Best Bus Ride in Paris - February 24, 2014

I apologize in advance for my lack luster letter. I am extraordinarily tired--not like when I had insomnia but just emotionally drained. Last week was a roller coaster of emotion. But let's run the highlights quand meme.

Highlights:

Last week Soeur Walker and I went on an exchange to Paris. We had to start our 2nd year legality. (Side note: from Monday-Wednesday I took about 8 trains. To think I never took a train before my mission is just crazy. Trains are such a part of my life these days). Anyway, I lived one of my long awaited dreams in Paris!! Here is the story.

We get to Paris Monday evening. We contact the St Ouen Soeurs who live next to the Arc de Triumph and stayed the night with them. We woke up Tuesday morning and headed out to Versailles for our legality. At this point, between my doctor visit, paying for transportation in Bruxelles and Paris, I'm pretty drained on money for the month. But luckily I had enough to get out to Versailles and back.

We get off the metro to Versailles searching for our bus. We get on the bus and hand the driver our 5 euro bill. He looks at us and says he has no change. "Oh no." I thought "Why didn't I bring any coins?!" With panicked looks on our faces, we both look at each other to which the bus driver says "Ca va. Just get on. Free of charge mes filles".

I am now completely shocked! We sit down in the front seats. The next stop, someone gets on who clearly doesn't speak French and is trying to find a specific stop. We ask him if he needs us to translate to which he happily agrees. We start talking with him and we find out he is from Liege (the city Soeur Walker is serving in) and that the bus driver used to take lessons from the missionaries before moving to Versailles. And on top of that, it's rush hour, yet we are the only ones on the bus. Coincidence? I think not!

While driving through his route, we're trying to get this Liege dancer to his practice site. We see our stop but we tell the bus driver that we will just walk to the Prefecture after finding this man's dance practice. Well we finally arrive at the end of the line :(. The bus driver tells us that he thinks it is up the hill from that. To which we reply "Ok. we'll get off here. What are the directions." The bus driver replied "No no no no! Don't worry about it! I will drive you there." "QUOIII!?" So then we're dodging through these tiny French streets as we have now adopted our very own FREE chauffeur!! DREAAAM. He pulls right up to the arena and we go to get off to which the bus driver says

“Wait. Aren't you going to the prefecture?"

"Yes....but we can walk from here."

"That's stupid. I'll drive you. I'm done with my shift."

He then drives us up to the entrance of the prefecture, drops us off as we skip happily into our appointment. DREAM. COME. TRUE!! Ever since riding on public transportation, I have wanted to be dropped off specially RIGHT IN FRONT of my destination.

On top of that, we were able to talk to the bus driver a lot about the church and we got him in contact with the Elders from Versailles. So hopefully he will be able to restart his lessons and start progressing again.

The ward had a ward cultural night and it was AMAZING. SO many less actives and amis showed up. Of course Alain was there and he made a "specialty" from Marseilles...but I gotta tell you...I'm pretty sure it was an American beef stew. I almost wanted to move his soup to our American table tehehe.

He's progressing well. He had an interview with the Bishop however and the bishop wants him to wait a little longer just to be sure that he will be faithful. So for now he's not getting baptized this next weekend. He's still really excited about getting baptized and is coming to everything. He loves church and the members and his testimony is growing each day. So if anything, he'll just be even more ready for his Baptism.

Well, this is the last week of transfers. Next week we will find out what's going to happen to Charleroi.

Spiritual thought for the week comes to you by our beloved prophet Thomas S. Monson:

"Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there."

I highly encourage each of you to read the full talk from this last conference. It's called "We never walk alone".

I hope you are all doing well. You're in my prayers

xo

Soeur Bitter

Fun at Ward Cultural Night

Ypersier's granddaughter - My New Best Friend