The Beauties of Brittany

 The Beauties of Brittany

Traveling to the Brittany region of western France is a bit like traveling to the west coast of Ireland. Rain, green grass, coastlines, sailboats, seafood, and pride in being a Celtic/Gaelic-speaking area of the country.  All street signs in both countries are in Celtic (Breton in France and Gaelic in Ireland) and French or English.

The walls are part Roman and part 12th, 15th, 16, 17th, and 18th centuries. Europeans don't tear the old down as much as build on another layer.

The bulbs are all blooming--it is warmer here than Paris.  This town reminds us of York and Canterbury.
We walked all over the Medieval town center, enjoying the amazingly colored beamed buildings.
There are cafes and patisseries all over France named after me! We ate a meal of savory galettes (made of buckwheat flour) and sweet crepes. No wonder Brittany is famous for its food.  And its butter has large granules of salt in it.  Absolutely delicious.

We work hard, too. We drove on Saturday and went to the lovely Vannes Ward (they want you to know they are a newly minted ward) for church. Then we all stayed for a repas (meal) with food everyone brought. This is a great tradition in Europe other places in the world. This is harder to pull off in my ward in Salem where 4 wards meet thoughout the day.  Then Momo, the man who is paid by the Church to manage Welfare and Self-Reliance in French and Dutch Europe, and the man who we work for, presented on how self-reliance resources can help the people in the ward. Then people signed up for classes if they were interested.  We went back to the hotel tired. We recovered a bit and went for a walk. There are just two missionaries in the entire area, and it so happened that we ran into them sitting on a park bench in front of the ramparts. 

We felt like we were heaven-blessed. Senior missionaries rarely make it to Vannes, and here were two sister missionaries out there all by themselves in a smallish ward and a large region, and we just happened to run into them. We got to talk a long time and enjoyed each other's company. Thank you to Sister McMullin and Sister Peterson for reminding us again that heavenly encounters happen like this all the time when you are a missionary and you are noticing.
On the way home, we stopped by some of the megalithic stone alignments created by pre-Celtic people. Local myth is that they are Roman soldiers turned to stone by Merlin.  It was pouring rain, so we quickly walked around a bit, looking at the stones and the sheep grazing among them.
I want to keep my eyes open to God's blessings poured down upon us like the rain in Brittany. Maybe it is time to take away the ever-present umbrella and let the blessings drench us!
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Comments

  1. NCTHMarch 27, 2024 at 4:18 PM

    Galettes bretonnes are delightful, aren't they? We enjoyed them several times on our trip to France last summer, although we did not actually get into Brittany. And your name is also all over historic France in pictorial form: that omnipresent fleur de lys. You truly are blessed to be having this experience. Thanks for sharing the highlights with us.

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