Week 7 - First Week in Tours

Family!!

I'm here! I'm alive! I'm in Tours!

It's been a crazy couple days - once we hung up our phone call at the airport, Sr. Walker and I ran and got some food and then got on the plane. I sat next to a slightly grouchy German man, but I was in the exit row! So much leg room. Blessings. It was a super long flight though, and pretty turbulent so none of us got much sleep. Once we landed we got our bags, met the mission president, dropped our bags in a truck and then they put us on a train with a Livre de Mormon in hand. There were a lot of us all in one car so it was kind of hard to talk to anybody (not to mention it was in French...) The first person I talked to was a Jewish man who was very nice and very not interested, the second was a little Buddhist woman who I talked to for a bit, she gave me this gift bag she had of a bunch of homemade treats of some kind, so I told her she had to take my LdM. She told me she'd give it to someone. Haha interesting start to missionary work. That day we had interviews, ate some sandwiches, did a little contacting (honestly Sr. Asay and I just followed this other sister around and didn't really speak) and then went to a hotel. It takes a while to get 27 people anywhere so we didn't get to the hotel until about 9:00, we showered and passed out. I honestly don't think I've ever been happier to see a bed in my entire life.

The next day we headed to a place the missionaries call Consecration Hill, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where we set some goals. I was feeling super down and discouraged but I tried to just pray and pour my heart out to my Heavenly Father. We were all feeling really freaked out about being in France and the reality of being missionaries so I didn't feel alone. Sr. Walton and Blackhurst came to my rescue again and we pumped each other up. 

Maren's group at Parc de Saint Cloud aka "Consecration Hill" in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
(for any soccer fans, it's not far from the training grounds of the Paris St Germain FC)

Then we headed back into Paris, and then went and saw Notre Dame! 

Then back to the Paris chapel to get our trainers and first cities. My trainer (as you apparently already know...) is Sr. Hopkins, she's from CA and this is her third transfer, so she just got done with her own training and I think she is awesome! 

Maren with her trainer, Soeur Hopkins & Soeur Bradley, who was Soeur Hopkins' trainer
(or, as Maren put it - "me with my mom and my grandma")

Then we took the train out to Tours (about two hours I think, not sure, I fell asleep) getting from the Paris metro to the train with my suitcases and no elevators was an experience I won't soon forget, grateful for random strangers who help Americans. Once we got back to the apartment I got unpacked, settled in a bit, we planned and then it was bedtime again!  We technically live in Chambray-lès-Tours which is SOO far from everything. We take the bus everywhere and there's also a tram in town that we use sometimes. We're both trying to figure this missionary thing out, its going to be an interesting couple months.

The last couple days since we got here we've done a lot of traveling all over tours, we have a huge area. Haven't had the chance to teach very much, we got forgotten by one of our rendez-vous [appointments] and we had conference pretty much all day on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we took a lot of time to finish planning from Friday and to really get to know the area book and figure our people we can go see in the next couple weeks.

Conference was great! We watched the Women's broadcast on the computer in the family history center at the church building, and then went and watched the Saturday morning session live (in the evening for us) with some members. On Sunday morning we went back for the official rebroadcast for the branch because we'd invited some amis ["friends" or investigators], none showed but I got to meet a couple branch members, including Sr. Taylor who's English but has lived in France for 20 years. She's hilarious, she and her grandson (he lives with her and the missionaries baptized him this year- he's probably in his late 20s) live on a farm and have a bunch of dogs, it was really fun to get to know them a little bit.

The LDS chapel in Tours

The live broadcast wasn't working for some reason with the projector or something so we ended up with the members again on Sunday for the sat. evening and sun morning sessions. The Kehli's are awesome, they're both from Algeria originally and both joined the church and served missions. Sr. Kehli is pretty fluent in English and Fr. Kehli knows a lot so we watched conference in English, so so nice. They have two daughters who are super cute.

I'm amazed with how hospitable people are here! We went batting (going to bâtiments [tall apartment buildings] and knocking on doors which used to be called porte-à-porte or porting but now is supposed to be called Coeur-à-Coeur [heart to heart] according to my trainer.. not sure if that made sense but yeah) we just say we're there to pray with them to strengthen their families and apparently a couple elders had been in that bât a couple months ago, but this one woman let us right in and we talked with her for a little while (well, Sr Hopkins did while I sat and just smiled) and she gave us something to drink and then a box of wafer cookies to take with us. SO NICE! She said she knows we don't have much (people usually think we're students or something) and that if she gives to us, God with bless her sons when they're older. AWESOME.

We're going to teach someone the elders found in a little bit (her schedule is a little crazy so Monday was the only day that worked) and then go see an ami (who is fairly new I think) later tonight. Wish us luck! Pray for us!

Keepin' on here in Tours!

Soeur Hansen