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.
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