13 million people live in Paris

It has been a very busy week because we helped prepare a dinner for two different missionary zone conferences that were held at the St. Merri chapel.  We fed over 100 missionaries with the help of the other two couples who serve in the visitors center.  Elder John Prince served with me 47 years ago in Limoge, France and he along with his wife, Beverly, arrived a couple of weeks ago to replace Elder and Sister Hadfield when they leave next month.  Elder Prince was a dentist in Midway, Utah, and Elder Hadfield was a Brain Pathologist, Virginia.

 

We are finally legal in France.  It required a 2 hour exam including blood and Urin tests, Chest X-ray, blood pressure, Eye test, a visit with a doctor and finally a stamp in our visa saying we are legal.  I thought it was bad before our mission but this took the cake.  The French love red tape.

We enjoyed a 5 coarse meal with Brother and Sister Euvrard at their home in the country about 15 miles away from our home in Bussy-St. Georges.  They have 2 adopted sons from Nepal, India who were there, along with their friend Fabian, the Paris East Stake Young Adult Representative who is a member of our Torcy Ward.  Elder Szuch and Elder Simoes, our Torcy Zone Leaders who live in Bussy-St.Georges joined us too.  We had a wonderful dinner and then Brother Euvrard and I discussed the content of the institute class I will begin teaching about Family History in February.

I am really excited to teach Family History which I think will help the students to better prepare to increase the temple work here in the Paris area.  We will be placing an emphasis on preparing to share their family stories using the media that is currently available.  It will be interesting to see how well it is received because it is one of three different classes offered during the next semester.

This will be our first Christmas away from home as it is also for Andrew, our grandson who just arrived in his mission field and is serving in “Many Farms”, New Mexico among the Navajo people.  He is teaching where people are few and far between and we are working in Paris, a city of 13 Million people.  He and his companion, Elder O’Connell, drive a truck around the reservation while Dixie and I travel into Paris by train, about a 35 minute train ride plus about a 15 minute walk to our Center at St. Merri.  The transportation system here in Paris moves about 3 million people a day.  Christmas Eve is not nearly as important to the French people as New Years Eve. 

Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris, Franced

However they do spend Christmas Eve with their family for the most part.  Many of them go to midnight mass in large cathedrals around their city.  Dixie and I look forward to a nice quiet couple of days at home without the crush of people.  Later in the week, we will join Elder and Sister Prince to see some of the sights of Paris.  The longer we are here, the more we love the land and the people of France.  It will even get better when we can understand their language completely especially the everyday language that you hear on the streets.  During my first mission, I became acquainted with the gospel language, not so much of the everyday language.  We hope to also, not only understand the accent, but be able to speak it too.  You can understand the grammar but unless you speak with a French accent, people can’t understand what you say.  In fact many of the French people don’t speak grammatically correct themselves, just like Americans don’t always speak grammatically correct.  Merry Christmas to everyone and may the new year bring more prosperity than the current year.

Christmas time is also busy in Paris

What a great week.  We have begun to meet and remember the names of many of our Young Adults who come to the Center.  We have also attended some parties for the Young Adults. 

 

Brother Gilger (standing on my right next to the door ) is a counselor in the Paris ward Bishopric and his wife is the Relief Society President.  He works for IBM here and they invited us along with the Young Adults in the ward to their apartment near the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris for a Christmas party.  We had a wonderful time with them and were joined by Elder and Sister Hadfield and Elder and Sister Prince who direct the work in the Visitors Center at St. Merri.  We enjoyed wonderful food as well as singing Christmas carols and watched a great presentation about the birth, life  and mission of Jesus Christ.

Snow fell for the first time this year during the week but didn’t stay long because it had melted in the rain by the afternoon.  It did remain cold for a couple of days and we saw frost.  The English conversation class is going well with about a dozen people attending.  We will be busy next week preparing Christmas snacks for two Missionary Zone Conferences.

 I was particularly pleased to sustain along with the other members of the ward a couple (pictured here with Dixie) from the our home ward, the Torcy ward, to serve as ward missionaries.  Brother Lazerus is a retired medical doctor who has helped many missionaries with medical needs including me.  He and is wife speak good English and will be excellent additions to the missionary work in the Torcy ward.  As you can see they are younger than Dixie and I because people can retire earlier here in France.  We look forward to other couples joining them.

Starting to visit sights in Paris, France

Everyone who heard that we coming to France expressed envy and so we have started to visit the famous tourist sights and will share them with you over a period of time.  Of course the most famous is the Eiffel Tower and we took some pictures there from across the Seine River where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has sung.

 

    

 

We also visited the Versailles ward where the new Paris Temple will be built.  While there we visited with our Mission President, President Poznanski and his two daughters.  They are French and are doing a wonderful job.  Dixie particularly loves the fact that they speak english and help her by doing so when she is around.  They took us to lunch one afternoon and we had a delightful visit with them.

 

 

 

Unlike the St. Merri chapel that very old, the Versailles chapel is realatively new.  It is a little smaller than our chapel in American Fork, but it does have a cultural hall with a stage.

 





Life in France doesn't occur just in Paris

 

Lest you think that life only exists in Paris, let me tell you about where we live in Bussy St. Georges.  Although construction in Paris involves renovating existing buildings, Bussy St. Georges is a planned community about 30 miles east of Paris along side the train tracks not far from Disneyworld Europe.

 

There is plenty of room for new construction, although the houses cost about $750,000 and appartments sell for $250,000.

Our appartment is located about 2 blocks from the train station.

We are close to parks and play grounds.  One of the things that has changed since I was here in 1965 is that you can find a Big Mac almost anywhere.