Happy Early Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!! I don't exactly know what day it is (was?) in the states, but it's next Sunday here in France . I love you so much and I can't wait to swap mission stories in 6 months! I'm glad you got the postcard Mom. It reminded me of you immediately and I knew I had to get it. Yes, I did get your letter and the article by Maddie and the clip about Grissom High. Wow! A new Grissom High. Maybe I do want to teach there after I get my degree. For the love of Pete ( Pierre ? Tee hee!) tell me there'll be windows! And the plan for the old Grissom High school looks well thought out and a good use of the space. I especially like the idea of a new library. Tell Maddie that my companion and I were really inspired by the stories of those people she wrote about. That sort of history research sounds amazing! I might try to take that class if I have enough time to do it. Congratulations to Tammy on her wedding! Haha! I love the story about Sister Harris! I bet that delayed flight would be hard. I think the 7 hour flight back to the states will be killer just for that reason. It'll probably be full of mixed feelings as I say goodbye to a country that still will hold my heart, yet be on my way to see a family I have seen for 18 months. Yikes!! Why am I writing about that already?! Thanks for the updates about my classmates from high school! It's interesting to hear what we're all doing with our “after high school” lives. This week in France is the “Bac” (Baccalaureate). It's like the ACT, but much more important. Basically, you get the feeling that if you fail it, you're to expect a life of washing dishes. You can retake it, but you have to wait until next year. It's a week long test of four hours each day. You can choose from three types of the test: science and math based, social science based, or literary based. It depends on what you want to get your degree in later. It's graded on a scale of 1 to 20. Apparently only God can get a 20. A relatively good grade is considered a 14. Anything higher is great! I've been hearing mothers and teenagers at church, on the street, and during lessons stressing about the Bac for weeks. Just a little announcement to everybody who reads my emails. As many of you probably know, missionaries church-wide recently were told that we can now email people that aren't just family (recent converts, members of wards we served in, friends from home, etc). I originally told my parents not to give out my mission email address (bethany.paxton@myldsmail.net) because I already had a hard enough time just writing to my parents and didn't think I had enough time to respond to other people's emails. However, I've decided that in order for people who want to write me to save on stamps, you may email me if you wish. BUT, I still won't have time to email back.Instead I'll still respond by snail mail. So that means: don't forget to put the address where you live in the email when you write me!  I want to thank everybody so much for the letters and cards that I've received throughout my whole mission. You really have made me feel loved! The big news is that Elder Ballard is coming to visit the mission tomorrow! It was a big surprise. Not everybody in the mission can go, but we're close enough to Paris that we got permission. It'll be an all day long thing. I'm soooooo excited! This week we taught Marina , who I found last week during exchanges. We taught with a member who'll be leaving on her mission to Lyon soon. It went really well and Sr. Covington did an excellent job teaching about the Apostasy and testifying of the importance of prophets. We also had a surprise lesson with a member that we weren't expecting. We were visiting an inactive woman when a friend of her son's came over. Her name is Jade, age 14, and although she basically knew nothing about God or Jesus, she was fine listening to our message on the importance of covenants, specifically baptism, and renewing them each Sunday as we take the sacrament. She asked some pretty good questions and the inactive member did a good job helping us to answer them. I left her with a bookmark with our number, the church website and a guide on how to pray about it. She was happy to take it. On Saturday we spent 4 hours in a town in our area called Lens. We contacted and ported for a LONG time. We contacted a young mother with a 2 week old baby girl (so cute!). We talked about how prayer will help strengthen her little family and how one day her daughter will thank her for helping her have a stronger relationship with the Savior. We set up an appointment for next Wednesday so I'll tell you how it goes! There was a cool art sale going on the sides of the street, and several weddings were happening, which meant a lot of honking because that's the tradition here in France for weddings. When I first heard all of the honking when I was a bleu I asked Sr. Dremeaux what in the world it was. She was surprised that we didn't do that in the U.S. It was really great weather too and I even got a tan. Me! A tan! We can see it the most on my foot where the strap of my shoe was. Bethany

More Miracles and Some Sunshine

Salut! Holy Cow!  Zach is almost home? How times flies! I look forward to seeing him during Christmas break and chatting missionary things. And say goodbye to Kayla for me! This week we had some pretty excellent miracles. Last P-day we decided to go to the museum here in Arras because they have a special exhibit of the carriages of Versailles . I'll add pictures later. Wow! Right as we started I asked a man who worked there if we could take pictures. After he said yes, he started asking us about where we were from. This is normal in the United States , but for France question like that are strange, especially since he didn't give an explanation. Later he stopped us again and asked more questions, but still with no explanation.  Then about a minute later he came to us again (I could tell he was getting nervous because he was worried that he was bothering us too much). This time he came right out and asked if we taught lessons about what we believed. I tried to control the insanely excited person inside of me and said "why yes, we do". Of course, I had to explain that for men the Elders have to teach the lessons. A lot of times when we say that to men they say "oh, you two can't do it?" But he didn't care! He totally understood the situation and he really does want to know more. Like I mentioned earlier, the Sister Training leaders, Soeur McKay and Soeur Standford from the Louise ward in Brussels , Belgium , both came for exchanges on Tuesday/Wednesday. That meant that we were able to get double the work done! Before we were supposed to meet up with them, we had a District meeting with Amiens as usual. Unfortunately, our train got cancelled without any explanation. We found out later that the Louise Soeurs' train was also cancelled. We were frustrated as we waited for another hour for the next train and I turned to Soeur Covington and said, “I have a feeling we're supposed to be delayed for a reason”. Just then a young man from Nigeria sat next to me and said, “I heard you speaking English and wondered where you were from.” His name was Louis and he's been studying/working here for 3 years. I think he missed speaking his native language. We ended up getting his number to give to the Elders in Paris , which is where he's living. Finally we got back to Arras where I was paired with Sr. Standford, who's in her last transfer. We were blessed to have more lessons than we planned because while we were visiting one inactive sister, her non-member daughter was there, listening and participating! She even agreed to come next Wednesday. We saw Corinne for a little bit and even helped her and her husband figure out how they were going to get a new couch to their second floor through the window. We offered to have the Ward help her do it, but they had already hired movers to come on Thursday. We also visited an inactive family who has for some reason become very hostile toward us and a few other members in the ward. The husband has a strong testimony and was happy to see us, but his wife was very cold. Luckily, Sr. Standford was bold in trying to figure out what happened. Although the wife didn't open up she seemed to like that we cared enough about her to ask. She even let me hug her as we left....good progress considering that she looked like she could have bitten me when we first got there. We found out from another member that this woman has had a problem of being jealous of the Sisters in the past and suggested we send the Elders for awhile. Hopefully that will help! Sr. Standford and I also taught a woman, Marina , in the street. I found out that as long as you teach someone a principle, no matter how small (like faith, prayer, families), and then pray with them, it counts as a lesson. I've done that plenty of times in the street, but never knew it was a lesson! You can always learn something new. We set up an appointment with Marina for tonight and we'll be teaching with a member who'll be going on her mission to Lyon next month. My favorite story was that of Fabrice. And I wasn't even there for it! While Sr. Standford and I were having fun, Sr. McKay was with Sr. Covington. They were talking to a woman who wasn't very interested when a man drove up in a van and said, “I need one of your cards.” Sr. Covington recognized him as one of the bus drivers. We always thought he was Muslim. Turns out he's not. Fabrice told them that night that he really needs God right now in his life. He had apparently been seeing us on the bus for several months now and really felt that he needed to talk to us, but he couldn't because he was working. When he saw the Sisters that night he knew he had to stop and talk to them. It turns out that he's been living with a woman for 20 years and they have an 18 year old son whose health has really taken a turn for the worse. To add insult to injury, recently the woman left him and took the son too. They asked to pray with him and he really impressed Sr. Covington by praying for the health and safety of his girlfriend and son. He could have asked for money or a better job or he could have wanted revenge. Instead he wanted to bless them! Once again, the Elders will be teaching him, but we're sill so excited about it all! By the way, Sr. Covington is progressing very well! I told her during companionship inventory last week that I felt that she's become a real missionary now, not just a bleu. She takes control during planning, studies and lessons. Her French is progressing very well and she loves practicing. She knows what needs to be done and I think she's ready to train if necessary. Bethany