On Monday we visited an in-active family. They said that the reason that they went in-active was because you have to pay a full 10% tithe to enter the temple and that they believe that Jesus wouldn't have a "monthly membership fee" in His church, because that's not what church is about. This was a hard one for us to try to figure out a response to. We're now going to be visiting them as much as possible, so here's to hoping that their hearts will open back up and that they'll be willing to come to church again. Afterwards we went to a huge mall in Paris, La Defense, to window shop. The stores here are so cool!
On Tuesday, Elder Bunker and I went to the church to set it up for the tri-zone conference that we would be having the next day with Elder Johnson, an area authority. This year the Senior Couples convinced our Mission President to decorate it like Christmas, so it was fun to set up! We visited another in-active that just moved into our ward boundaries from Peru as well. A young adult, around the age of 23 named Willy. He was really confused as to how we got his address LOL, but was really open to chat. He was baptized when he lived in Herriman, Utah for an exchange program a few years ago, and when he left Utah he immediately went in-active. It's a little hard to communicate with him, because he speaks no French and only a little bit of English, but we made it work. We're excited to continue working with him. To finish the night off, we went to a member family's house for dinner. They just moved here from New Caledonia and are so cool! It was a great night and they want us to go over and eat with them once a week from now on! Score haha!
The next day was the tri-zone conference. We had some missionaries spend the night at our apartment, so we all had to wake up early and get ready. We then walked to the temple where the day was started with a temple presentation by Elder and Sister Woods who run the Visitor's Center. Afterwards they provided us with Costco muffins! I hadn't had those in so long, so it was oh so good! Then we all walked to the church for the actual conference. It went on forever, but the lunch was really good. The senior couples prepared a Christmas style lunch for us all, again all from Costco, making us all feel right at home. I'm so grateful for them! We finished the night with a dinner appointment with the Grassers. They're a very interesting couple from America who have lived in Germany ever since they were married. They also own the only pumpkin patch in all of Germany, so that's cool. Anyway, they just moved into an apartment right across from us so now they want to feed us all the time. They're so nice and we're blessed to have them so close (even if they are technically in a different ward boundary, with different missionaries lol). It was a really good day!
Thursday was also a busy day. Some more missionaries stayed with us the previous night, so we had to wake up extra early to see them out. That night we had a dinner appointment with a family from Spain in our ward, the Fraguas. They are so cool! Because Elder Bunker wanted more time to find, we decided to go on splits with the Brussels Zone Leaders who happened to be staying with us that night. I went with Elder Fund, one of my best mission friends, to the dinner appointment. It went so well! I honestly love this ward so much and they all make the best food.
The next day we met up with Fanta, a girl that I contacted last week, at the temple. It went so well and she was super receptive. We're handing her over to the Sisters to teach, but I'm happy that we were able to find someone so cool.
We started Saturday off with our Jehovah's Witness friends, for our weekly 15 minute "bible study" haha. At least they were super nice and complimented me on my style this time. Later we went to the church and set up for a baptism for the Antony ward, which meant that I got to hang with Sister Ethington even more! That was fun. Then we ended the night with a raclette/ping pong activity with some of the young adults in our ward. It was a good day!
Sunday was interesting. I finally met Sister Ethington's grandparents, because they visited the Versailles ward. They were so nice and the grandma was super excited when she found out who I was. In third hour it was announced that we still hadn't been invited to anyone's house for Christmas, and immediately a guy said that he wanted to have us over, because his family likes us a lot! I feel so loved in this Ward. After church, a filmcrew from Salt Lake came out to film a French promotional video with our ward to put on the Church's website. I'm front and center in the clip, so be on the look out for that in about 1-2 months. That night our stake had a Christmas fireside. We missed half of it, but it was really good! We have some musicians in the Paris Stake! It was good to chat with the members afterwards and I really am so grateful for them.
I've done a lot of pondering this week about what type of member I want to be when I return home. One of the main things that I want to do is really get to know the missionaries and love them. I encourage each of you to contact your missionaries and invite them for dinner, take them out for dinner, take them somewhere on P-Day, or even give them a referral of someone to teach that is not yet a member. I promise it will make their day! I'm so grateful for members. Without them, missionary work would be impossible! So get out there and help your missionaries!
Thanks for the well wishes once again! I love you all!
Elder Connor Anderson
Last pic with Elder Crockett
Raclette dinner with the single adults
Pic sent to my mom from a visitor to the Temple
Last pic with Elder Melandon
Family from our ward on splits with Elder Fund
Aurelien from our ward
Baptismal Food
