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