Called to Serve. Paris, France: New Mission President and Transfer Changes Again

Bonjour!

Another good week here in Lorient! Pretty busy, a little rainy, and, as we just learned, the last one with Elder Humphrey.

P-day finished up in the usual way, although this time we got stuck at the church trying to figure out the new and glitchy referral system...kind of a pain, but it'll be useful someday...

Tuesday and Wednesday kind of happened really fast and blurred together. The usual lesson with Thierry, the ward Soirée Familiale, and a couple hours wandering through a forest path trying to find one of our referrals made up our Tuesday. Wednesday was pretty chill until the evening. We had a lesson with our Malagash amis again, finally, and it went well, nothing too special. At the end, we offered to give a blessing to Victor (who had surgery a week or so before) and it was really cool. Right after the blessing, Victor mostly just looked tired (but appreciative) but Estelline looked truly touched. In one of those really tender but really awkward moments right as we were leaving, she bise'd both of us and started trying to give us money. We aren't allowed to accept money from people, nor do we want to. But when she looked at us and said "no, I want you to, this is from my heart" well, we just didn't know what to say. She gave us the money and sent us off. Don't worry, we're gonna do something good with it, we haven't quite decided yet. Such a sweet, sweet lady who really reminds me of Nana (Grandma Craynor). And a really sweet moment with her. On the way home (we decided to walk), we actually came across her daughter and talked for a few minutes, found a couple young people who talked to us, and a guy across the street complimented me on my tie and said he had the same one. A pretty good little series of events to end the night on. :)

Thursday was our big day back out in Angers with Président et Sœur Babin!

First Zone Conference with New President and Sister Babin - Can you find Adam?

First thing he did when speaking to us was ask if we were hot and have us all (Elders at least) take our suit jackets off. That was a good way to start things off. :) He speaks really good English, having served a mission in Utah and everything, and being a businessman. The only rule he changed (so far) was that lapel pins aren't allowed anymore, but that's not really anything big. I watched him as he was putting his plaque back onto his suit jacket afterwards and couldn't help but smile as it took him five or so tries to do it. :) One of those things that comes with time I guess. But, he's definitely ready to be our mission president. He'll do really good things for us. That evening we went to visit the family Habrant, which was lots of fun. Their daughter is less active, and we got to talk with her a lot. She's really making efforts to come back to church with the sœurs. She speaks English too, which made it that much easier to talk.

Friday and Saturday were pretty stormy, and I seem to have left my umbrella in Calais, so with weekly planning and everything, we decided to take some time to work out of the area book and call a ton of people and just organize it a little bit. We have records of people the missionaries used to see that go all the way back to 2004. That's a long time. So we're trying to work on cleaning that up a little bit. I also got my package from Grandma that day (it took it 8 days to get to me) and ate about half of the tootsie rolls she put in there, which was a lot. :) Still no sign of the package you guys sent though, it probably just fell out of the plane on the way here. :)

Sunday was relatively normal except that the Habrants invited us over to eat with them again after church! I guess they really liked us on Thursday. :) They said that they felt bad that the Elders just had to go back to their apartment and eat alone on Sunday when Sunday is supposed to be a day where we can be with our families. They're so nice. :) They made waffles for lunch and we had a really good time with them. We finished up the evening by walking back out to pass by Michelle, the lady who's father had just died, and ended up finding Michel (a man) along the way there and teaching him on a bench for a little! He seems pretty open, but he actually lives in Paris, so we'll probably be passing him over there. We ended up finding Michelle a little later on and just leaving her our number (cause we totally spaced that last time; missionaries are not perfect) and checking in. She's still open to having us, she was just pretty busy with her kids.

So, there's the week! Kind of a regular one but still a good one! And like I said, I found out today that Elder Humphrey is leaving, heading to Orléans (the old one, not the new one, if you get my joke.....) and I'll be getting Elder Lloyd, who is literally trading with Elder Humphrey. I've met him before, and he's a super fun, crazy guy, in the best way. I'll let you know more about him next week. Elder Stucki from American Fork is going to be my district leader. And Elder Evans and Elder Alexander are serving together up in Dunkerque! Kind of some crazy stuff, but it'll all be good. :)

So, there you go. :) Have a good week!

Elder Bigler

Frenchism: Parking on the sidewalks is totally legal, as long as at least one wheel is still on the road.

Some Random Photos Sent by Adam