Bonjour,
This week has been very crazy, the first part of it was fairly normal, but I don’t remember most of it. What has happened this weekend has overshadowed the rest of my week and the week of all other missionaries.
We have been taking a lot of safety precautions. We are not allowed to take trains and for the first few hours and had to stay in our apartments the first two days. Initially, we had a ban on all public transport, but now that has been relieved, currently we are not allowed to take public transport during rush hours and we are to avoid groups of people!
We know that our mission president is very inspired by these guidelines and that we shall be safe. 🙂
Saturday morning when we woke up we found that we had received a 4:30 am text from the mission office. It said that due to activity in Paris we are not allowed to leave our apartments.
We had a lot of plans for that day and all we could do was pray that we would be able to do them. We had to take a train to go to a little city at 10 luckily we were given the right to leave our apartment around 930 in the morning. 🙂 We spent the afternoon in this safe little city and we were able to pass time with a new member who just moved here it was a really good experience and he really needed what we were able to give. 🙂
We spent the evening with one of the less-actives that we have worked
a lot with named A. We went to his house and ate with them I just had a relaxing evening winding down from the stress of the day.
Sunday morning we were given the right to use public transport so we could get to church, although all underground transport is forbidden. We were allowed to use the tram system which is all above ground. 🙂 We had a really really good afternoon at church and we are able to gather together with our friends and the members and find comfort together after these unfortunate events. Almost everyone has friends or family in or surrounding Paris.
I had to be in Lyon on Tuesday morning to get my French drivers license the office Elders decided that they would come get us on Sunday night in the car and then we could pass P-day together with the mission president and some other missionaries. 🙂 We had a really great time altogether where we played basketball, bocce ball, and badminton. It was really great time we were able to chill with American cheddar cheese sandwiches and have peanut butter cookies for dessert. 🙂 These are things that have been missed by American
missionaries. It ended up being one of the most beautiful days here in France
and we know that the Lord was just giving us a moment to relax and to de-stress, so that we can have joy and motivation.
Unfortunately during the day there had been more news unwinding in the city where we were and other cities across the mission. Luckily the news was about arrests which bring some comfort but also emphasizes the need for us to stay on High alert. We made some shuttle trips to bring sisters back to their apartments so they did not have to use transport and then we ourselves went home.
This morning we got up early and went to the office to make sure all of the mountains of paperwork were ready to take to the prefecture, so that we could obtain our licenses. 🙂 There were three of us together, when we went to the Prefecture, luckily we were protected and safe because there were a lot
of people there as well as a lot of police. We were kind of uneasy, but luckily the Lord protected us and kept us safe. 🙂
Today after we got our licenses president told us we are not going to be taking trains. The missionaries in Avignon will get a car and will drive you back to St. Etienne before driving all the way back to Avignon.
As you can tell, all the precautions are being taken. 🙂 We are safe but we are just waiting for the government to decide what actions they will be taken. Now they are taking three days to mourn after which they plan on reconvening at the palace of Versailles. We will see how that goes.
Transfers are this week… We’ll see if all of this throws a wrench in the gears of that process.
We will see how the news rolls out as the week goes on but I hope that you all know that we are safe and that the Lord is protecting us and also is inspiring our mission president that we may be safe. 🙂
I would just like to share a little scripture story:
After Christ had ascended his apostles went fishing once again, Jesus walked out onto the water and called unto Peter. That he may come forth and walk on water. Peter jumped from the boat and enthusiastically walks on water, he had his vision on Christ he was walking with no fear for he had the soul vision of his Savior. 🙂 Then is mind began to wander and he started looking
around… He saw the waves as treacherous as they were and he heard the wind howling and he became scared. And it was only at that moment when he had removed his vision from Christ that he started to sink… He had fear and not faith. I know that as we have our foundation built upon Christ we cannot fall, we have no need to fear, for if we fear that is when we shall
fall. Keep our minds on Christ with Perfect hope in him and we shall be able to overcome and to preform miracles. (Helaman 5:12)
Je vous aime tous
Elder Peterson,
La mission Française de Lyon.
Elder Aaron Peterson 