Weeks 47-48 in France

Great fireworks!

The big news in our neighborhood this past week has been the Festival of the Green Oaks (or Fetes des Chenes Verts).  The name of our town is Le Chesnay, which basically means "the Oak Grove".  Every year they set up vendor booths, a giant stage, food booths, and amusement park rides and celebrate their community.  The fireworks were much better than the ones we see every Saturday night from the Versailles Chateau.  Here are a few pictures:

Karate Club demo reminded us of Jeramiah

Our walk to the temple looks very different now!

Nicely lit up at night.

They spent a week setting up.

Another setting up picture.

The vendor booths - everything from cars to athletic clubs.

Janet and I on our date night getting ready to watch the Karate demo. Notice the coats (except for me). It was in the low 60's

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You might notice in the picture above that Janet is wearing a patch over her left eye.  About 2 weeks ago she woke up and noticed she was seeing double.  After several visits to the ophthalmologist, a crazy visit to a hospital for tests, and a visit to an orthoptist (I don't even know the English word for a person who does physical therapy for eyes) we still don't know what is causing it. Janet has had a CT scan, an MRI, an EKG, and complete blood tests, and is in excellent health except for seeing double. In the meantime, the orthoptist gave her a prescription for a stick-on prism lens to put on her glasses to correct the problem.  The reading glasses are fine, but her distance glasses don't quite completely correct it.  Ironically, our New Testament lesson this week was on how trials can make us stronger, and like Paul, we should rejoice in our weaknesses.  Janet is getting tired of rejoicing! Many at the temple liked the wink I sketched on her eye patch.  Out temple president and matron had a good laugh when they saw it.  The next day, at Janet's request, when I didn't draw it, they all asked where the wink was, so Janet again agreed to let me sketch her wink again!

Janet did some baking in preparation for having the sister missionaries come over, but because of tranfers, they weren't able to come. We ended up bring cake to the temple break room where it disappeared quickly.

The other big event here was the massive changing of all the local bus schedules and routes. The bus we used to take to chuech on Sundays is no longer running.  We now have to take a longer route and walk more.  Oh well.

A new bus schedule!

This being Sunday evening, our last picture shows me eating one of my favorite lunches: tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich.

One of life's little pleasures!

We are astonished that in the next week our mission will be half over.  We have truly learned loving to serve in the temple.  It is as close to working in heaven as we can get on Earth.  We send everyone our love to share the love we feel from Him.  Wayne and Janet