Called to Serve. Paris, France: O

Hey! I hope everybody had a good week! It seems to go by faster and faster every time I sit down to write this email. :)

Honestly, I don't really have much to say this week. Elder Perry's been pretty sick, so we've been stuck in the apartment a bunch. That, on top of our DMP getting sick too, and our recent converts being kind of off the map for this week, made for a pretty slow week. We were finally able to catch up to one of our recent converts at the end of the week and sit down and talk with him for a little. Apparently, his girlfriend (who the other équipe had been teaching) pretty harshly left him. He was really down when we went over there. We ended up kind of just having a bro moment together, us two missionaries and him, talking about how tricky girls are and how another one will come along and all that stuff. It was pretty tender. :) He's kind of a goofy dude, but really heartfelt, so it was both a funny moment, and a really spiritual one.

Missionary Crêpes

Other than that, we really weren't able to do a whole lot. We made some crêpes, and ate some crêpes. Elder Perry's like a pro at them. Friday night, we got a call from our 1st counselor in the Bishopric asking us if we could prepare a couple 10 minute talks for Sunday. Always a stressful challenge. :) Somehow though, the next evening (when I finally was able to get around to it) I prepared a pretty good talk about repentance, all in French. I'm working on just going off of notes for talks, which is something I pretty much never would have done before my mission. It's hard, especially since everything is in French, but boy, does the Spirit help. :)

Last evening, Elder Perry and I ended up having a really nice long chat about life and how missions are hard and how far away our families are and basically all the usual mission worries at once. It was a special moment for me, both cause I was able to fulfill my role as a trainer and try to be there for him and boost him and simply help him, and also because I realized how close we've become in the last 8 weeks. Our Président was truly inspired putting us together, despite my initial thoughts otherwise. Putting a francophone with young, still kind of bleu himself Elder Bigler seemed to me like a crazy idea. But he's helped me so much through 1 and a half pretty hard transfers, and I feel like I've been able to help him too when he needs it. I'm definitely gonna have to go visit Tahiti someday. ;)

Well, other than that, I don't really have much else to add for this week. Missions have a lot of ups and downs, and this one was kind of a down. Not really sad or anything, just kind of where not much happened, and there was nothing we could do about it. But, Elder Perry and I have big plans for this week! :) Assuming that he gets better quick, we're ready to hit the pavement and find some new people to teach. :)

Keep enjoying all those sugary treats, and try not to get rained on too much. :) Peace out! ;)

Elder Bagel

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