We're Not MoTab

I love cheetahs

     Frenchie Fact: Raclette-This is one of the better French dishes slash inventions. Essentially, you have a grill with two layers. The top layer is pretty flat and used for cooking meats. The second layer has these special little shovel-type-things that are made to melt square slices of pretty mild French cheese. You bake a potato, cut it up, cook your meat and put it on the potato, melt the cheese and eat it all together. You probably have to melt 5 or 6 slices of cheese before you finish your potato. Repeat.

     Let me tell you how grateful I am for all my musical abilities. Which aren't very many, but I've already used all of them. In Annecy, I was the ward pianist. Beatrice's heart has been opened to the missionaries since I impressed with my skills at tickling the ivories. That's as far as it got before this week, then everything exploded. Life as you know it in Chalon will never be the same. Our ward loves singing. Every now and again someone just plays the piano and slowly people congregate and start singing hymns together. The French as a whole are not the best singers, but they love singing. Anyways, I think the Millers mentioned that church groups singing at nursing homes is a thing in the U.S. In France-definitely not a thing, and probably with good reason. I love these people, but not so much their voices.Sacrament meeting can get rough sometimes. But the ward got wind of this nursing home singing thing and decided they wanted to do it. The Landres as per usual decided to take charge. There was an after-church practice that was...sub-par. (Does that mean good or bad? I don't play golf. Sorry. Kind of.) Anyways, the lady with the nursing home connection went and talked to them and at first they were against the idea, but eventually they agreed to let the six missionaries go. We're all American, n'inquietez pas. Monday we went and sang. Sister Jones was on piano, I had some guitar thrown in there and it turned out to be a general collaboration of goodness. We have a few altos, a few sopranos, a tenor (and backup tenors if necessary). And we all have decent voices. I won't go any higher than decent. We aren't MoTab. But people were crying all over the place and the workers there were thrilled and said the inmates (can you call them that?) had never been so calm. Anyways, it worked out well. So well that Elder Miller suggested that we do some singing at our New Years Day feast with the Chambrions. They wanted all six of us there anyways. Frere Chambrion is the second counsellor in the Branch Presidency and Sister Chambrion is a less active who is uncomfortable feeling the Spirit, so naturally, we decided to give her an extra strong dose. In Preach My Gospel, it tells you to teach the members the lessons, especially the Retablissement. Yours truly, co-leader of this motley crew, was inspired with the idea to combine Preach My Gospel with Elder Miller's idea and teach Retab through song. Weird. Never thought I would do this. But while in the process, I remembered a recent letter from Dad who talked about some missionary musical program going over really well. Anyhow, we had a 15 minute program of music and a narrated lesson by myself in between songs and during the piano introduction. It went really well. Elder Miller cried. He also didn't want to sing, so it was us four and Sister Miller. That went over so well that Frere Chambrion and Elder Miller decided that we needed to perform this for Sacrament Meeting. So next week, we are having a Retab-themed Sacrament meeting starring the missionaries and also some guy that lives in Africa. We're not MoTab. We're the Jupeuses. I guess you have to know French to think that's funny. So here's a little lesson. Jupes are skirts, which we are required to wear. If you add "eur" on the end of a verb, it turns into someone who does that action. For example tuer (to kill) changed to tueur (killer). Voila. Furthermore, changing the final "r" to "se" makes it feminine. The French live off jokes like these, so the better you know French, the more sophisticated jokes you can make. Anyways, we're just a group of female skirt-wearers. That sing decently well and preach the gospel. 

Christmas marchet

     FHE has kind of turned into a mess, so the missionaries are taking it over. Woo! Everyone was banned for having it at the church because President Catagni kept hearing too many complaints about who was coming and drama. So we had it at the Miller's. It was great. A ton of people came and it was just a party. This week, we're allowed to have it at the church again, as long as the missionaries stay in charge. I'm ok with that. Saves the drama and all we do is assign everyone else to do things. And make it more fun. Elder Miller banned us from using the word hobo (although mostly we just use it to refer to us and people who actually are hoboes). Apparently it reminds him of when the rich members of the church cast out the poor. Vagabonds, it is, and we will still continue to love and welcome all of them into our gospel discussions. We had a great district meeting this week. Last week, Elder Vira asked me to give a talk at it, but he lied. Then he found out that I really was ready to go (I AM an Eagle Scout) and I think he felt bad and told me I just didn't give it because our ZLs were there. I don't see how that changes anything, but whatevs. Soeur Jones and I are ready next week. The Millers made us a delicious meal of a potato bar with chili and a mushroom sauce. Delicious. Best potatoes I've had. I really like potatoes. Our whole ward knows it. We went on an exchange because our equip had too many people to teach. So I took Soeur Jones and her investigator, Laurent to Beaune to visit Cloe. There were several motives behind this, we want them to know there are other young people like them, we wanted Laurent to testify to Cloe about his experiences, we want them to be friends at church together, and also we want to set them up. Missionary Matchmakers, anyone? We warned Laurent ahead of time and were just joking around with him because he's really socially awkward, like most French people. After the RDV he asked, Plan of Salvation, you know it or not? Yes.... Stop making the Plan of Salvation with me and Cloe! The funniest thing. But also sad, because neither of them thinks they have a very good chance to get married and all they want are eternal families. 

     Yves is still using his electronic cigarette (not technically against Word of Wisdom, but still bad).And he thinks it's impossible to quit. We had a really good lesson reading the story of Nephi going to get the plates. The French are very set in their ways. Good thing I'm here to snap them out of this iron cage they've built themselves into. Honestly. We went to meet Frere Picard at his house. Apparently, we're the first missionaries to get in. What can I say, I do what I want. And invite myself over to everyones' houses. Anyhow, turns out his neighbors are using his house to stash all their illegal drug equipment. Poor guy. He's just a nice old man possible with mental problems and has no idea what is going on. We met Soeur Guyon at the nursing home and gave her the sacrament with the Millers and Frere Landre. She actually wrote her testimony for Frere Landre to share on Sunday. And it was beautiful. Laurent got a blessing because he has so many trials in his life and is feeling really depressed. As missionaries, there are two things that we know-Laurent will have a beautiful family one day and he will be a great leader in the gospel. Neither of those were expressed in the blessing, but we know. He's really having a rough time. 

Hadidja

     We went over to Hadidja's for her birthday. She keeps saying she wants us to go home really fat. I hate that. But we didn't eat any of her food and escaped after only 30 minutes-record time. We did sing to her and she cried. Les voix des anges, you know? Oh and one time we met this gent on the street, thirties to forties and balding. He seemed like a cool and funny guy for a minute. Then he said he would only learn about the gospel if he could buy us drinks. He also asked for Hannah's number. Sorry. Earlier in the convo I showed him a picture of the family and he said give me her number and I said Ew no! She's 15! I know you're not really, but you are too young for this old creepster. Sorry. Vive la France. Also, we got to see Claudia again and she read in the Book of Mormon and understands nothing, but ca viendra! And we met with Beatrice again. Still resisting even though she knows the church is true. It's the worst. Satan, you clown. 

     I had a lesson with our ami in Paris because the missionaries there haven't been so effective at meeting with him. Turns out he thinks God created us to be slaves and to torture us. I almost cried. Almost.

 

     We had our first day of three hour church and it was so good! Also we had a branch council meeting. Here's what happened. Essentially, I mentioned an activity coming up. President Catogni, who asked us to do it, forgot about it. Elder Miller, who we've talked to several times about it forgot about it. Frere Landre who we've also talked to about it several times forgot about it and started planning a different activity that he wants us to do all the planning and work for because we're missionaries and we have so much time. Wrong. President Catogni half-jokingly said I was undisciplined and told Frere Landre to control his missionaries. Frere Landre half-jokingly said I really only have a problem with one. There really isn't a problem because Agathe is mainly in charge of the activity, so it requires little effort from us. The problem is that all of our leaders really don't listen to what we say and think that we should do all these activities and take so much time to prepare for them. I am still a little irked. I will be a good missionary. I will preach the gospel. I will work hard. But I will not spend all my meal times cutting out paper masks and decorating the church for the rest of my mission. Especially when this branch needs to become less, and not more, reliant on the missionaries. Call me undisciplined, but I do what I want. And have been voted by the other missionaries to speak for all of us so that the branch doesn't give us all their work to do. Yikes. Sorry for the rant. The church is true and the leaders are great. Just a lot of misunderstandings going on. Agathe was teasing me all day for being undisciplined. She's great. And going on a mission in April and letting us bring our young adults over to her house Saturday. Party!