Journal January 1-2, 1962
Les Leroy sont venus à la réunion de la Sainte-Cène ce soir, et leur esprit n’a jamais été meilleur. Soeur Leroy a dit pourtant que la famille va déménager à Brest bientôt, ce qui est assez moche, car il n’y a pas encore de branche de l’Église là, et je peux à peine voir comment ils vont maintenir leur communication avec les saints. Voilà un problème qu’on va avoir à résoudre en quelques semaines.

Bonne Année! et bonsoir…
The Leroys came to Sacrament Meeting this evening, and they’ve never displayed a better spirit. Sister Leroy says, however, that the family’s going to move to Brest soon, which is unfortunate, for there isn’t yet a branch of the Church there, and I can hardly see how they’re going to maintain their communication with the Saints. A problem that we’ll have to face in several weeks.


Happy New Year! and good night…

By your kindly indulgence, I’m going to change gears again. Fifty-nine pages of this account have presented the first seventy-five pages of my missionary journal, written in October, November, and December of 1961—a very eventful period. The journal’s final entry in Valerie’s dear handwriting, dated January 21, 1964 (about three months before my April release) appears on Page 272. Other bits seem to be scattered, and I don’t have them ready to hand.

Quite frankly, the transcribing of the French is a much slower process for me than the translation, and I’m not really confident about living long enough to get it finished, much less the other elements of my family history agenda that I’ve set aside to undertake this project. Anybody who would like to finish the transcription is welcome to volunteer.

So, from here on, I’ll just put the translation here, with such illustrations as may seem relevant. I’ll also omit a few sensitive matters that surviving participants might not want to see widely disseminated, as well as most of the musings that I then found it important to record from my daily Scripture study. Should you want to see them, they’re in the original journal, mostly in French.


January 1, 1962—The counselors in the Mission Presidency (both full-time missionaries, in those days) visited Rennes. Elder Woolley asked how I liked being here. I said I loved it and would be glad to stay here my whole mission. Elder Dodd then remarked that I was too happy, and that they’d have to fix that by sending me to Bordeaux for a while. It appears that he was kidding, but I was crestfallen, and my fellows in the district said that I might as well pack my trunk now: I was practically gone. [Parenthetically, I stayed in Rennes the whole year 1962.]
January 2, —Saw Elders Miller and Enos off to their new assignments, but not without incident. Elder Enos was hit by a car this afternoon, and we took him to the hospital. They said he hadn’t broken anything, but he was badly bruised, and I had to help him down the stairway to his taxi. They’ll take good care of him in Paris, I’m sure.

Elder Fyffe isn’t back from Paris, yet.
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