3/27/2017

Bonjour ! 

This week was great! We had a zone conference in Genève, and heard some pretty great talks about hope and how to instill it in investigators, so that was sweet! Driving in Genève however, was not haha... But it was a great conference and I'm starting to really love my mission! And Dijon is the best! I've been trying to get to know all of our members and Amis better, and I've been learning a lot! France is super cool, the food is great, the view is terrific, but the people are my favorite part. It can be discouraging to get so many condescending looks from people on the street (and believe me, French people are very good at condescending looks), but it's all worth it when a member brings the spirit into a meeting with their testimony (even if I can't always tell what they're saying) or when an investigator keeps an engagement. 

Speaking of, we got a new engagé (someone who's agreed to work towards baptism on a specific date) this week! Her name's Hadi, and she's super cool! We had dinner with and taught a lesson to her at a member's house, and at the end we felt like we needed to extend the invitation, and she said yes! The spirit was super strong! So we'll keep teaching her and praying that everything works out! 

In other news, Agnès has been hard to get rendezvous with, but Poe is still on track for the end of April, and we taught Stevenson again this week! Such a cool guy! That was about all we had as far as lessons go. We're trying to invite everyone to General Conference this next weekend. So so so excited for that! We get to watch the morning sessions live (in the evening), and the rest we'll watch later. So psyched! 

What else happened... Oh! I had escargot for the first time! One of our members (Sœur Cuisiat) found out I'd never had it, so she made us a classic French meal with escargot and duck and baguettes (we legit eat baguettes every meal here. So good). Not bad though! I've officially eaten snails! And she said she'd make frog legs next time! Umm, as far as funny stories go, we were at a member's house, and their little kid hit his elbow on the table and yelled "petit juif!" which means "little Jew" and Elder Laney and I were so confused. Apparently the name for your funny bone in French is actually just "little Jew" so that's different. 

Anyways, this week was great, and the weather was awesome, and I love it here! I miss all of you, but I'm so excited for everything! Love you all a bunch! 

Elder Suisse

Bonjour !

This week was crazy, but I'll try to get it all! We saw a whole bunch of members this week, so that was awesome! Our members are soooo cooooool! They really help the work along! We had a few exchanges this week as well with elders from Bienne and Besançon, and they went really well too. We visited less active members in some outer villes, and got some sweet pictures! Like 10/10 stereotypical southern France! We had some cool lessons with some awesome Amis. We have one from Madagascar, whose name is Felina, and she's awesome! We had a little testimony meeting the other day and she cried (and made us cry) with her testimony of the Savior. She's not even really taking our discussions yet! So cool! We also saw Stevenson again (cool guy from Nigeria), and he told us his conversion story. It was crazy! Like, insanely rich dude losing everything and being given a Bible and becoming a preacher. Super cool, and the spirit was way strong. I think it helps that he speaks English and not French haha... What else... Oh yeah, it's spring here! Finally! The flowers and trees and stuff are all blooming and it's so beautiful! I love the landscape and everything, we're so blessed! I think that's all I can remember from this week... We have a zone conference in Geneva this week, so like five hours of driving, but the conference and the view and the chocolate should be worth it :) I love this church, I love all of you, and I'm enjoying being here! 

Bon courage ! 

Elder Suisse 

3/13/2017

Salut à tout le monde ! 

 Life is all good here. Lots of lessons and contacting and learning and French! We have a few Amis that we're working with (there isn't a great word for Investigators in French, so we call them amis de l'église, or friends of the church.) we had a lesson with this evangelical preacher named Steve. He was from Africa and spoke English, so that was nice! He said that his wife was Mormon but less active, and that the spirit was really testifying to him that he needed to read "the Mormon Bible", so hopefully that goes well! He also had lots of cool spiritual thoughts to share. One thing he said that I really liked was that when we sin, the spirit doesn't leave completely, he just moves back to watching distance. Cool guy! We also have two Amis with baptismal dates! Poe is an awesome Tahitienne dude, and is getting married as soon as he and his fiance, an awesome member, are married. And Agnes is getting baptized as soon as she comes to church a few more times. Hopefully that all works out. I'm excited to see what happens! We've been eating lots of crazy food, and I had my first real French crêpe! We also stopped at McDonald's, which was weird cuz it's pretty much the same but higher quality. My trainer, Elder Laney, is super cool. He's on his second to last transfer (sidenote: the word we use in French instead of transfer is "mutation", which freaked me out the first few times I heard it... Driving is okay, just mild insanity... I parallel parked like a boss the other day! I took a picture but it was night, so you can't see it very well. France has this weird obsession with roundabouts? And apparently you can just park wherever you want if you throw on your hazard lights, so I'm going to start taking pictures of all the crazy parking jobs I see, so you'll all believe me. People literally park on sidewalks and in front of doorways and in the middle of the street! Craziness! French is coming along, slowly but kind of surely. I think my favorite part about this week was when we had a district meeting in Lausanne. Switzerland is so beautiful! For some reason, every single person was so nice, and they all loved my name (Suisse is Switzerland in French, and our mission encompasses all of French speaking Switzerland). We had some tasty chocolate, the mountains were sweet, and the weather was perfect! I hope I get to serve there eventually! Anywho, this week was awesome and I'm excited for the next! 

Bon courage ! 

Elder Suisse 

Dijon! 3/6/17

Bonjour tout le monde ! 

This last week was crazy! I'll try and get everything!  

We had three flights. SLC to Detroit to Paris to Lyon. Our flight to Detroit got delayed due to weather, and we watched our flight to Paris leave without us. The next flight was in like three hours. So we fly to Paris late, and then we had to get tickets to Lyon, which was crazy because I don't speak French. That took us at least an hour, and the next flight was in like five hours. Then I found out that my seat was for some reason in standby! So I didn't even know if I would be able to get in the plane til five minutes before we boarded! Thankfully, it worked out and we made it on the plane. I had a long conversation with a lady on the plane totally in French which was awesome. Anyways, so we were supposed to have arrived Tuesday at like 11 am, but we got there at like 6 pm. But we met President and Sister Brown and the APs, and it was such a relief to be in Lyon finally! 

Our schedule was all messed up because of the delays, so our Bleu (that's what they call greenies here) conference was pushed back a day and we slept in Lyon for two nights. I love the missionaries here! We got a bunch of legality stuff done, and then I finally got my area and trainer on Thursday. I'm assigned to Dijon, which is in the middle of France and as north as our mission goes. It's so nice here! No crazy monuments or claims to fame except the mustard... But this is where it gets stressful. Apparently American driving permits expire after a year, and since my companion, Elder Laney, is the district leader, we have a car and I have to drive! Everyone on French roads is crazy! There are roundabouts every ten feet and I had to drive to Besançon which is an hour and a half from Dijon so Elder Laney could do a baptismal interview (which was cool). Anywho, driving is the worst. 

The food is great here, and I'll try to include pictures. We've been trying tons of new cheeses and stuff and it's mostly all great! I had some roquefort though, and wanted to die! We've got a mange-vouz in just a few minutes, so I have to wrap this up.

Elder Suisse 

PS apparently the pasta shown below is like super low quality French food, so good to know the worst is better than I ate in college!