Forever Friends

31 August 2024 by Catherine Frodsham

(We successfully transferred to Greece and are coming up to speed on the many humanitarian projects sponsored by our church. This post is as much for us as for anyone else, to remember the incredible friends we have made in our 9 months of service in Lyon — Tim) Probably one of the most fun things about our mission is meeting the wonderful missionaries! We consider our young missionaries our grand kids or “Petite enfants” as they would say in France. Then our special senior couple friends are awesome.

We first met the Hardy’s. Liz and Dave from the state of Washington. They worked in the office and because our instant friends. We sure love them. They went home a month ago and we miss them so much.

We also met the Gannaway’s. Trish and Joe. They also worked in the office, and they served for 29 months with Lepore’s, our mission president. They were lots of fun as well. We enjoyed visiting them in the office and we went to dinner and had them over for dinner. The Gannaway’s and Hardy’s are home already.

We got new Office missionaries. The Dinkelman’s, Linda and Gary from Utah. Such wonderful, nice people. Also, the Miners’s, Jennifer and Larry from Utah as well. Such fun nice friends.

We also have about 10 more senior couples that are serving in the Lyon France Mission. We have a Senior Chat on Messenger so we can all talk to each other. We have 3 that are from France that speak French.

So here are the Powers – Kim and James that serve with the Young Single Adults in Geneva. Bernadette and Kelly McBride serve in Chalon sur Soane. She is the mission medical advisor

Here are the Herzog’s and the Barray’s that work together in Corsica. It’s so fun to be together.

Catherine has made many friends in the Porte Des Alpes ward. One sabbath day, just before sacrament meeting, Soeur Martine grabbed Catherine by the cheeks and told her “you need to learn French” The women of the ward felt Catherine’s spirit and wanted desperately to talk with her

Soeur Roux is the sweetest, most Christ-like woman one could ever meet. She lost her husband several months after we came to France. She is so gentle, so loving and has a fabulous sense of humor. Just a week or two ago, she fell and broke her shoulder. Thibault took one of our EnglishConnect classes and we met him in person at the CAJAF. We had to include one of many instant friends we have met along the way. Catherine met her at a my path devotional in Evry, France

The missionaries brought their friends (we used to call them investigators) into our home to have discussions, or just to feed them dinner and chat around the dinner table. We never let a moment go by that we didn’t testify of the truthfulness of the things the missionaries were teaching them.

Special friends that were taught in our apartment for months, Munashe and Machilo. They had their baby, Elsie, were married several months later and then Machilo was baptized the next week. As you can see, Catherine will not let go of that baby

There are many others that we have met along the way. An accordion player who sits outside the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière. Catherine would place a large bill in his pocket every time we visited the Basilica. Florian, the hostess at the B&B we stayed at in Saint Clair Sur L’Elle. Segolene and Serge, whom Catherine mentioned in an earlier post. Gisele, who we met in Caen and who took one of our EnglishConnect classes. The Snyders, our counterparts in Paris, and Dorothee Cannon, our MTC tutor, who stayed at our apartment with her family for two nights while she picked up her son, here on a mission.

We had several group gatherings. For general conference, single adult activities and church meetings.

General Conference at the San Souci building

We started a tradition of inviting missionaries over once a transfer on a p-day morning to have waffles. We figured that once every 6 weeks would not be disruptive, but often enough that missionaries would remember and it would be something to look forward to.