The conclusion of Bordeaux Mission!

Feeling the light breeze on my face, I looked out at the water. The edges of the moving water between the feet of the bridge curled into little whirlpools here and there. I tried to drag up all the rusty memories of my former life in Orem, back when everything was so much simpler. I was so faithful then, what had happened to me?

Picturing my home and my family, my youth and my old ward, I started to feel like a good missionary again. I kept all of these pleasant images in my mind until it was time to go get Nick and go to my interview with the Mission President.

When it was my turn, the Mission President shook my hand and started asking me all of the familiar temple recommend questions: Read the rest of the story ->

It's not that simple...

Friday morning I gathered my things and Elder Beaverton helped me carry them to the other side of town to the mission office. Elder Beaverton didn't have to move his own things this time -- he just had to gather up his new companion, Elder Wilson, and bring him back to the apartment. Read the rest of the story ->

Even if the church is perfect, the people aren't

Elder Beaverton and I didn't say anything as we walked northeast along the side of the Jardin Public. When we got to the corner, I suggested that we turn northwest and continue going around the park. I knew that the girls were still inside. I couldn't help but feel like if Elder Dickhead was going to label me a troublemaker anyway, it didn't really matter if I broke the rules a little or not.

As we approached another entrance to the Jardin Public, I turned to Elder Beaverton and said "It was very rude the way we left like that. We should at least go back and apologize to those girls and say goodbye to them properly before we go back to tracting."

"No, Elder Hobbs, don't do it. You're just going to get us into more trouble."

"You were fellowshipping them, weren't you? Read the rest of the story ->

I'll bet you and Spencer met in the pre-existence

On Wednesday morning we were having about the same luck as Tuesday morning. We were wandering around the Place Gambetta, thinking about finding some lunch, when we heard a familiar voice:

Read the rest of the story ->

All the good gossip

Between buildings we passed by a pharmacy that had in its display window a large poster advertising some sort of mysterious medication. The image on the poster was a soft black-and-white shot of a nude woman looking off into the distance with her breasts completely exposed to view. Read the rest of the story ->

Not some dorkazoid missionaries!

The next morning, after Elder Beaverton and I had done our usual personal study and companion study, we set off to go out tracting. As usual, no one wanted to let us in. To break up the tedium and frustration of it, we played little games to vary our door approach such as picking a particular word we'd have to work into our opening line somehow.

The whole morning the only person who let us in to talk was an old guy who mistook us for the Amish. We would get this problem all the time because in the French version of the movie Witness, the word "Amish" was mistranslated as "Mormon". So a lot of times people would ask us about how we always drive around in a horse-and-buggy back home or some other crazy thing that of course we don't do. Still, it was better than getting mistaken for the Témoins de Jéhovah [Jehovah's Witnesses].

After grabbing a sandwich for lunch, we decided to spend the afternoon street contacting along rue Sainte Catherine,

Read the rest of the story->

To stay and build up the kingdom

By the time Elder Beaverton and I got back to our apartment, it was past 18 heures (6 p.m.), so p-day was officially over, and it was time to get back to work.

The cool thing was that our work for the evening was hardly work. We finally had a referral for once -- in fact, better than a referral, one of the local members had invited us to dinner to give the first discussion to her sister. Read the rest of the story ->