Unexpected Transfer to Epinal

Bonjour à tous,

Wow! This has been a crazy week!!! So first of all, I got 'midnighted'. Which means that I got a call from the assistants of the president randomly a couple of days ago and they said that president has been doing a lot of praying and decided that the Lord needs me to be in Épinal. I am now half training an Elder named Elder Anderson. Don't worry, nothing happened in Amiens and there are still elders in Amiens. I honestly had no clue why I was leaving until I actually got into Épinal. To explain Épinal a little bit, it's a tiny town (big ville streak lost). It is in the Eastern mountains, which means it's beginning to get pretty cold here. The branch is about 20 people.

I am excited for these next transfers because 1:I am training. 2:there is a lot of work to do here. I really feel like I was meant to come here. The branch is super nice!!

The first morning that I was here, the power went out. That was extremely stressful for me and we had a ton to do today. But we got it all done. With the power, we had no power through all last night, so it was really cold in our apartment. Then today we went to the store and bought a new fuse. Came back and it still didn't work! I was mad. So we went shopping for groceries after calling the mission office with our problem. We came back with our groceries and put all of our food in the church refrigerator. Oh and by the way,f we live right above the church building. So if all else failed, we were just going to spend the night in the church because it still had power. While doing some emails, I remembered that one of my companions (Elder McCrea) had served here. So I called him and told him about our problem and asked where the power box is. He told me where it was and I went and looked, and our power was completely shut off! I don't even know why! So I turned it back on and we went and checked the apartment, and BOOM! All the power was back on! We said a quick prayer of gratitude and went on with our day. Moral of the story, rely on the Lord and have faith, and he will sustain you in life.

So yeah, that was crazy. But now that we have all of that figured out, we can focus on the missionary work here. We have big plans for this place.




In Épinal, the trains here are a problem. The closest ville to us that we will need to go to is 1 hour away, but here's the thing, to get anywhere else out of our sector, we have to go through Nancy, the ville 1 hour away. So to Paris, 3-4 hours direct. To Strasbourg about 2 1/2 hours. And all of our members live far away, like a 1-2 hour bus ride away. So traveling is life here.

Also if anyone is going to send me anything, I have a new address.

Les Missionnaires
28 Rue de Bellevue, 88000
Epinal, France

I will start taking pictures of this place this week. Because I have nothing to send picture wise. But I love you all and I hope you are doing well!

Sincerely
Elder Payne
France, Paris Mission