,: France - Week 4 (St. Brieuc)

Here's our weekly letter from Elder Davis!

3/18/13

Bonjour toute le monde!

I hope you've all had a great week! Life is good here in Saint Brieuc and we got to teach a lot of lessons this past week. We're keeping very busy which is great; a busy missionary is a happy missionary.

So... Where should I start... Well, it snowed a ton last week which is pretty crazy. Western France doesn't normally get a lot of snow, (especially in March) but it snowed for about 30 hours straight! The snow was really wet and slushy so that was no fun to walk in. What's funny though is (since France doesn't normally get a lot of snow) everything was cancelled and shut down because of the snow! Seriously, it snowed a lot, but there was probably only an inch or so on the ground. Yet all the stores were closed, nobody was on the streets and worst yet, all the buses got cancelled! I guess it only takes an inch of snow to stop everything for a couple days around here. Wimps! The snow was cool, but it did cause a few of our lessons to fall through... But c'est la vie.

I had a couple more Kebabs this week. But I still don't know what the meat in it is exactly. None of the other missionaries know either, we are all too scared to ask because we might not want to know. I think it’s lamb or horse meat. Basically there is a huge thing of meat (about the size of a small fire hydrant) spinning in the restaurant over a heater and then when you order a Kebab they shred off some pieces of meat and put it in a bread thing with onions and fries and your choice of sauce. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes it’s best to not question and just enjoy your food :)

This week I got to go to Vannes (a city about 1-2 hours south of Saint Brieuc) for an exchange with Elder Zollinger. This is elder Zollinger's last transfer so he is getting ready to go home. It was great to work with him for a day and learn from his experience. During our exchange a part member couple (she is a member of the church, he isn't) fed us lunch. One of the things they fed us was pig intestines. Call me crazy, but it wasn't too bad! It was all smoked so that’s mostly what it tasted like. I probably wouldn't want to eat it on a regular basis though.

We had an interesting experience earlier this week. We were walking on the side walk, kind of in a hurry for an appointment, and some random lady comes up to us and started telling us that she was interested in our church and (before we could even ask) she gave us her name, number and address and insisted we come by to talk. That was super cool because that rarely happens to missionaries.

Unfortunately though, she turned out to be completely crazy! We went to teach her a couple days later and she was unbelievably drunk. Just completely wasted out of her mind. She kept offering us what she called "water" (which was really a dark colored beverage that in no way resembled water and was clearly alcoholic). She was super offended that we wouldn't accept her "water" and told us a bunch of crazy stuff. She insisted that she is a world renown teacher and told us to go back to our lives and "never come back to her castle". Ha-ha looking back it's kind of funny, but it’s also disappointing because she seemed so normal on the street ha-ha.

Let’s see, what else happened... Oh, I gave myself a haircut the other day. Everything went well until I was doing the final touches and the electric clippers I was using broke and took a huge chunk out of my hair!! So then I had to cut the rest super short and now I look ridiculous. I'll send a picture.

Joelle, probably one of our most solid investigators, got back from a 2 week vacation the other day so we got to see her. She is so awesome. She reads her scriptures more diligently than most members do. When she isn't reading the scriptures, she is reading the Liahona (Church magazine in French) or LDS.org. She wants to get baptized, she just wants to make sure she is 100% ready so pray for her!

Oh another miracle happened this week. Brother Banks was on his way to church (he lives about an hour from the church building) when he saw an older guy hitch hiking. Brother Banks said normally he would have just drove right past him, but something told him to give the man a ride. He did and found out the guy was super nice and needed a ride because his train got cancelled (aka he is a normal person not a crazy hitch hiker). Turns out the place he needed to go was right by our church building. They ended up talking about the church and the man explained that he is new to the area and has been looking for a place to go to church. Brother Banks got his name and number and everything so we were excited about that. What's really cool though, is at the end of church, this man just walked into the church building and said he wanted to learn more about us. We were able to talk to him a little bit and set up another appointment for later this week. Moral of the story, follow the promptings of the spirit! Brother Banks is a British man and barely speaks French, yet he felt inspired to pick this man up and was able to (in his broken French) explain a little bit of our church.

Anyways, life is good. Missionary work is tough, but I'm enjoying every second of it. For those of you who will be going on missions, prepare now! There is no time to prepare once you are out here. Know your scriptures, diligently study Preach My Gospel, and really gain a strong testimony. Missionary work is unlike any other experience you could ever have. I have already learned and grown so much and met amazing people. I'm thankful for the chance I have to serve here in Saint Brieuc!

Je t'aime!

Elder Davis

Pictures!