Week 10 - Things I Love About France So Far

Reese! You're a missionary!! I'm so excited for you!!

Fam-- this week was a great chance for me to work on one of my goals, being happy in any circumstance. We were given a lot of times where things didn't go the way we wanted or planned and we had to choose how to respond to other people's choices. Even though it wasn't perfect and there were things we were disapointed about I really worked and Sr. Hopkins really worked on being happy no matter what. I wasn't perfect but I know I gave it my all and I really tried to not let other people's choices affect how I was feeling and it is incredibly freeing. Heavenly Father knows what we're doing and He knows what they're doing and He is in control.

Sermon over.

This week! I don't really want to give a rundown of everything that happened day by day so I'll just send my general thoughts and some highlights!

We went to Azay-le-Rideau on Monday, it was a beautiful day, beautiful cathedral and best of all it was FREE becuase we're residence of France. AWESOME. I'll send pictures.

I found Dr Pepper in the foreign aisle of the grocery store, next to the Old El Paso tortilla chips and soy sauce. Didn't buy any but had to laugh.

The Elders got some nuts from a brother in our branch (the one who cornered me the other week to tell a very complicated story about his Danish history that I did not understand) and they passed a bunch of them off to us. Apparently there's a park nearby where people can just pick up these nuts off the ground and then you just cut off part of it and bake them. We tried it one night- "memory or no memory?" They were weird but it was fun! Also did it because I've been trying to take a picture of something everyday and I figured what better than with some random nuts someone in our branch found in a park!? [Note: I think she's talking about chestnuts]

My personal study has been really great this week, I've been focusing a lot on change and I really liked what one person said - I dont remember who it was exactly but basically the gist was that who we are is the sum total of all of our thoughts, actions and desires for good or bad and the moment we have a good thought, action or desire we are changed. It might take a while to see that change but we are constantly making little movements in one direction or another. That really resonated with me because it's easy to get frustrated at not seeing big changes when you have big desires but it all comes down to faith that we can be changed and faith that when we do good things we become better no matter what.

Bourges Cathedral

On Friday we had our District Meeting in Bourges, where the district leader and his companion are. It turned into an ALL day affair- got an early train because the other ones wouldn't get us there on time, then had the meeting and then missed our train back so we ended up having to wait another hour :( But Bourges is a beautiful city and they have a really incredible Cathedral. When we got back to the Tours Gare [train station] we found 10 euros on the ground and had a little moral crisis about what to do with it. We wanted to leave it but one elder was adamant that we should take it and buy Kebabs. The crisis was resolved by calling the APs haha they said we could take it as long as we'd made an effort to figure out who it belonged to and we only used it to buy kebabs and then reported how good the kebabs were. hahaha they were very good.

I don't know if I told you guys this but I had my first kebab actually like my second week here!! It was soooo good!! I get it now.

We had our first branch mission coordination meeting because we have a branch mission leader, SO excited to get to work more easily with the members and with the branch president.

Antonia came to church again yesterday and loved it again! We are going to try and set a baptismal date with her this week!

This week gave me a lot of opportunites to grow and that's not very fun, but I'm really grateful and I'm really working on being grateful for this amazing experience. On that note, please enjoy the following list of things I love about France so far. (another thing Sr Hopkins and I have been working on when we get discouraged)

- public transport is great and super reliable

- we will NEVER run out of boulangeries/patisseries to try

- the buildings are incredibly beautiful and unique

- the toilet paper is pink

- cashiers cannot understand the concept of swiping our debit cards (they stick it in a slot at the bottom of the machine because theirs all have a chip or something in them)

- BAGUETTES, we had some AMAZING ones in Bourges at our district meeting. 

- castles

- personal study, not only in France but its something I'm very grateful for

- all our furniture is from IKEA

Yeah thats a pretty good place to leave it off, I love you all so so so much, thanks for everything you are wonderful.

Love,

Soeur Hansen


Pictures from Chateau Azay-le-Rideau: