Catch up and friday activity

Time is just going by sooo fast. 5 weeks ago it was transfers and now in just 1 week it is transfers again. We actually have 2 missionaries leaving a week early from our district. Elder Navarro is leaving to go home a week early because school starts in the Netherlands and he needs to be there for the beginning of school. Elder Dohrman is being transferred to the office. We will sure miss these 2 elders. They have been so diligent and so much fun too.

These two pictures are from last transfer. I haven't had a chance to post them yet. We are missing Elder Perez and Dungan, but they are doing great in their new areas.

We really miss Soeur Pobst too. She was a lot of fun. She is serving in Paris Nord where I know she is doing an awesome job. She hurt her ankle while she was here and she is still struggling with that. In fact, she has had to take some rest time, along with Soeur Flood who had some oral surgery. The two of them had to spend some down time to try to recover their health.

We are teaching some great people. We have been working with Dino and Larissa for a long, long time now, probably about a year. We have gone through through quite a few sets of Dutch speaking missionaries. We are now working with Elders Von Duisburg and Andersen.

Dino and Larissa are a faithful couple who have been patiently waiting to be able to be baptized. They have had one stumbling block after another. First Dino needed to get all of his documents from Madagascar. Madagascar is very, very slow. He finally got them many months later and then had to have them translated, notarized, etc. He had to have paperwork in Belgium that was signed by 6 people that would vouch for him, visits from the police dept to testify that they do actually live together and at the place where they said they do and other things like that. Then they told Larissa that she would have to get official documents from Madagascar saying that she has never been married. This has taken more months of waiting. Papers were sent and then lost. Documents were turned into the offices in Belgium and then thrown out and other irritating things. Finally, after waiting close to a year, they finally have all of their documents. Now these last papers have to be translated and notarized. All of this at a huge cost. They have spent 100's of euros on translating and all the other stuff. Then they need to have several more police visits. After all of that, they will be allowed to get married. As soon as they are married, they will be baptised. Dino and Larissa have been so good about everything. They are an awesome couple. They attend church regularly. They observe all of the commandments. As they learned each principle of the gospel, they began applying it in their lives. When they learned of the Word of Wisdom, Dino immediately stopped smoking and drinking. Larissa was already doing this. They pay tithing. They read the scriptures and they pray daily. They have embraced the gospel in its fullness and can't wait to be baptised. We have grown to really love this sweet couple.

The first day we met them they said that just that morning they had prayed for someone to come and to teach them about Jesus Christ. They told us that our coming that afternoon was a direct answer to their prayers.

One time during this past year Dino's father needed to have an operation back in Madagascar. He didn't have enough money to pay for the surgery and asked Dino if he could help. At this time Dino was not working. He and Larissa prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help him find a job so that he could help his Father. The next day, Dino did indeed find a part time job. The job lasted 4 days. In that amount of time, he was able to earn exactly the amount of money that his Father needed for the operation. He was so happy and excited to send the money and they were so grateful that Heavenly Father answered their prayers.

We are teaching Loubna. She is Ben Faour's sister. She is doing very well and wants to be baptized. I took this picture of her room because I loved the colors that she used in decorating. Too bad, I didn 't get enough of the room to really show the color combinations.

Twee is from Vietnam. She comes to English class. She is a funny, kind of crazy lady. She is also studying the gospel.

Pierre is from Haiti. He has been studying the gospel for just a short time and is doing well.


We continue working with Clothilde and Samuel, Jerome, Olivier, Luc and Emily, and Kevin and Emilyn. Right now some of them are on vacation and so the lessons have to wait. Hopefully when they come back things will continue on well.



Last night the missionaries put on a great activity. It was a karaoke and burrito fest. We had a terrific attendance. There were lots of JA's participating and I think they all had a great time. We were so pleased that so many were in attendance. We also had quite a few ward members who came and a good time was had by all.

Some of the girls singing.

Of course Elders Anderson and Dohrman sang. We are sad to see Elder Dohrman leave. He has been an awesome trainer and he is great to have around.

Aurore, Noemie, and Florine.

Natacha and Claudine.

Xavier in the back.

Nirina singing.

Elder Navarro and Soeur Curran.

Soeur Christensen wanted to take a picture with me. She is a sweet sister.

Soeur Nielsen is back in our district.

Dancing and singing to YMCA

We also had dancing. Ben is dancing with his baby.

This couple got baptized about 3 weeks ago. They have 3 darling little children and are an awesome couple. The ward is lucky to have them.

Virginie and Alexandre are awesome too. Alexandre is doing just great. He is planning to go on a mission next July. Then Virginie is beginning university and will go on a mission as soon as she's old enough. When she returns they plan to get married in the temple.

Gregory and Natacha had fun dancing together.

Ben's wife Esther and her sister Emily behind her.

Elder Neidhart singing the Swiss Nat'l anthem.

Concert de musique and FHE

Last friday the 31st of July the missionaries had the best concert. Elder Rakotondrainibe was the star of the show. This Malagasy Elder is the most awesome pianist. Oh my gosh! He is the greatest. His family is from Madagascar, but he was born and grew up in France. He graduated from a conservatory of music in France and also in Monaco. He is sooo good that he once played for the Prince of Monaco. He played Chopin's Nocturne, Beethoven's 3rd movement from Sonata 1 and Sonate au Clair de Lune and he played Rachmaninoff's Prelude # 5. It was so wonderful to listen to him.
Then Elder Dorhman sang How Great Thou Art. He also sang Come thou font of every blessing with Elder Anderson on the guitar. One of our young adults played the flute with Elder R accompanying her. Soeur Curran sang a few songs, one of which was His Hands. She has a very beautiful voice. All in all the concert was just great. I never cease to be amazed at the talents that so many of our missionaries have. Their talents are not small either, but huge. The Lord does have some of His best young people out serving missions.

Of course when the concert was over we all had some fun chatting and picture taking.

Monday we had FHE as usual. Even though it is vacation time and most of our young adults are gone, we had 12 JA's in attendance. It is going so well. We are really pleased with how well the center and the activities with the JA's are going. We now have a president who takes care of the assignments and conducting and all that has to do with FHE. It is great because that has been our goal. We are leaving the center in good hands.

I can't believe that in 2 months our mission will be over. It has been wonderful to work with the young people. It has been super working with the missionaries.

Unfortunately there will not be another senior couple coming to take our place, at least for the time being. There is just noone available at this time. We had a very long meeting with the Shumways who are the European Area couple in charge of the Centers for Young Adults. They came with another couple who will be working with the Centers also. There will now be several couples who will be overseeing the different Centers in different parts of Europe. The work has expanded and grown so much that there is now need for more personnel. Anyway, the area authorities have been so pleased with our center and the way it has been established and how it has grown and how it functions that they wanted to talk to us about it. They took so many notes on what we said. I had originally thought they were coming for a visit and maybe to give us more information, but it turned out they wanted to know from us what made our Center so successful.

We have also had a meeting with the Stake President and the Mission President. They have told us that they will be looking for 3 local couples to take over the running of the Lille Center.

Thanks to those of you who have asked about my health. I am feeling much, much better. I am still having some pain in my head and forehead area, but it is so much better. Sometimes I have no pain at all.

London

While we were in England, we got to go into London and have a short visit. We went with Kaye Jonda and her two grandchildren Jon, and Liesle. We took a 10 minute taxi ride from the temple to Lingfield Station. We arrived at Victoria Station about 40 minutes later. The station is huge. There are thousands of people rushing to and fro. London also has hundreds and hundreds of taxis. One really smart thing they do is they have queues. That is, they have places bared off where people line up. The taxis also line up and then riders and taxis are paired up. It's very convenient.

After we arrived at the station we stopped and had lunch which we ate at a little park. We ate a typical English Pastie. This looks like a turnover, but instead of fruit, it is filled with various fillings. Ours was the traditional meat, potato, and carrot with sauce. It was good, but I like piroshki better. Of course, that's what I'm used to.

After lunch we walked across the street and went to the Apollo Victoria Theatre where we saw Wicked. I loved the performance. It was soooooooo good. I loved all of the costumes, the sets, the music, the singing, the acting, the story and well, everything. It was such a great show. The only thing I didn't like was that some parts were too loud. Other than that, it was outstanding.

It was so cool to see Wicked in London.


The following day we went back into London, this time with the addition of Kaye's husband Pierre. We had just a few hours to look around London town. We saw some of the famous sights like Big Ben, London Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, Scotland Yard, the London Eye, Kensington Palace, Windsor Cathedral, and a few others. We had a very short and very incomplete tour of the Tower of London. All of the following pictures are at the Tower of London. I was surprised to see that it is huge and not just on tower. In fact, there are many towers there.

A Beefeater walking with a worker.

Some of the modern buildings seen across the river.

This is a huge cage that houses quite a few Ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave the Tower of London, the White Tower will crumble and a great disaster will befall England.

I enjoyed seeing some of the crown jewels of England. Although our time in London was so short because of commitments to temple work, I was glad to be able to have this little quick glimpse of the city.