Maren's Mission to France: Week 12

Hey hey hey family!

I'm not really sure what to write this week so I'll just try and come up with some good stories.

First story: Soiree familial [FHE] Tuesday night. We had the opposite problem from last week - no amis and all members. It was the quirky older member whose French I cannot understand and the branch's most recent convert (who got baptized in July I think) and his grandmother. And us and the Elders. We were on the spiritual thought but couldn't come up with anything all day. Finally we landed on sharing parts of Ether 2&3 and talking about how God answers our prayers. To help with the lesson we stopped and picked up 16 small rocks from the side of the road on our way up to the chapel. Some of the rocks were actually pieces of concrete but it was a half formed idea anyway so it worked. Julian, the recent convert and his grandma, Sister Taylor are from England which meant that 6 of the 7 people who were at FHE were native English speakers so we asked if we could teach in English but our quirky French friend immediately said-- "binnn, nous sommes en France...." [well, we are in France] so we taught in French with the Elders translating haha. We got lost on a little bit of a tangent about Adam and Eve and the Apocrypha which I only understood because I could hear Elder Oviatt translating but all in all it went okay.

The 16 rocks/pieces of concrete have now taken up residence on our balcony.

Second Story: Paris on Wednesday! We had to get up early which was not super fun but I kept reminding myself that it was to go to PARIS so I shouldn't complain. I got to see a bunch of people from my MTC zone which was SO much fun, they split our group in half by the alphabet though so I didn't see my beloved Sr Walton :( . We pretty much spent the entire time in the OFII office [Office of Immigration and Integration - it's where they have to go for residency permits] but as my wonderful trainer said "a bad day in the OFII office is better than a good day anywhere else" (referencing the quote "a bad day in Paris is better than a good day anywhere else"). I got done third or fourth so I went and sat outside (they kicked us out of the building when we were done) with the other people who were done and ended up talking to this elder from New Zealand who wasn't in my MTC zone. I said I knew two things about New Zealand - Flight of the Conchords and The Lord of the Rings - he spent the next 45 minutes telling me EVERY single thing that could possibly be interesting about New Zealand. My personal favorites- there are four sheep to every person, and a kiwi was actually the first in flight, powered flight too not just a glider like the Wright brothers. Haha it was very very interesting and very entertaining. There's something incredible that happens when people talk about things that they're passionate about.

Macaroons!

Other good things from Wednesday - had my first macaroon in France!! SO good. I'm afraid I'm going to become an unstoppable macaroon buying machine now. Worth it.

Third story: we were up in North Tours on Thursday visiting a less active sister-- her name is Soeur Soeur and she's from Tahiti and she's beautiful. And we brought lunch with us because North Tours is an hour and a day away from chez nous so we didn't want to have to go all the way home. We ate lunch in a cemetery. It was nice.

Fourth story: actually happened on Tuesday but I forgot we did transfer prophecies as a district- the scripture I got (it's a process that I will describe at some point) was Doctrine and Covenants 1:2 and 3. Not sure what its prophesying. Haha let me know if you have any ideas.

Yeah basically its just blowing my mind that I'm in my second transfer. This week was another uphill battle but its the good fight right?!