Week 74 in France Final Blog

Our last blog announcement on Facebook included a hope that it wouldn't be our last blog.  Well, IT wasn't our last blog, but THIS is!  Last Thursday while serving in the Paris Temple, I was paged (I wore a vibrating pager since I was the assistant temple recorder) to President Bize's office.  He informed me that all American senior missionary couples were to return to the U.S. as soon as possible.  I was stunned to tears.  He said I could finish the task I was on but that Janet and I should immediately leave the temple to go home to pack.  Janet was serving as 2nd attendant in an endowment session, so I had to wait for her.  We walked over to the large sealing room where I told her we needed to go home and pack.  She looked bewildered.  We hugged for a long time, then we went down to change out of our white temple clothes and clean out our lockers.

We stopped by the visitor center to invite the young sister missionaries to come over and take our food supplies.  Four sister missionaries made 3 trips to clean out our shelves, our pantry, our fridge, and our freezer.  Just two weeks earlier we had stocked up on many things to cover the last 6 months of our mission.  We gave them not only refrigerated and frozen food, but over a dozen cans of tuna, cans of salmon, cans of chicken, 52 rolls of toilet paper, 13 rolls of paper towels, and many unopened packages of flour and sugar among many other things. We have since thought that maybe this was the Lord inspiring us to help the missionaries during their 14 day quarantine.  Our kitchen looks very sad and empty:

Our formerly full closets now looked like closet ghost towns:

Our bed became our suitcase packing work station:

Our preparations for leaving included transferring my digital piano as a gift to the temple guest house and our bicycles to the temple underground parking as gifts so young missionaries could borrow them for their preparation day activities.  We were nearly done packing, so we decided to take one last ride through the Versailles Chateau park:

Since our departure was so sudden,  President Bize invited everyone over to his house to give everyone a chance to say goodbye.  Here are a few of the pictures we took:

President Bize expressed his love and thanks to all of us.

The last three American senior couples serving in the Paris Temple with President and Sister Bize.

The Cadin's and Baird's.  We served with the Cadin's at the temple open house in 2017.

The Frogley's served at the visitor center where they often gave presentations.

The Laurent's and Baird's.

Myrza, the lady in the middle is the head of the temple office staff and our ward music director.  She is from Tahiti, and was so helpful to Wayne as he learned his responsibilities in the temple.  She often asked Wayne to play the organ in church and accompany the ward choir.

The Oddou's and Elder Crocq.  Elder Crocq's wife, with whom Janet served passed away two weeks ago.  Her funeral, where both of us were asked to speak, was just last Monday.

The Turner's also served at the visitor center.  They always had cheerful words for everyone.  He is a former physics teacher like myself, and she was a professional organ teacher.  I was asked to play Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" at the funeral for Sister Crocq, but when the flautist fell ill, she filled in at the last second and played the flute part on the organ.

At 6 pm Friday we loaded our 6 suitcases into a van and rode in another car to the Ibis Styles Hotel at the Charles DeGaulle Airport.  We went down to the hotel restaurant to eat our last supper in France and found another dozen couples from all over northern France checking into the same hotel.

Elder Bourroux on the left was the visitor center director.  It was sad to walk past the closed visitor center on our way out.

President and Sister Sorensen were over the Paris France Mission.

Our flight home was uneventful except for after landing at the San Francisco airport.  There we were told that we had to fill out CDC forms about recent travel locations and have out temperatures taken. Only the forms were just being photocopied and passed out to the passengers on the plane They were woefully understaffed, and it took us about an hour to get off the plane.  We were lucky, however, because some friends who traveled through Chicago O'Hare had to wait four hours, and missed their connecting flight.  They couldn't get a hotel and ended up sleeping in the airport.

We did not go to our own house for our 14 day quarantine because 6 people are living there.  Our daughter, Janet, offered to let us stay in her wonderful downstairs apartment in Logan.  We met our daughter Kim at the airport where we gave them "airhugs" and got the keys to our van, then drove to Logan Saturday evening.

Because  our church had cancelled all church meetings worldwide, we held our own devotional service in their home.  We sat at the bottom of the stairs and listened, sang, and prayed together at a distance.  Our two grandsons offered sermons on repentance and on Christ's atonement, which led to a wonderful spiritual discussion of God's love for us, and of His plan for our salvation and eternal happiness.

Brandt's lesson on repentance

London's lesson on the atonement of Jesus Christ

In closing, we want to thank everyone for their kind words and concerns for us during the COVID 19 pandemic.  We are gratified that we share with all of you our love of our Savior Jesus Christ.  His centrality in all of our lives far outweighs any differences in doctrine or beliefs we may have.  This blog has been a way to share our experiences serving at the Paris Temple.  We have been told we will be released from our callings as temple missionaries as soon as we return home from our 2 week quarantine.  We don't know if we will be re-assigned, asked to return when the crisis is over, or just plain released.  Until we have further news, this will be the last blog of our service in France.  We send all of you our love, and pray God's blessings of peace and joy on each of you.

Sincerely,

Wayne and Janet Sumner

Weeks 71-73 in France

It had been 6 weeks since we visited the Louvre, and since our year pass was about to expire, we thought we would go one last time.  When we got there, we visited the "Friends of the Louvre" room to ask if we could sign up for just 6 months.  Nope, we had to sign up for a full year.  As we got to thinking of upcoming family visits, we realized it would be worth it to renew for a full year anyway, so we are again officially "Amis du Louvre".  We enjoyed a special exhibit on self portraits and self identified art pieces.  Anciently it was rare for artists of any kind to put their own names on their works.  Here are a few of our favorite self portraits:

 This last self portrait was painted by a woman as her entrance painting into the French Painter's Academy.  It was notable because artists rarely showed teeth in a smile!

King Louis XIV leading his hunting party.

The next five pictures were taken at a refugee home for refugees from Tibet.  The first picture shows calligraphy saying "Free Tibet".

Some of the desserts donated by a French restaurant

The lady on the left volunteers her time to help many refugees in France.

The man on the left is holding a plate of chocolate chip cookies Janet baked for them.

Their sleeping area.

For our monthly temple missionary get together I organized a music sharing evening.  This first picture shows the Paris Temple Presidency and their  wives singing a hymn while Wayne accompanies them.  I ended up accompanying a flute performance as well.

Our temple president and his wife sang a lovely duet which he accompanied on his guitar.

Wayne  played Debussy's "Sarabande"

In order to bring my piano from our apartment to the Guest House lunch room for this musical evening, I built a dolly to carry the piano and piano bench.

While it has been often cold and rainy, spring is just around the corner, as you can see.

 

This is the Willow Tree right in front of our apartment window.

As usual, we love having the young Sister Missionaries over for dinner each month.  On Janet's right is a temple volunteer who came over to rehearse a musical number, so we invited her to stay for dinner.

We received a fun package last week from a classmate of our great grandson who is in 2nd grade.  They drew pictures of themselves and then mailed them around the world to see where they could go.  We took "Flat Wyatt" shopping with us in a French supermarket before taking him to the post office to send him to Taiwan.

Flat Wyatt in front of all the French bread.

Flat Wyatt in front of the pig on the sausage aisle.

Flat Wyatt in the candy bar aisle with French "Lion" bars.

At the post office, getting ready to send him on his next adventure.

Today has been a  special day for us as we attended the funeral of a dear sister with whom we served at the temple.  We were both asked to share some of our experiences working with her, and Wayne was asked to play a piece by Bach, her favorite composer.  He played "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring while another sister missionary played the flute part on the organ.  Josiane Manier-Crocq was one of those special people who made everyone around her happy.  She always wore a smile, and even as the Coordinator of work assignments, she was unfailingly upbeat and cheerful.  We will miss her greatly.  Her husband plans to continue serving as a volunteer in the Paris Temple.  We are not ashamed to say we shed tears at her funeral service, but they were a mixture of tears of joy as well as of sorrow.  We are grateful to know that because of Christ's atonement and resurrection, we will see her again one day.

Weeks 68-70 in France

These past few weeks have been special for us as we celebrated 50 years of marriage. Janet is sitting in the sun behind our heart filled table cloth right across from our heart collection on the opposite wall.

We thank the Lord for these years He has given us together on Earth.  We  are grateful to each other for honoring the vows we made kneeling across an altar in the Salt Lake Temple on February 6, 1970.To celebrate, we had dinner at a fancy restaurant in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel right next to the Versailles Chateau gardens.  We dressed up and had a wonderful evening together.  We were even served a complimentary chocolate treat.

At the entrance of the Waldorf Astoria

Dining in the Veranda Room

We even had an anniversary cheesecake.  Each of the 5 candles represented a decade.

Continuing our weekend celebration, we went to the French National Archaeological Museum in Saint Germain-en-Laye, just a 40 minute bus ride north of where we live.  It's sobering to realize how much farther back in time French history goes compared to U.S. history.

 

The pre-history of France had an amazing number of artifacts, including exhibitions showing the differences between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal artifacts and remains.

Cro-Magnon skull and stone tools

Cro-Magnon skull on the left, Neanderthall skull on the right.

The museum had many artifacts from before the time of  the Roman conquest, but the sheer number of Roman artifacts was amazing.  The most poignant moment for us, however, was the statue of Vercingetorix, a Gaulish leader who fought the Roman conquerors but was ultimately defeated by Julius Caesar and taken captive to Rome where he was put to death 6 years later.

One of the many displays showing gold ornaments dating from as far back as 4000 years.


This past week has been unusual for us because the Paris Temple recorder was on vacation, so  Wayne had to be in the temple from opening to closing.  His long hours serving at the temple gave Janet lots of time to read, relax, go for walks and study French. She even got to try out her French at the Leader Price grocery store down the street. Thankfully, this coming week should be back to normal.  We send our love to everyone following our blog, and pray God's peace on each of you.