Steve Jobs was a Prophet

French fact: Nice is beautiful. I'm going there June 10 to listen to Neil L himself. That's all.

As per usual, it was a good week. Tuesday we finished our exchange with Limoges' Soeur Christensen and Pagano. I took Soeur Christensen out to eat at Halala Fried Chicken. It was delicious and cheap. Gotta love Arabian immigrants. After they left that night, we did the second full blown lice check up on Soeur Hulme. She's free of the poux. It did give me another excuse to make rootbeer and mashed potatoes and watch the Testaments. Party all night long. Just kidding. It only took 2.5 hours. 

Wednesday we taught Falabalda who is checking with his Muslim family for permission to keep being taught. Then we visited with Maylis, a recent convert, who was significantly nicer this time around. We kind of just help her connect the dots. By the way this whole thing is on exchange with Soeur Magleby of Tarbes. There's a guy in our ward list and there's a note next to his name that says 'J.A. with a barbe'. So that's all we knew and I kept mentioning him all transfer because he sounds awesome. I told Soeur Hulme I was planning on visiting him on our exchange and she said HE DOESN'T EXIST! Well, good news is that he does exist and he's planning on coming to church. We also planned to visit Caroline, who lived around there, but we did some porting first and found another member next door who was struggling. She cried like thirty seconds into our unplanned meeting. So I guess that was good. We helped her out then met with Caroline and her BFF Eglentine (via Skype). 

Thursday was a bad day for everyone. And by that I mean it was my one year mark. That being said, it was decent. We had a great District Meeting all about the BOM. We ate the biggest fajitas you've ever seen. Then I got to go on exchanges with my favorite person, Soeur Jones. The problem is that exchanges with her are so good that it's almost disappointing to go back to normal companions, even when our comps are great. The Eysings sector is really struggling because the ward is falling apart, but also none of their amis have stuck. For the last few transfers at least, all they do is find find find with no results. But with Soeur Jones and I, we love it. We literally just contacted for 24 hours. We're funny, other people are funny, and it's awesome. We also made Tartiflette and watched the Testaments. I can quote you any Kohor line. I am a man of no small reputation.

Quotes of the day: Me-What would you do if Moses was standing right there? Guy-I'd tell him to get out of the way so he didn't get hit by the tram! Number 2: Soeur Jones-Well, do you think it's possible that God could call a prophet in our day? Guy-Yeah, Steve Jobs was a prophet. 

He was so close. We finished our exchange over pastries. Best reflection I've ever had. Then Soeur Hulme and I visited the Cadeau family and got to partake in a snack of garden-fresh strawberries. Yum. You don't see a snack like that every dynasty. 

Saturday, we helped Agens out with their baptism at our chapel. It stressed me out because they didn't even think of asking anyone to baptize their ami until 5 minutes beforehand. Poor planning. We weekly planned and visited Soeur Lerbscher, a sister who's husband joined the church, they were sealed a year later, and he passed away the next month after he baptized their son. She wanted to feed us. Boy, did she feed us. Let's just say, I felt rather like that blueberry girl in Willy Wonka, the original. The Oompa Loompas had to roll me outta there. 

Sunday was awesome because our ami Alain finally came to church. He's one ami with which we've been really creative in our lessons and we've really been able to see progress. It's awesome. We also had a random guy we met in Bordeaux, Vincent Winston Churchill, from India, come to church. That's always fun. Then we went to Soeur Lande's house. She's one of those members that has the reputation of being hard to meet with. But in reality, she's not. It's a lot easier than people think sometimes. Like saying, hey we want to meet with you, when are you free? Cake. Anyways, turns out she's really cool. Also her husband went ward hopping for wife hunting and that's how they met. Weird. 

In other news it's stinking hot here. I'm already significantly more tan than last week, so I figure I'll be black soon. Or have skin cancer. I keep telling Soeur Hulme to put on sun screen because she really will get skin cancer, but she won't listen. Also, I mostly got all the greasy lice shampoo out of my bangs. So that's good. Bordeaux is fun. 

 

Beware the Poux

French fact: The word for lice is poux. Pronounced like poo. That's kind of how I feel about them. At Zone Conference, the nurse made my companion stand up and said, Behold, look at her beautiful long blonde hair. Lice are attracted to this. I can vouche. After an exchange this week, the sisters told us that they had lice hatch in their hair. Hundreds and hundreds of the little poos. Ugh. So we did a check, and, sure enough...Anyhow, I'm lice-free and after hours of hair-searching, so is Soeur Hulme. We caught it early enough and freaked out enough that it is no longer an issue. The Montaubon soeurs were not so lucky. Everytime I recheck her hair we watch either JS Prophet or the Testaments and I also found a way to make homemade rootbeer really easily, so I treat myself. Because you can't buy that stuff here. Anyhow, all that effort was really vital because, as an STL, we could literally spread lice to the entire country of France within a matter of weeks. But now, it's isolated in one apartment. 

I did three exchanges this week. They are a lot less consuming than ones in Lyon. I think it's because things are significantly calmer here. Our ami Jeremy is progressing slowly but surely to baptism. Soeur Aceva is being reactivated. Maylis requested the new member lessons because the missionaries never taught her them and she felt lost and frustrated, even two years later. Yikes. Teach your recent converts. Integrate them. 

Pierre is staying in our ward and he is slowly progressing also. It's amazing the changes this gospel can stimulate. We have a new ami named Baba who is so cool and ready to go jusqu'au bout to know the truth. A fond la caisse. All the way. Until death. Sweet. 

We bought patisseries for Soeur Hulme's mission birthday. She actually cares about that stuff a lot more that I do, so I try to cater to her. Ya know. We found out a less active is actually dead. Awkward, that was. And the Eysines ward is falling apart, but the missionaries threw like a party for their ward and moral and efforts have significantly increased since then. So that's way cool. 

My favorite ami is Sonia. She is a wonderful mother with so much faith and desire and just no direction. We teach her in English, with a little French, so that she can improve her English language skills. Today, she brought a friend to the lesson. She had told her friend, Violin, all about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel. We taught them the Plan du Salut today and committed Sonia to baptism and Violin to read the BOM. So they're super solid. The weird thing is that I've only ever taught her on exchange, so she's never met Soeur Hulme. Which I don't think is weird, because there are plenty of amis Soeur Hulme teaches that I've never met, but for some reason, she's freaking out about it. We are just on exchange every day so we both kind of have amis that are ours. It's weird. Obviously not preferable that way, but it works.

Sunday, before I skyped my fam, I got to play a game called Good Guys Bad Guys that was created by Soeur Defranchi, from Provincetown, Mass. It has some potential, but it's also really hard because you need to know pretty well BOM characters. Monday, I got to spend most of the day at Arcachon, at the Dune du Pilas, largest sand dune in Europe. I had to make the footprints for everyone else to follow in as we climbed up and over. Then back up and over. It was fun. And a really good calf workout. I contacted a guy parasailing. We ate pizza and fries and gelattos. Voila quoi. Life is good.

Enthousiasm

Boy are you lucky today. I put some real deliberate thought into these French facts today and I came up with a plethora. First, French people spit when they talk. Then they don't apologize or even mention it. So if I spit on your face on accident while we're talking and don't say sorry, don't be offended; it's my culture. Second, French people have a very different idea of activities. They want food separate from all other things. So for our game night, we had two hours of eating before games were allowed to be played. Third, all the trash bags have little strings on the bottom. You're supposed to rip them off and use them to tie the bag shut. In theory, a nice thought. In practice, well...not a fan. 

We had a sweet FHE with the Lancelot family. They are the cutest and I love that the dad is so involved with the kids. It's adorable. And they have two wonderful little girls and another baby boy. Let's just say I've never played so many games of Cache-Cache (Hide and Seek) in my life. Or had kids that actually want you to find them asap. We ate tacos and cheesecake. Yeah, she served her mission in Vegas. Soeur Lancelot knows what's up. It rained all week. I did my legality. Gross. What a daunting sign. But, because we had to do that in the morning, we weren't going to have the chance to role play our lesson in comp study before we had it. So we asked a guy on the tram if we could practice it on him. He talked to us about it for maybe forty minutes. Creativity. 

At our ward game night, everyone brought fruit salad and ate it all over a two hour period, as mentioned. Meanwhile, I got me some creds with all the kids by playing pass. And some more Cache-Cache. Got me some creds with some friends of the Picards with my American missionary charm. Normally, I would never want to socialize at these functions, but I feel like I kind of have to as a missionary. Anyhow, I met a pro hypnotist, a psychoanalysist, and an engineering student. And they wanted me to play the French equivelant of Mafia with them. Too bad by the time everyone actually got to the game part, it was time for us to leave. Tant pis. 

Soeur Beeny and I had a nice exchange where we helped people move, talked to a member about her mission, and had the best lesson with Alain. He finally understands the Atonement in a personal way and the rest of the simple gospel has been cleared up for him. It's wonderful to see things click for people. Then, Soeur Hall and I practiced our teaching with Soeur Grattepanche. We had a lesson zero with Falabalda that went well. We even got a member when he changed the time on us thirty minutes in advance. That night we found out our RS President bailed on our meal for Zone Conference the following day. We were in charge of the dessert part of it, so we stole all the pans we could from the church and made some banana bars. We ever went porting for some pans because we still didn't have enough. 

President Roney taught us about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Something I have been very much aware of, but it was a lovely Zone Conference. We also talked about a new and improved way to do some member work. I am psyched. PSYCHED. Then, I felt inspired to try this tactic with the Magrés, the family we visited a week ago, notorious for never having missionaries over. I almost hyperventilated when I called them. I don't know why I was so nervous. Probably because it was so important. Oh, apparently in our building, there are a lot of creepsters that just come in whenever there are people there. Then they like to argue with us about our doctrine. I was obviously the one chosen to kick one of these guys out when he tried to come to Zone Conference and a baptism. Apparently he's not very nice. Put 'bouncer' on my resumé. It's been a wonderful week with many miracles yet to come. Life is great! Love.