Hey fam!!
Sooo...I have kind of a lot to tell you. But sorry if there are tons of mistakes, the keyboard I'm using isn't French, but it isn't American either. So it's kind of hard to type on because everything is in the wrong spot. Bummer, right?
It's all good, though. So. This week...started out great! I got to go to Auchan last pday. It's basically a super walmart but super-er. It was really a great time.
Then Tuesday rolled around. That was a good day. Nothing toooo weird happened, well until we got ready for bed. The toilet and shower were GURGLING at us. But like, no big deal, am I right? So we went to bed. The next day went alright...keep in mind that we have a rendezvous at 3 and a train to take us to Versailles for our conference at 4:30...until we tried to go to the bathroom that morning. The toilet filled. And then the shower filled. And then a pipe under the water heater started streaming water. WELP. So we tried calling some people, but all of the people we wanted to call were at the conference (because half the mission had their conference on Wednesday). So we figured out that by going down to this creepy cave that felt like we were literally walking into a dungeon, we could turn off the water! So we did. Then we left. We are missionaries of faith!
So Versailles was fun. We got to see lots of Sisters and Elders that we hadn't seen in a long time and that was so fun!! Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Sr. Hafen. That was kind of a bummer, but it's okay. I survived. And Elder Kearon is incredible!! It was funny because he is from England, so he has this funny British accent...not gonna lie, I kind of thought I was in Harry Potter for a day...but it was seriously SO GOOD. And of course we always love hearing from Pres Poz and the femme (the wife). And the best part is Sr. Henson had to give the opening prayer...IN ENGLISH. Hah. It's like asking us to teach the retab (the Restoration) in English. Not super possible. No but she did a great job, of course (we practiced A LOT, so it sounded at least a little normal). And Versailles is amazing. SO French and SO beautiful! So that was a good time :)
Then we got home. We kind of forgot about the whole water thing...but we remembered just before we boarded our train to go back to Lux, thank goodness, so we borrowed a French phone (our phone doesn't work in France) and called the greffier (clerk) who was no help. Then we went home. We got home late and were too tired to turn the water back on that night (the cave is SCARY), so the next morning at 6.30 we took a little fieldtrip to turn the water back on. We were praying the whole time that, because of our exceeding faith, the shower and toilet would magically be working again. Apparently we were too little of faith because we went back upstairs and it still wasn't working. Elder Prince, the greffier, told us to call the Bishopric, so we asked the first counselor to come over and see if he could do anything (he knows plumbing). So he did. He tried all sorts of things for a couple of hours...stuck a snake down the pipes (no, not a REAL snake) and plunged at the drain for forever. End result?
Our shower was now filled half-way with sewer water. Yes, that means we had a broken toilet and poop in our shower.
This was Friday. It is now Monday. A lovely mission couple from Nancy came and cleaned out the shower and stuff but couldn't do anything to fix it. It is currently still slowly filling with yucky water again. They're coming again today. A kind American family from our ward let us come over last night to shower (for the first time in 4 days) and we have our bathroom routine down to a science. We got to the church, once in the morning at around 11:30 and once at night around 8:30. Let's just say we don't drink a lot! Luckily we have exchanges on Tuesday, so we can shower at the Nancy Soeurs apartment then, and hopefully it will be fixed soon!
So here is my spiritual missionary moment for the week: I read this talk by Bishop Causse called ''Architects of Your Own Happiness'' (INCREDIBLE, by the way) and in it he quotes Elder Uchtdorf (I think) saying, ''Just remember, our external circumstances do not determine whether or not we are happy...we can CHOOSE to be happy.'' (Probably not a direct quote but it's something like that.) So everytime we would feel like complaining that we were dirty or had to pee or our cake turned our wrong or we couldn't wash our clothes, one of us would say, ''Our external circumstances do NOT determine our happiness! We are happy missionaries for the Lord!'' So whenever you feel like complaining about something in life, just remember, YOU are the architect of your own happiness. And at least your shower isn't filled with poop.
I love you all so much and hope you got a little laugh out of this story....we certainly did!
More pictures from the Versailles Missionary Conference
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| Katie's companion is the cute Soeur to her left with glasses |
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| Reading a letter delivered by the office staff |
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| The redhead on the far right is Sr. Bennion, Julie Murdock's sister, and was in the MTC with Elder Pettingill |
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