Singing in the Rain

     Factoid Francaise: French people don't shrug their shoulders. If they don't know the answer, they kind of purse their lips together and blow a raspberry. You have to see it, really. And you have to remain alert so that you don't crack up when people do that. 

Chalon Building

     Chalon sur Saone is now the home of four sister missionaries and a senior couple. If nothing else, we provide support to the branch president and the branch who are hanging on by a string. The few strong members have a lot to do, a few people just come to church, some live too far away to be able to help out too much, and a lot are inactive. For now. We had a lot of tombez-vous this week. But I feel like whenever that happens, we meet new people that we set up rendez-vous with. So hopefully this next week goes according to plan. We did have a guy, Romain, who I don't remember contacting, call us out of the blue and ask to meet with us that day. Miracle! He even brought a friend! So we had a first lesson with him and his friend. It was short because they may or may not have been drunk. Despite that, I did feel like he had some legitimate interest to learn, so we set up another meeting next week and guess what the topic will be? Word of Wisdom. Speaking of which, we met with the Kennys again this week and Brother Kenny (a non-member), told us he used to smoke. A lot. However, he was able to overcome his addiction in under a week. Want to know the cure for smoking? Bronchitis. 

     We also visited Macon this week. That is a small ville near the edge of our sector. We have an ami who apparently lives there that we need to see. We didn't find him, but we did get drenched. Imagine standing in a shower, fully dressed, for about four hours. I honestly don't know how much umbrellas would have helped at that point. When we got back to the train station, I dumped about a liter of water out of my shoes. I love those shoes. They let all kinds of things in-water, rocks, probably a rabid squirrel if they had the chance-but they don't let anything out! Once it's in there, it's stuck for good. Actually I finally wore through the bottoms this week. Obviously I just put insoles in and am wearing them right now. I have other shoes, but I want to make sure I get the full usage out of these ones. As you can expect, my collegue and I have colds. I'm better at pretending I'm healthy than she is. 

Macon Building

The other day I shared Grampy's "This is Good" story. All other missionaries now refer to it as the "Cannibal Story". I liked the other title better. I also saw an apartment with a mirror for a ceiling. That was sweet. Too bad the Mexican maid wouldn't let us in. I'm sure if the old lady who owned the apt could hear us, we'd have a baptismal date set. There's a guy we see quite often here. He's an older man and he sits by the park with his friend and drinks energy drinks. Soeur Packard calls him my "Drinking Buddy". He has a Book of Mormon, but hasn't found the time to read it. He's too busy sitting at the park. Drinking his energy drink. So I go up to him every time we see him and ask if he's read yet. Yesterday, I walked up to him and he says, Ohhhhh no! Not you! Haha. I figure if I keep talking to him, he'll eventually get annoyed and read it, if only to get me to quit annoying him. 

Oh yeah and our two amis with baptismal dates for this week want to break up with us. One has a back surgery he's really worried about and the other has concerns about the baptismal interview questions. I guess neither understands everything well enough to be baptized anyways. That's the hard thing about moving to new areas is that you don't fully know what they understand. So we're working with them still. 

Toujours in my reading of Jesus the Christ (Cough. Although that was probably a real cough, you should read this book), I learned more about the trial of Jesus. I have always felt bad for Pilot. He keeps trying to do what's right and he knows Jesus is innocent and can recognize something of his importance. However, he is threatened by his past and doesn't have the moral courage to do what is right. He simple allows the Jews to crucify Jesus. It is so important to remain firm in a world of shifting values. The values of the church have never changed, but the values of the world are slowly creeping down the rungs of the ladder of wickedness. Don't allow yourself to be only a "sophisticated neutral" in the battle, like Pilot when he allowed other men to kill an innocent man. Stand up for what you know is right in this world. As Tad R. would say, Men and women of integrity are in high demand, but in short supply. Oh la la. If only everyone lived what they confess to believe, perhaps we would not have such unhappiness and immorality as there is today. Handle it.