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| Random cool street lined with trees |
This week was solid, although it didn't really exist. An hour before our train left, I realized that I wasn't taking a train until the next day. We had the other sisters come help us drop Sister Packard off at the Gare to go to Perpignan by herself while we were in a trio for the rest of the day. We didn't do anything crazy, since it was P Day. And when we went shopping, I only bought a liter of milk. Really, if I didn't have companions, I could live so cheap-cereal, milk, pancakes, with the occasional real meal from members of the branch. Unfortunately, people like to eat more than I do, so it gets expensive. I've just started telling them that I will eat cereal for two out of three meals because I'm not hungry to eat all that food all the time. Especially since I only get thirty minutes of exercise. After FHE with some members of the branch, we were walking home and a guy I contacted a few days earlier waved from his car window. I told him hi and we'd call him, but he should probably move since he was causing a traffic jam. He pulled over his car and let us teach him a lesson! This is the guy that told me I wasn't cool a few days before because I told him we could only drink water. Or orange juice. His name is Cani, but pronounced like Johnny.
The next day we had a meeting with our DMP and then I had to go to Lyon. By myself. Don't worry, I sat all alone, didn't talk to anyone, and just read the Book of Mormon. That was weird. I was the first person to get there, so I just waited around for more missionaries. Then I was the only sister for over an hour. That night, as per tradition, we went to McDonald's. I got chicken nuggets and Elder Martinez Conde complained that his Happy Meal didn't come with a Pokemon toy, as advertised on the signs. And Sister Roberts said she would send me a workout dancing video in the mail. I hope she doesn't forget. The next morning we woke up early and went on a forty minute run. The "Adjusting to Missionary Life" book says that once you've been here and living the schedule for a while, you realize you don't actually need the full eight hours of sleep. Or you could just relax for eight hours without sleeping and be fine. This just goes to show that you shouldn't believe anything you read. I definitely could use more sleep. But I'm handling it. We had a training for the trainers with the Ecully ZLs and the STLs. Apparently they'd never done that before and it was really helpful, especially since not everyone is clear on a lot of the rules. We ate lunch and contacted for a bit before going to the meeting with all the Blues. We got there just in time for the Mission Nurse's presentation. She threw sponges at us and told us all that we had to get a flu shot.
Then all the blues opened their first assignment letters one by one. Every time, I cheered super loud. Elder Fox turned around after the third time and said he wanted to kill me. Obviously I kept doing it the whole time. My companion/daughter is Sister De Oliveira Rosales from Canada/Mexico and her family is Portuguese. I don't know what her first language is and neither does she. We speak French equally well, although she's got a better accent because she lived in French-speaking Canada for four years as a kid. Anyways, in the middle of the meeting the Sister Training Leaders asked me if we could help them teach a few lessons tonight. I was cool with that since, despite my love for contacting, I don't actually like contacting for six hours straight. We finished the meeting. The nurse told me to go into a room and tell her assistant something, but the room was full of Elders waiting to get their shots. Meaning half-undressed. It took me a second and a reprimand from Elder Martinez to realize was was going on. I may have screamed, threw things, and sprinted out of there. Vive la France. A couple nice Elders helped me figure out how to get to where we needed to go to meet the STLs and turns out we were already late! So I booked it out of there, with my new comp in toe, and narrowly avoided a flu shot. Yeah, suckas. I went with Sister Vidal, who actually knew Sister De Oliveiras from before. They met briefly and she was begging me beforehand to train her and telling me that it would be super helpful for the Portuguese family we teach. I told her if that's what the Lord wants, I would love to train her. Sister Vidal told me well, I know what the Lord wants and I will tell President. I don't think she actually did, but it worked out anyhow. Soeur Vidal and I went to Noella's house with her home teacher. I always see her when I'm in Lyon. They only meet with her every now and again because she lives so far away, but I'm always there when it happens. We had a nice talk. I helped Soeur Vidal with her Jumper's Knee. We met back up at our hotel. All of the new missionaries cheer when they see me. I told them I hope that one day they can be as happy as I am and love missionary work this much. Good luck. Back in Chalon, we rearranged the apartment as per the request of the STLs to have our bed/desks in one room and their bed/desks in the other (instead of a bedroom and a study room). We had to take the bed apart. Good old IKEA.
We went to the best Halloween activity by our branch. It was so fun. My favorite game was one where everyone tied a balloon on to their ankles and you had to go around and pop everyone else's balloons without getting yours popped. Once it was popped, you were out and you have to sit down. Obviously I won. I had to get aggressive in the end, but it was worth it. Everyone understands that I play basketball now, if they didn't before. Also, while moving around our room, I stepped on a tack. It went all the way into my heel, about 1.5cm. Don't worry, it barely hurt because it's all callus. Solid. Literally.
We had a great lesson with Joana and Fernando and their family. Soeur De Oliveiras speaks Spanish, so it's easier, but still hard to communicate. Once, we went up to a guy, said, Hi, we're missionaries, and he said I can't talk right now! I have to eat lunch! So I said Another day? And he said, yeah! Follow me! We were really confused but we followed him and he showed us where he lived and set a RDV with us. We took a bus to Autun, an hour away and so many things went wrong-the bus schedule changed, our RDV turned into a TBV, and it was just rough. But we met so many cool people that we wouldn't have met otherwise! On the way home, a girl on the train tried pronouncing my last name. (Believe it or not, it's really hard. OOOshan? HutchKINS? HOOTCHkins?). I explained my name and why I was here. She asked why I could believe. It seemed like a weird question to me, but then she said, "I've been trying hard to believe, mais j'arrive pas." Golden. That is why we are here, my friend! She even lives in our sector and really wants to meet with us. At church Sunday, we had four amis show up, including Stephane, the professor. He hit it off with the Catagni's. We also had President Benizar, the Stake President, show up. He was really impressed with the missionary work here. Apparently he also talked to one of our amis, Yves. We've been worried because he has some slight mental problems which slow him down. But according to President Benizar, he "desperately wants to be baptized". That was a shock, because he's never said anything to us. I'll take it though. En route to find a coordonnee with the Millers, we saw Soeur Faria walking down the road. Limping, actually, because she had Polio. Turns out her husband got into an accident. She didn't want us to come over there with her, but we waited and caught them all on the way back home. We got Anthony, their 19 year old son to stay and talk to us for a while. He is awesome. I love their whole family. But he challenged me to a game of soccer. Challenge Accepted.
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