Week 8 - "Oh yeah!! We do that too!"

FAM! 

I'm starting to understand Erik and McKay's complaints about writing this weekly email. I want to tell you about all these things and about my life and how I'm doing but it's so hard to try and figure out how to do it in a few paragraphs.

Last Monday feels like it was an eternity ago - it RAINED and RAINED and RAINED. And the ATM ate my personal debit card. Tough day. We wandered up and down a street for a little while trying to find a store that a member had recommended for buying boots for Sr. Hopkins, but eventually gave up and headed home for dinner and to get ready for a rendez-vous. Which we ended up having to move because it got too late or I'm not entirely sure why but we had to. We live WAY out in Chambray-les-Tours which is pretty suburban and all the houses have big gates so we can't really go knock doors right around where we live and it was raining so no one was out, and we didn't have time to go into town or go to where there are apartments we can knock and get back before 9, so we ended up walking around a neighboorhood trying to find a couple people from the area book that we could do pass-bys. Didn't come of anything but we tried and we walked and we talked about everything and we got very wet and it was a good night. 

Tuesday - District meeting! It was raining still but the church is really close to where we live, one of the perks, and we had a great meeting. Our district is the elders from Tours (who work in our branch and share our area) and the elders from Bourges. They're all great. We had a little lesson, practice teaching and then RACLETTE! The elders from Bourges have a raclette machine and it was amazing. Raclette is also the name of the cheese - you melt it in these little individual I don't know how to desribe this Dad I'm handing it off you to, but you melt the cheese, heat up the meat (if you want meat) and then put it all on a baked potato. IT WAS AMAZING and really filling. I ate one potato which took a couple pieces of cheese and then I was STUFFED. I didn't have to eat for like 8 solid hours. We didn't have dinner. It was amazing. The elders from Bourges had brought the potatoes and they cooked like a dozen, I have no idea how but they ate all of them. It was so crazy. SO GOOD. 

Raclette grill (from Wikipedia)

Then we taught a woman named Francine who's really nice but very busy and tired all the time. She owns a flower shop and we taught her there. She's originally from Africa but has lived in France for a long time. We talked about prophets and she prayed with us! Then we got frudged (which is the missionary term for getting stood up I guess, not entirely sure where it comes from) and ended up sitting at a bus stop for about an hour to do language study because we couldn't make the trek all the way home before our next appointment. That night we taught Sonia, she's AWESOME. We talked about the second half of the restoration, Joseph Smith story and shared the Book of Mormon. She told us she would pray and fast about it. We didn't understand the word she used (I guess neither of us expected someone to even know what fasting is) so she started explaining about how to get into a good frame of mind she prays and doesn't eat or drink and we were like "Oh yeah! we do that too!" That was a good lesson. She was making us peanut chicken but we had to leave before we could eat to catch the last tram. :( She told us we have to eat with her next time which we are SO excited for. 

Wednesday - still raining a little, was not feeling great that morning, not entirely sure why but we had to go into town and ended up taking our lunch hour in town, because we were teaching someone who lives WAY out away from chez-nous [our place]. We went and saw the cathedral which was really beautiful. It was sort of weird to see all the empty chairs and hear the shutters of cameras. Beautiful though. 

Then we went to a pâtisserie (first time!) and got a religiuese which was SOOOOOOOOOO good. Also have a picture for that!  

Maren with her "religieuse" which translates literally to "nun"

Then we went to teach Chantal who is an older lady who has had a really hard life - she's lost a lot of people. She LOVES to talk. I didn't understand about 75% of what she said to me but I nodded and acted like I was there haha. I think my acting skills have improved. She had a baptismal date and Srs. Bradley and Hopkins have been working with her for a really long time. We had branch council that night and during our little walk there IT POURED on us. It didn't rain pretty much the whole day but then it poured. I left a nice little puddle on the floor (it was tile don't worry) and a very nice member drove us home. 

Thursday - did some catching up on training because we hadn't really been able to do it this week, taught a woman with the elders (they were passing her off to us) didn't really get what she was saying because a lot of it was about her work, but she's very nice. That ended up being a really tough night. I got a migrane :(

Friday - Weekly Planning. That's a blast... And then we went out and did a little contacting in Centerville [I think she means centre ville, the downtown area - or else she's mysteriously been transferred to the Salt Lake City North Mission]. Met a nice girl who was really interested in what we were doing, and she spoke English which was a tender mercy. She asked probably three times in different ways "you actually really believe these things?" In a totally genuine curious way. We gave her a brochure and she said she'd read it but she's too busy with school to meet with us :( 

Saturday - had a RDV [rendez-vous, appointment] with a woman who is a friend of one of the members. Missionaries have been teaching her for a while, she's had almost all the lessons but from what we gather from her teaching record she believes the things she's been taught but doesn't want to leave her church. We're going to keep trying though. Then we went and had lunch with some members who we'd run into while we were traveling to the RDV. They told us a little about their conversion stories, how they were prepared. It was great. But the frère speaks REALLY fast and I didn't get much other than another migrane:( Tough night after that. 

Sunday - Church was great, they do it differently here with Relief Society/Priesthood first, then Sunday School, then Sacrament. Sunday School was on Isaiah. In French. So I just tried to zone out and not get a migraine. Thankfully I was spared from getting called on. They asked me to introduce myself in Sacrament meeting, which thankfully I was prepared for. I did it really fast and then sat down. Haha our branch is really small but they're great. The ward story teller, Pierre, cornered me and asked me about my last name, and he got VERY excited when I told him it was Danish, and he told me a story and I think it was about his family history but I'm not entirely sure - something about cousins and nobility and English speakers. Don't really know but I nodded and smiled and laughed when he laughed and he said "vous comprenez bien!" and I just said "merci" and tried to keep the fear from my eyes. What made it even better was that Sr. Hopkins, Elder Smith and Elder Oviatte were behind Pierre and at one point they were all looking at me and I could tell they were just aching for me. It was so hard not to just burst out laughing at that point. 

Then we were going to go teach but our ami called and said she had a headache so we moved it, went home, did training catch up, ate, and headed off to visit a building but accidentally missed our stop (I later decided it was not an accident) and were right by an ami that had frudged us this week so we went to see if we could see them, but they weren't home and we were right by a less active who we had talked to that day, we've been planning to go see her and found out yesterday that she was in the hospital last week so we just called her up and said "we're in the neighboorhood!" and she let us come up. We just talked for a while, sang a song for her (Yes, I sang. Of my own free will). And she gave us some chocolate and apples. She was super nice. I felt uplifted talking to her and I hope we helped her a little.

The apples were an answer to prayers though - and the salads we're going to have on Friday for zone conference. We'd talked about eating better during one of my tough nights and then the next day we got apples and the elders told us that if there's leftover salad from zone conference we are in charge of it. Blessings.

We don't eat with the members a ton, so we're in charge of our own food. Usually it's pasta and potatoes. We have potatoes for DAYZZZ. Thankfully Sr. Hopkins is pretty low key about food, and she's like me where we can eat pretty much the same thing day after day and be satisfied. We also have peanut butter!!!! I can have PBJs! It's not really peanut butter but it's sort of the same thing. Srs. Bradley and Hopkins found it in the foreign section, it's African and it's a little grittier than American PB but it's just fine for me! 

We also listen to music all the time. Apparently the music rules I got were for the Poznanskis and the Babins are a lot less strict. We can listen to anything uplifting, which includes TARZAN. Listen to "Son of Man", and "Let it Go", they have remarkable spirtual messages if you look for them. Haha we're crazy but that's okay. Also some Josh Groban and one Mumford and Sons song, "Awake My Soul" which the STLs [Sister Training Leaders] told us was uplifting for them so I guess Mumford works. Haha. 

Since I'm a missionary - Everybody read "The Hope of God's Light" by Elder Uchtdorf. [Here's the link to the conference talk] It's great. It really lifted me this week. One of Sr. Hopkins' favorite topics is light so I've started studying that a little with her. It's great. Finding hope and joy in any circumstance. I've also been working on being grateful - there's another talk by President Uchtdorf about being grateful which I love -- we have TONS of conference Ensigns in our apartment. [Link to "Grateful in Any Circumstances"]

Love all of you! Gonna go be a tourist now!

LOVE 

Soeur Hansen

PS - Here is an excerpt from an email from Soeur Hopkins:

"This week was a week of firsts for Soeur Hansen! I took her to see the Cathedral in Tours and an organist was playing, she tried her first legitimate french pastry, drank fizzy water, ate french cheese and got an accidental bisou [kiss] from a man (that happens more often than you realize). It was a beautiful week full of miracles and moments where the language barrier just seemed to dissolve."

PPS - Maren also sent this picture, with the following note: "Jeanne d'Arc was apparently all over this town." I looked it up, and found that Joan of Arc came to the area to meet Charles VII - "the Dauphin of France" - who was living at the Chateau de Chinon, about 50 km from Tours. The "white armor" and sword that the Dauphin gave her came from Tours. 

"Joan of Arc, coming from Chinon, arrived at Tours on April 21, 1429."

Side note about the Dauphin - when I was in France, we were teaching a man who was a historian and he kept talking about the Dauphin, which means "dolphin." For the life of me I couldn't understand why the French made such a big deal about a dolphin!

Coat of Arms of the Dauphin of France, which was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne.