Our First Week
After two months of preparation and setting our house in order in Eden, followed by two weeks at the MTC (Mission Training Center in Provo, UT, we are finally here in our beautiful, old apartment on l’Ile de la Cité in the heart of Paris. We live on the Quai du Marché Neuf across the river from the bus station shown in blue on the map below.
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We are grateful our apartment doesn’t overlook the Seine but a courtyard instead. This spares us the direct sunlight and some of the noise of the city only a few hundred yards away. Notre Dame - under renovation - is a few minutes walk down the road from us. In the evenings, we hear the excited cries of sightseers on the ‘bateaux mouches’ as they pass under Petit Pont and other bridges near us, incited by the boats’ guides.
The ceilings of our apartment remind me of when I was a teenager living in Scotland. They are 10 feet high with ornate floral plaster carvings, more elaborate than the Scottish ones I grew up with. The windows are tall and swing in, while outside there are the characteristic French shutters that we can pull closed at night, leaving fresh air to come in and, sadly, with it the occasional mosquito from the Seine. My face and limbs are a testament to them, with welts on my face that I can even see on my right and left cheek bones out of the corner of my eyes. I look forward to the arrival of a mosquito zapper that I’m ordering today from Amazon France! We have learned to close the shutters during the day when the heat has excessive. It was in the 90s when we arrived and has, thankfully, dropped to the 70s and 80s. Steve is encouraging me to wrap my mind around Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, but I think he may be fighting a losing battle there with this stubborn Brit!
The floors are wooden, laid largely in a herring-bone pattern, and creak a little when you walk on them. Again, these and the comfy old bed reminds me of my growing up years. I feel very at home. Even the choice of food from the grocery stores reminds me of my youth as we used to make everything from scratch as the French still do. We eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, French bread, an abundant selection of French cheeses, salami and ham, fruit yoghurts, and Bonne Maman jam. This was my daily fare when my parents would take us to France on our summer vacations when I was a child. It has been a blessing to have learned French starting at the age of nine, and I can totally see the Lord’s hand in it now. Little did I know then how well this would prepare me for my mission - first to Québec in 1983-1984 and now here to Paris with Steve on our first senior mission.
He learned a little French in high school, which enabled him to qualify for the exchange from the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to the French Air Force Academy in Salon-de-Provence (just north of Marseille) for a semester abroad. I had carried on my French school studies throughout school in the UK and then had a year abroad in France at the University of Aix-en-Provence, which is when Steve and I met. We are both enjoying the opportunity to speak French again and he is the more diligent of the two of us, wanting to speak it ALL the time (to polish his rusty French, he says). I draw the line at him doing so at 4:00 AM when we wake up occasionally in the middle of the night! We are still dealing somewhat with jet lag and the eight-hour time difference...
Paris is a magical city with pedestrians everywhere walking alongside the busy traffic. Horns are occasionally honked, but not excessively. The only slightly jarring sound is that of police sirens, which are frequently sounded by police cars roaring by in hot pursuit of someone. Nevertheless, Paris does NOT feel like a dangerous city. We are mindful of how we carry our belongings, but the French and Paris’s multicultural population, augmented by throngs of tourists for the summer months, are a happy, peaceful lot, by all appearances. No one is raucous or impolite. Maybe a little focused and unsmiling at times as they walk, but in the evenings, we see many people enjoying picnics or just sitting along the river banks, some playing instruments, all having a good time. We even saw two young men playing the piano on a couple of bridges that were closed except for pedestrians and bikes.
The French know how to relax and have a good time in the company of family and friends. We could do with taking a page out of their book, both in city centers in the US and in the UK. Give me Paris over London any day!!
We walk the ten minutes to our Community Resource Center (Le Centre St. Merri at 12 Rue St. Merri) each morning past Notre Dame Cathedrale, the Hôtel the Ville, gift stores, patisseries and cafés setting up their chairs and tables on the sidewalk for the day. My feet are getting used to walking on cobblestone streets in some areas, which are not the most comfortable through thin-soled shoes!
Children playing by the Hôtel de Ville
The Centre St. Merri is a haven from the hustle and bustle. The easiest way to locate it on a map is to find the Pompidou Center (the ugliest building in Paris/the world, marked with a turquoise pin on the map). To me it looks likes a mixture between a gas works and a building site. Steve and I shudder to think what the local Parisians must have thought about it when it made its appearance on the scene, especially those whose apartments look right out at it...
I have helped several people with their family history and have our work cut out learning the French and other European resources to add to our knowledge of FamilySearch and Ancestry. This assignment will stretch us! A wonderful spirit abounds as we learn of these patrons' families and some of the trials their ancestors have faced in such places as Ukraine, Africa and Armenia. It is humbling to help them and to feel their resilience, gratitude and sense of purpose. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the French- and English-speaking members at church yesterday.
Every day, we have seen or heard of miraculous events ‘coincidences’ that have taken place either in our own lives or that of the eight young missionaries who use the St. Merri Center with us. A pair of elders and a pair of sisters are assigned to work with French-speaking people in the central Paris region while another pair are assigned to the Mandarin-speaking population and a fourth pair to Spanish-speakers. The faith and diligence of all these young missionaries astound us. We love them dearly! They stop inside the door of the center each time before they leave to say a prayer, asking the Lord’s blessing and the Spirit’s guidance. Here's a video describing the impact of this wonderful resource center:
In the MTC (Mission Training Center) in Provo before we came here, we enjoyed getting to know senior missionaries like ourselves, who were headed to Lyons, Corsica, Tuscany, and such far-flung places as Phnom Penh and American Samoa. The couple going to Phnom Penh will be working with LDS Charities, as we had initially hoped to do. Hearing them talk about the process of identifying projects that LDS Charities could help sponsor, based on various factors, made me feel a bit nostalgic, but I know the Lord has called us here for a reason. Also, I don’t know how many more mosquitoes I could take right now!!!…
When at the Salt Lake Airport we ‘ran into’ fortuitously (better said miraculously!!) the former missionary who had taught Steve 44 years ago in Aix-en-Provence, David Gossner. Here's what happened, and meet the former 'Elder Gossner'!
Reunion with 'Elder Gossner' 44 years later!
After that I knew with even greater conviction that we are serving this first mission EXACTLY where the Lord wants and needs us. We were privileged to be taken to dinner on our second night here by Pres. and Sis. Hansen, who are responsible for the 145+ junior missionaries serving in the France Paris Mission and the 25 senior missionaries. It was so nice of them to take that time with us. We also had two Zoom sessions with them a couple of months before we arrived.
Pres. and Sis. Hansen came to church yesterday in our ward, despite it being a 45-minute train ride from the mission home. They are much loved, and with good reason, by the 140+ junior missionaries and 25 senior missionaries in their charge, plus the members. They are both extremely good listeners, which is such a key to understanding and leading others in a loving way. “Learn to listen, and listen to learn”, as our prophet, Pres. Russell M. Nelson admonished us. Wise words!
I was extremely proud of Steve on his the third day here when he decided to implement an English lesson of his own making with three of the patrons of the center who wanted to practice their beginner level English. Using the Church’s ‘Book of Mormon’ videos with subtitles, he proceeded to teach them in spite of the antiquity of such words as ‘hath’ and ‘unto’! I was busy working on family history with another patron at the time and tried to ‘rescue’ Steve by finding a modern-day version in the form of a children’s version that was simpler to understand, but all the participants wanted to return to what they were doing initially.
He carried on teaching with a tenacity that was admirable, considering his limited French. We may be starting a Church-organized series of English lessons called ‘English Connect’ in September when the August summer vacations is over for most Parisians. This will be a weekly class lasting an hour and a half and continuing for six months. We would probably teach two classes on Saturday mornings, one from 10:00-11:30 AM for beginners and the next for intermediate level from 11:30 AM -1:00 PM. Other subjects taught at the Centre from time to time are Self-Reliance classes and Addiction Recovery classes.
We’re looking forward to what this coming week holds in terms of the people we can help at the Centre St. Merri and the cultural experiences we have yet in store, which we look forward to sharing with you in our next post.
Below are various photos taken on walks we like to take in the evening. Last night we walked the whole way around L'Ile de la Cité and L'Ile St. Louis just to the south of it.
Stepping into a magical world...
Another night we wandered around the narrow streets on the Rive Gauche just opposite, where a multitude of lively, affordable little restaurants are to be found. It's now our go-to 'fast food' area. As we were leaving, I heard this beautiful singing and tracked it down to these two ladies singing by a fountain for whoever wanted to listen.
Two ladies singing by the fountain
Here is Elder Merrill, who helped Steve set up a Facebook account (miracles still happen!), and having some gyros down by the Seine with him, his companion, and one of his best friends visiting from Tahiti. Before this, I got to join in on a lesson they gave to a young Parisian man living in Latvia, who joined us by Zoom. I was in my element teaching with the missionaries again!
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