Maren's Mission to France: Week 33 - Zone Conference and Paimpont Forest

Hey Fam!

Sorry again about last week- one of those p-days where you have zero control over your plans. France has a day off the day after Easter and everything was closed -- we were going to a member's house that lives really far (which was awesome) and then had a lesson in the afternoon so it was a busy day.

Easter Egg Hunt

Mom asked about easter traditions here, from what I learned the tradition is to give the sister missionaries all the candy you have in your house. We didn't want to take very much from the easter egg hunt (they do it right in France, just buy egg shaped candy and throw it around the yard, no messing with those plastic eggs) so we each got like one or two pieces. Well that wasn't going to fly with the Cheves, so they had their kids (three little boys) give us a bunch of theirs. We tried to to sneakily put some back, so they gave us a twenty pack of Ferrero Rochers. Yeah. Learning that self-control is a skill I need to develop more. We were all a little sick this week from sugar haha.

Tuesday the girl we taught on Monday texted that she wanted to give us back the "big book" because she wasn't interested so that was a little rough. :( but we took it from her, after trying to convince her to keep it anyway, it was in Chinese but we were pretty determined not to go home with that book. We were on the university campus, so there's a decent amount of Chinese students around. The first girl we talked to was actually Vietnemese and couldn't understand our French, but then we contacted two Chinese girls (double contacts are always a struggle because if one person is into it and their friend isn't then its just AWKWARD) but we did, well Sr Back did it and they took the Book of Mormon and said they'd read. MIRACLES.

At Zone Conference -- Rennes Chapel

Wednesday we had Zone Conference! Love me some Zone Conference. Basically the APs just told us to find new amies not just get "other lessons" aka street contact prayers, and that it's really important to try and get people to progress and have faith. Have faith have faith have faith. That's what conferences tend to be for us. haha it's great.

Zone Conference - Our district (plus Shannon)

Thursday we had probably the best weather ever of my entire mission, which was perfect because all our morning plans fell through and we just were contacting for like four hours! But it's okay I read chapter 9 in PMG that morning and passive-aggressively picked up trash in the gross part of town that is our sector after a lady told us that we were the same as the Temoins. [Jehovah's Witnesses] So yeah. The sass is still real. That night we taught Ella and finally got her her Romanian book of Mormon. She's great.

Friday we did some planification hebdomodaire [weekly planning]. Well, we updated the teaching records we'd been neglecting for like two weeks, everyone was sicky again (Sr Ellis had a really bad cold, Sr Back got the cold on top of her really bad allergies and Sr Stevens just wasn't 100%) so we had a sicky night after Ward Council. Well Sr Back and Sr Ellis went to ward council while Sr Stevens and I went to a RDV with this sweet recent convert from Guadalupe, she's got a baby so we figured Sr Ellis probably shouldn't go to that one.

Saturday we finished planning, were sicky again (this time I was the one slowly going insane) made like a thousand phone calls and updated fiches. PARTY. This one amie we'd been trying to get a hold of called us back and I'm not kidding I was on the phone with her for half an hour. At least. I don't even know what she was telling me- just all over the place haha every couple minutes Sr Back (who'd given up and left the room) would call out "still on the phone?" followed by the three of them laughing about ten seconds later when I didn't respond. Haha good times. Sister missionaries -- it's a party everyday.

Sunday was Sunday, ward conference. The bishop made sure to tell everyone that the sustaining of everyone in the world only happens once a year.

WELL now we have made it finally to today. P day. Congratulations if you have made it though this monster of an email. So since Sr Ellis and Sr Back will probably be transfered in two weeks they've wanted to do more on p-day than just take naps and grocery shop and one of the bucket list places was Paimpont Forest, the forest where Merlin is buried. Yep. It may sound pretty lame but it was that or St Malo, which to me sounded like just going to the Oregon Coast (whoo. but I wanna go see a mystical forest.)

So we get there, and everything is closed. Like everything. And Merlin's tomb (and the fountain of youth, we found out was there too) was like 13 km from where the bus dropped us off. There was one guy roaming around that told us he could rent us bikes but bikes are kind of a grey area because usually they don't have helmets. So we called the DL and asked permission because "you can ride 'em in the Versailles gardens!" and we were in a forest so... he said to call the ZLs, (they live together so that felt like a dumb formality) but we did and were like there's NO way they're giving us permission, because I love em', but they can be a little over-eager with obedience. BUT they did and they said to wear helmets if they're available.

Sr Ellis, Stevens, and Back

They were available. Along with really sweet orange reflective vests. I have never felt so dorky in my entire life. But the bikes were electric so we were flying and it was awesome.

Then we basically just wandered around in this forest, got a little lost, found the fountain of youth, all while Sr Stevens was talking us through the plot line of BBC Merlin. Then thought we had to keep walking to get to Merlin's tomb. Nope.

Fountain of Youth

Merlin's Tomb

We did find a sweet lake though. But it turned out that Merlin's tomb was this lame couple rocks we'd seen at the beginning and we were all like "there's no way thats it!" yeah.... SO fun. Beautiful weather, beautiful forest and just basically the best.

Got some lunch and caught our bus just in time. And miracles throughout- caught our bus going there even though we had like a minute to spare, Sr Stevens didn't have to pay on the way back, bike guy didn't make us pay more for being gone like an hour too long. Just miracles. God wants us to have fun on P-days. It was super good. and I worked out enough for like this entire week. and got a jump start on my tan.

And took lots of selfies on my bike. Don't worry I was being safe. We said a prayer before we started. (that was another condition of the bike permission from the zonies).

In summary, if it wasn't already a perfect day and an hour away from Rennes I would say we should totally go back. But I think that was one of those days that are only really fun as a missionary because you can just turn to your companion and talk about the fact that you're wandering around a forest in the middle of Bretagne because Merlin's buried there. I don't know how you can top that.