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.