You may possibly guess the number of missionary lunches that
we have hosted in the last two weeks by the number of cookies that Sister
Jeppson has baked. If I said she baked
500 cookies, how many lunches would that be?
If you guessed five, you would be right.
If you add four breakfasts, you would calculate that we hosted nine
meals in the last two weeks. This means
supplementing a menu of sandwiches and a quiche like dish for lunch and pain au
chocolat for breakfast provided by our local restaurant with chips, juice,
lettuce salad, yogurt, and drinks along with the cookies. There’s a bit of set up and clean-up work
mixed in with all of that.
Our latest group of seven elders and twenty-one sister
missionaries arrived two weeks ago. This
was our largest group to date. They
stayed until Friday of that week because that was the only day that met with
the French government’s schedule to do their legal stuff. In between
Tuesday and Friday, besides eating, they interviewed with President Roney,
received training and orientation, played a French Jeopardy game designed by
the office elders, traveled to the hill above the city, did some street
contacting and got their pictures taken by Sister Jeppson once alone and once
with their newly assigned trainer that they met on Thursday. Most of this was done during rain storms. The logistics of transportation with mission
vehicles and public transportation was quite interesting also.
If you think about the potential numbers arising from the
above described activities you would calculate 35 to 65 people being together
at various times during the week. The
peak numbers occurred when the new missionaries and their trainers were
together at the same time requiring that their meals and training be provided
at the Ecully church instead of the mission office. These new missionaries came from Italy,
France (Ecuador, Poland background-speaks 4 languages), Canada, French Polynesia
(2) and various states including Texas (3), Illinois (2), North Carolina (2),
Ohio (2), New York, California (3), Idaho and Utah (10). These are amazing young missionaries. Their courage, enthusiasm and testimonies
inspire us. 
Week 2 was a little calmer with missionaries returning with
their trainers for training on Tuesday (36) and Leadership council on Wednesday
(28). This leadership council included
some new participants because of recent guidance from church leaders to mission
presidents. Companionships of sister
missionaries can now be called as leadership/trainers to work with the larger
groups of sister missionaries. We have
three equpies (teams) in our mission so far.
Recently we were asked to be home teachers for four families
in our ward. We visited three of the
four last week. One sister came to Lyon
a year ago from Venezuela for a job and is now planning to go to a university
for more training. She has come to
church a few times and told us that she really appreciated our visit since she
had not received one in France or her home country for a number of years. Another sister went through a divorce a year
ago and became a member of the church last July. She is from Columbia and has a two year old
daughter named Emilie. She has not been
able to attend church meetings for several months because she is required to
work all day Sunday. She really
appreciated our visit also. We met our
third sister (who is a student in her twenties) while walking to the Métro after
our visit to the sister from Venezuela.
We were fortunate to see her because she had not been able to return my
call and was planning to go to Paris last weekend to look for a job. We took pictures of a carousel and some
interesting churches and buildings on
the way to the Métro.
Nos Petits-Enfants
We recently watched, through the internet, a three part series
about the history of the church in France that was part of the BYU TV Road to
Zion series. The stories that were told included
the inspiring story of Frère Fargier from Valence, a city in our mission that
we have traveled to for missionary apartment inspections. He was one of the only member during World
War II in the 1940s in France who held the Priesthood. He courageously visited many cities in France
during the war to administer the sacrament or give priesthood blessings. Brother Mocellin from our Villeurbanne Ward
was interviewed during the program about his experience as a young deacon who
would travel to Frère Fargier’s home to provide the sacrament because he was
old and too ill to come to church. We
have two deacons in our family, a recently ordained deacon, Brad, and a veteran
deacon, Zack. We hope that you and your
fathers and uncles will take every opportunity to actively use your priesthood
to bless the lives of others like Frère Fargier did.
