Transfer to Rodez!
in the mountainous Aveyron region 4 hours southwest of Lyon.
on the ground floor of this storefront.
The branch was celebrating the French Mothers Day.
and Sunni and I both got bouquets for la fête des Mères.
(the most beautiful French villages)
called Gouffre de Padirac
Lucile Fabres joined the Resistance during WWII, and for many years she risked her life to send broadcasts and distribute anti-German flyers. She avoided meeting with the LDS Church members in Paris because she was afraid of making them vulnerable to Nazi discovery. After the war she served in the branch the rest of her life.
Jeanne Charrier was a brilliant math student, engaged to be married,
when she was introduced to the Church by Louis and Claire Fargier. She embraced
the gospel, despite strong objections by her Protestant parents and her fiancé.
She broke off her engagement and was baptized, which caused her parents to cut
her out of their lives. She spent the rest of her life serving the church in
her new ward family. She shared her talents as a bilingual translator and as a
skilled musician. She had opportunities to move to the U.S. but preferred to
stay in France to be of service to the French Latter-day Saints. She developed
a strong interest in genealogy, and became skilled in researching her own
ancestors and those of fellow-saints.
Hortense Gobin-Compere was born in Liége, Belgium. When she was less than
3 years old she was deathly ill. She asked her older brother, who had recently
been baptized against their parents’ wishes, to send for the missionaries. When
their blessing healed her immediately, it softened the parents’ hearts and the
whole family was eventually baptized. Hortense spent her whole life serving in
the church in Belgium. She and her husband Clement were pioneer members of branches,
wards, and then the Brussels Stake, the first one in Belgium, which was
organized almost 50 years after she was baptized.
The families of both Rosa Tomadon and her husband Gino had emigrated to France from Italy, due to poverty and unemployment. Rosa’s parents met LDS missionaries but told them not to come back because they were active Catholics. After Rosa’s second child died of meningitis, she lost faith in the Catholic Church. Rosa and Gino found a Book of Mormon the missionaries had left. As they started to read it, they grew very interested and then looked for the missionaries, whom they bombarded with questions about infant baptism and eternal families. They were soon baptized, despite their parents’ objections. They were sealed in the Swiss Temple and eventually had 10 children and 27 grandchildren.
Sources of these Stories:
Ulrich-Bichierri, O. and Euvrard, C. (2023). « Vous êtes les femmes qu’il a vues ! » Portraits de femmes de l’Église de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours en Europe francophone. (
Chapter 8 Jeanne Ester Charrier: a thirst for truth is quenched, by Aline Conti.
Chapter 9 Hortense Gobin-Compere: A life of service, by Myriam Gobin-Schuerch
Chapter 10 Rosa Tomadon: Forged by Adversity, by Gabrielle Tomadon
To read other posts in our Mission Blog,
click on the arrow or 3 lines to the left of NEVILLES IN FRANCE
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