Story of My Life

stairway that goes on and on and on

French Fact: Not sure if this has more to do with me or the French people, but I've had several people tell me this week that they don't like how I look at them. Apparently I look into their souls and it kind of creeps them out. One was a member who said it was a good thing. Another was a weird guy on the train that said I was manipulating the conversation until BAM. Not sure what the BAM is, but there you have it. 

As per usual, we had approximately two days out of our scheduled seven spent on a train and in Montpellier for our exchange. Nothing unusual to report there. 

We also saw the Ashton family, Americans that know President Roney and have a lot of super active family, but are not active themselves. Soeur Ashton was really hesitant about letting us in, making excuses about how the kids were busy and stuff and then Carter, the 7 year old, says I don't have anything to do! So she let us in and we talked for probably two hours. During which, she told us almost her whole life story, told us where the best porting neighborhoods are, and insinuated we'd be welcome back. At least that's how I took it. 

We are teaching a lady named Christine Dion, who is a friend of a member and has 80ish years. Wowzers. But hey, she committed to baptism and is progressing well. Way better than expected anyhow. 

Our other ami, Colette, is also progressing, slowly but surely. She read Enos this week! And she keeps saying that she likes to just take pieces of different religions and will do the same with the BOM. She just can't accept everything written in this wonderful book. However, she believes everything that she's read so far. 

We also started teaching the Elders' ami, Eloisa, who is often alone at her house so the Elders have trouble teaching her. She is very willing to learn but is easily distracted and has trouble understanding. Doucement. She is actually a really old ami, but they lost contact for a while. Then, she was reviewing an old calendar and seeing what she did on the same day a year ago and turns out she had had a rdv with the missionaries. So she decided to recontact them. 

Ward Council is fun. Once we get passed all the boring ward stuff and get to missionary work. Then we get to tell lots of fun stories about our amis, everyone argues about whether to have baptisms in the ocean or the pool, and I get to be in charge because everyone else gets distracted. But it's so funny. 

Interesting story of the week. We sat near a man on the train to Montpellier. We started talking and he was asking questions and telling us that he was still atheist despite what we told him. A while in, he just turns around and asks a random guy, Are you hearing this? These people are real Mormons. Do you know what Mormons are? The guy just says No, I have no idea. I've just been listening to music. And then he comes and sits with us. We had a jovial conversation, the old man may have tried to set us up with the random guy, and also everyone thinks we're a weird mixture of nuns and monks. Jokes on them, we're much more fun!