Dimanche

When we were planning our move to Dinan, we researched intensively what ward we would be in and how we would get there without a car. We are technically supposed to be in the St. Brieuc Branch, but we were unable to find a bus that would get us there in time for the meetings. We then looked into what our other options were and found we could get to the Rennes Ward on the bus and back easily.

Unfortunately, we missed one detail on the bus schedule - DIMANCHE (Sunday). The bus doesn't run the same schedule on Sunday as it does throughout the week which would get us there before church began, but there is one bus that gets us there at the end of Sacrament Meeting. We decided to go ahead and go down to Rennes (40 minutes away from us) the 2nd Sunday we were in Dinan just so we could meet people and get Andrew's Seminary stuff figured out. Everybody was so welcoming and great to us! We felt that we were really missing out on not being there every week, even though we couldn't understand half of what was going on. Now that we are more settled, we are able to watch for discounted car rentals and so we can get there more often for all of the meetings. 

The Rennes Ward has been a great fit for our family. There are many people in the ward who speak English and so it has been nice to talk with them each week. Kiley's Primary teacher is so sweet because she prints out the lesson in English for her and she also brought Kathryn a huge bag of toys and activities last week because she was worried we weren't able to bring many toys for her to play with when we moved to France. Kiley had the opportunity to attend the New Beginnings program with the YW. We ate a yummy potluck before with all of the families (did I mention how good the food is here?) and during the program, the YW president's husband translated for us as we talked about Kiley to everyone, but let me try to speak a little of what I had prepared in French first :)

One of the boy's YM leaders learned English on his mission and so he will sit by us translate for us and is always making an effort to talk with the boys. Andrew and Scott had the opportunity to attend a Stake Youth Activity on a Saturday here at our building because it is also the Stake Center. When we arrived we found a Stake YM leader and he spoke great English and we introduced the boys to him and he helped them throughout the day. He made sure the boys always had somebody who spoke English in their group during all of the activities. I'm sure the boys would've rather been somewhere else that day, but I hope they will always remember this experience and how others have served them.

On Valentine's Day, our ward had a party and we were so glad that we were able to attend. Many of the youth worked hard to try to include our kids, even though they get overwhelmed not being able to speak or understand the language.

We also love talking with the Missionaries! The ward has 2 sets of Elders and 1 set of Sisters- who are all from Utah. We're hoping to get them up to Dinan one day for lunch.

Our church experience in France has been fantastic! We are so thankful!