Preaching in Paris

This week we had our first zone conference with the new mission president, President Sorensen. He said a lot of great things, one of them being "don't count the days, make the days count." He was referring to photos missionaries would take of themselves holding a number corresponding with the number of transfers they've had, but that I took that to heart, so I won't be putting the week number on my emails. I was also counting the days each night in my journal (mostly just for memoirs and hitting big landmarks like 100 or 500 or whatever), but I'm not doing any of that anymore. Make the days count. The first entire hour of the conference was solely focused on repentance. He shared a lot of quotes and yadee ya, but my favourite takeaway was when he had us listen to the song "Oh Divine Redeemer," sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He pointed out that it was originally written by a frenchman, Charles Gounod, and it was originally titled simply, ...

This week we had a "finding day" (all the missionaries in the district go to one city and contact it to death) in Compiegne. The problem is, is that our trains were late, so we ended up having a solid 1 hour and 45 minutes of actual work in Compiegne. We also had exchanges in Auxerre with the district leader, and that was cool.  I'm going to be straight up, this week was hard and frustrating. We were rarely in Troyes, and I felt that a lot of time was wasted. I also feel like there is such an extreme emphasis on contacting and knocking on doors, but no one talks about other ways to serve people and help the ward (I asked the DL if anyone had started a class to study the scriptures during the week to bring members and people learning about the church together, and he had never heard of anyone doing that------it's in Preach my Gospel!!....!!!!!! We're starting a class like that this week in Troyes, I hope it goes well. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk to...

We had some interesting experiences this week. On Tuesday I had a big boost of energy and spirit that definitely did not come from me, so whoever was praying for me on the morning of Tuesday, July 11 France time, thank you.  We had a couple language studies with a member in the ward. He's a native French speaker who's fluent in English and a really great teacher, so he's been a big help with specific questions we have, and also about correcting our accents. Those have been awesome. We had a small miracle with our phone. First off, our phone is oldest, tiniest, most inefficient thing I think I've ever seen. Getting used to that is just about my biggest challange here haha. Anyhow, It has a very small amount of space to store messages and other information. One afternoon, the memory was full, but it was also trying to receive a new message. When we deleted other messages to make space, the incoming message was lost. We had sent a number of messages to many peo...

This week was good, we had several appointments with members and amis and stuff like that, which meant more opporunities to teach and share experiences, and also more opportunites to speak and hear legitimate French. I get lost frequently, but I can already feel myself improving, being able to understand more of what people say. Each of our visits have been quite spiritually uplifting, the people have responded with hope and gratitude, and several have shared unique and personal experiences from their lives. It'd be great if I could understand those experiences haha, but they were sincere and crying sooooo hopefully that's good. I understand bits and pieces and words and feelings.  We we leaving a members home, and she asked if we wanted any onions to take home. I meant to say "no thank you, we have some onions" (non merci, on a des oignons), but instead I said "no thank you, we are some onions" (non merci, on est des oignons). They thought that was pret...

Well a ton has happened. We flew into Paris, had some fun with a Sister's lost passport, and were greeted by President and Sister Babin, who are no longer the president of the mission. So it was good to at least meet them. First thing in Paris, they broke us in with some contacting in Paris--they paired us with a more senior missionary and sent us out. That was weird at first, but was good overall. I was expecting more of a negative response. The French people I'm met so far are quite surprised when a stranger stops them to talk, but once the French people get talking, they get taaaaallllkking. It'd be great if I could understand haha. At the MTC I felt pretty confident with the language, but I got here and couldn't understand a word. The accent, the speed, the phrasing is all different, which I was kind of expecting, but not to the same degree. They can understand when I speek, but I miss a lot when they speek. For example, we knocked on this lady's door and I unde...

My time in spirit prison is almost done. We have an 11-hour direct flight from Salt Lake City to Paris at 5pm on Monday y . Here we go. It's been a good last week, including a real celebrity siting. So every  Sunday  and  Tuesday  evening we have a devotional, typically with a general authority of the Church, or some member of the missionary board of  whatevers  or  yadee   yadee  ya. Normally they're a little dry, but honestly usually quite good, inspiring, and always very spiritual and  churchy . Anyhow,  this Sunday , the Sabbath day our  Sunday  devotional speaker was Donny Osmond. I honestly thought the guy who made the slides was playing a prank when I first saw the picture and name Donny  Osmand , but then I looked at the stage area and there he was. When I realized it wasn't a joke, I was actually excited because it was a unique and perspective on the gospel that would be very refreshing to hear after ...