On Tuesday night, we got a text from our Branch President saying that he got work off the next morning and wanted us to schedule a rendezvous with an ami for then. Well, the tricky thing is that we don't have any investigators, so we were scrambling to call inactive members the whole night. No success for the next morning, but we did call an inactive family that asked us to come over on Saturday which was nice.
Luckily the President found us a rendezvous himself and that was good. He asked us what we were doing for Christmas while he was driving us, and we hesitantly said we were going to the Cuche's. He surprisingly didn't get mad.
Later that night, I spent 30€ to buy ingredients for some cookies for the less active. Chocolate chips here are not cheap, let me tell ya! I then got to baking. Come at me, Martha Stewart.
The next day was the Sabin Conference in Paris. Our train left here at 6, so that was stressful. Especially because I was baking cookies until about 1 in the morning. Then we got to Paris, but because me and my comp are both pretty new missionaries, it was hard to navigate the stupid metro (AKA the worst thing about Paris). Anyway, we had to rely on my memory from months ago about how to buy tickets and find the right train. And how convenient that our stop was blocked off for construction, so we had to get off a stop late and walk all the way to the chapel. It wasn't too bad though, because we got to see Notre Dame for a quick second on the way. The Sabin Conference was both good and long. It was about 7 hours of talks from the same 4 people (Elder and Sister Sabin and Pres and Sister Sorensen). They were all really good, just long. I also finally received my Halloween package from my mom haha. It kinda sucked though, because I had to carry it through the metro and have it "inspected" by all the security. Oh well. Life is still good.
The next day we had exchanges with the Elders of St. Die. They came to Epinal. I was paired with another Elder who was in my MTC group, so I was really nervous. Both of us are not good at French at all and it wasn't a pleasant situation haha. But they have a car, so me and him took the car to visit and invite the less active to Christmas Sunday that we can't get to via public transportation. I now know why. All 3 people we tried to visit live in little villages in the mountains. We had to drive on windy dirt roads forever. The other Elder was really nervous that we would be stranded in the mountain for awhile because the sun was going down and we weren't familiar with the area. It was pretty though, so I'll attach pictures below. The first person we went to was this old man. He was really nice, but prob won't come back to church because of a "heart condition". Then we drove to two other mountain villages. Neither of the other two had correct addresses, and so we never found them. It was a lot of driving for nothing haha. Then we went proselyting for 2 hours in the freezing cold. We rewarded ourselves by spending 30€ on KFC. American food is worth every penny, let me tell ya!
The next day we had our rendezvous with the less active family. They live about an hour away and are Slovakian, so they have a very strong accent. Because of this, they were bad at French too, which you'd think would be a bad thing... But it was good! We both only know basic French, so I understood everything they said. They also only talked to me and not Elder Payne which is funny, because he's the better one in French. Two whole hours of only me speaking. Not my comp at all. What a family! They're super poor and don't go to church because it's an hour away and too expensive to take the train. The dad says that he can only drive short distances in his car, because he never got a French license, so he could be jailed if he's pulled over lol. Both of them don't work either, so they are just living off of government money. Then the mom told me to email President Monson and ask the church to send them money. I'm not sure that's how it works, Afrodita. Then she found out that my mom was Canadian and said that it's her favorite country because it's beautiful and everyone smiles. She then asked me to email my mom to help her get Canadian legality. Who are these people? I def think they're gypsies, but at least they were nice to us. They actually agreed to come up and come to Christmas Sunday, so that's nice.
That night there was a Noël Parade in Épinal. It was HUGE, but Elder Payne wouldn't let us go, because it was a "big crowd" and he didn't want to be in a bombing LOL. Just like Maria Cuche said, "who would want to bomb Epinal? That wouldn't make the news at all. No one would care". Hahah. Anyway, it looked fun and that made me sad that I couldn't go to it. Everyone was out in the -4 degree temperature because it was so lit. After the mission, I'll be back and I'll be able to see it in its full glory.
Sunday was a good day. Something happened recently and now this branch is trying to help us a little more. This random lady in the branch who never talks to us set up a Family Home Evening with the Branch on Wednesday for us. Everyone was also asking us for extra Christmas invites to hand out to their friends. People are actually working with us now and I'm so happy!!! Maybe it's because of all of your prayers for me!
Well, that was my week for ya. Stressful and long, but it had a good ending.
Thanks for all the emails and love this week. I really needed it. I get more and more appreciative as time goes on. I truly love and miss everyone back home, but I know that this is where I need to be right now.
Love,
Elder Connor Anderson
An old cemetery
30 euros of cookie ingredients
Halloween Package
In front of Notre Dame
Snow in Vosges
Christmas time in Epinal
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