After Centerville received heavy snow fall that closed
schools earlier this month, Lyon received a few inches of snow last week which
was enough to cancel the flight from Paris to Lyon of our eight new missionaries. Instead of arriving by plane at 9:00 a.m.
they arrived by train at 3:00 p.m. That
may have been a blessing in disguise because their opportunity to rest on the
train probably helped them to be more alert the rest of the day.
They still managed to be trained, fed and legalized during
their two days in Lyon before heading out with their trainers to assigned cities
in France and Switzerland. Two sisters
from the same stake in England joined six elders from the Canary Islands
(Spain), Finland, Texas, North Carolina, and Utah. Fourteen missionaries returned to our Lyon
office last Friday with their trainers for their customary follow-up training
after serving for six weeks. Our
fourteen zone leaders received training at the office from the Assistants and
President Roney on Tuesday of this week to prepare for zone training that they
will conduct on Thursday.
Our opportunity to associate with all of these wonderful
missionaries greatly outweighs the work of planning meals, buying groceries,
Sister Jeppson baking around 220 chocolate chip cookies, setting up and
cleaning up. We also had a chance to
take the office elders out for lunch at a “Fish & Chips” place before we
lost two of them at the transfer.
There was so much going on at the office, we thought that
you ought to finally see a picture of the Lyon Business Centre. We are on the 2nd floor. We were able to get a better picture of the
office building recently because old structures which housed a car repair
garage and other businesses have been torn down to make way for a new apartment
building.
I have had more opportunities to practice my French
recently. I was the intermediary while
upgrading our internet system between French speaking technicians at our office
and English speaking technicians at the church offices in Salt Lake. The two groups had different ideas on how to
solve technical problems. Trying to mix
language problems with technical computer lingo was an interesting challenge. I sometimes have opportunities to communicate
problems on the phone or by e-mail or letters with various vendors like a phone call yesterday with a representative
of EDF, the French government’s electric company that provides electricity to
all of our apartments.
While waiting for Métro (Subway) when we were traveling to
church a week ago Sunday, I spoke to a man from the Congo about the gospel and
gave him a Book of Mormon. During
sacrament meeting a week ago Sunday, I received a note from a counselor in the
bishopric that led to an unexpected opportunity to speak. Last Sunday, at the request of the High
Priest Group Leader, I taught the Priesthood lesson from the new George Albert
Smith manual. I will soon have another
opportunity to practice speaking French because President Roney recommended that
I speak in his place at a fireside the first Sunday in February because he will
be out of town.
NOS PETITS-ENFANTS
Your grandma and grandpa find ourselves doing difficult
things outside of our comfort zones like solving technical computer problems, trying
to speak and understand the French language and talking to strangers about the
gospel. Your grandmother continues to
study the French language every day even though it is hard to understand what
people say because they speak so fast, and she only hears the language spoken
once a week at church meetings. Think
about how hard it would be to attend church meetings for three hours every
Sunday and only understand a few words. It
is okay to try to do hard, worthwhile and righteous things because Heavenly
Father will help us through the challenges. Remember the promise found in D
& C 84:88: “…for I will go before
your face. I will be on your right hand
and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round
about you, to bear you up.”
