Salut !
Another week in the books, but this time it was my first one on Caen! Have I told you how much I love Caen/ Normandy? Well...I love Caen and Normandy!
This week was so so busy! It started off by have two mangez-vous (instead of rendez-vous because they where meals 😂) back to back, two days in a row, with members. From the few that I've met here so far, this ward is amazing and the members are incredible. I am so excited to get to know them more!
Tuesday we had a mangez-vous with Josè Salazar who is a member from Peru! I guess it is his tradition to feed the missionaries lunch every Tuesday, and in turn we give him a spiritual thought - excellent! He makes food from Peru and it is absolutely delicious! After that we went to the Piel's, a sweet older couple, who also have a tradition of inviting the missionaries over every Tuesday since they joined the church years ago, but for goûter - a mid day snack, and of course, a spiritual thought. We chatted a bit, which meant I smiled and nodded a lot, pretending to understand. 😂 (Older French people are so hard to understand!) She fed us tiny almond tarts, then sent us home with a giant apple tart....that lasted a week! The testimonies we heard from each of these people we spent time with that day were incredible, and ultimately strengthened my own testimony. I love hearing their experiences because each one is so unique and inspiring. To think, I would have never met these people, or been inspired by their strength and stories if I hadn't accepted the call to come to France! It only adds to the many witnesses I've already experienced that God really does place people in our paths for a reason. I'm constantly reminded how divinely inspired our paths are, everyone we meet and come into contact with is for a reason if we allow ourselves to be guided by Him, we just need to take advantage of the situation!
Wednesday was a day of miracles... ranging from toilets to trams! As a missionary I wake up at 6h30 everyday! Some days it definitely feels even earlier! 😉 Our morning routine consists of personal prayer, daily planning, exercise, getting ready for the day, and lots of studying! I had just finished my personal prayer for the day when I hear a "plop" and an "oh no!" coming from the bathroom. I ran over to find Soeur Reynolds standing next to the toilet with the handle to flush the toilet in her hand, and the flush stick it attaches to dropped into the depths of the toilet. We both looked at each other, barely awake, wondering how we where going to fix our toilet... and at 6h45 in the morning! Now, we have a special toilet - it flushes by pulling a handle up on the top of the toilet, rather than pushing one down on the side. We started by taking the lid of the toilet off to see if we could find the lost stick. We found it in a hole in the top of the toilet and had to fish out. We started by using our hands to pull it out, but we couldn't reach it, so we resorted to using a pair of scissors... IT WORKED!
PSA: No flushing sticks where broken or hurt during this process!
Once we got the main stick out, we then went through the process of figuring out how in the world the whole flushing mechanism worked and needed to be attached. After a series of attempts of feeding the stick through the lid and attaching it to the handle, then trying to get the bottom of the stick back into place inside the toilet, we finally got it figured out... and now our toilet works! It was definitely Miracle #1 for the week, considering neither of us have any plumbing experience whatsoever! Although at this point I am practically a professional, unfortunately, I am not taking any plumbing referrals at this time. 😉
Miracle #2: Remember the man I met on the bus in Rennes who was my very first baptism? Well, instead of a "bus guy" we might now have a "tram guy"! We are just making progress by hitting all forms of public transport! Soeur Reynolds and I were on the tram going to a mangez-vous when a guy took a seat right across from us. I felt prompted to talk to him, but my courage wasn't quite there yet. It took me a bit as I sat there planning how the conversation could go and what I would say, but finally figured the more I sat there and planned and reasoned with myself, the more I was missing the opportunity and blocking the spirit. After a few minutes Soeur Reynolds and I decided to go sit next to him. Taking 5 seconds of courage, I turned to him and asked if he was going to work. He said no, he was going home. But the conversation didn't end there. He asked where we were going and we said that we were missionaries for our church and that we were going to a rendez-vous. He seemed super interested and we started talking about religion. He is religious himself and began to tell us how there isn't a lot of differences between our beliefs and how similar we are. All I could say was, exactly! He was so open to talking with us! The brief tram ride together ended with us giving him a Book of Mormon and explaining how precious the book is and its significance. We exchanged numbers and he then asked us if we would like to go to coffee right then. We politely declined and parted ways with him as he told us he looked forward to meeting with us very soon!
Later that night, we texted him saying it was a pleasure to meet him and how we hoped to plan a rendez-vous in the near future. He then blew our minds with his response! En brief he said that he loves religion and loves reading about it and that he would love to meet with us after he had finished reading the Book of Mormon and would either Saturday or Sunday work... it was only Wednesday! He was planning on finishing 653 pages of scripture in 3-4 days, Wow! 
We had a rendez-vous with him on Sunday and although he hadn't finished it, he was almost halfway through reading it, but had lots of questions for us! We met for almost an hour and a half talking through his questions and bearing testimony. The spirit we felt was incredible! We ended with a plan to have another rendez-vous this week and he is super excited to meet with us again!
This week we also took a small trip to Bayeux! We took a short train ride through the countryside, and it was absolutely gorgeous! The cool thing about Bayeux is that it is home to some of the WW ll memorials from the events that took place on the beaches of Normandy. While we were there we stopped at a boulangerie and got some lunch and patisseries too! I even got a pain au Chocolat aux amandes - an almond croissant with chocolate!! We ate in front of a monument and then went to the rendez-vous we had planned. They went so well! We hadn't met these amis before, so it was more of a get to know you and Q/A. One of the rendez-vous lessons we had was even in the beautiful botanic gardens, which we very much enjoyed.
After having amazing rendez-vous we had some time before our train home, so we decided to go street contacting and stop by some of the war memorials. While there we also stopped by Notre-Dame Cathédrale de Bayeux! It was gorgeous... and huge! We could see it all the way across town! We saw another memorial and took some pictures with some of the old tanks still there. We also saw some of the war cemeteries. It was a small cemetery, but the amount of respect I felt while there, and still feel, for those men buried there is incredible. A lot of them where so young when they answered "the call of the bugle" as it was written on their headstones.Finally, we ended the week with a cute little family in our ward! We went over and read with them from the Book of Mormon. They are from Ukraine, but have been living in France for about 4 years. The dad speaks English and the wife and daughter only speak a little bit. The daughter speaks French so we talked with her quite a bit. They where the most adorable family ever! They read in Ukranian and Soeur Reynolds and I in English. Yet, another language I have had a lesson in while in France! 😂 The way they talked about the verses we read was incredible. It was so cool to see the sweet way the parents answered the questions their daughter had. I cannot wait to go again!
A bit of a long email this week, so thanks for hanging in there!
I will leave you with a short Spiritual Thought:
"And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus."
I love this! All Christ said to Peter was, "Come." Through faith, Peter walked on water. All that Christ invites us to do, is to come unto Him. When we choose to obey through faith, Christ will qualify us to walk the stormy waters of our lives, and when we fall He will immediately be there to save us, as He did for Peter. This week accept the invitation to "come." Start with the small things; prayer and scripture study, then build and grow your faith to walk on the water each and every day!I love you all dearly! Bonne semaine!
À Bientôt ! - Soeur Hansen ❤
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