LEAVING BORDEAUX - MANY MINI MIRACLES

Monday was spent cleaning and packing. It was possibly the hottest day that we have experienced in Bordeaux so far. It was 85+ degrees with at least 1,000 percent humidity. Each night there was thunder, lightening and rain. JoAnn has had trouble with tendinitis in her shoulder and has been taking medicine for the pain. The medicine has caused her to be sick to her stomach and get dizzy. She was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to do all the things she needed to do to get packed, get the apartment cleaned, etc., before we left. However, the scripture about our burdens being lightened really came true for her. She still had problems, but somehow it seemed bearable while we did the necessary things for moving.

The Defranchis - Alexis, Catherine, Amelia, Sylvia and Marina in front

Since we have not had a chance to have the Defranchis over for dinner at our apartment and now everything was either gone from our apartment or packed, we invited them out to their favorite restaurant (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for dinner after Family Home Evening. This was the only night that Brother Defranchi had free for the whole week. We had a very nice Family Home Evening lesson presented by Sylvia – their next to youngest girl who is about 15 years old.



Serious discussions are always a part of an evening with the Defranchis

After that we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and got a couple of buckets of chicken and just enjoyed being together and talking. The girls went out to play on the playground equipment – just like up home at McDonald’s. It appears one is never too old to enjoy good fun!

It was such a hot and humid day and when we got to Kentucky Fried Chicken we were so excited that it was air conditioned. Nothing much is air conditioned here. Many in France think that air conditioning is not very healthy. The evening was a wonderful rest that we wouldn’t have had otherwise and the Defranchis are such a fun wonderful family to be around.

Tuesday – moving out.
The apartment manager elders came with the “Traffic” (a large van-like vehicle). They had to clean out a missionary apartment in Lormont (another section of Bordeaux) and set up a new one. Since we had too much stuff to fit in the Traffic they were able to store what wouldn’t fit in the old Lormont apartment until Zone Conference. Our apartment is directly across from a large post office and there is never parking in front of our place. We have a nice parking lot in the back where we park. We were worried because the Traffic wouldn’t fit through the tunnel we have to go through to get to the back parking. That would have meant that they would have had to carry all the furniture a long way to put it into the Traffic. Fortunately, we were able to find a spot just in front of our apartment on Monday night where we parked our car until the elders arrived.



"How are we going to get all that stuff in there?"

Missionary muscle it in!



"We did it!!"

The Zone Leaders came over to help us move. We needed to get a huge buffet to a lady in the ward (another miracle that she wanted and needed it). They loaded half of it in our car then had to leave. We had a large office chair for one of the members we didn’t know how to get to them. The Zone Leaders were going to visit that family right then so they took the chair for us. Fortunately, the Eysine elders wanted to help and knew the way to the Castro’s (the family that wanted the buffet). They helped us take the buffet. It took 2 trips and was much too heavy for us to have done alone. Since we had to make two trips it was going to make us late to check into our hotel for the evening. Arnold was able to swing by the hotel and check us in and on the way was able to show Elder Mak (who is from Hong Kong) a great Asian market that he had not known about and thus the Elders were blessed for helping us.

JoAnn was worried about having to do the final vacuuming after all the furniture had been removed and still let the Elders have the vacuum cleaner to take back to Toulouse. Luckily, the new apartment in Lormont did not have a vacuum, so we were able to let the Zone Leaders take it on Wednesday after the final cleaning had all been done.

We stayed in a very, very petite hotel in Bordeaux since all our furniture was gone from our apartment and we still had to clean and meet with the landlord the next day. It was the smallest hotel room you can imagine. There were two twin beds pushed together with barely enough room to move around it. You could hardly turn around in the bathroom and the shower was exactly like one you would see in a motor home. But it was clean and the beds were comfortable, and the price was right. It had an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet that came with it. There was cereal, several kinds of bread, juice, and yogurt. It was very pleasant .

On Tuesday we learned that the plumbing under our kitchen sink was broken, so we were unable to undue the washing machine for the Elders to take in the Traffic back to Toulouse. We were worried that it would be impossible to find a plumber to help us on such short notice and then we didn’t know how we would be able to get the washing machine out of the apartment by ourselves. But, as usual, the Lord did provide and all worked out beautifully. We were able to get a plumber to come in the morning. He fixed the problem and helped us unhook the washing machine.

The Zone Leaders came to help us load our suitcases in the car. They ended up packing the last of our stuff and fitting everything into the car. That was a miracle in itself as we were sure that everything was not going to fit into the car for the trip to Belgium. We tried to eliminate everything we could, but we had accumulated a lot of things and didn’t know exactly what we would need to set up our apartment in Mons. JoAnn was able to finish vacuuming while they did that, so they could take the vacuum for the new apartment in Lormont. Then, those wonderful Elders carried the very heavy washing machine downstairs and amazingly it fit perfectly in their little car. They then took it to the Lormont apartment to be stored until the Zone Leaders could come back from Toulouse for the other things that were stored there.

We had some worry about meeting with the landlord. He didn’t give us an exact time and we had only a hot empty apartment to wait in. We did have some packages to mail, so we went to the post office and decided to walk to a little cafeteria near our apartment for lunch. Just as we finished lunch, the landlord called and said that he would be right over. We had to turn in our “garage door” opener to the landlord, so we put the car in front of the apartment and waited there for the landlord. While we were waiting some maintenance workers came and blocked off the entrance to the parking lot in back. If we hadn’t moved our car when we did, we don’t know how long they would have taken. They had a huge truck with hoses going into holes in the pavement all the way down the driveway.

The landlord had given us a hard time about not giving him three-months’ notice, and we were afraid that he would not be willing to give us back our thousand Euro deposit. When the landlord got there, he inspected the apartment and was thrilled with all the repairs and upgrades we had made and how clean everything was. He wrote out our deposit check right then and gave it to us. We had time to put it in the bank, put in a change of address and get traveling money.

All last minute errands took us until after 8. We had dinner and stayed in the same hotel – falling into bed exhausted and feeling very blessed and watched over.

Goodbye Bordeaux!