First letter from France

Bonjour Everyone!

So this past week has obviously been very eventful. The plane ride was pretty dismal, but I didn't get sick, which is good. I tried to sleep but couldn't. I forgot to take some dramamine before the plane ride, but it ended up okay. After we got to Paris we were shuttled by the Mission Pres straight to the mission office for some paper work. Then I went contacting for the first time. Then it was off to the Mission home which was pretty sweet. We had dinner there. President Babin and his wife are super cool. Though they are getting released in about 4 weeks. I got to stay in the mission home for the first night in France, that was the best night of sleep that I have gotten since going into the MTC. The mission home was super nice

The next morning it was off to a place called Consecration Hill, which is most likely where the country of France was consecrated for missionary work. Super cool place. Then it was to the Paris chapel which, by the way, is tiny.

Paris is really cool, scary, but cool. I'm not used to huge cities so that was what was scariest part.

I met my new companion at the mission home. My new companion's name is Elder Mansfield, he's super cool and he only has 2 transfers left, he knows everything about France. All the new missionaries hopped on the train to our various areas in France! My train ride was about 4 hours, extremely tiring because we were hauling around 5 peoples worth of luggage. And now I'm here! Elder Mansfield and I got 'whitewashed' into Nantes (means neither of us replaced previous missionaries in an area), which also means neither of us know anything about the area. Definitely a losing weight mission, we walk a lot and don't eat a lot. My first area is Nantes, which is a city close to the french coast, I really wanna see the ocean but haven't gotten the chance to yet.

The apartment I am staying at is okay. I was surprised by the humidity in France. For example, 2 days ago it was 90 degrees here, which, with humidity means death in a suit. Today it has been raining all day, that should cool things down a bit. Lucky for me Elder Mansfield knows how to cook. So meals at the apartment usually consist of him cooking while I do language study.

Learning french is going pretty well. I think I'm on top of things generally.

Oh and some cool little facts, I met an Elder Haws in the MTC who is from Gallup and knows Aunt Yoni. He heard me joking about New Mexico. So yeah, also, I don't know if Shantae knows this, but her name means "to sing" in French. It's actually spelled chantez, but same pronunciation.

Here is a list of people who I would love to hear from: Lonny, Morgan, Karl, Sergio, Kristen. If you don't email me I will just keep bugging you about it. And Jeff, send me pictures when you finish the longboard.

Au Revior,
Elder Payne

Jay sent the following pictures.