I Suppose He Was Religious After All - Week 28

Happy Monday! This week was a little slower, so we'll see what I come up with.

For P-Day today, we've been a little lazy. For the first hour and a half, the four of us sat in our apartment and tossed a bouncy ball at each other, trying to make it into each other's shirt pockets. Exciting, right? Well, we realized we were being lame for sitting in the apartment while we were in the middle of France on a nice day, so we finally left and went to the mall to shop for nice French clothes for three hours. After doing so, I realized how lucky we are to be able to go and buy cool things and how much fun it was. If only I had a few thousand euros at my disposal.

This week in Toul, we've been spending most of our days visiting members and seeing how we can help them. On Friday, we called one family to see how they were doing. We grew a little concerned when they answered the phone, saying that their lives weren't going well at all and that they really needed us to come and visit. So, we dropped what we were doing, found a nice pick-me-up scripture to share, and raced over to their house. When we got there, we put on our concerned faces and knocked on the door. As soon as they answered the door, we figured out that it was a setup.

When we saw that they had smiles on their faces, we realized we'd been had. They lied to us so that we would come over. Well, I guess it worked, and we had to quickly change our spiritual thought one the fly since they weren't actually depressed. The lie turned out in our favor though, because they shined our shoes and gave us soda. Then, with a criticizing look on his face, the father turned to me and said something along the lines of, "It looks like you're about due for another haircut, eh Elder Wilson?" I didn't disagree, so he gave me a haircut right then and there. What a nice guy.

So, that's kind of been our week. We go to members' houses, share a thought, and they give us free food and pastries in return for service. We've moved a good number of wood piles, as well as a good number of croissants and baguette sandwiches. We've got to counteract any possible health benefits of the physical activity involved in service, I suppose.

Last night, with no lessons or visits planned, we went out a tiny town outside of Toul and did some good ol' fashioned tracting. We came upon a house with a 10-foot statue of Christ on the cross in the front yard, and I turned to Elder Hunter and said, "Huh. I wonder if they're religious." He sarcastically said he wasn't sure, so we decided to go and ask them ourselves. A man answered the door, and we asked him. "Hi, we're missionaries. Are you religious?" With a bit of a smile, he looked over our heads and glanced at his gigantic Jesus statue in his yard. He curtly replied with something like, "You could say so!" and let us in to talk to him. They were a nice family, and we discussed religion for a while.

I'll be going to Brussels and Paris tomorrow for legality, so I'll be thinking of you over a waffle and some frites. Life is enjoyable, France is fun, the weather is getting warmer, and the members are nice to us. Till next week!

Elder Wilson