First Dinner With the Young Adults

We finally have our internet at the apartment in Lille. We are thrilled that we don't have to go to church or McDonalds to get onto hotmail. We have had a good week especially last night at the institute class. Your Mom worked for two days to get the meal ready. She made 30 enchiladas, a huge salad, and chocolate cup cakes. The meal went over very well. We wanted to do more than just a main dish and so we decided on a salad with tomatoes on the side. It was just what was needed. The cup cakes were downed especially by the young men. We had a total of 19 people there and one was an amis of the church who came to family home evening also last Monday.

We are responsible for the treat on Monday night family home evening, the Thurs day night meal and the snacks for the once a month activity at the center. In Feb. they are going to have a movie night with 17 Miracles. Some pop corn might go well that night with a few other treats. We hope to have some good activities to get more friends of the church to come and enjoy some wholesome fun. This will encourage the missionaries to get a little more enthused about contacting young adults.

We are getting well established in our apartment, with only curtains on the windows left to do. We have some for the bedroom but the other two rooms are coming along. We had to do some comparison shopping before we found something that would work with our odd sized windows. The kitchen is narrow and so the place where the fridge should go is not being used because you can't get a fridge through the narrow kitchen to put it in its place. The fridge ended up in the small bedroom that is being used for an office. Some design flaws could have made the kitchen bigger, but we can live with all that.

The stake has 6 missionaries out in the field with two more to go soon. There have been also 5 temple marriages. This has put a drain on the number of young adults, but this is what the program is all about. We are going after the inactives by asking the two bishops in Lille to give us a list of their top 5 candidates for re-activation. The young adults are well organized and willing to do the work, especially when we go with them and give a little encouragement.

If you have any suggestions as to activities for this group to do, we would appreciate the families help. We are planning an Olympic Games night around the time of the London games, but it will be the wacky Olympics: straw throwing for the javelin, ping pong balls instead of the shot put, etc. If you come up with any events, let us know. There is also a stake event every two months, in conjunction with the young adult broadcast, but that is handled by the stake.

Lille is a city of about 4 million people with all of the suburbs and we haven't got the hang of the city yet. We can get from the apartment to the church and back, but as for the rest of the city it is the luck of the draw. European cities are not in the pattern of the states with square blocks. All the streets don't lead to any where, especially Rome. All the streets go at angles, even in the new parts of town. In a car if you miss the place you are looking for, you can't go around the block and come at it again. First if you miss your destination and you try to get back to it, you fall into the problem that all streets go at angles and plus the one way streets take you further away and it become impossible for someone as new as us to the city to know the key to the streets puzzle. We are becoming familiar with certain land marks but that only helps in knowing what you passed and not with knowing where you are or how to use the land marks to help you to a certain destination. The round-abouts help in some respect because we can complete the circle again if we miss our exit. There are some signs that help lead us to the main buildings and areas but we are still not good enough with the layout of the city to get us around. We do know that we live near the city government building, but one must get in the vicinity of that building to finally see the signs point in its direction.

Since there are no mountains to give you your compass directions, we tried to use tall land marks to help us. The first is the clock tower at city hall. This is a good one because it is high enough and distinguished in its design to get noticed. Second was church steeples, but we ran into a problem when we started to notice that all but one of the steeples is of the same style, so that got us lost instead of helping. We will work with the city streets until it comes together. One benefit of getting lost is that it helps us work on our patience and love.

The auto route system is well done, especially when working with a city built centuries ago. The system is well planned and the signs are very well done to help one get to where they want to go. If we took the streets to church, it would take us months to figure it out, but on the auto route we get there without any problem.

Love Mom & Dad

Lille

We are in Lille as of last Monday. We drove up in our Chevy, bigger than our Cleo from last time. We got into our apartment and we were impressed. We found the church thanks to the French couple we are replacing and spent family home evening with 5 of the young adults and the couple that has been with them for quite a while. This good couple comes from 30 miles away and they are not even in their own ward. Good people.

We spent the week getting food and things for the apartment and that is still going on. The convection oven was delivered Tuesday morning and it is great. The washer and dryer came the next morning and we went and bought a fridge that will come next Monday. The apartment has a living room and dining area combined, a small bedroom we are using as office space and a bedroom with a queen size bed. The bathroom is just fine and the toilet is a small box by itself. Mom put two gold letters on the door that spell WC. The kitchen is small but compact. It has good cupboard space but I am happy to say that there is only room for your Mother, so I am excluded from entering. The only problem we have is that for now we have to park on the street and we have to pay from 9:00 to 5:00. We pay until 11:20 and then take off for the day. We hope to have a place in the buildings garage soon.

The chapel is large and has a great kitchen area. Two wards use the building. There is plenty to do in finding the less actives, so we won't lack for things to do. Our Monday, Thursday, Friday and Sundays are usually taken with the young adults. Tomorrow we head for Charleroi, Belgium for a conference with the European leader of the young adult program.

Fix 'er Uppers

We felt like we needed something to do so we approached the Assistants to the President and asked them if there were any missionary apartments that needed attention. The next day the president got a hold of us on the phone and gave us a place out in the suburbs that needed help. So we took the metro to Chatlet, which is the metro and rail hub and then with our cell phone we had the elders direct us until we finally got to the right train platform. We traveled through the underground network by walking and riding a moving sidewalk. We bought tickets for the train and then went downstairs and out to the correct platform where we waited for the correct train. Once the train came we went through the towns that surround Paris until after 40 minutes we arrived at Evry. The elders were waiting for us and a short half mile walk brought us to our work station. We started by painting two walls a color called Orang Moutard. It looks more like a peach color. It took two coats so while we waited for the first coat to dry, we put the hanging down electrical wires holding the lights into the ceiling where they belonged. The French don't put up light fixtures, they just let the lights hang down like the old tenement houses in New York during the 20's. On our next trip we bought a bookcase for the elders, purchased through the mission funds, and painted one long wall cream. The roller we had was not doing the job so I went to the nearest store and bought some rollers and another handle to apply the paint. Between the two of us we were able to finish the painting, put together the bookcase, and repair two more light fixtures in six hours. The total time for the two days was 14 hours (plus the trips to and from took 3 more hours each day).

We also fixed lights and painted in the apartment we are staying in. That was a major process since there were cracks in the walls and ceilings. After fixing the cracks we then plunged into painting. We started with the bathroom wall that faced out. We used the same orang moutard. Moutard is mustard in French. We tackled the wall facing the street and then did caulking in the kitchen and bathroom. Took care of mold in the bathroom and then used cream and white paint to finish the bathroom. The last thing I need to do now is do a little touch up in the Visitor’s Center and build a drawer for a study desk. We have an apartment in Lille and should be driving there Monday or Tuesday. We let you know we have arrived. It is in the heart of Lille but is only 8 minutes by car from the church. We will have a car because we will check the missionary apartments each transfer to make sure they are good and clean. We will cover about 7 apartments throughout the zone so that will take us to the English Channel. All is well with exception of sore muscles, but we have both lost weight and are down 10 pounds even with Christmas and New Years. Love to all of you.