The Trip to Pau

For weeks, Mission Headquarters in Paris was out of contact with its 250ish missionaries, scattered all over France: no telephone, no telegraph, no mails, no essence, (we call it gasoline) and constant worries about troubles that the troublemakers might make. As it turned out (and didn’t we believers in Providence always know it would?) no missionary was injured in the French Mission, although some worthy intentions no doubt got frustrated. When the phones started working, Mammy called me in Cambridge, reaching me at Abt Associates’s Wheeler Street headquarters, and passing on a list of others to reassure. Next was an incoming call from the recent-convert branch president in Pau, whom Pappy had only recently installed in his calling: ”President, President! Two old women have become angry with each other, and the branch is choosing up sides! What do I do?” Now that the indispensable essence was again available, President Pappy could return only one response: “Hang on: we’ll be right there.” Well, almost: Pau lies 500 miles south of Paris: more than a day’s drive, even on France’s still-scary main roads. They decided to spend the night in Bordeaux and to take Bertin and Suzanne Farel with them to Pau: he was the district president in those days. So, with Elders Mitt Romney and David Wood from the Mission Staff, they arrived in Pau in the late morning of June 16, 1968.

Back a Page (Disorders, May 1968)

Such a Life Contents

Second Mission: section start

Second Mission: page index

(Next Topic)

Next Page (The Accident)

Welcome

Stories

Sections

Such a Life

People

Places

Site Search

Do You Know?

Updated Jan 2014

[8Miss05.htm]

Page 37-014