgeries his body needs a rest. So he sold this unit and some others. On his last day as owner of the building he arranged for our new landlord to meet us. Afterwards he called us over to an empty apartment we thought to maybe do some paperwork. But out comes a gift bag with chocolates for us. We were so confused and taken aback of a landlord giving US a gift. It should have been the other way around!

We will never forget his kindnesses and unique experience with the best landlord we’ve ever met.

Record’s broken this week—Last year you might remember all of Europe had the wettest Spring in 60 years. Up against the mountains here in Tarbes, we feel we got more rain as the rain clouds can’t make it over the mountains. Then last summer was the second hottest summer on record. This week, record high temperatures for the month of February were broken on Monday (21C/70F) and Wednesday (28C/82F). Normally, temperatures in Tarbes in February are 30-40F. By Thursday, a few minor clouds began to move in and temperatures slowly started to slide down. Everyone still wonders if this is an early Spring this year or will Winter kick up it’s heels again. Either way, we remember well from last year, March is CHANGEABLE every day and within every day.

Chateau de Gudanes--we learned about Chateau de Gudanes from some fellow travelers and stopped by last week on our way back from Toulouse. It is a 13th century fortress turned 15th century castle then 18th century palace-chateau. A wealthy Australian family bought this chateau to restore. It has 92 rooms and is in the historic category with Versailles. When they bought the chateau, there were trees growing in some rooms, the roof was in terrible shape and as a result the floors were rotted out. Jasmine, the daughter who is studying archaeology and heading up many of the restoration workshops had just flown in from Australia and gave us a private tour of their undertaking. What an undertaking! Two dogs, Alfie and Bruce stay the year with a tradesman during the warmer months. In winter it has reached 10F so until they have heat in, it's not livable year-round.

But they have the funds and know-how to see it through. France will be the beneficiary to their good cause. They run summer workshops on site on restoration, cooking, period history, etc. Of course with the seasons reversed and their winter's France's summers, they can fare well. Here are 3 links on what they have been doing.

https://www.chateaugudanes.com/home;

https://www.afr.com/brand/afr-magazine/restoring-chateau-de-gudanes-a-labour-of-love-for-karina-waters-20181106-h17k8q

https://www.facebook.com/chateaudegudanes/

Region of the week—the Pyrenees Mountains. These fotos are mostly from last week but had not downloaded in time for the blog. We thought, “If we are going to enjoy the snow-covered Pyrenees, we’d better get up their quickly.” With the warm temperatures, the snow is melting quickly. And with 3 weeks of no precipitation it could be that is much of what we will see this year. One pass was closed with about 6 feet of snow at the turn-around point. One pass closes every year for skiers and the other passes normally closed, were opened. A few avalanches had gone over roads and had to be plowed to be able to pass on the road. They are well prepared for avalanches here with avalanche-control fencing and some emergency huts in prone areas in case an avalanche blocks the road and you can’t get out. Otherwise, the avalanches are earlier this year because of early spring conditions. But the mountains are nonetheless majestic and pristine with snow. It’s supposed to rain next week so that will be snow higher up. We just hope for the grower’s sake that the valley temperatures are not too low so tree blossoms do not fall and affect the fruit crop and livelihoods this year.

A la prochaine.

Our propriétaire Monsieur Rey, and Meg. Nicest man; best landlord we've ever had

Our propriétaire's gift to us; a box of chocolates. Wasn't that nice!

We've never received a gift from a landlord before.

Additional pictures from our Branch Conference. Here, Lily having fun.

Maël in the center

Siobhan receiving some instruction from the stake

Two of our youth doing a church-wide survey

On of our stake leaders instructing two of our members, Giséle and Patrick in their callings

Constanta from Romania helping with decorations

Félix, our newest member and his brother Léo, and Elder Gardner

Siobhan and her mother Anne

Chateau Gudanes

View from window

Taking the wall layer back to the 1500s

Repainting the ceilings

Jasmine said that this was formerly a champagne fountain during parties

Taking off layers of walls to restore to period of Versailles

Heights of children growing up in chateau back to 1947

They will have Paris remake this wallpaper to reproduction era

Catholic Church, notice rare fortress style

This is an Orri. Here is a description from Wikipedia:

''An orri is a type of small stone hut found in the Ariège département. Orris are dome-shaped, mortarless huts, often with a top made of slate or wood. Inside they contain just one low room, with half the floor space taken up by a bed made of wood or stone.

Orris were mostly used as night shelters by shepherds and cowherds after sheep and cows were moved to higher ground for grazing in the summer and early autumn. They vary in their arrangements: some appear to stand alone; others are clustered in small groups.^[2]

At times, especially among the clustered orris, they were used for other purposes, such as food storage.''