Monday, January 3, 2011

Week 12: A Bonne Annee

Bonne Annee everyone!

This week was full of great adventures. We were going to go to the Louvre last week but realized we did not have any money at all, plus once I get my legality papers the Louvre is free, so why spened money I don't have right. So instead my companion agreed to wander around Paris with me. We walked around Notre Dame, but as it is the Christmas Holidays it was full of tourists so we didn't stay long. Down the road a ways and across the street was a crammed bookstore that we wandered into, it was perfect. Exactly what a bookstore ought to be, it used to be a house of some kind I think and every crevice posssible was filled with books most of which were old, it smelled wonderful. I also had my first real crepe from a street vendor, nutella filled goodness. It was hot and gooey and heavenly.

The chapel in Paris is also the Institute building and now a visitors center. We decided to take out amie Nathaly to the Institute Family Home Evening, it was fun to see how young single adult activites are pretty much the same here as they are at BYU. We are trying to get Nathaly to make friends with members her age because she is kind of clingy to the missionaries. So, we shall see, yesterday at church the mother of Brother Camille, the British family we had Christmas with, told Nathaly that she just needed to pick a date to be baptised and do it and that she doesn't need to know everything. I am not sure how Nathaly felt about that, but it is true. She is really hesitant because she wants to know for sure that the church is true, we are working with her to find faith to move forward.

On Wednesday morning  we had a first lesson with Nawang a Tibetan lady that speaks a little bit of English and a tiny bit of French, she said she wants to hear more and that she really likes Jesus, which is great. But she also related everything we said back to Buddah, so it will be interesting to see how things go. We are planning on teaching Jesus Christ as our Savior to her next. 


I met one of the less active sisters we meet with for the first time this week. Orlane is single and smokes and may or may not be on drugs at the moment. She is interesting because she knows everything that she needs to do and she knows that she is happier and her life is better when she lives the gospel, she just isn't. It was kind of amazing because from the moment we met her on Thursday I was filled with this love for her, I don't know much about her, and she has a lot of problems, but I love her. And I think that is the best place to start from.


New Years was very uneventful, starting at 6 on Friday until 6 on Saturday we had a P-day. I have a bit of a cold and so I did a lot of sleeping to try and keep it in check. We did go into Paris Saturday morning to go to a Marché (an outdoors market) but it wasn't going on, so really we spent three hours riding trains, which really is fine by me, I like looking out the window. 


I saved the best story for last. So, about Tuesday Yue, our Chinese amie who is the only one who is really progressing and working, called us and said that due to finals that are starting Today and her crazy schedule she couldn't meet with us anymore until about February, and thet she would call us when we had time. We were so sad, Soeur Pobst especially. Friday we had Zone Inverviews which involve training from President Staheli and the Assistants to the President and interviews with President and Sister Staheli. We also have lunch fed to us, this time's lunch was a bit odd, there were Boutsa Balls, which are a chinese rice bun with an unknown meat filling, shish-kabobs, clementines, potato chips, leechie fruits, and soda. Tasty but odd. Anywhat, there were a ton of the boutsa balls left over and Soeur Pobst asked if we could take them to one of our amis and they said yes. We dropped them off on the way home, Yue wasn't there but her roommate Sufang was and she was really touched that we would bring them boutsa. Yue called us Saturday and was so grateful for the boutsa. She hasn't had bousta since she has been in France, which has been about 2 years, so she was really excited. She said that she was just really stressed and that is was bad scheduling on her part, but she still wanted to meet with us and could we come tomorrow (Sunday) to see her. It was so wonderful, and huge that she  wanted to see us the day before exams started, she's Chinese, they just don't do that kind of thing! She said that when she meets with us she is happy. I am so glad that she is still going to see us. 


I love you all very much, I promise I will send pictures next time. We have a busy week planned and I am so excited! 


Soeur Gaelin Turney

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