This has been a LONG week haha. Last I talked to you guys, I was getting ready to head out of the MTC. Since then, some sad goodbyes have happened but also some happy hellos.
In the last few days of the MTC I made a cool connection. Elder Duran (the dwarf Elder) was "best buddies" in school with my friend, Conner Renfro (from Alta). He started crying when we made the connection and wanted me to stay with him. Too bad it was my last day in the MTC. It was rough. Other than that, my last day was good because I was excited to get out of the MTC haha. I have been excited for France for months!!!
Cut to the day of departure. We had the best flight plan! We got the whole night to sleep and then we left the MTC at noon the next day, so we had the whole morning to pack. The packing was stressful enough, but then the traveling was chaotic haha. The bus ride out of the MTC was about 10 minutes long. Then we had to haul all of our luggage to the Provo Front Runner station (Two 50lbs suitcases and two 40lbs carryons). After we took the train to Salt Lake, we hauled it all up a huge staircase to get on the Trax. The trax took us to the airport and the last step was hauling it all to Terminal 2. Once I got my bags checked I was so relieved haha. Then we got to call home. It was so good. On my flight I sat next to a nice guy from Farmington. He served in Hong Kong and reminisced to me all of his mission adventures for about an hour or two into the flight. He also promoted his weight loss supplements that he's traveling to France to sell. I really wanted to sleep, but soon realized this wouldn't happen unless I fell asleep while he was still talking haha. At least he was really nice, but I needed the sleep.
After the 11 hour flight to Paris, we landed. Jet-lagged and all. The mission president, his assistants, and his wife were all there to greet us and take us to the mission office. They all took different cars and we all quickly surrounded the wife's, because she was the least intimidating. I got lucky and got to go with her. Boy, are European cars small! She said she had one of the bigger cars that they sell in France, and I still had to duck my head down the whole 30-minute car ride. Although I will say that European cars are all pretty nice. BMWs, Audi's, and Mercedes are all common around here. They're not considered luxury over here, but they definitely are to America's standards.
After we got to the mission office we were greeted by the senior office missionaries. They are so cute. They're literally like the grandparents of the mission. They prepared a table of French hand foods. It was so good. They conversed with us and everything. Then the President pulled us in to do interviews and take pictures. After that we did an "activity" with the assistants and the some of the young office missionaries. They took us to the metro and didn't tell us what for. We got off and went to this really pretty park. They told us that that park is where Orson Pratt (I think) consecrated the grounds of France for missionary work. After we got there, we got to the hill where he consecrated it. We were technically in Versailles, but the hill viewed the city of Paris. The assistants and office missionaries related the place to Lehi's vision. The skyscrapers in Paris represented the building with all the mocking people in it, the small fence on the edge of the hill was the iron rod, etc. It was cool. After they gave us time to ponder, they paired us up with an AP. To do what you ask? PROSELYTE and hand out a Book of Mormon to a stranger in the streets!!!! I had just got there and was way too jet lagged to really do anything. But I had no choice. I wanted my comp to do most of the talking, which he agreed to under one circumstance... I start the conversation. Oh no. So I decided to just go for it. I obviously scouted out nicer looking individuals to talk to. The first one was a 20ish year old girl. She was really nice and said she understood my French pretty well which made me feel good. She obviously felt uncomfortable and texted her friend to come over and get her out of the situation. Her friend came over with her boyfriend. Once they saw we were missionaries, they decided not to help her out. The friend actually asked for a Book of Mormon. After we gave it to her, she started making out with the boyfriend quite a bit. Like a lot. They didn't stop for the next 10 minutes of our conversation with her. And they were standing right next to us haha. She was nice and accepted the BoM. After her we had 5 more minutes until the train was coming to pick us up, so the guy I was with suggested we get one more person. I scouted out a nice looking about 50ish year old woman. Aren't women 10x easier to talk to? haha. She was saying that she was interested in religion, and would definitely look ours up. After she saw that our website was "www.mormon.org", she looked up and said, "Oh, you're the Mormons?" She then proceeded to tell us that she knows everything about our religion, and even though we're a good one, we're not the true one. She accepted the BoM though and was really nice. I definitely got lucky with the people I chose to talk to that day.
After that we went to the mission home for dinner. It's actually a really nice home right in the heart of Versailles. It's in a neighborhood that's super clean and filled with mansions. The Mission President, his wife, and their kids (they're a young family for being retired) all came to greet us. They're really nice. Although, they brought a native French woman who has kids and a husband from their homeward in Santa Barabara to France with them to serve as their maid and tutor. IDK how they convinced a middle aged woman to leave her fam, but she did. After we had this dinner at their house we all went to a hotel for the night. It was so nice and modern. The next morning the APs, the MP, and his wife all showed up to take us on a surprise trip to the temple. We only got to be there for 1 hour (and it was just the visitor's center), but it was cool nonetheless. The Paris temple (even though I just saw the outside and the gardens) is so beautiful! After that we went into Paris to get our assignments and find out who our companion is for the next 12 weeks (even though we already knew because they accidentally uploaded it to our emails that morning haha).
The church was right in the heart of Paris and super cool and old. I'll post lots of pics below. After we did this dumb orientation we had lunch with our trainer and then got our luggage to go to our respective areas with. The journey had just begun!
Also, we're not allowed to go to big tourist areas in Paris unless invited for meals there with investigators/members, just because of terrorism. So, the closest I'll probably ever get to the Eiffel Tower is that park in Versailles where I could barely see it in the distance... UNLESS any of you wonderful people would care to take me and my comp to dinner in the city haha.
I got put with Elder Asato (from Kearns) in an area called Epinal. The very first thing Elder Asato told me was that last week he got chased by a possessed man for about 30 mins without his companion in Epinal. Epinal is about a 2 1/2 hour bus ride SouthEast of Paris (sort of by Germany). Epinal is actually such a "small" ville (even though it has tons of people in it), that we had to take 2 trains to get here. And the second train was this sketch one where like a 17 year old African guy and his brother sat next to us watching Anime on their phones and then proceeded to go into the neighboring bathroom for about 30 mins to smoke weed and drink about 5 cans of beer haha. After they got high they decided to stop watching Anime and talk to us about religion. It was definitely interesting. At least they were nice?
After we got there, we hauled all my luggage to a car that was waiting for us to take us to the apartment. The driver's name is Ahlin (pronounced Allen). He is a native French man (71 years old and gay) and one of our investigators. He used to be a member back in the day, but was excommunicated. He claims that a letter from the church came in the mail saying he was excommunicated and he never found out why haha. He's working back towards baptism though, so that's cool. He apparently also loves the missionaries, and we visit him for dinner once a week. Sometimes he also takes us out on P-Day. He has no family except for a pampered little dog, so he likes having people over. On the short car ride up to the apartment, he mocked my French skills lol. Sorry I'm not good yet, France.
Our apartment (pictures attached below) is right above the church building because the church building is on the bottom floor of what used to be an apartment complex. The church is tiny and so is the apartment haha. I didn't really know what to expect to be living in, so it didn't really strike me how bad our luck was until I saw other missionaries' apartments. But hey, I really can't complain. I'm in a first world country, I get electricity, wifi, and warm water. It's not a bad set up, it's just kinda crammed.
After we got dropped off, I was ready to CRASH. So much traveling in such a short amount of time not to mention I'm in a place I've never been to before, not understanding anything going on around me haha. I was so worn out. Luckily, my trainer allowed me to go right to sleep when we got to the apartment. It was only 8:30-ish (2 hours before bed time), but if we would've even tried to go out and work we would've gotten nowhere. Which is good, because I know other companionships that went right to work when they got there. At this point I didn't really know Elder Asato that well, but I was glad that he allowed me to sleep. Some missionaries are so "by the book" that they torture themselves and it really doesn't get them anywhere.
The next morning we went for a jog. It was dimly lit so I couldn't see too much, but it's a pretty town. I learned that Elder Asato's last companion was leaving the field, so his last transfer they didn't do that much work. He says he regretted it so much, and since I'm a new missionary he's going to help improve my work ethic as well as his own. He's been in the town for a whole transfer before I got with him, and he still hadn't really been anywhere because they only proselyted on the same few roads for small periods of time. So this time he is determined to explore the town way more by doing more work. He also said that he was scared to be a trainer because he's never done it before, but so far he's doing great.
After the jog, we had a district meeting in Nancy (our neighboring city... and it's huge!). After another 1 hour long train ride to get there (neighboring villes here are really spread apart haha... Luckily the church reimburses us for these $50 euro train tickets haha), I was able to meet my district. 3 companionships total, so it's pretty small. All the other missionaries are stationed in Nancy, so we are the only ones in Epinal. The Elders in Nancy have the nicest apartment ever. It's on the 12th floor of this skyscraper with a huge wall that's all windows. Since they're so high, they get a good view of the city. Tons of cathedrals, churches, etc. SO COOL! They have a lot of space to move around and everything. After talking to them about it though, they said they've had NICER apartments in the mission and that that one is one of the worst. Boy, was I jipped haha?
After I met with the Elders (one of which is 7' 5" (no joke.. pics below)), we met up with the Sister companionship at the church. The church building in Nancy is HUGE and looks just like the ones in Utah. It's the only church in all of France with a gym and lots of outside grounds. We had a little lesson and we ate lunch there. It was fun! My district is awesome. After that me and my comp had to get back to Epinal, so we said our goodbyes until next week.
The next day Elder Asato decided that I needed a 15 Euro bus pass (our boundaries are huge and we don't have cars in my area, so traveling is expensive but mandatory). So we went and got one. After that he took me on a tour of downtown Epinal. It's so pretty and mostly clean (I say mostly because people here get paid by the government to have dogs/cats (there is a bad stray problem) and so they adopt lots of them but never clean up their poop on the sidewalks!! Everyone just walks into it. Gross haha). Epinal is definitely most similar to Daybreak back home. There's a big river/lake in the middle, everyone is outside walking their pets, and people just seem to be really happy here. Granted, it is several hundred years older than Daybreak lol. Pics attached below also.
After our tour, we came back for study time. Study time was good, but I was dreading what was next. We were travelling to Ahlin's home for dinner and a discussion. I barely know French and can't even understand what anyone's saying haha. How am I supposed to converse with anyone? But I knew it was for the best.
We got to Ahlin's house (small and very modern... only colors are black, red, and white) and we were greeted by his annoying, pampered little dog haha. We sat down and had a short discussion with him before dinner. He wanted to know Mormon's heritage. So we discussed that. Afterwards, we ate what he served which was: raw ham and raw sausage for the appetizers (he literally cut open a thawed out version of each and served them)... I almost threw up haha. The smell was awful and so was the taste... And he gave us a lot as he WATCHED us eat. The dog was jumping all over me, asking for some... But he was watching me so intently I couldn't. I just had to eat it. If I get some sort of disease and die from uncooked meats over here, you know who to blame haha. I was so excited to see dinner after what I just went through. It was (thankfully) cooked turkey, but it was still a little hard from being frozen lol. Then we had vegetables which were probs the best thing of the night. I think he wanted us to stay awhile, because he didn't prepare anything before hand and every time we finished what he gave us he got back up to make something else. We ended up staying over for 4 whole hours (in the MTC they say that dinner appointments should be no more than 1 1/2 hours LOL). After we had the turkey and vegetables, he served us bread and gave us multiple cheeses to try. After that, he said he was making "Belgium waffles". I was so excited. My palette needed something good after all that it had gone through tonight. By saying he was "making" Belgium Waffles, he really meant that he was getting frozen waffles (Kinda like Eggos) out and putting them in the toaster for us. HHAAHAHA. Oh well, they were the best thing of the night nonetheless. At least he's a nice guy who's definitely trying to serve us, even though I can't understand half of what's he's saying. After those long 4 hours he drove us back to our apartment and that was it for the night. My brain was fried from trying to understand a 4 hour long conversation. The only thing I understood the whole night was the American jazz music that he played on the speakers (jazz is his favorite genre, so I might be hearing it quite a bit while I'm here). Ah, life is good though. Really, the people here are really nice. I just wish I understood what they were saying to me haha.
On Saturday and Sunday we watched General Conference. It was really good too! Our apartment is right above the church, so we get the church wifi. The Branch President gave us permission to just watch all the sessions from our room which was nice because we didn't have to dress up. Sunday morning, however, we did have 1 member come to the church to watch it, so we had to let her in and watch it with her. She's this little old grandma and she was really nice to me. She kinda looked and dressed like a smaller version of the babysitter in The Cat in the Hat.
Well today is P-Day. I think we're going grocery shopping right now and getting ready for the rest of the week. Whatever cool things we do today will be in my email next week, so look out for that. Also, all pictures will be sent in some following e-mails, so wait for those as well. They're pretty!!! :)
Thanks for all of your words of encouragement and just emailing me in general. I appreciate all of it.
Elder Anderson
