59th P-Day (52nd in France)

This week was the epitome of a series of unfortunate events. Get ready to hear about what a rollercoaster of a week I've had. 

Tuesday was rough. Before I came to Valenciennes, the apartment was having major problems. Well, one of them persisted no matter how many times we brought it up to the senior missionaries in the mission. Basically a shower pipe was broken, so we had a leak underneath our shower. This started coming over into our bedroom and making a huge puddle in our carpet. The senior missionaries would only give us the free solutions: take shorter showers, air out the bathroom afterwards, etc. None of them worked. Since Elder Crockett got here, the problem only persisted and actually got worse. To the point that we took matters into our own hands and called a plumber ourselves. We were annoyed that we'd have to jump over a massive puddle every time we wanted to get in/out of our bedroom. The carpet is permanently ruined too, so that's definitely something that needed a fix asap. I'll upload a video of it in my album. Anyway, the plumber scheduled a return visit to come fix the leak. In the meantime, Elder Crockett didn't want to shower/get ready at our apartment. Tuesday morning involved district meeting, so he thought it would be best of us to just shower at the other Elders apartment in Lille beforehand. Because of this, we woke up early and started driving. Along the way, our car experienced some difficulties. I'm still not sure what's going on, but trust me... We asked some experts (as you'll see later on in this email). I was so afraid to drive it and the car would only get up to 110 km on the freeway, so that wasn't fun either. Long story short, I have to drive it with this unidentified problem until this Friday when it can get fixed. Wish me luck and pray that it doesn't blow up while I'm driving it. Anyway, after that long and scary drive, we parked and went up to their apartment to get ready. I realized I had forgotten both of my missionary badges and my belt back in Valenciennes. After we were ready to go and head to district meeting with the other Elders, we started walking to the car. Upon getting to it, I realized that someone had smashed my window and broken into the car. It was at this point that I really panicked... Because we were only going to be in their apartment for 30 minutes maximum, I didn't think it was necessary to bring my bag in with me (I also didn't have the hands for it with everything else I was carrying). Well, my bag had my tablet, my wallets, my passport, and my legality all in it amongst other things. I frantically rushed to inspect. The theft had gone through everything and basically trashed our car. Fortunately, even though he had gone through our bags and such, he didn't take any of it. Not my wallet, tablet, or even passport. The only thing he decided to finally steal was the car's GPS. We were definitely lucky in this situation, as it could have been a lot worse. I credit it all to God and Him watching over His missionaries. It's so true. And lucky for us, I have been here over 7 months now. I know how to get everywhere and anywhere without our GPS. It's not my first rodeo. Maybe this was another reason why I stayed in Valenciennes and not my previous companion. If he were the one here, they would have serious driving holdups and blocks. The only problem I have found without having a GPS is not knowing the speed limits because France doesn't post them frequently. Please pray I don't get a ticket until we have a GPS again. Anyway, four of us quickly cleared out as much glass as possible and headed to district meeting, trying to put the issue in the back of our minds. Driving without a window and GPS on a freeway when your car can't reach any high speeds was awful. I never want to experience that again. Anyway, district meeting kinda sucked because all I could think about was all the work we'd have to do to fix the car and get a new GPS (let alone the shower issues back home, etc.). Afterwards, we almost ran out of gas on the freeway back. That was also scary and it wasn't even noon yet. What an awful morning it was. Once back, we went to a gas station and vaccumed out all of the glass from the car and cleaned it. Then we took it into the shop, Speedy. Car terminology is definitely not something that either Elder Crockett or I know in French, so it was super difficult to explain everything to them, but we had to try. They told us that it couldn't be done until Friday, so we wouldn't have a car until then. This was okay, however, because we need a window really bad. Especially with how rainy France is. So we left it with them and also asked them to figure out what our car's problem was in the meantime. The mission office didn't know we did this and wanted us to contact our insurance and fill out all this paperwork, etc. Before taking the car anywhere. From what I had heard, however, this process takes a while and we needed this car back ASAP. We were also so done with trying to do things that we just gave up and decided it would be best to give them the car and get it over with. After all of this, we picked up our drycleaning and then walked over to a dinner appointment with a family in the ward. This was the only positive part of the day. I'll put pics in my album. 

Wednesday was my four hundredth day in the mission field. Nothing really happened, other than our shower finally getting fixed (I'm serious... The problem had apparently been there for over a year!), so now I can finally take my time in the shower! The rest of the day was us walking to different in-active members houses and inviting them to our Come and See special Sunday. 

The next day we had exchanges with Elders Crane and Abegg. I was with Abegg this time around. Again, we did in-active finding to invite them to the Come and See event. The first house we knocked on was actually an active member who I've never really talked to, so that was awkward. She was so nice though and we were able to give her a nice little message. The second house we went to was interesting. The Ward Council had visited this man a few months ago and said that it was a strange experience and that he opened his door wearing a dress. I've never met him, but instantly remembered that when I saw the name on his mailbox. Anyway, he let us right on in. This, as you have probably guessed already, happens to be my weekly story about the homosexuals here who hit on me haha. He was there with his friend (maybe bf? Idk) and all he did was stare at me. "You are so handsome," "you'll make good looking children," and "blonde hair, blue eyes = the perfect German," were just some of the things he said repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) to me. We invited them to come and then tried to leave as fast as possible. He, of course, told me that I can come over whenever I want haha. Probs not ever going back, but oh well. Then we met up with Crane and Crockett for lunch. We planned to go to the Rendez-Vous food truck that I love, but they ended up being out of ingredients when we got there. Because they love me, however, they did give me two huge things of free fries. What nice guys. So we decided to go to the local Chinese buffet instead. After this we did more in-active finding and inviting with no real success. 

Friday wasn't too great either. Our car was finally ready for pick-up which was nice. We went in to get it and the window looked so nice! Unfortunately, however, they said that the problem was serious enough that we needed to take it into our local Nissan dealership and have them determine what it was and that they couldn't fix it for us. We also had to tell our Car Elder in the office that we took it into the shop without going through our insurance first. He wasn't too fond of us having done this, but he did rejoice when he heard the low price of 220 Euros and the quick turnover rate. So, he approved us to use our mission card to pay for it. Then we just had to get over to the Nissan dealership. Once there, they told us that we needed to schedule an appointment and their first opening was next Friday, so we scheduled it. That's why I have to drive in this car for a while longer. Not going to be fun, really need those prayers. Let's hope that this problem also doesn't take a while to fix. To wind down, we had the Rendez-Vous for dinner. At least the day ended well. 

Saturday we had two rendez-vous. One with Margrate and the other with Teodora. Margrate's went well, but we still can't find anyone to take her to church, so she can't really progress there. I hate small villes in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation on Sundays tbh. Afterwards, we decided to knock on doors in her area of people that had cars. The only person that answered was this super old lady with tons of blue eyeshadow. She was hysterical. She was crying so hard. Apparently her husband of over 60 years had died that morning. We decided to go get her a dessert at the local boulangerie and go back with it. She didn't answer, so we left it on her porch. Then we had Teodora. She still believes that all religions are true and doesn't want to get baptized yet, so Elder Crockett wants to drop her. I'm just hoping he does so after I leave, because I really like Teodora and I don't want her to hate me. We also finally found someone to drive Margrate to church for our Come and See event, but once we told her that they'd be picking her up at 8AM, she got mad. She said that that was too early. Elder Crockett also wants to drop her now, because she doesn't want to get up early enough for church. I'll keep y'all updated on both of them. Let's hope that they continue to progress and decide to come to church! 

Sunday was our big Come and See event. I woke up sick and took some medicine. Little did I know that it makes you drowsy. I was falling asleep each hour like none other and was trying so hard to stay awake. Sadly, no new people came. We actually had a lower attendance than usual. Many members were gone and none of them brought any non-member friends. None of our in-actives came either, or people we invited on the street. The only positive was that Sylvain and Aline came! This made it their third time at church. Besides them, however, it was kind of a bust. Anyway, we had a rendez-vous scheduled with them for after church, but they cancelled again. I don't know why they've been so flakey recently, but I hate it. I miss them and just want them to make more time for us like they used to. 

Today we are going up to Lille for a district P-Day. Wish me luck with driving the car all the way up there again! 

I want to end with my testimony that God is watching over each of us. Yes, we all have trials and hardships. This week definitely included a lot of them... But God is always there to help us through them. I have felt this many times in my life as well as this week when the thief didn't steal anything from my bag. That was definitely God protecting and helping me. I love God and I promise that He is there for all of us. This thought is what kept me positive this whole week, throughout all of its hardships. God is good, God is love. 

Love,

Elder Connor Anderson

58th P-Day (51st in France)

Hey, everyone! I'm gonna get right into the week, because I don't have a lot of time. :)

On Tuesday we were informed that we all had to write talks on Diligence in French for Zone Conference, and that two lucky missionaries would be chosen to give them on the spot. So I immediately went and wrote my talk word for word, to ensure that everything would go smoothly if I were to be called on. The rest of that day included lots of finding and then a dinner appointment with a new American family in our ward, the Fontanas, from Arizona. How blessed are we to have Americans in this ward, which is super rare for any area outside of Paris. They made us a super Italian meal, because the dad is Italian, and gave us tons of leftovers. What a great night!

Wednesday was zone conference. We woke up bright and early and headed to Lille. Surprise, surprise... President called on me to give my talk. Luckily I came prepared. 12 size font, Times New Roman, Double-Spaced, College style. Needless to say that it went well. Lunch was catered to us by my Bishop's restaurant in Lille, Better Primeur. I've been there countless times and can't say enough good about it. Everything is Bio and healthy. So good. Then we broke off into groups and did skits on different mission rules. Ours was on technology and safeguards. Best part? We re-enacted a specific couple from this mission (who I will not name) and their proposal. We were originally going to have two Sisters do the proposing, but then our Mission President thought it would be better to have an Elder propose to a Sister, which left us all shook. He's so strict, so it was so funny hearing that come out of his mouth. He eventually decided against that and told us to just have an Elder propose to an imaginary woman. You can find half of this skit (the only part I recorded) in my album. Classic. Even with me having to give a talk in French, this zone conference was one of my favorites so far. More interactive and fun. Definitely made our 8+ hour zone conference feel a lot shorter. After that, we drove to Mons and had dinner with Adam and his family. Then we drove to Maubeuge and had a wonderful lesson and dinner with the Trouillard parents. They're so awesome and it went so well. She also made us the best dessert ever. They're definitely one of my favorite families in this ward. We got home super late (oops), but it was worth it!

The next day we started by teaching Felisa up in Mons with a member. It went really well and we got her a date for baptism! She even wants me to baptize her; little does she know that I probably won't be here by the time her date comes around. Then we came back and had to prepare some food for district meeting. I decided to take a risk and make a cherry cola cinnamon chicken for the meat. No recipe or measuring tools, just inspiration from Rachael Ray and my imagination. I also forgot that people don't usually use chicken as the meat when they are marinating meat in coca cola. Oh well. It honestly turned out better than I expected, kind of like candied chicken. Then we went to Lille for district meeting and ended the night. 

On Friday, we helped the Elders in Lille do some in-active member searching, to invite them to our Venez et Voyez event on Sunday the 23rd. We had to help them, because we have a car and some members can't be reached by metro. Anyway, this took up the whole day. The positive side of it was that we all ate at the Bishop's restaurant again. Find pics of this in my album. Later that night, my comp and I drove up to Belgium to see how a potential family has been doing. We ended up inviting them to our Venez et Voyez and setting up a return visit, thus making them all new investigators. How cool!

Saturday we had a ton of rendez-vous back-to-back. Starting with a new investigator who we taught the Book of Mormon to, then straight to Aniche to teach Margrate. She also made us food, as per usual. Then we went to Teodora's. It was her birthday party and she had some friends over, unbeknownst to us. All of them were in her same situation: Phillipino women married to French men. It was an odd situation, but you better believe that we invited them all to Venez et Voyez! We ended with a visit to Chantal's house. She's my favorite. We read the Book of Mormon with her and answered all of her questions. She even descended with us afterwards, because she was donating clothes to charity. What an icon! To whatever missionaries converted her back in the day, THANK YOU. We all love her here. 

Sunday was interesting. David decided to come to church, but the Ward did a good job at keeping him away from me. He was acting so weird, like usual. Just hope he doesn't disrupt Venez et Voyez next week with all of the people that are going to be there. Second hour was my favorite. A woman in the ward, Tricia, went against what was asked of her to teach to the adults in 2nd hour and instead decided to teach them how to invite their friends to Venez et Voyez by doing some practice teaching with them. She invited us to join their class, thus getting us away from David in the investigator class. We got to see the ward practice inviting their non-member friends to church and judge them! It was so fun and something that our ward really needed. I think that it definitely will help them find the courage/the right way to invite their friends. The American Fontana family also brought us some food to church. They are awesome. I love the Americans here! After church, we drove up to Lille for our musical evening, that was planned by us and the other missionaries in our district. Only two investigators showed up, but we had a lot of ward support from the Lille ward. It went really well. I don't have any videos of any missionary performances, but I do have one of two French girls, Louise and Clara. It's really good. They're performing "Glorious." Go watch it in my album. 

The musical evening really brought the Spirit to everyone. It was so cool to see how much music can really touch people. I testify that the Spirit can touch us all in different ways. Through testimony, experiences, music, etc. God has given us all of these tools to help us feel that. I encourage you all to go listen to some music that helps you feel the Spirit. I promise that you'll feel so much better. And for any of you who have callings in Stake positions-- I encourage you to try to initiate musical evenings in your stakes. Plan to have some snacks afterwards. Invite the local missionaries, investigators, and members to perform. It will be a super spiritual evening for everyone. 

Thanks for all of your emails! I love you all! Till next week! 

Elder Connor Anderson

American family in our ward

Zone conference in Lille

Better Primeur

Elder Crane

Elder Abegg

French girls, Louise & Clara singing "Glorious"

57th P-Day (50th in France)

Hey, everyone! This week was very busy, so I'll try to keep this e-mail as brief as possible for all of us.

Our morning exercise on Tuesday was playing soccer with the ZLs and the DL and his companion. Sounds fun right? It was, until one of my hard kicks broke half of my big toe nail off. Never play soccer barefoot, my friends, never. The day only went more downhill from there. I had lost the car keys somewhere in the Lille apartment and could not find them for the life of me. The rest of that day involved district meeting and exchanges, so it was crucial to have the key. I retraced all of my steps and basically turned their apartment inside out. We also prayed twice. I was losing hope and we were already an hour and a half late to district meeting, with all the other missionaries having taken the metro to the church. One of my earliest instincts was to check the couch that I had slept on the night prior. The cushions aren't removable, so we couldn't check inside. We just had to wiggle the couch around and listen for a sound. We heard nothing, so we continued to look elsewhere. Eventually, I gave up and took a big knife to the underside of the couch. Sure enough, it was in there! Definitely the dumbest place for something to be. After district meeting, the whole district went proselyting together in downtown Lille. That was interesting. Elder Crane and I left early to start our exchange together and this random man started hitting on us.  The guy was at least 50 (even though he said he was 30) and wasn't too interested in us after we brought Jesus into the conversation lol. Elder Crane quite enjoyed our conversation with him, so he asked him for a selfie. I'll put it in my album. He's the man with the straw hat. Then Elder Crane and I went in-active searching. Wasn't too eventful. The straw hat man was definitely the most interesting part of the day. 

The next day we finally met up with Sylvain and Aline again! It's been so long since I've seen them. It was a very bittersweet rendez-vous, because they told us that they want to progress towards the temple really badly, but Sylvain's uncle and their work schedules are still blocks for them. They told us that they wouldn't be able to come to church for a long while because of this. Sadly, this meant that I won't get to be here for their baptism or wedding, but I'm hoping to be there when it happens one day in the future! We then had a WML meeting in Mons with Adam and then we taught Zineb to finish the night. 

Thursday wasn't so great either. We did some in-active hunting, paid for way over-priced KFC meals, and was finally made to pay my speeding ticket from all the way back in May by an office Elder. Because he had "forgotten" to call me back to pay for it earlier on, the price of the ticket had increased. The price is also supposed to be split with your companion from when it happened, so we contacted mine, Elder Larson, and he, of course, refused to pay his portion. Because I was the designated driver at the time, they use my credit card info to pay for it, and then I have to have my companion give me half the cost back in cash. Guess that's not going to happen. On the positive side of things, we got to have dinner with the Kabongo family in Mons! And Maria Cuche (the blind, famous singer from the Epinal Ward) messaged me on Facebook to tell me that her autobiography is finally coming out this month. How cool is that?

Friday. Oh what a day. We woke up at 5 to get ready to head to Lille and catch a train to Paris from there. We were going to Paris, because we got a text saying that my second year legality was ready to be picked up. Once there, we took all the metros/inter-city trains/buses that we needed to finally arrive at the Sous-Prefecture where legality is done. After waiting in line for hours, I get up there just for them to tell me that they had made a mistake and that it won't be ready until the 26th. That wasn't fun. Our whole day was spent in Paris for this and I'll have to do it all over again in a few weeks. And my companion definitely wasn't happy with this either. On the bright side, because there always is one, we got to eat some bagels at Consecration hill, overlooking the city of Paris. 

The next day was really busy with 3 rendez-vous back-to-back. We first had a lesson with Felisa up in Mons. She just got handed back to us from the Neville Elders, because apparently she "liked us more." Anywho, I hadn't seen her in over a month and a half, so that was cool. We had a Chilean lunch with her, her daughters, and their friends. That was really cool. Then we gave the lesson. Elder Crockett isn't too fond of her and wants to drop her, because he thinks that she just wants us to go over for fun. So I'll keep you updated on what happens. Felisa has said that she wants to be baptized, so maybe that'll happen. Then we had our weekly scripture study with Chantal in Valenciennes. She's awesome. Best rendez-vous each week, even though she's already a convert. Then we taught Margrate for the first time in two months in Aniche. We might end up dropping her too, because there is literally no public transportation in her little ville on Sundays, thus blocking her from church attendance. So sad. She wants to progress, but there's no way for her to get to church. And members aren't an option, we've already tried. Any other tips? Then we drove back and dropped some patisseries off at Teodora's house with a Venez et Voyez (Come and See (a special Sunday that we are doing here)) invitation. 

Sunday was good and David didn't come #Blessed. Just a nice Sunday with not much to talk about!

Lots of you said that you were praying for me about my situation with David. I just wanted to say thank you. I know that your prayers helped and will continue to help with this. I encourage all of you to add someone to your prayers. Just like we've all experienced prayers helping us personally, I know that they can also help others. Think of anyone you can and pray for them. God knows what we all need and He will deliver. All we have to do is ask and have faith!

I love you all! Thanks for the love each week. 

Elder Connor Anderson

Invites to Venez et Voyez

My companion, Elder Crockett

Biography of Maria Cuche

56th P-Day (49th in France)

Hey, everyone! Another week has come and gone!

As you are all aware, my stay in Valenciennes has extended another transfer haha. By the end, this will end up having been 7 1/2 months here. Possibly 9 months, if I stay another after this. It's unlikely, but we can't deny the possibility. 

Because Elder Swensen was leaving, our priorities on Tuesday were to visit all of the people he knows and loves, to say goodbye to them. Our first person was Chantal, AKA: my favorite member here. She was so sweet and made us lunch, because she thought that I was leaving haha... But if she would've known that it was Swensen leaving, she wouldn't have made us anything so we decided not to tell her. It was really good and a great start to the day. Elder Swensen planned to see Sylvain and Aline, but they ended up not being home, which was really hard on Elder Swensen. We also had a goodbye rendez-vous with Zineb and her children. After all of this, we went up to Mons and had dinner with the Kabongo family. It was a really good day.

Wednesday was transfer day! Transfer days are always so long and tiring, but it's whatever. My new companion, Elder Crockett, is from Santa Clarita, California. We all know that I love Southern California and the people there, so that was an easy thing for me to connect with him on. He also wants to go to the University of Utah when he's back, so that was another connecting point. Although I don't know a lot about him, things are going well so far, so that's positive! Thanks for all of your prayers! I know that they helped this time around!

The next day involved a near death experience that I think was really a bonding experience for us. The Sister Training Sisters in Lille needed a new bunkbed, so the office ordered them one at Ikea. Well, because we have a car, the office just assumed that we could deliver it to the Sister's apartment for free. They obviously overestimated the size of our car. Check this week's album for pics. We had no other choice than to sit like that. Then we had to make a 25 minute drive on both the freeway and through downtown Lille like that. Talk about a panic attack. Especially now that I'm the driver again, so both of our lives are in my hands. I couldn't see behind me at all, so I was relying on soley what I saw ahead of us and the power of prayer. We had to even divert ourselves away from a police car. And don't get me started on how many pedestrians could have lost their lives if God hadn't been helping us. And the parallel parking was a no-no... Especially with me not being able to see behind the car. I had to rely on the car's sensory beeping. After about 15 minutes of not being able to park correctly (and causing a huge traffic jam on the tiny road), a young Asian woman came up to my window and started hand signaling. Then the carrying of it up the 4 flights of stairs, because their elevator wasn't working, was just the cherry on top. Oh the things we'll do for Sister missionaries. Then we had district meeting and came home for the night. 

Friday wasn't anything too special. Sylvain and Aline were still unreachable and not home, so I'm a little worried about them. They've been MIA for 2 weeks now and I'm hoping that we can establish contact with them soon. 

The next day I drove two guys from the Ward up to Mons for their home teaching assignment with a sister named, Marie-Laurence (aka: Whoppie Goldberg). It went well and she cooked us a huge feast. Then we drove down to Aniche and had a rendez-vous with Margrate, who also fed us haha. I also feel like we are getting her close to baptism, so that's a perk. Later that night, I baked a cake for the next day, because our ward always breaks our fast together with a huge meal. I used one of the American cake mixes I got, but substituted water for sweetened condensed milk and added vanilla extract and vanilla sugar. It baked alright, but was super dense and heavy haha. I'll attach pics of it in the album. Definitely too much for French people to stomach, I'll tell you that!

Sunday was a whirlwind, that kind of made me wish that I had gotten transferred somewhere else. So much ward drama was uncovered. People were crying and friendships were broken. For instance, Brother Rousseaux in our bishopric asked for a divorce from his wife, because he fell in love with Zineb (our recent convert) and they've been dating! So the ward is all picking sides on who they support. The recent convert and the guy in the bishopric or his wife and their kids. There is also a love triangle within the young adults that reached a boiling point yesterday, in a plot twist that no one was expecting and is too long to go into detail about, but it is juicy, let me tell ya. And on top of it all, we still have David to deal with. He has been on one recently and has actually made threats against me and the ward, so I'm just praying that we all make it out of this transfer alive. This whole experience would make for a great television show. Maybe it'd be called "Survive the Transfer" or "Keeping up with Valenciennes?" Either way, it would be a must-watch and highly suspenseful. Just keep those prayers coming through. I'm going to need them all the way up until the fateful season finale at the end of this transfer. #PrayForElderAnderson #PrayForValenciennes.

Today we're going up to Lille to start exchanges! I'm so excited to be with my district again and get out of my dangerous area haha. 

As I mentioned earlier, all of your prayers helped out a lot for me this transfer. I want to thank you all so much for thinking of me. I also wanted to testify of the power of prayer. I know that I have done this many times, but it's something that I can never stop testifying of, because I know it's true. if we ask God for something, He will deliver. God knows us and is here for us. Pray in times of need. I know you will get what you need and that he will bless you, as He has done to me. 

Thanks for the emails as well. Love you all! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Connor Anderson

I was driving on the freeway and through Lille's downtown in very unsafe circumstances... delivering a bunk bed to the Sister missionaries. The Lord was definitely protecting us.

A package that Rachael sent me... Filled with Australian treats. I've missed my TimTams! Had them in Fiji originally and they're so good! Even the Sour Patch Kids were better than the American ones 

Home teaching at a members house

Our Venez and Voyez (Come & See) invitations. America needs to start doing things like this 

French car wash

Boxed cake that I made for the ward on Saturday night, thanks to Adam who can get us that stuff at the American commissary. However, I decided to take a risk and substitute the water for sweetened condensed milk to make it more of a creamy and delicious cake... It actually baked... But was so, so denseI also added vanilla sugar (a French thing, so good) and vanilla extract. Super vanilla-ey. The French people could not handle that much sugar lol