Apartment Checks and Tourist Stops

One of our responsibilities in the Lille Zone is to visit the apartments of the Elders and Sisters to make sure they are cleaning their apartments according to the mission rules. These rules are no more than a mother wanting her son or daughter to keep their room clean and to make sure that the rest of the place is kept clean so that the germ count is kept to a minimum. The Sisters are the easiest to check out, but as of late the Elders are doing a much better job of meeting and even beating the standards. Joanne has some kind of incentive for the missionaries and quite often a bag of homemade cookies are given out for a place up to standards.

We also have come to the aid of the missionaries with things that they need. We have called in to the mission home to get permission to buy refrigerators, toaster ovens for apartments with only electric stove burners, garbage cans, light bulbs, and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. We also do repairs and paint the apartments when they have seen a lot of use. Some of these apartments have been in the system for over 20 years and after the usual wear and tear need some tender loving care. Our biggest problem is to get through the red tape between the owners and the rental agents. In France everyone wants to take their cut but no one wants to put out for repairs when they are needed even when it will cost them only for materials because we will do the work. In France that is monumental since the person who does the work must charge double because he or she must pay the government the same amount in taxes as he receives in payment. It's no wonder that nothing gets done.

As we visit the different cities every transfer period or 7 weeks we try to work into the schedule of the missionaries. This means getting to their apartments during their study time early in the morning, at noon when they come back for lunch, or in the evening at 5 o'clock for their dinner time. This is easy in the Lille area since there are three apartments for the four teams of
missionaries, but when we head to the far flung cities of the zone it leaves a gap in time, so we check out the local tourist spots. Of course this always includes the cathedrals in the cities. We were in Amiens, France the other day and we went to the largest Gothic Cathedral in France. One thing that has begun to strike me as I visit these gigantic buildings, built in the 15th and 16th centuries, is that there was no modern machinery to raise the massive blocks of stone up over 400 feet on each of these structures. The number of deaths that occurred had to be high as well as those hurt and maimed during the construction.

Another claim to fame by the city of Amiens is that the Catholic Church of the city asserts that they have the head of John the Baptist. It is kept in the Cathedral but we were not interested in the viewing. I feel that it is a stretch of history to make that claim since John was buried by his followers after he was beheaded. The history of the wars of conquest between Jews, Muslims, and Christians makes it hard to believe that the spot where John was laid to rest stayed known through the centuries, but be that as it may I let them believe for it is of no consequence to anyone except the real person to whom it belongs. Since John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as a resurrected being, I wonder who will make the claim of the head later.

The buildings themselves are impressive, but except for the back of the cathedral where the alter is located, there is very little light, and even in the heat of summer the inside is cold and damp. The stained glass windows at the area of the altar are there for effect, a teaching moment that as the believer approaches the altar he approaches the light of the sacrifice of Christ. I appreciate that teaching aspect of the cathedral, but the church doesn't go into the teaching of the sacrifice of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and the glorious resurrection. There are many statues and paintings in the cathedrals concerning Christ giving his life on the cross, but I have yet to see the focus on the paying for our sins in the garden and the marvelous new birth of the body and the spirit for eternity. The lack of emphasis on the pain Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane takes away from one the main purposes of the sacrifice of Jesus, and the fact that the resurrection is not brought out as the culminating gift of Christ,leaves the worshiper with the death of Jesus on the cross as their last vision of the Savior. A recent convert said it so well when she said that the gloom of the death of Jesus was her previous view of her Savior, but since her recent knowledge of the resurrection she has viewed the events of the three days of the celebration of Easter in the light of joy and not despair.

Another thing that we have noticed in our travels through this area is that the effects of World War I are evident. Near Lille we saw, as we brought an a friend of the church to the chapel, at least 50 machine gun bunkers on both sides of the highway scattered in the farmers fields. They have not been removed and they are a reminder of how much of the trench warfare took place here. The other reminder is that there are hundreds of small cemeteries dotting the area. We passed many along the road yesterday as we went south in the zone to visit the Elder's apartments. Canadian, Scottish, British, Australian, and for the first time an American cemetery. Each resting place is well kept and will hold from 200 to 300 graves. As we were headed to Saint Quentin we noticed that there has been major reconstruction of entire villages and that the Cathedral of the city still has pock marks in the stone from bullets. Reminders of World War I are also found in the major battle areas because there are signs in three languages not to stray into the areas due to the fact that not all the shells have been found. One member mentioned that each year there will be news of a farmer being injured because the earth over time will bring a shell close to the surface and it will explode as they plow their fields.