Sister Alice Jensen: Week 6: L'Arc de Triomphe, le temple, et la Tour Eiffel!!!

December 18, 2017

Week 6: L'Arc de Triomphe, le temple, et la Tour Eiffel!!!

Hello!!

Guess what! I saw the Eiffel Tower this week! Also the Arc de Triomphe! They were both entirely on accident, but I'm not complaining.

So, we had an old car that had lots of issues. We named him St. Evres after the auto shop he spent most of his time at. The missionaries in Toul have been trying to get him fixed up for months so that we could turn him into the mission office and receive our new car. This week he finally got all repaired, which coincided perfectly with my OFII appointment to get legal in France (it's the step after a Visa). So we road tripped to Paris on Thursday, which with all the traffic took about 4.5 hours.

driving from Toul to Paris

We had been giving the wrong info about the metro, so we ended up being an hour late to my appointment. This was not good, BUT at one point we took a wrong turn and popped out of the metro station literally 100 meters away from the Arc de Triomphe. It's HUGE. There were people and tourist groups all around it. Technically missionaries are not allowed to visit it because of the possibility of a terrorist attack there. So we snapped a selfie and got back on the metro. Sad, but still so cool!

We accidentally came out at the Arc de Triumph

Even though I was late they let me in at OFII where I got to experience fun things like x-rays and Disneyland-esque lines (without the ride at the end). But when I was done the door attendant ushered me straight outside. The door locked behind him, and I found myself in the middle of Paris in the rain with no umbrella, no companion, and no phone. I knocked on the door but no one heard. Fortunately, after about 10 minutes of laughing at myself, someone came out the door and I got in. My comp was in the waiting room. Whew.

We got out so late that we weren't allowed to go back to Toul that night.

So they sent us to an apartment in Paris. We had no food, no PJ's, no toothbrushes, and no beds. Oh, well. We made some new friends. And ate their food. Also, we got to spend about an hour in the Paris Temple Visitor's Center! The temple is so awesome, guys! The senior couple there gave us the presentation they give to visitors to make us want to send our amis there. It worked. It was so powerful. Now we just have to convince our amis to make the trip....

Paris Temple at night

Hot Cocoa in Paris

The next morning on the way back in our brand new 2017 hybrid Toyota Yaris, we saw......the Eiffel tower! From pretty far away, but it was so stinkin cool! It's huge and beautiful. The Space Needle is to the Eiffel Tower as a Twinkie is to an eclair. So I feel sufficiently French now.

Eiffel Tower in the distance

Moving on to things that are actually important....Terii was baptized this Friday!! Hooray hooray hooray! He was so happy he was glowing. The service was wonderful and he bore a powerful testimony. We had to clean all the cobwebs and mouse poop out of the font and kill a seriously massive spider. As in borderline tarantula. Our new baptismal goal is to never let the font get cobwebs again. Because ick.

cleaning out the font

Terii's BAPTISM!!!!!

Fortunately, Sebastien is going to be baptised the 6th of January!! We moved up his date because of his mission for the military to Mali on the 16th. He came to the Soiree Noel (branch Christmas party) where we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, ate Tahitian food and pate, watched the Tahitians do a hula dance (that was not hula but I can't pronounce the name and it sure looked like hula) and had an awesome time. Everybody danced at the end except us :( because we had to leave at 9:15. Anyway, Sebastien loved it and came to church the next day too, where Terii got confirmed and was ordained a deacon, too! It was such a good weekend.

I gave a talk in church on Sunday which was terrifying but fortunately I didn't die. Afterward members came up to me and gave me suggestions on how to improve my French.

A really cool experience I had this week was while tracting in Toul. We were on a mini exchange with the Luxembourg soeurs. At one door, we met a old man who was very kind and invited us in to talk to him and his wife. His wife was paralyzed from the waist down and she said that she hadn't believed in God since she fell down and became paralyzed. Soeur Earl and I tried to help and encourage her but she didn't want to hear any of it. We asked if we could sing her a song, she said no. We asked if we could share a video or a scripture, she said no. She told us to go away. Soeur Earl asked if she could give her a bisou (kisses on the cheeks) before we left and she seemed surprised but said yes. It was an inspired act of love. She smiled at us and when Soeur Earl asked if we could sing her Silent Night, she said yes. We sang all the verses and the Spirit was incredibly strong. She was crying and smiling and seemed like an entirely different person. We left them with a brochure and Ronnie (the old man) told us to come back again since we made his wife so happy. They couldn't remember their phone number but we'll be back again this week with Christmas cookies!!

baking Sister Crosby's sugar cookies

It was a wonderful week, and I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. I learned this week that an act of love, no matter how small, can work legitimate miracles in the people's lives.

Love,

Soeur Alice Jensen