It's been some time since our last entry and much has
happened. In April we were in
Kalarney, Ireland when my phone rang. It was our bishop calling and the first thing he asked
was "Did you hear what happened?" My initial reaction was absolute panic! I could only imagine that something
tragic had occured . So when he
said that our call had been changed, it was total relief...and then a little
concern again as I imagined where we might be asked to go. We were so excited about our call to
Paris. So when he then said that
we will be serving in the south of France in the Lyon Mission, the emotional roller coaster shot back
up! As it turns out our call
really won't change that much at all.
We knew that with the call to Paris that we would be the only
Self-Reliance couple in both the Paris and Lyon missions and that we would have
responsibilities in both. With the
change we will still cover all of the French speaking stakes in both
missions. The only difference is
that we will be living in Lyon now rather than in Paris. As much as we love Paris, I think we
are even more thrilled with the opportunity to be in Lyon. Our only concern is that Lyon has the
reputation of being the gastronomic capital of France and we both love to eat!
Since our last post we have both also retired from teaching
at BYU Idaho. It has been a little
strange to move out of our offices and for me to move out of my university
sculpture studio of over 30 years.
Rather than a retirement party, I did a final one-man-exhibit of my
sculptures in the Spori Gallery on campus. That helped me to have a final closing chapter to my
teaching career. And we are both
so happy to have this mission to look forward to and prepare for. I think we would feel a big hole in our
lives if next fall came and we didn't have a new "semester" to begin.
We have also been trying to make the necessary preparations
for the next 18 months. We will
have read the Book of Mormon in French before our report date. We have been studying the Self-Reliance
materials, also in French. And we
have done some language brushing up with the MTC programs. We have also had to do a little
shopping for necessary mission clothing, arranging the house for a young couple
to house sit for us and we are getting our social security, medical insurance,
and other finances organized. It
seems like for every item we cross off our to-do list two more things get
added! It will probably be a
relief when we finally report to the MTC on August 8, just over one month from
now.
