Sunday, May 29, 2011

One Month in the Field

OK - so Elder Hughes has been serving in Lyon, France for over a month now. He has sent his weekly e-mails faithfully. He has sent quite a few pictures. He telephoned the family on Mother's Day. He has told us stories about investigators, construction in Lyon, the warm weather, peculiar people with "live" WWII explosives buried in the backyard, and cookies burnt so badly they wouldn't even break when hurled from a seventh floor window.

Here are a few snippets from the letters and e-mails of Elder Hughes:

"My companion is Elder Stephens from Orem UT and I'm currently working in the Gerland, Lyon area. (It's called Gerland because of the soccer team the Olympiques Gerland whose stadium is just down the street.) He's a pretty big BYU football fan so whenever we're in the apartment, I'm wearing my MUSS shirt and he's wearing his BYU whatever-they-call-it shirt...but don't worry, we have companionship unity. haha Luckily, Elder and Sister Thomas (the senior couple who works in the Young Adult Center/Institute) are Utah fans and so he's usually outnumbered."

"I've been writing down some of the things I've been learning about France since I've been here... There are at least 2 pigeons for every person in France. There are at least 2 gypsies for every pigeon... If there's a big pull handle, it's probably a push-open door. Likewise, if there's a lot of room to push and not a handle to be seen, look harder for the handle... I thought it was ridiculous how many things had instructions in America. In France, the cereal box tells you to put the cereal in a bowl, and add milk."

"It's crazy how many strikes there are in France. And it's almost ridiculous how planned and organized they are. For example, you can go onto the official train website and see exactly which trains won't be running and which will be delayed because of strikes."

There are so many other things he has shared with us - he hasn't had to eat anything really weird yet, he loves the ward and the bishop where he is currently living, and preparations are being made for the mission home to move from Geneva to Lyon at the beginning of July. Stay tuned for more details later.

A month is way too long to go between blog posts. We'll try to do better! See you next time...

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