Continuing Work in Epinal and New Years Eve

Bonjour à tous,

And yes I will always start off my emails like that, you can't tell me otherwise. :)

Well this week has been totally awesome!!! And just because we are really seeing the beginnings of success here. And life is good right now. We found 3 new investigators last week during exchanges! Which was amazing, and pretty much unheard of in this ville for a while. We met the Sudanese guys again, they were really nice and they fed us impromptu. We are trying to set up a French or English class for them to help them out. We also met a lady who was really cool and was interested in the gospel. So all in all, things are going well. We are also getting our dryer replaced this week. I'm really excited, because for a transfer now it never worked for me. I don't know why and it really doesn't make sense because it always worked for my companion. He doesn't understand either. I've decided that Épinal does not follow any sort of logic. Street smarts don't matter. Science? Forget it. Logic simply doesn't work here. I've gotten used to it. You just gotta get out and go and roll with the punches.

We had to drop our other people including the miracle lady because she is avoiding us. But I'm willing to make the trade for more promising people. Really, I would rather someone tell us straight up if they don't want to meet with us. It's just time consuming if we set something up and then they don't show up.

I also have been keeping record of our steps here in Épinal, because I got a pedometer for Christmas. Right now, we walk an average of about 1.5 miles a day. Which I realize is actually not that much, but we do a lot of finding in apartments. So not as much walking between each door.

I bought a cheap toy the other day that I really enjoy, especially when my companion takes so long on p-days to write emails. It's a magnetic toy that I can build and design things with. I really like it. Anyone who knows me well can easily say that I love to build things and create things.

We had dinner with a member named Alhin for New Years, we had a galette des rois "cake of the kings". Which is a traditional cake that has a "bean" or little toy in the cake. And whoever find the bean gets named king for the party. My companion got the bean. It was a really good meal!

I hope you all have a good week!

Sincerely
Elder Payne
France, Paris Mission