LDS Missionary: France Paris Mission

Life in Rouen

"In Rouen, there are a lot of members -- enough to make a ward -- but not enough are active, so we are a branch. We do have a new member, Michel, who was baptized within the last year who we teach," Elder Ingram said when I asked about the work in Rouen, "so we do a lot of member work here. There's a packet of less-active members listed by their quartiers (neighborhoods), which is nice when we're out porting."

The nonmember work was slow in Rouen, but not as slow as Alençon. We had tons of members to stop in on wherever we went though. We had a few people we were either teaching or trying to teach, but we had a lot of finding to do. There was a recent convert, John, from Nigeria. He spoke English, and we basically just read the Book of Mormon with him.

"Where's the church?" I asked as we headed out the door to go to church.

"You'll see. It's a pretty cool location," Elder Ingram said.

We headed down into the heart of the city. It was early enough on a Sunday where there were very few people walking around. We walked past the giant cathedral past some construction and down an alleyway.

"We call this alley Diagon Alley because of the shops on it," Elder Ingram said as we walked. Then he pointed at one that had little potion-like bottles in the window and said, "Like, look at that one. It's a potions shop."

About three-fourths of the way down the alley, Elder Ingram stopped and pulled out the keys. He unlocked a door as I noticed the plaque that referenced this was the church building. When we walked in, there was a little foyer area with some pamphlets and seats. We walked down the hall to the right and found the chapel on our left. It was a big, wood-floored room with a small stage where the podium stood. There were a bunch of wooden chairs lined up in rows for the congregation.

"Check this out too," Elder Ingram said as he entered the room as he walked toward the stairs for the stage. He pulled up a piece of the hardwood floor and revealed a baptismal font.

"What?!" I responded. "That's really our baptismal font? That's convenient. You don't even have to leave the chapel to perform the baptism."

We put the font away and set up the sacrament before someone finally came into the building. We had gotten there really early, so it was surprising anyone else would be here already. In Utah, everyone shows up between 5 minutes before and right on time. My parents even joked that it's "Mormon Standard Time" to arrive as the meeting was starting.

"'Ello missionaries. 'Ow are you today?" A man said in English from the hallway.

"Hey, Michel," Elder Ingram said as he headed towards the hallway. Then he turned to me and said, "he was baptized less than a year ago, so he's technically a recent convert."

We walked into the hallway to find a taller man with short, dark hair. He was super skinny and lanky with a big grin on his face.

"'Ello, I am Michael," Michel said as he extended a hand to me.

"Hey, I am Elder Abel," I replied, shaking his hand.

"You like Rouen?" He asked. "How long do you have in the France?"

"Yeah, Rouen is great," I said. "I've been in the mission for about four months."

"You have served in another city?"

"Yeah, I served in Alençon."

"Oh, Elder Ingram was in Alençon also."

"Yeah. We've been talking about it."

More people started coming in and I had to keep moving and meeting more people. Among the people I met was the Branch President, who was President Warengein. I also met one of his counselors, Frère Bitanga, and his family. There weren't as many people in the branch as I thought there would be.

Church went by surprisingly normal after some of the things I saw and endured in Alençon. It was nice because we, as missionaries, didn't have to do anything like teach or speak.

"Man, there weren't a lot of people in the branch," I said as we went out porting later in the day. "You said there were enough to make a ward, but not enough active, I thought we would still have more than we did."

"Yeah, that was a little less than average. It was pretty close to a normal amount though," Elder Ingram replied.

We ported a lot in the coming weeks, with not a ton of success, but teaching was fun. Elder Ingram helped me out a ton with French. He let me speak a lot more than Elder McQuay and Elder Park in the lessons. I was very excited about how this transfer was going to go.

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**Writer's note** Sorry it's been so long since I've added to this. Pharmacy school has taken up a lot of time.