Christmas

Bonjour and Merry Christmas! 

This past week was incredible. The festivities started on Wednesday with a Christmas Conference in Versailles. We had Bishop Cause come to the event so that was really cool. All throughout the week elder Pande and I had to buy metro tickets for the whole mission to get to Versailles. We would meet the missionaries at the train station in the morning and then meet them when they went home. It took a lot of time and money. Haha. 

On Christmas Eve we had an activity with the district. We got together lots of food and handed it out to homeless people. It turned out to be a huge success. That evening we had dinner with a Chinese member named Joe. He is super cool. It was definitely an interesting evening with him speaking Mandarin the whole time but it was fun anyway. On Christmas we went to church, ate lunch with a member, Skyped the family, and ate dinner with another member. All in all we had a wonderful Christmas weekend filled with joy and laughter. 

Have a terrific week. God Bless. 

Elder Hein

Survived a trampling!

Bonjour! 

This past week was another fun one. It started off on pday with a fun game of soccer. We played with Elder Nagloo (my MTC companion) and a few other missionaries just at a local field. It was a lot of fun. 

Tuesday we traveled out to Rouen and then Caen to attend their district meetings. Rouen was super cool. It is known in France for having the most cathedrals out of any city and it definitely lived up to that reputation. It was like Mormon churches in Utah, one on every corner. 

Wednesday we were suppose to go to a district meeting in Versailles but somehow we got roped into cleaning out the old Assistant's apartment. Super dirty. 

Thursday evening we had one of our many visitors center shifts, but during this one some guy came in and talked to me for 3 hours straight about Armageddon and his 2 year adventure in the forest. I literally said 4 words. Bonjour, Oui, Au Revoir. Haha. 

Friday was the best day of the week because we got to go to Brussels to pick up Elder Pande's Belgian legality. It was so great to be in that city again and to meet up with a lot of the young adults I hadn't seen for a while. We ate lots of waffles and fries. There isn't a lot of other noteworthy stuff that happened this past week other than the fact that I almost got trampled to death on the metro. Basically the pollution is getting "really bad" (I am breathing perfectly fine) so Paris has the genius idea of making all public transport free, which I am all on board for, but all the metros are always so packed now. It's pretty crazy. We were stampeding onto the B with about a quadrillion other people and somehow I found myself on the floor trying to get back up. It was crazy but amusing look back at it now. Anyways, have a terrific week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Soccer

Brussels

Feed the Birds

Bonjour! 

This past week was another stellar one. Tuesday we got to do a thing called mothering. Basically missionaries in Paris go to the office and meet the new missionaries who just walked off the plane. Then we take them out contacting for a few hours. It's just to give them a little taste of what is to come for the next two years. Haha. It was a lot of fun. 

Wednesday was Transfer day. I had put myself in charge of the northern train station. I got there at about 8:45 am and immediately we had some problems. All the trains coming in to the eastern train station got delayed two hours. This caused some major problems seeing as how we had set up a perfect intricate plan that was now destroyed. Needless to say I was on the phone for the next couple of hours figuring out how to escort people to different train stations, buying new train tickets, and communicating with the other train station leaders. It was hectic but fun. After that little dilemma I thought everything was going to go smoothly but nope, it didn't. Basically at the northern train station someone cut 200 meters worth of electric wire just outside the train station, which meant no trains could leave or come in until it was fixed. What was suppose to be an 8:45 to 1:00 shift turned into 8:45 to 6 pm shift. Haha 9 hours of standing in the same spot. I started to go a little crazy. Haha. 

Thursday we went to go feed the seagulls. So last week I explained the Christmas thing that we are doing during the month, well this past Thursday we were invited to feed the birds. Elder Pande and I bought a lot of baguettes and the seagulls came. A lot of seagulls came. It was absolutely crazy. 

Friday we had mission council. President relayed to us the new vision for the transfer. In short, we are preparing for our goal of 2017 which is 80% success for people who have baptismal dates actually getting baptized. It will be hard but we can do it. Well those are the big highlights of the week. We also got fed by some German members, had our ward Christmas party, and played soccer on pday. It was a good week. 

Have a terrific week. God Bless

Elder Hein

The Birds

Elder Pande and I

Life in Paris is always 1000 MPH

Bonjour! 

Christmas in Paris

This past week was stellar. Life in Paris is always 1000mph. We had so much to do this past week and this upcoming week it is nothing short of incredible. It's like having finals week, every week. I'm so happy I have this opportunity to go hard everyday for God. 

This past week we had a lot of administrative work to do. On Tuesday we spent a really good portion of the day creating an iPad and tablet Rubric for the mission. President wants there to be a document with all the rules for each application on it. So guess who he gives that duty to? That's right... your very own Paris elders. Haha. In reality it was actually a lot of fun.

 Thursday, Elder Pande and I had to throw on our soccer mom hats again and organize a big activity for all the new missionaries that was going to happen the next day. Basically all the missionaries who came into the country during the last transfer have to go to a doctor in Paris for legality stuff. Us Elders have to buy food, buy metro tickets, set up chairs, etc for the event. Friday the event actually happened. All went well other than one kid who forgot his passport. Oh well. 

I got to go contacting with my MTC companion elder Lamothe that day! It was super fun and we were able to see a lot of success. 

Saturday we went out to Caen to do a finding day with that district. Caen is not the most beautiful city but I definitely had a terrific time. Caen is found up in the Normandy region. A lot of the citizens there really respect us for what happened there 70 years ago. 

Sunday we had another terrible choir practice. I think I am going to jump ship. Haha. 

Elder Pande and I are also tasked with creating the instructions for transfer day on Wednesday. Basically what this entails is giving separate instructions to 130 missionaries who are coming into Paris to get transferred or get a new companion. The catch is we can't meet all in one place because the police doesn't let us. So we have to do a lot number crunching and logistics to get this puppy off the ground. After about 6 hours of work we finished. I loved it. Logistics are so fun.

 

Have a wonderful week. God Bless Go Cowboys

Cody 

We are doing this 25 days of Christmas thing with the mission. Basically we have to do a nice thing everyday and send in a photo of it. The first day was making breakfast for your companion. 

Enjoying a crumbly baguette