Working with the local church members and serving in the snow

Bonjour à tous,

Well this has been a packed week! First of all, we had interviews with our mission president on Tuesday, which was awesome, me and him are really starting to work together and I definitely support him. He has helped me a lot already during my mission so I really appreciate him for that.

Wednesday, we had a soirée familiale that a member put on, apparently it's been 3 years since they had one! But we prepared a cool spiritual thought using pictures and everything. And we had a member picking us up for that. Well he came early and we ended up being in a hurry, so I forgot my gospel art book! I had to come up with something on the fly without it. It actually turned out ok! With some French errors here and there, but I got the message across! One of the members is starting to take initiative and is inviting less actives and her friends to come to church this next Sunday for the christmas Sunday that we are going to have. So that is super cool!

On Thursday we tried to meet with the cool lady we met with a week ago, but she wasn't at her house. I not giving up on her!! We also had exchanges with the zone leaders. Also, as many of you know, I bite my nails. And I have been wanting to stop for my entire mission. But it's a legit addiction! It's really hard to stop a habit you have had forever! I have tried to stop several times! So we finally went to a local pharmacy to see what they have. And the lady pointed us to this stuff called "Stop Ongles Ronglés" which translates to stop nail biting. We bought it and I was curious because the only way for it to stop me was to have a really bad taste. So I put some on my nails and tasted it just like a kid with a hot stove top. 

OH MY GOODNESS IT TASTED BAD!!! The bitter taste immediately filled my mouth and throat and I almost puked. I gargled water, and even brushed my teeth and the taste was still there. Well that night the zone leaders were coming in late and wanted to grab something cheap to eat. So we got kebabs. But it made my food taste bad, my appetite was there but it tasted awful! And every time my nails touch my food, my food tastes bad. So I have a choice, either have perpetually bad tasting food for a bit and stop biting my nails. Or have good food now and never improve. So I guess I have to improve.

We actually did something really cool on Saturday! For light the world or "Éclairer le monde", we wanted to do something special. And it actually snowed very hard the previous night. So we decided to scrape ice off of people's cars. So at 9am, it was still snowing, we went out, bought some ice scrapers, and with scrapers in hand and frozen fingers, we scraped the ice off of 50 cars over the course of 3 hours. And we left a picture of Jesus Christ and a phone number in the windshield of every car we scraped. It as really cool, and then we returned home ready to eat, and got a phone call from a member asking for a Priesthood blessing for her mother who has Alzheimer's and is very sick. We ended up giving both her and her mother a blessing. That was one heck of a day of service. It was really cool.

That was pretty much our week I got a haircut today, and still can't enjoy my food. But I hope it will be worth it.

Sincerely
Elder Payne 
France, Paris Mission