Monday 8 June 2015

Well I've officially been in France for 3 months!!! To celebrate this little milestone I made a little list of things that I've noticed/are different here in France. 

10 things I've noticed while living in France!

1. They don't refrigerate their milk and they do something so that it'll last 3 months!
2. It is very important to say hello and goodbye in France. So before leaving church you have to go around and say goodbye to everyone, it takes like an hour to leave anywhere! 
3. French bread is delicious and they eat it with everything!!!
4. It is very strange here to strike up a conversation with people on the street so 9 times out of 10 when you say bonjour their response is "je vous connais?" (Do I know you?) Nope! We're just missionaries :)
5. Every French meal starts with a salad, the main plate, cheese, and dessert. After having a mangez-vous we don't need to eat for the rest of the week!
6. There is literally a patisserie on every corner! And it's true that French people buy baguettes everyday! 
7. EVERYONE has a friend that lives in Québec
8. All French people "font la bise" (kiss kiss thing). It took a while to get used to it but now I don't mind! I have had a couple terrifying moments when you both go the same way and almost kiss them... Those are terrible. 
9. To get out of buildings you have to press a button that opens the door to get out. I can't even tell you how many doors I've ran into because I've forgotten to press the darn button! 
10. The people here don't always come off as super friendly but if you start talking to them with broken French and pretty awful accent they're more then happy to listen to you ;)

I've really fallen in love with this country in the past 3 months. The people here are amazing! They don't necessarily know a lot about God but they love their families and when we tell them we can help strengthen their family they are super willing to hear what we have to share with them! I'm so lucky to get to serve in such an amazing country! I know I'm called here for many reason and I know one of them was because there are people here in France that I am going to help and there are even more people here that are going to help me! 

Also this week was transfer calls! Drum roll please!! ...... I'M STAYING IN LYON!!! I am so so so happy to be staying here! I love Lyon so much and could really stay here my whole mission! I got a new companion as well! Her name is Soeur Balanõs! She's from Peru but grew up in New Jersey. She's super sweet and I'm really excited for all the work we are going to do this transfer! 

Ok, now a little update on our week! Unfortunately soeur Tupai had lots of dentists appointments this week so it ate up a lot of our time. BUT we still saw some miracles! Liliana, one of our amis, had her boyfriend arrive from Mexico this week and he has also agreed to take the missionary lessons! We are so excited for both of them! It was pretty cool because we hadn't gotten a hold of Liliana all week and we were getting kinda nervous that she might be dropping us and then Saturday we called and she was so sorry that she hadn't called us, she had just been super busy and she told us that her and Paco were going to be coming to church! It was such a miracle! Church has been kinda hard for Liliana since she doesn't speak French. But just like that she wanted to come! 

We also had a 'coin de feu missionaire' (missionary fireside) Sunday evening. What they do is ask a couple recent covert to bear their testimony and tell their conversion story. It was amazing. That was probably the strongest I had felt the spirit since I've been in France. One of our recent converts Laura spoke and she did great! I arrived here just after she had been baptized and it's been amazing to see her growth! Just a couple weeks ago she went to the temple for the first time! We had worked so hard with her to do that and when she finally went it was amazing! She has a little boy Robert who is 2 and I remember she leaned over to me why the elders were doing a musical number and she said "that'll be Robert one day" It just made me realize that even though maybe at the time there's only one person getting baptized it affects their ENTIRE FAMILY! Including their future family! Now little Robert will be raised in the gospel and hopefully one day serve a mission! 

Today was a fun day! Since all the missionaries are leaving/arriving to their new areas all those people who are getting new companions hang out at the gare (train station) all day! Lyon has the biggest train station so almost all the missionaries stop by in Lyon for at least a little while. So it was a fun day and soeur balanõs finally arrived at 3! 

Overall it's been a great week and I'm excited to be staying here in Lyon! Oh, also great news.. IM NOT A BLUE! As a new missionary you do special training the first 12 weeks but I'm all done! So now I'm a real live missionary! .... I think they actually expect me to do stuff now... Uh oh.., 

Haha just kidding! I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! 

Gros bisous! 

Soeur Kearney









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