Week 76 "CHRISTMAS, thanks for the love!"

Me making Buche de Noel

Hello!

 Monday we went porting (knocking on doors) on a long road in the north of our area.  The porting itself didn't prove successful but it felt good to get out and work hard that night.  We also found a really cool guy on our way to the street, and we had a great lesson about Christ on the street.
        Next up was the Christmas Conference.  We went to Versailles because central Paris doesn't seem like the safest place for large groups right now. We arrived and I saw some good friends like Elder Bigelow, who I hadn't seen in a while.  Elder Bigelow finishes his mission in a few weeks!  Wow that seems crazy.  During the conference we got some more info on the Paris Temple: all of the walls are up and the stained glass will go in in a few weeks! That would be cool if I could go to the opening of the temple but I think I'll be in college by that time. After President Babin talked about the temple more, we finished the conference with a big Christmas meal with everyone together. We also got letters and packages from home, so thank you Mom, Dad, and all my sisters for the package full of really good candy!  That same day I also gave a jar of Peanut Butter to the Sister Missionaries because I had a lot and they really wanted some, they were really thankful for it...haha, kind of funny to give the Sisters a Christmas gift.

The Fireplace... - finished. I made that while Elder Edmunds was sick

        Well, Wednesday morning we were stuck in the post office sending off some packages that elder Trotter had to send to his friends.  He sent one to Honduras and we had to print off pictures of Mary, color them, and tape them to the package.  I thought of sending some things to friends in missions in South America but honestly I think sending an email for Christmas is a better bet than sending a package that may be looted by drug lords. We worked on a ward project that night to compile names of less actives we plan to concentrate on, and I brought cookies my family had sent from the USA.  Everyone in France likes American chocolate chip cookies, that's a fact.

People in the photo: soeur facer, soeur Jones, Elder Edmunds (with sweater), Elder Merrill.  And other members that are really cool. The blonde lady leaned over the cake has invited us over tonight!

        Exchanges happened the day following. Elder Merrill our district leader and I went to the church for a lesson when we met the members of the Meaux (pron. 'mo') ward and helped them set up for the Christmas activity.  Good thing I was there because they needed to install some curtains in the rafters and I'm really tall!  They bought us Domino's Pizza and that saved us a lot of time.  Later that night we found a big park and went contacting in and around it, then we visited Sister Kadio in the hospital, and returned to the church before the night was over to get the leftover pizza from earlier only to find more members setting up for the activity and more leftover pizza! Wow life is good. The next day we did more exchanges.  I was with Elder Edmunds who felt  sick.  We did some contacting in the morning and after lunch he rested. In the meantime I worked on drawing our faux fireplace in preparation for Christmas.  We felt the need to visit Sister Kadio again that night, and while we were there she received her hospital release forms, woohoo!

Oh, this is a funny story actually.  So that's a piece of the RER line A.  I was sitting in the train and I notice a piece of the stairs fell off.  I grabbed it and when we got off I asked the lady at the info booth what to do with it, she told me to throw it away.  I decided to keep it. A cool souvenir!

        Saturday we had a big ward party.  I wanted to participate in the cake competition so I decided to go all out (not the best idea) and make a 'Buche de Noel', the big log cakes they make here for Christmas.  I didn't have a recipe but I figured I could guess how to make the 'buche' with parts of other recipes.  So after multiple hours in the kitchen I finally end up with this 'creation'; not necessarily a 'buche', more like thick chocolate bricks with a little cream in between. But it tasted pretty good, meaning it was SUPER heavy.  Hah, I had fun making cake, and we saw a lot of people, including non members at the party.

My cake! You can see how thick it is, and the way it's supposed to roll up with cream in the middle. It tasted pretty good but man, it was thick.

        Sunday we saw some cool miracles. After church we planned on eating lunch, but we didn't have time to go home and eat because of a lesson we planned right after church.  My companion and I were feeling cranky because we were hungry but we decided to go to the lesson anyway.  So quick background story about this lady, 'E': elder Oldham and I contacted her three weeks ago on a Monday night and she gave us her address to pass by later. She wasn't there the first time, but when I went on my Friday exchange with Elder Edmunds she answered the door with five yapping chihuahuas behind her.  She let us in and the dogs stopped barking thank goodness. She let us teach her about prayer and the lesson was miraculous because she said she was only home sundays. We were there Friday, how'd that work out?  So we go back to see her sunday and she brought her sister just like she promised, and we taught both them. Do you remember how we hadn't eaten lunch? Well E makes really delicious spring rolls for us - homemade. OOH they were so good. And it felt even better to have a couple new amis to teach. I feel so blessed. And additionally we saw J for the first time in two weeks. He's doing well and I thank you for your prayers in my behalf and in behalf of our friends we're teaching.
        Loves to all of you and have a Merry Christmas!  Think of Jesus Christ and how he was always loving and serving, never being skeptical or cynical...I could do a lot better at that.  My situation's great here. Love you all once again, and Merry Christmas!
Love
Elder Jones