On our way to Bordeaux, we heard the news
that G
érald Causs
é is the newest apostle,
as announced on 6 Nov 2025.
In a happy coincidence, we had been invited to help with an open house in Bordeaux on Nov 8 where they were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first chapel built by the church in France.
The organizers called us the night before to ask if we could include something about Elder Caussé, who had grown up in this ward and was part of their history.
Jonathan made a summary slide show about him that we played in our exhibit,
He also showed this great video clip of Elder Caussé playing the piano.
We had 4 videos playing with those and different events from church history,
plus artifacts including replicas of the first scriptures published starting in 1830.
The ward invited a panel of local Catholic, Muslim, LDS and Protestant leaders
to discuss the challenges faced by today's youth.
A reporter from the local newspaper interviewed ward members
about how our Church differs from others
We had the privilege of meeting Jean Caussé, (Elder Caussé's father)
and talked about his work as Historian in France,
doing the same things we do as Church History missionaries.
We had a long conversation with Muriel (Gérald'
s sister)
and her husband Sylvain Coppens who is an executive with IBM international.
Many ward members told us their memories of Gérald Caussé:
One man said Gérald was his best friend in Boy Scouts.
A woman attended Seminary with him.
Another woman was Gérald's SS teacher.
Another man went to the music conservatory with Gérald.
And they all said they had predicted he would someday be an apostle.
Jean Caussé
was an immigrant from Algeria. My earlier
post on immigrants tells how important they have been in missionary work. For over a century, Algeria was part of France, until 1962, when Algerians expelled all the French from their homes. More than 900,000 people left Algeria and settled in France, becoming known as Pieds-Noirs. This is described in
Global Histories in the Gospel Library.
Among the Pieds-Noirs was Jean Caussé, a college student who moved to Bordeaux with his young wife. They faced discrimination and prejudice and struggled to find work. They encountered only one friendly group and discovered they were Latter-day Saints. Jean and Marie were baptized and raised their five children in the Church in Bordeaux. Their oldest son is Gérald, the most recent Apostle in the Quorum of the Twelve.
Jean told us stories of their children growing up in Bordeaux. The branch in Talence (a suburb of Bordeaux) was the site of the first chapel built by the church in France, completed in 1967. For a baptismal font the chapel had a small one made of cloth, which was barely large enough for one adult and one child to stand in. That was where their oldest son Gérald was baptized in 1971.
To read other posts in our Mission Blog,
click on the arrow or 3 lines to the left of NEVILLES IN FRANCE
then click on ARCHIVE to see a list of all posts.
