Family!!
I honestly don't know how to write this email, so many things!
First off - my birthday was great! Super weird that it was just a week ago, I have been 20 for a week, when did this happen!? We had a little birthday celebration after soirée familiale on Monday night- realized we didn't have anything to light the candles with so we knocked on a neighbor's door... at 10 pm. He probably though we were crazy but it's fine, we kind of are.
Wednesday we had our district meeting in Bourges- it's a super cool city, small but beautiful! And I found the church even though I'd only been there once and only had to call for help one time! Counting it as a success. That night when we got back to Tours there was a protest by the Hotel de Ville [city hall] in the center of town which knocked out one of the biggest bus/tram stops and everything was all mixed up and honestly getting home was a miracle but it all worked out!
We got a couple texts from President about staying safe this week and using good judgment on what areas we go to. Friday night we were supposed to head home or stay home if we didn't have any rendez-vous, we're all being well looked after, but I can't imagine what it must be like in Paris right now.
We had our RDV with "E" (our miracle amie) on Friday night and she is absolutely awesome and so prepared! Her boyfriend was there and apparently said that he wasn't going to join us, but ended up staying for the whole lesson! We had Soeur Kamegawa with us, who served a mission in Taihiti, and she was great!
"A" came to church on Sunday- we still haven't been able to really teach her again but she's great and we're just trying to help her feel loved. We taught her after church with Soeur Taylor. Things are good in Tours! Missionary work! Wooh!
I couldn't decide whether to share this next story or not but I feel like I need to talk about it just because it's kind of not good... I don't know. it just sort of adds to the extreme highs and extreme lows of this week.
We were waiting at a bus stop by a sort of busy intersection and as Soeur Anderson and I are standing there a man (who looked slightly intoxicated at 3 in the afternoon) walked into traffic and was hit by a car. Right in front of us. It was like slow motion and the worst thing I've probably ever seen. The car wasn't going too fast so he didn't get thrown or anything, but he just hit his head very hard and it was really really bad. The police and the ambulance showed up about five minutes later but that was one of the longest five minutes of my life. The people in the cars all around were absolutely incredible to watch though, and that's really why i wanted to share this I guess. They just all jumped into action. The guy driving the car was on his phone immediately and a couple people who looked like they had some medical training were helping and doing what they could for the man who was hit. Other people right around started redirecting traffic and were on their phones as well. People are really amazing. In the face of the most horrible things- like terrorist attacks or a car accident- they can just work together and cooperate in the most basic and perfect way. That's what I've been thinking a lot about and trying to remind people of this week as we've been talking with them about what happened in Paris this week. Humans are really much better than we often give them credit for being.
That's my deep thought for today.
Love you all so so so much. Thanks for everything you do!
Soeur Hansen
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| "Flan - a mission tradition. You're supposed to eat the flan in one gulp/bite. I don't know exactly how to describe it. I was terrible but I tried! it was definitely a memory." |
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| "Birthday Kebab" |
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