Loving Luxembourg!

Moien!

It's seriously crazy how fast these weeks go by. I'm starting to get scared that my mission is gonna end one of these days. It's still far, but I can feel that "deadline" looming somewhere in the background.

This week really went by quickly. It was a rainy one, which is common at this time of the year in Luxembourg. Among the many things we did this week were a visit to a less-active of 20 years member, paid our phone bill (we were over by 55 euros, which is pretty normal, since we have to make international calls all the time), visited a part-member family who spoke English, Spanish, and French with us. We visited one of our recent converts, Guy, and he and the member we took with us, Jean-Paul, became best friends by the end of the rendez-vous. We went to Metz on exchanges (I was with Elder Faura, who I did an exchange with back in Lorient), and played Samedi Sports with them. I finally got one of the official un-official France Paris Mission pins, which I didn't think would ever happen. We met Maggy, the non-member wife of our previous bishop. Ramiro came to church without even a reminder, and Brother Oliver, who's a chiropractor, fixed my back up a little. All in all, kind of average.

Luxembourg Train Station

So, I thought I'd take a few minutes to tell you guys a little more about Lux, since you seem to have some questions. :) It's not a branch here, and actually the ward is the biggest I have served in so far, about 135 people. And, it seems at least, I haven't counted or anything, that about half of them are anglophones. Of the other half, about half of them speak English. Services are always done in French (the francophones are more permanent than the anglophones) but there's always at least and English translation going on during sacrament, and sometimes priesthood meeting is done back and forth in English and French. When you go shopping, everything has German labels, sometimes with French underneath, sometimes not. Almost every person we talk to here can speak English and French (and Luxembourgeois and German and often Spanish). They're education system is really focused on languages, seeing as you need a lot to live here. Most 8 year old kids are fluent in French, German, Luxembourgeois, and English. They always ask how many languages you can speak, and saying "two" here is not at all an impressive number to them. Brother Gilstrap, Brother Nadauld's friend, is actually in the bishopric, and is super cool. We haven't had a chance to get over to there house yet, so I don't know much about him, but he's really nice and friendly. He introduced himself to me on the first Sunday and we figured out how we kind of knew each other and everything. He also said that Brother Nadauld told him that the ward is lucky to have me there. We'll see if I can live up to that. 

Architecture of Luxembourg

The city itself is interesting. It's big, but small, feeling bigger than it really is. But because of the big feel, it's a lot different than my other villes. Finding a good boulangerie (bakery), or kebab shop, means picking from 20 or so, and all of them are at least a bus ride away. We live in a little bit more of a neighborhood that before. The buses within the city are great because they come often and they go late enough for us to catch a ride home. In Calais and Lorient, we usually had to be back close to home by 8 because that's when the buses stopped. It's really pretty here, but it feels like they're still building it because of how much construction there is. France, they're kind of done with construction. They pretty flatlined in most places. But here, things are really growing. There's a lot of modern buildings right next to old style French ones, and it gives it a kind of time-travel-y feel. It's a lot cleaner than France, and you see a LOT more guys in suits walking around. from what people say, it's a lot like a richer version of Germany, and not much like France. Out of all the places I've been so far, it would easily be my choice as a place to live. You have so much of the world within just a few hours of your country here.

I feel so blessed to be in such a magical place. Keep up the good work back at home!

Elder Bigler


Bonus Photos

New Member Named Guy Has a Raiders Helmet

Nuclear Power Plant in France
Traveling from Metz to Luxembourg