August 8, 2011 "The Dreaded Vacance"

Bonjour!!!!

Alright. I have a confession. This week has been a struggle. Ever since I arrived in France I heard these murmmerings about the dreaded 'vacance' where literally everyone clears out of Paris and the missionary work is really slow. Ignornant little me was like right ok, but Im sure the Lord doesnt take vacance right?? The work will be fine...right well, enter reality check. Literally everyone has left Paris. Zdravko left to 'get a cavity fixed' in Bulgaria, my favorite chinese twins joined the exodus to southern France, and just about every solid family in our ward that I never thought would leave...are on vacance. So work with amies...postponed till Septembre. Work with members...postponed to Septembre. Work with anyone??? *crickets chirpping*

Alright my 'lamen and lemuel' moment is over. Yes the work is slow, but luck for us the adventures are never slow to come in Paris. This week Paris has apparently had a fever. It goes from being ridiculously unbearibly hot and humid, to cold torential rains. Literally...right now Im wearing a coat and Im sure by the time I exit this internet café Ill pealing of all my layers and carrying around my 6 sweaters in 90° weather waiting for the next chill. During one of these rain storms at six-thirty in the morning Soeur Ingrham (the new sister in Paris Lilas) and I went for a run. I literally felt like we had gone swimming, but it was so fun. Although I dont really know if it was even a good run or not because Im not sure if I built up a sweat...hmmm.....

On top of bipolar weather, Soeur Williams and I have been feeling quite bipolar as the mission president and mission doctor have been trying to decide if her 'ankle situation' is serious enough to send her home or not. So while waiting inbetween phone calls we had gone over every possible outcome and how we would react to it....and we got through all the options just in time to get a call from the mission president to tell us that she is staying!!!! So we quickly rejoiced and then were very grateful that President Poznanski is now taking matters into his own hands to find her a doctor during vacance (bon courage....) The important thing is she is staying!!!

We have also had some adventures during what we have dubbed as 'ankle time' aka the times when we've walked too much and Soeur Williams' ankle looks about 5xs the size of normal and we hang out in the apartment with it elevated above her heart. Honestly you can only memorize so much preach my gospel and read so many scriptures before you start to go crazy. So this week I have managed to clean out every nook and cranny of our apartment including behind the fridge and several bookshelves; build, sleep in, and then deconstruct a fort (but first I made everyone crawl through it for a full 24 hours anytime they needed to go to the bathroom); write 9 letters (to all of you who havent heard from me since the MTC...oops my bad!), and make a ridiculous amount of brownies for the lucky elders who are profitting from our pitch boredom. Its been a rather productive week if you ask me. But seriously, dont worry we also manage to do missionary work. We've made significant progress in our area book and come up with some pretty good schemes for the ward . Hmmmm Soeur Smith locked in one room for a week....can get either really scary or really productive. I think this week we've seen both.

Even though the week has been a little bit lacking in bussiness, Sunday never fails us. This week the first Chinese priesthood holder in Paris blessed the sacrament! It has been so cool to see the chinese elders work so hard to build up the Chinese work and prepare to have a chinese branch in Paris. The only thing they are waiting on is priesthood holders. Fu Jian Shu has had a long journey to his baptism, but was beaming this week as he blessed the sacrament. As well, true to the St. Merri ward and in all of its uniqueness, testimonies were said in four different languages yesterday. The members who are still hanging around during vacance have done an awsome job at bringing thier friends to church, and I had a special treat in church when out of the crowd of tourists popped my friend Lauren who I did the Jerusalem study abroad with (wow has it really been a year and a half....)!!!

Despite the call of the beaches in the South of France...there are always some people you can depend on to always be around. Mikey, the homeless guy that hangs out around the church, never takes vacance. Soeur Williams and I were disgustingly fascinated this week as we watched him take a yogurt cup out of the garbage can, wash the yogurt cup in the gutter, walk over to another homless man, that homeless man pour alcohal out of a hairspray can into the yogurt cup, and Mikey with his big toothless grin take a drink. Ahhh Paris....some things never change.

Well, I love you all and hope your taking a little 'vacance' for yourself back home!!!
xoxo
Soeur Smith