Crêpes, Croissants, and Converts

Coucou!!

So this week was possibly one of the best weeks of my mission! I had so much fun!

Monday me and my companions drove to Aix and had a sleepover with our sister training leaders. Tuesday morning we left at about 7am and my zone got on a bus with the Nice zone and we started out road trip to Lyon for our mission conference! The mission conference was a gift from President and Soeur Brown. None of us knew what we were doing other then spending 2 days in Lyon with the whole entire mission! The drive was about 3 hours and when we got there the bus dropped us off at the Confluence Museum. We took a big mission picture and then headed to a park that was about 10 minutes away. We had pizza for lunch and just spent the afternoon together. It was so so so great to be able to catch up with all of my mission friends. All of the people I've grown to love where all in one place and I loved it!

After that we headed to an aquarium that wasn't far. President had rented out the theatre room for the evening. We started with President giving us a little devotional and then he let us know that we were about to reach our goal as a mission of teacher with 1000 members in december! Then we sang the 12 days of christmas but we had changed the words a little. We said :On the first day of Christmas my president said to me... Each zone had a verse!

1- Mille Membre en decembre

2- Clean apartments better (this was the senior couples verse haha)

3- Three french families

4- 4 legged chair

5- I LOVE SOEUR BROWN (that was everyones favorite verse haha)

6- 6pm curfew (all of december we've had to be in by 6 BUT we found out that that will be lifted as of January 2nd!)

7- 7 convos daily

8- dix-huit heure curfew

9- prayerful perfect planning

10- ecully is the best (so this verse was obviously done by the ecully zone haha. Everytime we had to sing it everyone just booed them haha)

11- Keep it simple stupid (KISS it's an acronym soeur brown came up wiht a while ago haha)]

12- I can't remeber this one haha.

So after that Soeur brown had organized some minute to win it games and different companionships got called up on the stage to do them in front of everyone haha. After that President told us that we were going to watch the LION KING all together haha. About halfway through the movie President stopped it to give us a super awesome surprise!

Some of you might remember me talking about going to Master Taco. It's a restaurant in Lyon and all the missionaries go there whenever we're in Lyon for conferences. The people that work there know us super well and love the missionaries (probably because we go there enough to pay for their rent haha) Anyways Master Taco is in a red zone of Lyon so no one has been able to go there since the attacks. Well President Brown decided to get Master Taco for everyone! When Iman (the owner) came in to deliver them we all gave him a standing ovation. It's kinda silly but it's a big part of our mission culture and the tacos are like really really good guys haha.

After that we all headed to different apartments for the night. The next moring we went to te ecully chapel for our conference. President Brown and Soeur Brown both addressed us and it was a really special conference. It was the first time we had all been together since President and Soeur Brown had come into the mission. The spirit was so strong. Then we got a really special gift from President and Sister Roney (our old mission president). For Christmas they had gotten old missionaries from our mission and they recorded themselves singing our mission song 'Angels we have Heard on High' They gave a cd to every missionary in the mission! So what we got to do was not only sing our mission song together as an entire mission but also along with our old mission president and all the missionaries that have served here before us!

After that we all got back on our buses and headed back home! Christmas Eve we were with the Faudin Family! It was so fun! We showed up about 5pm and helped cook the meal. In France they do things a bit different and we didn't sit down to eat until 10pm! Don't worry, we had permission to stay out late for Christmas eve haha. We had a super delicious meal! Well except for the oysters.. those were really slimy. We got home around midnight! By then we were dead tired and went right to bed haha. Christmas Day we got to sleep in, watch FROZEN, and of course talk to our families!

Needless to say we had a pretty busy but amazing week! I'm so grateful I've been called to this mission and I have the chance to serve here in France. This Christmas was so special not just because I was with people I love but because I got to really focus on Christ. He is the reason we celebrate this time of year and it is because of His birth that there is such a special spirit aruond the christmas season.

I love you all SO much!

Love,

Soeur Kearney