LettresdeLyon: April 13, 2025

What a week! It started with General Conference. Pres. Schow in our zone conference said he prepares to listen to conference by asking two questions: what am I doing that I need to stop doing? and what am I not doing that I need to start? We will try to answer those as we read and study. The schedule is a bit overwhelming overseas. We started with watching Saturday sessions live: at 6 PM, then at 10 PM. The evening session we watched Sunday morning before going to the branch chapel where we met with many watching the 1st session together (in French) and enjoyed the potluck lunch we all shared before the Sat. PM session was seen. There were so many great stories! A telling statistic from the Oct 2024 conference was that Jesus Christ was referred to there a total of 1,604 times. He was definitely the theme of this conference also.

Shortly after conference ended, a good friend sent me a copy of the dedication program of the Cardston Stake Center in 1953 (Dad was a bishop at the time). The picture of the temple in Cardston had this caption: “The Church also has a progressive Temple building program. Today there are eight temples…and [two] sites have been purchased for temple construction [London and Berne]…”. A significant change in 72 years to the 382 temples now dedicated, under construction or renovation, or planned.

We had a great P day with the sisters this week. We travelled into the country about 40 kms. to the village of Cormatin to explore the chateau. It was built around 1600 but was purchased about 30 years ago by three friends who wanted to restore it - part to its original condition. They have done a magnificent job with the private apartments (walls, ceilings, floors and furnishings) of the Marquises de Huxelles. She was 14 when she married him in his 30s. The grounds were also spectacular (topiaries, a maze, a moat, a cupola, vegetable gardens, an orangery still full of tropical plants) although the only blooms were daffodils and flowering trees. The blue sky, sunshine and lack of wind kept us wandering for about 3 hours.

In addition to staying up late to watch conference sessions, Tom tried to watch the NCAA BB final Monday night: Florida versus Houston. He gave up at half time to sleep and was very surprised to find in the morning that Florida had managed to come from behind to win.

Wednesday we drove to Dijon to visit the sister three-some there and check their apartment. It has been used for a long time time by missionaries and shows it by the large amount of clutter one might expect. We helped to throw out quite a bit of trash, recycle, and clean out an old vacuum cleaner they can now use again. There is more work to be done but we will go back next Saturday after a baptism. We all went for lunch together and had dim sum while we enjoyed getting to know one another better.

Thursday, we headed the opposite direction out of town to help an older single sister in our branch organize her kitchen, put fabric screens on her windows, hang some laundry and haul things back and forth to her storeroom. I had made her some yummy chicken soup for her supper. After two hours we left. Three of us have allergies to her cats. We picked wild flowers out of the ditch on the way home. The Srs. joined us later for roast pork, mashed potatoes, sesame green beans and cabbage salad. Cooking a meal like that is not their top priority, so they are always grateful to be invited over.

We can tell summer is coming. We have seen several tour boats on the river from France and Switzerland, the trees are budding, the tulips are blooming and I have planted some geraniums in two flower boxes on our little balcony. It has been over 70F two different days. Hurrah!

The Cormatin Chateau