WEEK #2 IN LYON, FRANCE

Elders Boynton, Taylor, Acheson and Steadman

Hello everyone! This week has gone by so fast! It has also been the busiest as well!

This week has involved seeing several missionaries, moving many appliances, visiting many cities, sleeping in and furnishing a historic church building, and driving many kilometers. This week alone we managed to drive 2235 Kilometers. That is 1388 miles. That is the same distance as driving to Disneyland and back from Salt Lake. Or driving from Salt Lake to Chicago.

This is what our week included.

Tuesday: Elder Steadman and I went shopping. Since we have a car we went to our favorite store in Ecully. That's near the other chapel. Ecully is where President Brown lives.

We returned and ate our food, and then we went to the Mission Office. Since it was Tuesday we saw all the new missionaries. We started to help the office elders unload the suitcases of the missionaries into the office. Once we did that, Elder Steadman and I went with Elder Boynton who's one of the office elders, to the Lyon Airport to pick up luggage that was late arriving because of a layover.

We went through security and got 4 trolleys filled with luggage. We then returned to the office and unpacked all that into the office as well.

Up to that point, it was later In the day. So we went with all the missionaries that were training to a pizza place near the Lyon Gare.

After that we then returned home. Since I haven't been in France for a year, I am able to drive here, so I did some paper work, and watched some safety videos on driving. There was a video also about how to drive in France. Let me tell you, it is nothing like the states. In France there pretty much isn't anyone who stays in lines, parks correctly, or even cares about how they drive... Stressful.

Wednesday: we left in the morning to go to the garage to get some desks. We have to drive half an hour to get to the other apartment. We had to use the elevator many times to get our things out. We then took those desks to Limoges. Limoges is the sector just north of my starting sector of Perigeux. It took about 6 hours to drive there. We dropped off the desk and spend a few minuets with the elders there. It's said to be the nicest apartment in the mission. I agree... It's huge and super pretty!

We had to leave quickly because we needed to drive home.

I drove most the way home. While driving home it started to snow a little. I guess it's that time of the year!

It's so beautiful to drive through the country side. On a train you just cut through mountains and valleys. But in a car you pass villages and see so many wonderful sights!

That night we met up with the elders of Grenoble and went to Master Tacos back in Lyon. That's this fantastic burrito place.

Then they spent the night with us. We have a small apartment so it was hard to fit them in.

Thursday: we went back to our garage to get more desks and chairs. We then drove an 1 1/2 hours south of Lyon to Valance. We dropped off the desks and talked with the elders there. One of the elders is Elder Burri who came with us into the mission. He was at the church just next door for the open house. The chapel is brand new, so we went to go check it out. It has a projector under the pulpit that shows video on the back wall, a white board that rises out of the wooden pulpit at the side so people can write things for classes, and even all the sound system is Bose Audio System. Nice!

We then had to leave and head to Grenoble which is an hour north of Valance. We had to go steal a desk from the elders there. After that we kicked it to high gear and booked it for Limoges again. That was a 7 hour drive this time.

We got in to Limoges and went to sleep...

Friday: we helped unpack the desk from the car, and then we drove back to Lyon. We ate a quick lunch and then went and met up with the office elders. Elder Taylor and Boynton. We then drove to Geneva Switzerland. The drive there was beautiful! It was my first time leaving France since I arrived here in February!

We had a special assignment to help close two missionary apartments, and move the companionships around. We were then to place the two sister companionships into the Old Geneva Mission Home. It's pretty safe to say that these sisters are living in the nicest domicile for missionaries in the whole church...

They are not living in a house. They are living in a villa... I think the whole property is two acres? The yard wraps around the house in two sections!

They will be sharing the villa with the UN representatives for the church in Geneva. So that's pretty awesome! An former member of the Quorum of the Seventy was there working out details of the renovations.

We got a lot of the sisters stuff and beds, and we dropped them off at the Villa, and then we met up with the church reps. That were going to give us the key to the Mission Home. Since it was already 9:30 we had to stay there. So us 4 elders broke the 3 year streak of no missionaries sleeping in the old mission home. Sadly it wasn't furnished, so we slept on the ground.

Saturday: we spent the whole day driving to the different apartments cleaning out everything and placing it in the cars.

The elders left me and Elder Steadman to finish setting up the bunk bed and desks at the Villa. We then had the occasion to take some pretty pictures of the property.

We all then went to Ikea to eat. It's been years since eating there!  It was delicious!

After that, we went and helped take all the things from the Geneva Elders apartment and moved it into the empty sisters apartment.

By this time it was 8:30 and we had to head home. We made it home in about 4 hours.

Sunday: we had church at 1:30 so it was nice and tranquil. We were told during the week that one of us had to give a talk on Sunday. This was Wednesday I think? But since I didn't even have time to unpack this entire week, we didn't have time to prepare. But we went to the institute that morning and I wrote my talk on the importance of having the spirit in mission work.

I'm in the Confluence Ward now, and it's awesome. There are Lots of people, which is My favorite thing! There are five other missionaries in this Ward too. This is a big change from what I'm used to. We even took the metro to get to Church!

It was a good sacrament meeting! It was all about mission work. This Ward is said to be fully functioning. I'm so happy to be in this sector and to see that happen. There was a new elder that gave a talk and Elder Sweeney from the office gave a talk. His wife was in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with my aunts! And then I gave a talk. In my talk I used the story of Jean Louis to describe how it was the spirit that converted him. We as missionaries didn't really do anything. We just allowed he spirit to do its job!

There was a great and happy spirit at church today. One man got set apart as a member of the church! I met him before he was baptized last Monday. His baptism was Friday, but we were in Geneva so we couldn't go. I had the chance to talk to him after.

Once we finished, we went home, and I unpacked, and we had a good pause from the crazy week. Later that night we called a potential and we set up a meeting on Tuesday. Hopefully it works out!

It seems like a lot happened! This is a really busy equip! Sometime soon we have to take a desk to the Geneva Zone leaders, so hopefully we can find time to do that this week.

Well, I love you all!

Have a fantastic week!

-Love Elder Race Acheson