WEEK 59

Hello you guys!!! Conference is amazing. That's almost all I have to

say. #somanyanswerstoprayer I love listening to conference!! Well
first off this week we find out transfers so you know the drill. SEND
ALL MAIL AND PACKAGES TO THE MISSION OFFICE :)
La Mission Française de Paris
Elder Tanner Libby
131 Boulevard Carnot
78110 Le Vésinet
France
I look forward to getting them soon:) I still hope you all had the
chance to go to the temple. I didn't get a ton of emails so I'm hoping
you all just had such sacred experiences you can't tell me?? Please go
for me!
MONDAY
well I usually only talk about Monday night, but since I wasn't here
last Monday, I need to talk all about it! First off let me say that it
was awesome! Me and Jorgy and the rest of our zone had such a fun
time. Our ZLs put in a ton of time and made it like the best day. We
left to go into Lille which is a train ride of about an hour from
Dunkerque on a train like the front runner. We got in and headed to
the chapel and helped starting to set up. We had food to prepare and
games to set up so it took a lot of hands and a lot of helpers. We
started off by playing games and I can tell you that me and Jorgy make
quite a good team! Like he's got all the book smarts and for the first
time in my life I had the physical capabilities! We actually won the
most points out of the whole group and were told by the Redd Couple (a
senior couple from Farmington Utah, possibly my favorite ;) ) that we
were the most incredible team ever seen. So you know, we rock🏻️so
after all of the games president and soeur Babin walked in and we
challenged them to a game and....WE BEAT THEM TOO!! It was quite a fun
time. Then we had to make our way to the park. The theme of the day
was zombies and this activity was actually called the Zombie Run 2015
so everyone wore black and we each got a certain amount of nylon socks
tied into balls filled with flour, depending on how many points you
got in the games. So we had zombies that were picked and then we were
to throw the flour balls at them as we ran across the field from one
safe area to another! It was a blast and everyone was covered in
flour! Even president and soeur Babin played and took some nasty
spills! We all got nasty dirty, but we all had so much fun running and
throwing flour at each other :) we then headed home for the night and
got into Dunkerque and showered off and went out to do some work. As
we were walking, we contacted this guy who was super interested in
prophets and thought that it was so cool we believed in one today and
he invited us to his house tomorrow night to talk more! It was so cool
to see his excitement and see how he went from telling us he knew
Islam was true, to telling us that he had had some doubts lately and
wanted to know if there was more to know about God. The spirit touched
him and it was so cool and me and Jorgy were so excited to meet him!
but do you want to hear what sucks?? So the weekly mission email that
goes out to all the missionaries, like today it said that starting at
General conference all of the elder missionaries have to wear a suit
EVERYDAY til the April general conference....like imma kill
myself....this will be fun cause all my American suits are just gonna
fall apart in a couple months....
TUESDAY
Well remember our miracle from last night?? Well sadly, he is no
longer....well not no longer, but he is just off the charts for a
little bit. He skipped our rdv and when we called to ask him where he
was he said he'd be there in 20 minutes but never answered again and
actually never showed up :( we were a little sad about that. But on
the bright side, I went and got my new titre de séjour this morning
and I am now legal in France for the next year! So everything is good
:) after we went and got that, we came home and studied and then went
to go and drop one of Jorgy's suits off at the dry cleaner and then
had to make our way to the gare to look at some train times and then
out to a lunch appt that we had with a member! So we were running all
over the place. We finally got to the members house and it was
delicious food, just kind of an awkward circumstance....like we don't
know why we got invited cause this lady's husband isn't a member and
she didn't ask us to share a spiritual thought (yes we did have one
prepared) and so after we had finished eating she was all thank you!
And then sent us out hahahaha so we don't understand why but we were
thankful for the blessing:) then for the rest of the afternoon we went
around contacting and really didn't see any huge miracles but we did
schedule a rdv for tomorrow with this random lady on the street so
we'll see what comes of that! We can't count her as a new investigator
yet cause we didn't pray with her. So we will try for that tomorrow!
So you know the story already but we went to go meet with miracle man
from last night and he didn't show up :( so then I decided that since
we had 50 minutes we could contact on the way to the store so that I
could buy an air freshener plug in thingy cause our apartment stinks!
So we did that and talked to this really nice English guy who knew who
we were but said no thank you. YEAH! ;) he said yeah a lot, like most
English people ;) then we went and bought my plug in thingy and then
had a rdv with Jean Paul. I have the funniest video of him from the
other day that explains him so well so I'm trying to figure out how to
get it to you! He is like not all the way there in the head. But he is
hilarious! And he loves the missionaries and the gospel, and every
time he bears his testimony it's so cute cause it's just so sincere it
makes you want to cry. Even though he isn't all the way there, he
knows the gospel is true and that HF loves him as his son. He's a cool
guy:) so we went and he shared us a little message of his and then we
shared him our message. Then we came in for the night. He's funny!
WEDNESDAY
Today was a fun day!!! First off I hit my year mark of being in
FRANCE! second, we had our branch day which consists of a day of
cleaning the church and having branch council and then usually they
have an activity after. We weren't sure if we were invited but we were
prepared just in case;) we headed over to the church first thing in
the morning and met up with everyone. We went and had branch council
while the rest of the people there cleaned #perkofbeingamissionary but
actually I think I would have been cleaning... Branch council is not
my favorite thing on the earth but we do what we must. After a good
amount of time talking and figuring what we need to do for the next
month and getting things in order for our party that is coming up on
the 10, we all we out to the hallway with the rest of the members to
eat and talk! Our branch presidents wife made us this really delicious
couscous meal with this really good meat. It was delicious and then
they invited us over to their house next week for dinner before elder
Jorgensen leaves! So we were pretty excited. We then were invited to
the activity that they were having that day. We found out that they
were going on a tour a the cathedral of Dunkerque and the clock tower
just across the street. But not only were they going to go see the
clock tower, but they were going to climb to the top! And so we made
our way there! The cathedral was cool, and I'm sorry if some of you
are going to shoot me, but I feel like once you've seen one cathedral,
you've seen them all haha so I've been in a lot here in France and to
me they all seem the same....haha maybe it's just my inner self cause
all that museum and galleries stuff doesn't really interest me in the
first place. But it was super funny cause we were in there and our
branch president and his wife were just making jokes about religions
and how different ours is from Catholicism and it was just making me
and Jorgy laugh! His wife, soeur Duez, showed me St Antoine who is a
St that you pray to when you lose something. She then goes, 'yup they
pray to him. Not Heavenly Father!! Hahah' it was pretty funny to hear
an old couple saying that stuff! Then we went and climbed the clock
tower and it was so cool! We were actually up there while the bells
went off! So it was really cool to hear! We got to go up to the roof
and look over the whole ville of Dunkerque, and it was so cool!! The
little teeny stairwell to get to the top was so small and so scary. I
got some pics for you! Then we had to leave cause we had an appt with
this crazy lady we met yesterday. Literally she was crazy. We tried
tried to teach her the restoration but she kept interrupting and
talking about how Jorgy looked just like her daughter's friend and it
was just bad haha so anyway after we had finished we went home for
dinner. We had one last rdv for the night and it was with Mike! It was
a fun rdv. We talked about the 10 commandments and the sabbath day and
it went really well. Me and Jorgy love going to see Mike.
THURSDAY
Today was a pretty good day. It marked one year since I actually
started missionary work!! One year ago today me and Eldredge were
headed to Metz. #promisedland #placeofmydreams I miss that place! It's
hard to believe it was that long ago. Hitting my year marks is weird!!
But today we started off with some studies which were great. Yesterday
during our branch council, the branch president informed us of a less
active member who had written him a letter requesting to have her name
removed from the church. So he asked us if we would be so kind as to
deliver her a hand written sentiment that told her she had 30 days of
a waiting period and that after that 30 days her name would be
removed. So this morning me and Jorgy headed out to do that. We made
our way to her house where her mother answered the door and let us in
while we waited for her to come home. She got home and she was so nice
that I almost didn't even want to give her the letter. It made me so
sad to see her and remember what she was wanting to be done. It just
made me think how possible it is to lose a testimony, and how grateful
I am for the counsel to 'doubt our doubts, before we doubt our faith.'
After that me and Jorgy had to go and renew my train reduction pass
cause they expire after a year. Then we had a rdv with Dominique! It
was really good. We shared 2 Kings 5:1-14 and talked about how
sometimes our problems seem like they'd have to have huge answers or
solutions, but sometimes the counsel we recieve is so easy and related
it to conference and asked him to prepare himself to act on the
answers that he receives even though they might seem too simple. Then
we went home for lunch and then out contacting. Sadly there isn't a
ton to share about today's contacting session. Right now me and Jorgy
are just doing a lot of searching trying to find those who are lost.
We came in for dinner and then went out and did some porting and went
to a new neighborhood that neither of us had been too thinking we'd
find some crazy cool family and have em hooked! But tonight again was
just another searching night. It was good though, to get out and find
a new area to do some work. We had to stop by a grocery store on the
way home to buy some drinks and some stuff to make a cake for district
meeting tomorrow.
FRIDAY
Well usually we have district meeting on Tuesdays, but because Soeur
Foutrein invited us over for lunch on Tuesday afternoon, we had called
and requested to move district meeting. So it was moved until today.
We woke up and got all ready to go and headed out the door to catch
the bus. When we had gotten to the gare to catch the train, we found
out that for some reason the train that we had planned to take was not
going to run. So we were like uhh and so the guy that worked at the
gare told us that he was gonna get taxi's to take us wherever we
needed to go. Since it was a Friday morning, there were some high
school kids that still needed to get to school, so he was like in
super stress mode and got us all papers to go to Calais in taxis...so
we were waiting for a good half hour and no taxis showed us and so one
high schooler goes in and asks the dude what was up and all of the
sudden he goes there's a train waiting for you all right now and it's
about to leave! So we all ran to the train...long story short, we
ended up still taking a train, we were just 45 minutes late to Calais.
So we got there and had a good district meeting on virtue and
knowledge. Again Christlike attributes haha they are trying to pound
those things into our brain or something! Then we ate and me and Jorgy
had to run out to catch our train. When we got back to Dunkerque we
spent the rest of the afternoon planning for the week. Weekly planning
is always a joy but we got it done and went out to find some
miracles! We went to go and try to stop by the old man that we found
last week but he wasn't home, so we went to this less actives house
that we'd tried to visit a few times but he was never home and when we
stopped by tonight he let us in and he is so cool! He used to be in
the branch presidency and used to be a super strong member but married
a non-member and figured it was better to stop going than to have his
wife mad at him. He said they'd tried coming to church a couple times
but never had a good experience. So we'll see what we can do. We then
stopped by a kebab shop on the way home for Jorgy to get a kebab. When
we got home we watched women's conference getting ready for general
conference!!
SATURDAY
For some reason my body did not want to wake up this morning. The
alarm went off and I climbed right back into bed. It was bad. But I
finally got up and we started studies. After studies Jorgy needed to
run off to the dry cleaners to pick up his dry cleaning and on the bus
ride back, we ran into Anna!!!! She had been on vacation at her moms
place in Italy for the past few weeks but she told us she was coming
to conference at the chapel tomorrow morning! So we were pretty happy
about that! Then we were coming back to our apt and in our building we
have this couple who is so cute. They are a little older but not too
old..60s or 70s I'd say and every time we see them they say hello to
us and talk a little bit to us (which is SO weird for French people. I
was so shocked when they did it at first.) they first off told us that
they were moving in s few months and they wanted to invite us over
when they left! So that was cool! Then they asked who we were and what
we did. It was fun to talk to them for a while! We'll see if anything
comes out of it. Then we headed out to drop a Book of Mormon off at a
less actives house cause she requested one for when she goes into the
hospital so that she can leave it there. We left and there was this
group of friends that were probably 12 years old riding their bikes
and trying to do wheelies. There was this one kid who was a little
chubbier than the others and just couldn't get it up! But I may or may
not have caught the funniest pic of him getting it up in the air
finally! Me and Jorgy were dying. After that was lunch and heading out
to do service at another less actives house. Sadly we caught her
smoking.... so that sucks...but we weeded her front driveway for her
and then had to head home to make it to conference!!! Here in France
we watch the Saturday morning session on Saturday night before
bedtime:) we got to the church with some goodies and had a little bit
of a scare getting conference going but we finally got to watch the
Saturday morning session and it was amazing! I loved President
Uchtdorf's talk and Neill F. Marriott's voice ;) she also gave a very
good talk!! Then because we were having troubles getting conference
started, we were late getting home. I realized that we didn't have any
laundry detergent and I was down to my last pair of garments! So we
had to run to the little 24 hour convenience store down the street and
buy some EXTREMELY expensive laundry detergent...at 10:30...so we were
late for bed😬
SUNDAY
well because of today being conference and me being in France, that
takes up a lot of our day! We got to the church at 9 AM and left
around 8 PM so our day was kind of just packed of conference! But
holy! I got some answers to questions that I didn't know I really had.
My favorite talk of the day was by Russell M. Nelson and I know that a
lot of you think that the talk was directed to women...but his talk
was written especially for elder Libby! I can't even begin to explain
the peace that I felt as he was speaking. He is a truly inspired man
and I hope someday to meet him!! Like I said we were at the church
this morning and we started setting up the computer from the member
and in walked Anna!! She watched the Saturday afternoon session with
us and I'm sure that she had lots of questions. But we have a rdv with
her this week and so we will hopefully be able to answer her
questions. After that session and the shock of the new apostles, me
and Jorgy ate lunch and we're looking up new info about the new
apostles and having some fun with a new update on our iPads. Then the
priesthood session was so good! I loved elder andersen's talk! How can
I pick a favorite?! Jk I have a favorite. After that session, we went
and did some soul searching and contacted around and actually
contacted someone who was pretty good friends with the member who
brought her computer to the church this morning to watch with us! So
that was funny to talk with her. Then we went back and started
watching the Sunday morning session! We were in the middle of Elder
Rasband's talk when some stupid teenagers from the neighborhood were
outside our building and cut the electricity to the whole building! It
just went completely black! I was so mad! But we went out and gave
them a stern look and hurried and got conference back up and going
again. It took a while and we missed the last half of elder Rasband
and all of Gary E Stevenson's...so we'll have to go back. I was really
nervous sitting there and watching president monson. He's getting so
old but elder Nelson knew exactly what I needed and gave it to me
good. I've never felt the way I felt after that talk!! It was so good!
So after that session we had to run home to be in on time. Conference
is just my favorite!!!
Well I had a great week and I hope you all did as well. Like I said,
we find out transfers on Saturday so send all mail to the mission
home. I love you all. God is there. He loves us and answers prayers
and knows the worries of our hearts. I'm so grateful for living
prophets and apostles who help us and guide us through this journey we
call life. The Lord is amazing and I love him so much!!
Much love
Elder Libby aka tanner aka the frenchie