LDS Missionary: France Paris Mission

Paris

I woke up for the third time of the flight. I was still holding Jesus the Christ in my hands. It was about the only thing that worked for me to get to sleep. I hadn't slept long when I did fall asleep, but I did get a little bit of rest.

The stewardess was making her way down the aisle bringing breakfast/lunch. I looked at my watch, I probably had slept a grand total of three hours on the flight so far. It was only about 4 a.m. Utah time, but that meant it was noon in France. We still had about three more hours of flight.

I continued to read the New Testament and Jesus the Christ back and forth to try to get back to sleep but nothing worked. The three hours of flight time went quick and we finally seemed to be descending. I looked out the window and couldn't see anything. It was too cloudy. Maybe we weren't descending as much as I thought.

The plane dipped underneath a cloud. CRASH! The plane's tiny wheels connected with the ground. Apparently, it wasn't cloud cover. It was fog. There was a mist that seemed to guard the view of Paris as we descended. The plane bounced up and down as it came to a stop. Everyone that was asleep was now probably having their heart pounding out of their chest because I saw how it happened and mine was about doing the same thing.

We grabbed our carry-on bags and headed towards the front of the plane. I made sure I was in the back to count heads once again. Twenty-one people. We were all still together. We made our way to the baggage claim. As we walked towards it, a man, his wife, and another missionary holding a box stopped us.

"Elder Abel?" The man called out. He had thin, white hair on his head, wore thinly rimmed glasses and spoke with a soft tone.

"Yeah," I responded when I made my way to the back. All the eyes followed me as the group stopped and I made my way to the front.

"I'm President Staheli. Good job, you made it with all twenty-one missionaries. We'll take over from here," President Staheli said.

We got our checked bags and headed towards the vehicles. Because there were so many of us, we weren't going to be driving to the mission home. The missionary holding the box was apparently Elder Morgan. Two more missionaries, Elder Helvey and Elder Schwind, replaced President and Sister Staheli as they drove off in the van towards the mission home with all our luggage that we threw in the back.

"Alright, let's head to the metros," Elder Schwindsaid. He was shorter than the other and had red hair.

We headed underground and waited the minute for a metro to arrive. We jumped on and all of us were whisked away. Elder Morgan distributed the box to each of us. It was a proselyting Book of Mormon in French. Le Livre de Mormon. We were supposed to try to give it to someone.

'I haven't even learned French,' I thought as we headed through the underground passages. 'I doubt I'll understand what they are saying.'

"Bonjour," I said to the closest French person to me. It was an older woman and she gave me a look like I had just insulted her. I knew I had butchered it. I gave up trying to talk to someone by myself after that.

Elder Hayden was basically teaching one man about the entire Gospel. They were deep in conversation. Elder Hayden had successfully received the man's phone number. The man went to get off and Elder Hayden offered him the Book of Mormon. The guy declined, but Elder Hayden insisted. Then he reached out and took it just before he jumped off the metro.

"Good job, Elder Hayden!" I said. I was closest to him during the whole conversation. "What did he say?"

"He was a good guy," Elder Hayden responded. "I hope I get to serve in Paris so I can teach him."

"That would be awesome," I said as all of us got off the metro and onto another bigger metro, called an RER, heading to Versailles.

The people on the RER were quiet. Their faces seemed to light up when we walked in with our group of 25 missionaries. My it was just because they knew these were the people that were going to talk to them.