64th P-Day (57th in France)

Previously on, "Keeping Up With Versailles": I met Elder Cook at the temple, our bathroom had a leak that ruined our downstair's neighbor's apartment (which I didn't mention in my last email), Julien got baptized, and I went to my first Catholic mass. 

What happened next? Keep reading to find out.

On Monday night I ate a vegan hot dog for the first time. All I can say is that it was interesting. I also met up with a recent convert from Lille, Ana Gabriel, whom all the missionaries in Lille love. She came down to visit the temple and to see me and it was a great reunion. 

The next day the inspector and landlord came to look at where the leak was coming from. It was a simple problem: the caulking around our tub had a lot of holes in it, causing the water to puddle up under our tub and eventually go down through the ceiling. I have had enough of all these water problems in each of my apartments this far! Why do previous owners not fix problems and leave them for the new ones to handle? #Rude. Anyway, the inspector said that it wasn't our fault and was really just the previous owners not fixing it when it started. We were then encouraged to only take baths until the problem was fixed and then they left. That night we met with the Durrand couple again in Trappes. They are nice, but they definitely don't seem interested. I'm curious as to where we'll be able to get them! Here's to praying for the best!

A plumber came to our house the next morning and told us to just do the caulking ourselves, because he was an emergency plumber and it would cost us 500 Euros for him to do it. He still charged us a 30 Euro fee for having to come to our apartment which was ridiculous. Oh well. We then went and bought caulk for ourselves. Easy solution. We came back and fixed the problem in no time. Call me a DIY guy ;) We ended the night with district meeting and it was awesome!

Thursday was our exchange day with the Zone Leaders. Elder Ludwig and I (throwback to the Epinal days; he was in my district) went together for the duration of the exchange. The blessing we had was pretty cool: Early this week I had been doing Areabook finding with old investigators and calling them up. One guy answered who it said had blocked us. I was confused, but happily set up a meeting with him. Elder Ludwig and I were fortunate enough to be together the day of this meeting. We took a train out to Paris and met with a guy named Ruben. He was in his early 20's and from India. Definitely not the same guy that I tried calling earlier, even though both were English speakers, not French. Apparently Ruben had just moved here and got a new phone number. Lucky for us, he got the phone number of the guy in our Areabook. Ruben was so cool and was so willing to meet with us. He's joining the French military soon, but is so down to take our discussions and was super respectful to us. I know that he'll go far! Too bad that he technically lives outside of our sector though, so he won't be our investigator. I'm still super optimistic about where he'll go and can't wait to get updates on him! On the way back I got Chipotle!!! Big perk to living by Paris, I guess. It's been too long. Now they just have to put an In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A, and a Cheesecake Factory here. Someone start a petition ASAP please. 

The next day we met Kavish (another Indian investigator) at the temple. It was both good and cringey. All of the Sister missionaries were booked, which was a shame because those are the missionaries he'd get along with the best, and we got a senior Elder instead. Upon entering the room we were teaching him in, he turned to me and said, "J'ai peur," which translates to "I'm scared". Anyway, Kavish is a recently baptized evangelical Christian and knows the bible really well. The lesson went away from both the Restoration lesson and the temple (which is what we planned) and was basically a kind bible bash between the Senior missionary and Kavish. A lot of the book of Revelation was being thrown around (the typical "no other book" ), etc. The Spirit wasn't really there and it wasn't the best. Next time we'll get a Sister rather than an old man. We tried to end on a good note by showing him the gardens. He took issue with the Christ statue being muscular and said, "Jesus was always fasting, he didn't have muscle." To which I replied, "this is his resurrected body, so it's perfected." Then Kavish turns to me and says, "so I'll look like you when I'm resurrected?" Safe to say that I think the Sisters should teach him from here on out lol. Let's hope that he continues to progress and not bash our church. I'll keep you all posted, don't worry. Fun fact that I learned this day: The cauliflower mac and cheese at Starbucks is really good, but extremely expensive. Another petition anyone?

Saturday was FREEZING, which means that spooky season is almost over and Christmas is almost here! Other than that, the only other significant thing that happened Saturday was that our doorbell was rung by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. Bless their hearts, they tried really hard with us. But I did appreciate their persistence and non-bashiness. They're coming back next week to give us one of their bibles; stay tuned.

Sunday was good. The translation mic is officially broken, so until they get a new one the Sisters and I are off the hook. We, sadly, didn't have any investigators at church, so we spent 2nd hour with the youth. They were so disrespectful to the teacher and just talked over her, so Elder Bunker and I did all of the participation. I went up and thanked her after and now we are BFFs. I love this woman, she's awesome! 3rd hour we spent with the young men which was also a good experience. Later that night we went to mass again to see Wandrille sing. The good news is that us going a 2nd time really got him interested in our church and he promised us that he'd come to our church services asap. He keeps his promises too, so I know that he'll come. Sometimes you just have to put extra work in to get this response from people, and that's what we did. He was really thankful that we have come twice now to support him. 

Today we have interviews with President Sorensen and are hopefully going to go into Paris. 

Spiritual thought for this week is on miracles. In the wise words of Whitney Houston, "There can be miracles when you believe." And it is SO true. Just like that guy, Ruben, that we met this week. We weren't expecting to have found someone new from our phone, but God put him in our path. I know that God will show unto each of His children miracles. Not just when we need them, but literally all the time. Recognize them; I promise it will help you see how blessed we all really are. God's love emanates immensely in each of our lives and that is something truly beautiful. 

Have a good week everyone! I love you all! 

Elder Connor Anderson

63rd P-Day (56th in France)

Hey, everybody! The King of Versailles (my recently self-appointed title. I'm currently thinking of trademarking it, what do you all think?) is back for another storytime this week. So get ready and hold on to your postiches, because this is a fun one!

We ended Monday with a dinner appointment with a recent convert, Aurelien. He's 19 and really funny, so it was a good night. It was also a good time for me to see downtown Versailles, which is something that we don't get around to often because of all the tourists. 

The next day was Zone Conference in Paris. This zone is huge and the conference went really well. President Sorensen is starting to up his game on how he plans these out. Bravo to him. Afterwards, we met a 19 year old kid on the bus, Wandrille, and started chatting. He's super Catholic and his family was actually against the temple being built here. I asked him if he had ever been and he said "no". So, it was only necessary for me to invite him to the temple later that night to receive some cookies I would bake for him. So, he came and we chatted for a while as we showed him around the temple. He really enjoyed it and wants to learn more, so that's a success! After that we had dinner at the Patron Housing (temple hotel thing) with some French and French Polynesian members. They were so cool and made us so much food. It was a great day!

Wednesday wasn't the greatest. I got what I believe to have had been a lice infection(?) maybe from sleeping on sheets that I was told had been washed right before I moved here. We quickly went over to the pharmacy and got me some lice shampoo and all was well. Then we started exchanges with the Assistants to the President. During this, we did Book of Mormon finding with some of the temple Sisters in our district. An Indian man and woman contacted all of us, and we naturally split into groups. Sister Amott and I ended up contacting the Indian man together, which is what we call a Jehovah's Witness split (because it's an Elder and a Sister, get it?). We were just a few feet away from eachother though! Anywho, we taught him all about the temple and he was super interested. Then the old nickname came back to haunt me... "Ken." I thought that I had killed this nickname off when I left Valenciennes, but no... It has started to follow me to new places. He yelled to his female friend that the other missionaries were talking to and then they both just kept calling me that. They asked me where my "Barbie" was and said that I needed to marry a girl that looked like Barbie. Anyway, this whole Ken fiasco took up even more of our spiritual contacting time, so that was kind of a waste. Anyway, we eventually set something up with them for a later date and then left. Later, we all contacted a really old grandma on a cane and walked with her to her house. Didn't really go anywhere, but she said that I looked like Prince Charming, which is a nickname I am not complaining about! Then we all went to District Council together and all was well. 

The next day was pretty relaxed. We met with an old investigator who is serious now about quitting drugs and finding Christ in his life, so that was cool. I think we can go places with him and I'm excited to help him change his life around for the better. 

Friday was definitely the day that Autumn started in France. The weather dropped like none other. Our day started at the temple. We only stopped by for about 10 minutes, but what a good 10 minutes that was! Elder Cook and his wife had also decided to make a surprise visit on their way to Switzerland with their bodyguards. They were the only visitors there at that time, so we were able to shake his hand and talk with him for a little bit. It was so neat! We also met back up with the Indian guy we had contacted earlier this week, Kavish, to have lunch with him. He's interesting lol, but really nice, so that was fun! 

Saturday was Julien's baptism! I experimented with my cookie making, by using a jar of pre-prepared cookie ingredients that they sell at the store. Already measured out and everything. Let's just say that I ended up having to add a ton of flour, as well as vanilla extract and brown sugar, but they ended up being my best cookies yet! Success! The baptism itself only had missionaries and one member family show up. It was kind of sad, but went really well! The font part of the baptism was a little odd, because he was shaking his entire body, to represent a change of being (I'm assuming). Because of this, it was really hard for the baptiser to get him all the way submerged under the water and they had to redo it. He started doing it again the 2nd time, but the baptiser wasn't going to do it a 3rd time and made sure that he became fully submerged. Everyone started laughing during this. It was just so odd! I've never seen anything like it and it's really hard to explain. The Spirit was definitely there though, and that's the most important!

Sunday was good! For starters, the translation microphone hadn't been charged, so we couldn't translate for the visitors. The Ward leaders were all apologizing to us for this, but Sister Montalvo and I were so relieved haha. Later that night, Elder Bunker and I got to go on splits with members. We had the musical soiree at the temple that a few investigators were supposed to go to, but I had promised Wandrille that I would go watch him perform with the choir for Catholic mass. It was really good for me, because I got to meet two members of the ward, Nicolas and Mary Pichon, and I got to experience my first mass! This was the highlight of my week. I had been told that France wasn't very religious anymore... Which in some areas is true. Versailles on the other hand is VERY Catholic. There were over 1,000 people in this church, for this one session of mass. They all knew every prayer and song by heart. It was really cool to watch and experience. Nicolas and his wife had been to mass many times before, so I just followed their lead. Wandrille was the lead choir boy and even gave a solo in front of all those people. It was really cool. This little 13 year old girl totally judged me when I didn't put any money in the tithing bowl though. Oh well. Towards the end, the Priest made a joke about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. It wasn't even offensive and we actually felt honored that he decided to talk about our church (I don't think he watched this past General Conference, however, because he didn't use our correct name smh). Well, after all was said and done, Wandrille came up to us and apologized so much. He's such a respectable kid. He said that the Priest doesn't usually make jokes like that and that he was really sorry. It was still such a cool experience, probably partly because the high amount of incense burning got us all a little high, that I'll never forget. Then we went back to the temple to retrieve Elder Bunker... His night didn't go so well. None of our investigators had gone and he was stuck there with other missionaries. 

I don't know yet what today has in store for us, but I'm sure it's going to be good! 

My invitation for you this week is to not be so quick to judge others. Going to mass really opened my eyes as to how religious some parts of the World still are and how everyone chooses to worship differently. It really stood out to me and the Pichon couple how much of the World still keeps Christ in their hearts, even if they show it in a different way than us. For me, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true church on the Earth. I have a firm testimony in this, and thus it is why I worship the way I do. Allow others to worship as they want. Go experience their worship and learn more about it. Then invite them to see how you worship as well! That's what we are doing with Wandrille right now and I can't wait to see what he thinks of it next week. Respect goes both ways. To be Christlike, we have to understand others and love them unconditionally. God wants us to invite people to come unto Him. That's one of the reasons that I am here. That's why we have missionary work today. SO GET OUT AND INVITE! Learn more about your own beliefs and the beliefs of others. We are here on this Earth to learn and grow, so I invite you all to do just that; and love every second of it! 

Love,

Elder Connor Anderson

New convert here in Versailles. We are preparing him for the temple. 

This is the same guy that gave us pizza last week. He and his mom were staying at the Temple all of last week and invited us to come eat with them and some French Polynesians here and they are the coolest!!! So we ate with them at the temple!

We teamed up with the Sister missionaries to do some finding. It was cool because we

taught this Indian man about the temple

 

Baptisms of Julien and another investigator!

Cool kid we met on the bus named Wandrille. He's a devout Catholic, but very cool!

2nd Rende-vous  

Julien at his baptism

Our neighbors brought us some Halloween foods, because I made them cookies. It says "We have the best neighbors, here in Versailles."

Splits with members to visit see Wandrille sing at Mass

Picture sent to my mom from nice visitor at church

Recent convert from Lille who bought me the breakfast and came to the Gare to say bye to me when I left. She came to the temple today to see us and tour the visitor's center.

62nd P-Day (55th in France)

Hey everybody! I don't have a ton of time today, but I'm still going to give you the ultimate run down on what happened this week. 

After all of the P-Day events from last week, we winded Monday down with a last visit to my favorite member, Chantal's, house. She made us dinner and we ate it with her and her grandson. I'm going to miss her a lot! At the end, she bisoued me (the French kiss on the cheek). Each time I leave a ville, I realize that some old lady in that area won't let me leave without a hug or a kiss. Technically not allowed, but they kind of surprise me with it lol. I'm going to miss Valenciennes!

The next day lots of members wanted to meet, because they found out that I was leaving. The only problem was that I still had all my packing to do. Anyway, I still decided to see them all. The first item on the list, however, was watching the last session of general conference with our district in our pajamas. So, we headed up to Lille and watched it. We all brought breakfast foods and shared them as we watched. It was actually really fun! Then we changed and came back to teach Steven (our investigator with a baptismal date). My companion wanted me to be there to teach the Law of Chastity, because apparently I'm nicer with it and I don't offend people (Steven's gay, in case any of you are wondering). It went really well and he accepted to live it, so that he can be baptized! I'd call that a success! Then we met up with Zineb (our new convert) for one last time. She was sobbing the whole time, saying how I was the first missionary to teach her and how I was the witness at her baptism. It was so sad and she said that she'd come down to the temple ASAP if that meant seeing me, so I guess my relocation isn't such a bad thing. I think it will also get Steven, Felisa (my Chilean BFF investigator), and even Sylvie from Epinal, to want to pay their own way as well. Obviously I shouldn't be their sole purpose for coming to the temple, but if I help them get there, I think that's a win! Then we went over to visit Teodora and Joel (some of our investigators). She was really sad that I was leaving and gave me a gift from her home country, as well as some cake. It was so nice of them. Then I was packing until 2 in the morning. That was the worst haha. 

The next morning I woke up at 5 to get ready and to Paris on time. 3 hours of sleep definitely takes its toll on people. I was out of it! Ana Gabriel, a recent convert in Lille came to the train station to see me and a couple of others off. She even bought me breakfast. I love her! Such a cool woman! Once to Paris, I met up with my new companion, Elder Bunker, and then we were off to Versailles. The mission had just taken away the Versailles Elders' car last transfer, so we had to get me a Navigo for public transport... It's super fun to have to manage public transport again haha. Upon arrival, I unpacked in my own, personal walk-in closet. The apartment here is so nice and super close to the temple, so that's a win! Immediately after unpacking, we taught an investigator the Plan of Salvation. Elder Bunker is only in his 3rd transfer, so it's interesting "polishing" a missionary and having someone so young again. But he's really good at French with where he's at, so that's nice! Then we went to the temple and I SAW SISTER MAYA ETHINGTON! For those of you who don't know, we were like BFFs throughout high school and then she got called to the same mission last year. I hadn't seen her since my farewell in Utah until this week, so it was over a year of waiting. It was awkward and felt weird to not be able to hug her, but a handshake had to suffice. We didn't get a pic though at this time, because she was too busy, but I was determined to get one ASAP. 

Thursday started off with us getting lost after taking a wrong bus... Took us like 45 minutes in the opposite direction, so that was fun. My companion is also used to having had the car here, so navigating Paris for us without a car is fun lol. The rest of the day involved a lot of contacting, which is so different here than anywhere else in France. People are definitely a lot more open, so that's nice. 

Friday included a lot of finding, but had a good ending! And I got to see Maya at the temple for a 2nd time, but she was too busy again for a picture :(. I was still determined though. We eventually had a rendez-vous with our baptismal date, Julien, at the church. He's way cool and brought us a cake. His baptism is this coming Saturday, so that's exciting. Then we had ward council. The Sister Missionaries in Versailles came as well. It definitely helped me get to know the ward better. They are all really nice and it was good to get to meet the leaders. 

Saturday, I put my cookie baking skills to the test! We visited a potential family that they had previously found to try to get them re-interested. Well, it worked! The wife wasn't home, but the dad was! They had not been responding to our texts since September 23rd and we thought it was because they were annoyed with us. Turns out that the dad was stabbed around the heart in Paris on that day and he had been in the hospital until last week. What an experience I'm sure that was! Anyway, the cookies made him really happy and later that night his wife called us and said that they'd come to Julien's baptism this coming Saturday and also church the day after. I'd call that a success. Then we went to the temple, where I saw one of my mission BFFs, Elder Crane, with his family. We took some pics and chatted. It was fun! 

Sunday was intense. The ward put me in charge of translating for the English natives and/or tourists in the congregation for sacrament meeting. I, luckily, got to switch off with a Versailles Sister, but it's definitely not my favorite experience to have. I gotta suck it up though, because I get to do it every Sunday LOL. I have to listen intentively to every speaker, translate what they say in my mind, and then whisper the translation in English (like an ASMR video) into a microphone for all of these people wearing headsets as fast as I can. There were two African women that I definitely got lost during their testimonies. Those two translations of mine were a mess, but the other ones went really well, so I'm proud! The rest of church went well and I really love this ward already! I'm so excited to work with them! Later that night, we met with a woman that we contacted via areabook finding. She agreed to meet at the temple so that we could give her a temple tour thing with the Sisters there. She was awesome! She loved it all. She's from the Ukraine and there was a Sister there from the Ukraine as well, so they were able to speak Russian and French to each other. She didn't have a lot of time that night, but she said that she'd come back with her 22 year old son later this week for more of a tour! I'm so excited. She was so cool! And I FINALLY got my picture with Sister Ethington. Look out for this in my album. 

My invitation for this week to y'all is to re-read conference talks that you didn't originally think much about. I promise you will find something super special/important in it that you didn't find when you first heard it. 

I love you all! Thanks for all the love each week! Till next week!

Love,

Elder Connor Anderson

Aparment in Valenciennes

Paris Temple grounds

Zineb and her kids

French family that bought us a pizza! Don't even know them, but their son just got back from his mission!

Finally a picture with Soeur Maya Ethington!!

Saw Elder Crane (BFF) with his family at the temple

Gift that Teodora gave me before leaving Valenciennes

Valenciennes apartment

Paris Temple

 Me with Teodora & Joel

Pizza truck by the temple

Street art in Valenciennes

 Temple

Rue des Missionnaires

Christus statue at the Temple

Watching general conference with the Lille district

Leaving Valenciennes-- heading to Versailles

61st P-Day (54th in France)- Transferred to Versailles!

Hey, everyone! Some big changes are coming for me-- I'm being transferred to Versailles and I am so excited! It will definitely be a huge (and maybe challenging) change, but I'm ready for it. I will be living so close to the temple which is such a blessing! Make sure you read next week to hear about what it's like there!

Monday night I spent doing a recent convert in Lille's English homework for her lol. Look out for a screenshot of that in my album.

On Tuesday we took our district pics, because it's the end of the transfer. Look out for those in my album!

The only interesting thing that happened the next day was that I did another member's English homework. It took a while, as I did a job resume all for her. This included things such as a cover letter, etc. Why are people coming to me for this stuff? I don't really know, but it's always during our dinner hour, so I don't mind. Look for pics of this in my album as well. 

Thursday we did our last set of exchanges. I was put with Elder Crane. We went up to Mons for a few different reasons. First, we taught our investigator, Felisa, and gave her a baptismal interview. She's definitely ready! I'm so excited for her. Then we met up with other missionaries over acai bowls. It was so good! After that, I had previously gotten permission to artifically bring my hair back to its natural color, so I decided to go to the professionals to ensure that it would be done correctly. It was a disaster and ended up being so bad lol. I would've stayed and demanded that they fix it, but we were already late to a dinner/teaching appointment with a member family and our new investigator, Steven, so we had to go. Look out for pics of their terrible job in my album. NEVER. AGAIN. Haha. Then we went to the meeting and we taught him the Plan of Salvation. It went really well, so that was nice. 

Friday morning Elder Crane and I went to the store to get a box dye to correct this mess. Well, that ended up being really terrible as well, as you'll see in my album. So, I put Facebook to the test and decided to search up homemade remedies to fix the problem. I then concocted a mixture of baking soda, head and shoulder's shampoo, and dish soap to make into a hair mask. I left it on for 30 minutes, and voila! It was perfect. My hair is fried, but back to normal so I am blessed! I'm an 19 old male and I'm better than the professionals; what a scam haha. You can look for pictures of the finished result in my album as well. After that nightmare was over, we went back up to Lille for a lunch appointment with some members over there. They fed us so much and they're awesome! I love people. 

The highlight of my day on Saturday was GENERAL CONFERENCE. We headed up to Lille to watch it with the rest of the take, buying snacks beforehand of course. Because of the time difference, we were only able to watch one session before curfew, so we had to wait until Sunday for the rest!

Sunday morning we watched the Women's session (because of technical difficulties) with our investigator, Steven, at our church in Valenciennes. We also watched some mormon messages and it went really well. Then he followed us up to Lille for the rest. There we watched the Saturday afternoon session with the stake. It was so good. After that, we headed back to Valenciennes to eat dinner and watch the Sunday morning session with an in-active family, the Gillots. It was nice to watch it with them, as they obviously haven't watched Conference in a long time haha. They also fed us and it was a good night!

Today we found out that I'm moving to Versailles. After this, we went up to Lille to do an escape room with the Elders up there. It was Sherlock Holmes inspired and it was so fun! Look for pics of this in my album as well. Now I'm scrambling to get packed/write emails!

I encourage you all to watch General Conference! We received some wonderful council/revelation that I know can help everyone! After watching it, think of one thing you can change in your life. I know you won't regret it and you'll be able to see the difference that it makes in your life. 

I love you all! Thanks for all the emails! 

Elder Connor Anderson