Called to Serve. Paris, France: MAKE it a Good Week

Hey guys!

It's crazy to me that yet another week has passed. They are really starting to all just blur together. In a good way though. :)

To give you a quick summary of my week, Tuesday had district meeting and ended with me going to Saint Omer for my exchange with Elder Wilford. As you know, they've got a car out there, and that makes things really nice. We had a lesson with a super awesome lady and finished up the evening with some porting and then a Mormon Message marathon once we got back. :) Wednesday we finished up the exchange quick and headed back to Calais to swap companions. We had a (pretty long) DMP meeting in the morning and then headed off for a pretty normal day. Thursday we had a rendez-vous set up, but we ended up getting fruged (stood up). Friday kind of took off and I honestly don't really remember what happened...

Elder Bigler and Elder Bailey
Just Over the Border of Belgique (Belgium)

Saturday, on the other hand, is worthy of its own paragraph. :) We had a big Stake activity planned for all the high priests, so we got to go to Lille for the second time this week. That makes for a lot of time on trains, but it's okay. From the Calais ward however, we had a total of...1 member show up. Granted, we don't have many high priests, and a lot of them are super busy. But it was good to at least be represented. :) We didn't really know what we were getting into beforehand, but it turned out to be a lot like the activity we did with the jeunes adultes (young adults, we call them JA's) last week, where we split up from our companions (not something we do very often here in France) and went with one of the high priests to go visit a less active member of either the Lille or Villeneuve d'Ascq ward. The member I was with was from the Saint Omer branch. Oddly enough, the member who was with Elder Bailey, our district leader, was assigned to visit the daughter of the family we were visiting, so all 4 of us just piled into the same car. We were able to find the family we were looking for, and they gladly let us in. It was mainly the mother that talked to us. She has a medical condition (that I didn't really understand cause I don't have much medical vocabulary in French) that forces her to stay at home, and that's the reason why she doesn't come. We were able to talk for a little and leave her with a little message about hope, and, I think, brighten her day. As we left, Elder Bailey pointed out, since he had just served in Belgium, that the other side of the street was, in fact, Belgium, due to the red post box. Donc, bien sûr, we went over there for a quick picture before heading back to the chapel. :) As soon as we got back, since we're kind of the exiled sectors in the zone, we had to run off (literally) to catch our train home.

The View Out Adam's Apartment Window

Sunday was a pretty normal day. Translating the priesthood lesson into English, teaching the Principles of the Gospel lesson cause our DMP had to work again, trying to get some class participation, even pulling out Kinder chocolate, eventually just ending the lesson a few minutes early...brioche bread for the sacrament, choir practice after church for a choir that at least one of us missionaries won't be in, quick lunch of leftovers from members, and then...TO THE BEACH! It was a beautiful, almost hot day, finally, here in Calais, and pretty much the ENTIRE city was at the beach. Hardly exaggerating there. It was just crazy. But, surprisingly, shockingly really, we weren't able to get any new amis out of all the people there. That's okay though. It was so nice out there, we stayed out pretty much until the end of the day, and just took our dinner then. Calais has, finally, become really a beautiful, nice place to be. A massive change compared to when I got here... :)

Well, it's practically my last P-day here in Calais, and we've got some good stuff planned, so I'm gonna say goodbye for now. Have a good week everybody. No, MAKE it a good week. That's what Elder Perry and I are doing. It works. :)

Elder Bigler

More Photos from the Week