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"
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