We had a great stake conference 10 days ago. One thing I realized was that in France, stake conference is always very well attended. People seem to come to stake conference even when they don't attend church regularly. I asked Patrice and his parents about it. I guess it's because the people get to see everyone and don't have to participate! That's SO French and it's driving me crazy lately - the lack of willingness to commit to participating. I said I thought that in the US it was the other way around, (at least it was in our family growing up - sorry mom!) that it was stake conference that you could skip because you didn't have any responsibility that particular Sunday. What is your impression of stake conference attendance in the US? I need to base my comparison on something besides my own experience.
We had a record-breaking ward activity at our house this past Saturday. It was our second annual dry pack canning (mylar bags actually) ward activity held at the Duffort home/garage/backyard. We start canning by 10, we have a Primary activity in the backyard from 10-12, then a BBQ for everyone, then back to canning until it's done. Last year we canned about half a ton of wheat in about 3 hours. This year we canned 1.5 tons of a variety of grains in about 8 hours (including clean-up). All that and WE didn't even can any of our own food. We plan on finishing ours this weekend. The stake has two dry pack sealers and Patrice's parents are in charge of one of them. It's convenient. So they left it with us for us to be able to finish what we didn't do.
Here are some pictures....
We had three pallets of grain delivered to our house the week prior to the activity. It was cool to see the paper with the name of the church on it.
In the foreground is what I call our carport (it's not an add-on, it's actually under our living room), fully covered just missing a garage door, with our front door on the left which you can't see. It's where we usually park our car. Here we have boxes of sealed mylar bags.
This was in the beginning of the canning, so a lot fewer people. Later there were twice as many helping (or trying to).
Aphy at the sealer.
My father in law took this one. I promise the camera added 15 pounds here! I am not that round! But notice the apron Mom - that's my favorite one. That's one thing I inherited from my mom - I'm an apron wearer.
It doesn't look like much but there were a lot of bags. We had people load their car to help clear space. Here's Bishop Jean-Luc Marichal loading his car with help from Ronny Wies, one of our 3 Luxembourgers.
This was the NUMBER ONE improvement over last year - labels. Berenice, who was RS pres last year and started this tradition, helped with the planning of this year's activity even though she's no longer pres. She printed these up and they were a life saver. Last year they used Sharpie markers and it was long and after awhile they didn't work on the bags anymore.
So given my description of the activity, you might assume that I actually participated. Not really! I helped with the Primary activity for the first hour. We had about 20 kids and we divided the group in half and I took one group on a walk in the back of our backyard looking for food the way the pioneers would have had to do. We have fruit trees, apples, pears, plums, walnuts and hazelnuts, plus raspberries and blackberries. They really liked finding the food and even helped me pick apples and find walnuts and hazelnuts on the ground. My main purpose was gopher, before and after helping with the primary. Everyone needed something, or had forgotten something, or wanted something. I just kept running around 'hostessing'.
But overall it was a total success and each year we (or I) learn something that we will change next year. Last year the kids ended up getting out all our toys, bikes, etc after the Primary activity. I didn't have the nerve to say no. This year I had decided beforehand no toys so I didn't let anyone take out anything and I was constantly policing it because the little kids kept dragging stuff out. Next year I will announce that people need to bring their own toys for their kids to play with! The problem with the set up is that our house is very long, and our garage runs (front to back) through the right side of it. We do the canning activity in the front of the garage and the rest out back in the backyard/patio. Although we could go around the side of the house, it's much more convenient just to walk through the garage and out back. But then the kids do the same and they see all the stuff on the shelves, in boxes etc and they want to get everything out. NO, NO, NO!! Like I said, I was toy police. Live and learn. We look forward to next year's activity, but are glad it's a year away!!
