Stake Conference

Dear Family and Friends,

Summer in Provence has come to a close and the kids have started again at the International School. Nathaniel has moved from the maternal section to CP and has already started to have homework. He recently took his first real test and we're happy to report that he received a 10/10 on English spelling. He has also started soccer and was very excited when he was chosen to play goalie during his first practice.

Elyse is now in CM-1, which means that her classes are quite a bit harder than they were last year. She now has a new French teacher who has high expectations for the class and therefore she must focus more on her grammer and spelling and not just her conversation skills which are already advanced. She has also restarted violin lessons at the Conservatory of Manosque after a few months' break.

Nicolas has experienced the biggest change of all the kids. He is now in the international section of "college," which is similar to high school in many respects. He has different classes throughout the week for which he has both homework and independent study, including math, French, English, science, and technology. Although he is enjoying his classes immensely, he has had a few moments of regret over the lack of free time he has during the week. Julie does her best to keep him on task so that he can finish early and have some time to read, but things usually take longer than we expected. Nicolas continues to play rugby despite being a little bit intimidated by the size of some of the other players on his team and the fact that he must still learn the basics skills.

Today was Stake Conference and we had to drive of about 2 1/2 hours to the stake center in Nice. We enjoyed seeing our friends from the other wards as well as the missionaries that have served in our area during our time here.

Following conference, we ate our picnic lunch on the lawn with the other American families in our branch.

Elyse played with little Lyra while two-year old Seneca followed Nicolas around like a well-trained puppy. Nathaniel and Liam also chased each other around until Nathaniel ruined his church pants and Joe made him sit down.



One of the things that makes stake conference in Nice unique is the gladiator fights that take place in the Roman ampitheater just a couple of hundred yards down the street. Brothers Claudius and Agrippa donned their Sunday armour to decide who had to give the next home teaching lesson.

Prior to the demonstration, the gladiators gave a brief history of gladiator fighting, explaining the life as gladiator (not fun), the method of combat, and the way in which matches were decided by the crowd.

Once the combatants were brought together, they went all out to knock their opponent to the ground. Although the knives were dull, the fight appeared real in every other respect and the "editor" even had to separate them on several occasions.

We're not exactly sure how this fit in with the rest of stake our conference (perhaps an object lesson of some sort), but we're at least sure that the kids were paying attention because Nathaniel suited up in his breastplate and shield and started doing battle with Nicolas as soon as we got home.

On the way back to Manosque, we drove along the Cote d'Azur by the village of Eze. The town sits on top of a large hill overlooking the mediteranean sea and is topped by some large fortress-like ruins.



We also were able to get an excellent view of Nice harbor where multiple cruise ships and yachts were docked for the day.

We hope that all of our stake conferences will be this much fun!

Joe, Julie, Nicolas, Elyse, and Nathaniel