Now here's some news about life as an STL. You do exchanges every other day with sisters and spend the whole time giving and trying to help them realize what great missionaries they are and how they can improve. You pass between weeks when you are essentially homeless and others when you sleep in a barracks with 8 triple bunk beds. The first day of the transfer, Soeur Carter pulled open a drawer and said This is the panic drawer. You're going to need this. Any guesses what was in there? Tissues and lots of chocolate. |
| Three-mattress princess abode |
Shoutout to Grannie B, whose recent package made a nice addition to our rapidly depleting stores. I must admit I've used this drawer a lot more for myself than for the sisters. Sometimes your brain just can't handle it. Often, we've been a state of panic where we can't do everything we need to and we just kind of freak out. For example, when you have to go on two exchanges in a row with only an hour in between and you also find out that you have to house some sisters who are staying the night. Surprise. This is what my brain is. A mess. I have so much in my head and it's literally exploding like when you turn on the jets in a hot tub with bubble bath mix. It's so good though. I love it. My brain needs a challenge to help me sleep at night. And boy, have I been sleeping at night. The advantage of having 20 extra beds not always in use is that there are extra mattresses. One bed remains from before the STL time and it is a bunk bed with a bottom that turns into a couch. Now it has two extra mattresses on top. Call me a princess, but I need what sleep I can get.
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| Soeur Francis and Fahl |
Last P Day we went to the office and played Monopoly Millionaire. What a great game. Family favorite of the Asay family. Little did they know or understand that I now play all games with Totally Insane Rules, a.k.a. cheating is allowed as long as you don't get caught. I also play in teams. Needless to say, my team won. This game comes highly recommended for all Monopoly lovers who have never finished a game. It rained all day. Really hard. I slept at Ecully because I was on exchange with Sisters Francis and Fahl. Interesting note. Sister Francis is from England and is delightful. Sister Fahl is from Germany and spent a year living in Lindon, Utah as an exchange student. Any guesses who she lived across the street from? Uncle Ben, who helped teach her the missionary discussions. She loves ya Ben. And they are both wonderful missionaries.
On our exchange, we ran a 5K. Which is funny because later in the week, a random guy was bragging and telling me he can run a 5K when he's in shape. Anyhow, we had a tombez-vous and so we practiced teaching a member. Who told us his favorite job ever was as a pallbearer because it was a no-stress environment. Yikes! We also found a laminated picture this week of some girl hugging Jesus in the heavens. It's really creepy. So Sister Carter has hidden it in several places for me to find. The shower. Hanging over my bed. The great thing is that here in Gerland, we're high stress, but we're both stress killers. It works out well.
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| A random guy! |
This week another layer of stress was added when our Zone Leaders decided to start some Missionary Olympics in favor of the real Olympics I didn't even know were happening. What does this mean? We have to win and do it creatively. Game one-1pt per contact, 5 per RDV fixed, 10 for RDVs fixed with members. As we were on exchange that day, we conveniently gauged the competitive-ness of our opponents. They didn't even remember. Event two has been my favorite so far-1pt for making someone smile, 10 for unplanned service or giving goodies, and you can double your score one time by taking a picture with someone on the street smiling. This is my favorite contacting. All we do is be the happy people we are and people flock to us. It's great. Also, we ended up winning with like 960 pts, second was our DL with 280, and third was the last equip in our district with 180. In other words, our district is the best. I'm all for team sports, man. So Sunday, we were on a team with our district and one other. It was to fix the most RDVs with members and plan the most lessons with members present. Cake. Everyone has to set up two RDVs with us to have us both over at their houses because we're always on exchange. And we had weekly planning this day.
We had the opportunity to visit the Beaux-Arts Museum this week. I was reminded of the days of my youth when I decided to not go on a class field trip in favor of going to a Monet exhibit with my mom. I was a weird kid. But I was also impressed with my knowledge and interest in the arts of all time periods. My favorite picture was one that I believe dictated early Christian knowledge of the Godhead as three separate persons and also the forecoming apostasy.
Jean-Gide is great and is preparing to be baptized soon. His family is in Congo I think and coming soon to France and he is teaching them the lessons over Skype! I love families. Promise is also going to be baptized soon and he is wonderful as well. He is from Nigeria and understands really simply, but he really has a testimony of God and Jesus Christ. We spent a lot of time this week listening. Listening to inactives tell us about their problems because they know we can't do anything and we won't tell anyone the gossip. Listening to Zone Conference. This is great, except for the two hour discussion that gave me a flashback to Sports Nutrition class and nobody else there understood. I know all about monosaccharides and polyunsaturated fats. Thank you Soeur Povar for the lecture. Apparently simple teaching was not a theme for this conference. What was a theme? Love. The greatest commandment, but the one we spend the least time on. It was so good. What was also good was the chance to talk to President Roney. It was interviews conference again. He began by saying there are over 20 missionaries, if you each take 30minutes, we'll be here all day. So, we'll have to be frugal. Then he cleverly had me go first. Then Soeur Carter. Then everyone else. Because he knows we have questions for him and he loves answering them and asking us other questions to think about. And so do we.
Saturday, Soeur Jones sent me a text reminding me of my nine month mark. I'm trying to forget about it. Drowning my sorrows in French pastries and all that. Haha. I went on another exchange with Soeur Rohndahl from Sweden. She's funny. We had our group discussion again that went slightly less well than last time. But we did have a brief FHE type lesson with Mary France and her family that went super well. We left with several return RDVs set and everyone was happy. I hope you are too. Have a great week.
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