Quimper

We had an interesting week with Bethany. It turns out someone “stole” her debit card number while she did some shopping on her last P-day in Paris. The thief then did some on-line ordering in the US. The bank notified us and requested that we find out if the card had actually been stolen. And we also had to cancel her card. We called the Paris Mission office and they gave us permission to talk with Bethany briefly. Luckily she still had her card and the bank was able to catch the charges in time to reverse them. All is well and her new card is on the way. We hear this is a huge problem in Europe and missionaries are victims quite a bit. But it was nice to hear Bethany’s voice and her description of her new town. She told us then that she would be driving a car while in that area. Here are some additional notes she sent us: “It turns out that everybody can use their home country's driver's license for the first year that they live in France. After that they have to get one in France. That means if one companion has been on the mission longer he or she can't drive. However, since Sr. Alves is from Tahiti she's technically a French citizen and can use her own license as long as she wants. She'll be driving this transfer and I'll just be observing how to drive in France. Plus, there are a lot of hills here, which makes me nervous in a stick shift. I'll most likely be driving next transfer though.” Larry is feeling pretty pleased with himself that he insisted that both girls learn to drive his stick shift Honda! Dear everyone!   Bonjour from Quimper in Bretagne!! For those of you who don't know Bretagne is a region of France with a reputation for being very picturesque. It's also near the sea (actually it's the ocean, but don't tell the French that, to them everything is the sea). I haven't seen the sea yet, but I want to soon. We have a car 3 weeks out of 4. We share it with the Elders in Lorient. They had it last week and we get it back on Wednesday during district meeting. For now we're using the bus, which is good because in 2 1/2 weeks we will have exchanges and I'm staying here this time. I'm not allowed to use the car this transfer (and the GPS), even during exchanges, so I'll have to use the bus that day. I'm practicing how to use the system here now so I'll be ready then.   The town is actually bigger than that of Torcy (Dad, Torcy actually has about 20,000 people), but my area in Torcy had a bunch of other relatively large towns all around it so in that sense it's larger than Quimper. Everything around Quimper is just teeny towns. Everything here has an old, antiquey feeling to it which I love. Everything is Torcy was so new and really didn't have much personality. Also, Quimper has a nice little river that runs through it toward the sea, and hills that have really nice views. It has rained a lot, especially this morning, but we've also had two sunny days. In fact, the rain went away and it's sunny now! This town is so pretty in the sun. The branch here is very small and mostly full of women. The sacrament meeting room is the size of the Young Women's room at home. I was worried that it meant church would be boring, but nay not so! Everyone here comments a lot and makes the conversations lively. And there are plenty of children running around to make everything interesting. The Branch President's (President Caplain) father is American and was born in Alabama. All of President Caplain's cousins still live there which is hilarious to me because he has a super strong French accent when he speaks English while his cousins apparently have a strong Southern accent. We've already had two meetings with the Branch President and the ward missionaries to discuss reasons why we should have a companionship of Elders here in addition to us. At first I had no idea what I ideas to come up with, but soon we began to think of a lot. I really feel that Quimper is going to see a lot of missionary miracles in 2013. They don't have a lot of amis here so we'll be doing a lot of finding over the next few weeks. We have seen one inactive member, Elise, who is also from Tahiti. Unfortunately her sister died the day after I met her and she was really sad for a few days. We told the priesthood holders at church and they went over right to give her a blessing. It worked perfectly, and when we saw her that night she was much more positive. We also had a miracle my first day here. Sr. Alves decided to call a former amie that she had never seen before. Miraculously the woman, Dieuname (I know right? What's with the names around her?), answered and said she'd meet with us. In fact, she's supposed to be here now. Guess I have to go! Until next week!   Bethany