NEWS

Good Monday morning to you all-

I am writing this from a huge, three story, ancient farm house in a small village way outside of Angouleme. Our Branch President promised us a 'soft' landing here if he didn't have an apartment for us, and this is it.

A newly baptized member welcomed us into a wing of his old family home, and it is something to behold. From the second floor I'm looking out over the orange tiled roofs and rock walls (houses and fences as well) that totally characterize the look of this country.

Our host, Bro. Mangou, is restoring his home room by room, this one being about half done with fancy fleur-de lei wallpaper on one end and bare sheet rock on the other. A carpeted,wooden spiral staircase takes us from the entry hall to our rooms upstairs and then continues on up uncarpeted into a kinda spooky looking area that is very dark. If we had kids with us, I'm sure they'd think this is a haunted house and act accordingly!

After staying at the mission home til Monday, we were literally kicked out of the nest with a car we were unfamiliar with, and a cell phone we didn't know how to work, and our first task was to find ourselves an apartment, which they hadn't been able to do for 5 months! We didn't take the fastest way to Angouleme by the freeway, or we would have been taxed 50 Euros (the government loves to tax anything not tied down--that's one reason the church has a tough time finding apartments for missionaries.

They have to be very careful or the gov. can reach right in and scoop up church money, and we cannot sign for an apartment or they could tax our pension for over 60%!), so we pointed ourselves north and took off with fingers crossed. There are no cross streets here, just round-a-bouts every time you turn around, and the French just zoom, zoom past in their little cars with determined expressions on their faces. I felt like I was hanging on for dear life, but thoroughly enjoying the scenery, while Jack was sweating the ever-changing round-a-bouts wondering what the other guy was going to do next! Finally we hit the countryside and the traffic abated and we exhaled again.

We stayed at a local hotel for two nights and ran around with the R.S. president every day following up leads for apts. I could write a sonnet of praise for this spunky little woman, I love her so much. She would not rest until we got a place to live. We found one right downtown we thought would work (I could tell she had trouble with it, but deferred to us).

We began the rental process, but the same roadblocks came up (because the church pays them, and we pay the church) and they were dragging their feet. We went to Bro. Mangou's Wed. night, and the next day got a frantic call from Sis. Bouschard that she had found a place for us to see that night.

We took our MTC French sister's precious letter with us out for our first contact in France as promised, and had a very interesting exchange with her uncle. I'll save that for another time. The apt. is privately owned by a widow, and she agreed to rent to us, but it will not be available until Jan. 6, so we will stay here until then. I must end this novel now .....

Love to you all, I miss you.

Love, Mom-Joanne-Grandma

p.s. Please save these from your end for us - thanks!