JUDAS FAMILY

It all started over 45 years ago in Nancy, France, where Arnold's companion and he had just begun to serve. They were asked by a recent convert to come teach the gospel to her husband who had not yet joined the church when she and the older children in the family were baptized a year or so earlier. She said he was ready to be taught so they made an appointment and went to teach him. After several halting attempts to teach someone who seemed totally disinterested in what they had to say, they gave up. A couple of weeks passed and she assured them once again at church that he was ready. They attempted to teach her recalcitrant husband with the same results and they once again gave up. A few weeks passed and she once again pleaded with them to come and try again, assuring them it would be different this time.

As it turned out she was absolutely right. He was a totally changed man. Arnold and his companion had some of the most spiritual meetings yet on their mission with a man who was totally committed and ready to not only listen but had all the right questions and answers to their questions. He was baptized in 1962. Arnold later asked her what changed her husband. She said “I gave him an ultimatum, either he would be courteous and listen to the missionaries or I would leave him and take all the children.” Ah, the persuasive power of a good woman.

He took his family through the temple and they were all sealed to one another the year after Arnold left. He became a stalwart in the Nancy Branch and raised a fine family. Brother and Sister Judas are the grandparents of Elder Judas who is now serving in the Toulouse Mission in Nice. His father is Remy Judas and is either a Bishop or Branch President in the Paris area. His oldest sister, who was 14 years old when her father was baptized, was very active in the church then and is still and married to an American living in the States. Brother and Sister Judas have since passed on but not before bringing three generations of faithful saints to the service of the Lord. One of their daughters lives in Toulon and is known by her married name of Mathieu and has two daughters living in Bordeaux in the Talence Ward.

One of these daughters, Karine, is engaged to Kevin Tran of the Eysines Ward and will be married this August. We are so sad that we will not be able to be at the wedding, since we have been transferred to Belgium and Bordeaux is now out of our mission boundaries. Her sister will turn in her papers for her mission after Karine's wedding.

As a side note; Frère Judas was taken for a Jew by the German occupying forces and suffered unspeakable torture in a concentration camp but survived to marry an ex-Catholic Nun, Soeur Judas, who later joined the church in her quest for the truth. The legacy they leave is generations of faithful servants of the Lord, a testament of the persistence and prayers of a good sister.