Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: 24 or 48 hour exchange??

Bonjour!

First off, I’m going to give you a little bio on my amazing new companion

Soeur Skouson is a very smart woman who loves Calais so much. If she could, she'd stay in Calais her whole mission. It's apparently bigger than her hometown!

She’s from: IOWA!

Her companion: The one and only, ME!

Interesting fact: She can play the organ and piano very well!

Amazing talent: She can put up with me.

Life ambition: To be able to whistle.

She's awesome and I love her!

This was a crazy week of Exchanges, Trainer’s Meeting, and District Meeting! and not to mention all in a row! What made it worse is the fact that France had a greve. What’s a greve? Well, It’s a strike. French people can be very dramatic which means they sometimes need to get their point across in a very inconvenient way. Like not having as many trains run or any buses run the whole day. Sometimes they last for many days. So, the greve happened when we were in Lille with the STLs.

This is how it all played out…

Wednesday morning, we headed down to Lille. We had an amazing exchange as per usual. They’re the best people and they’re such great friends. They give the best advice and all they want to do is help because they truly care. Together we came up with some great thoughts. Soeur Nielsen told me, "...how when times get hard and the waters get rough, it's important to focus on the spiritual or uplifting experiences you've had in the past, which will act as a buoy when you feel like you're sinking amidst the waves..." During the exchanges we were thinking a lot about remembrance. Because it’s very hard to remember the things you go through especially with all the things that happen in life. We need to remember how we feel and what we experience because those are the things that matter and the things that strengthen you in times of hardship. Those experiences, if you remember them, will help you to overcome your obstacles.

Moving on. The next day, Thursday, we were planning on leaving early for Dunkerque for district meeting with the STLs and the ZLs, but Thursday was the day France decided to have the greve. There was no train from Lille to Dunkerque because it was cancelled. The ZLs who were on exchanges with the APs in Paris were stuck there for a while because there wasn’t a train for them to get to Dunkerque. So, the district meeting was moved to another day. It was also the end of our exchange in Lille and we were supposed to go back to Calais, but there was no train until 5 that night. So, we had to stay until the evening and that was the beginning of our 48hr exchange. Again, it was a very amazing exchange, very edifying. It gave us the drive to continue! It came time for us to go to our train at 5. There were so many people out on the strike that it was very chaotic. We caught the underground metro, but it was stuck for a little while which made us miss our train back to Calais. We ended up having to stay the night again in Lille, plus it was easier at this point for us to take a train to Paris from Lille the next day than from Calais at 6 in the morning. So yeah, it was nuts and there was a lot of stress. I thought it was so funny because everything that was supposed to happen, went wrong and didn’t happen. I laughed a lot. You either laugh or you cry and to me laughing sounds better!

We had a great meeting in Paris with the other trainers. We were strengthened and edified and reminded of our missionary purpose. It was wonderful. I think President is doing his absolute best in leading us. I'm sure it’s not easy so I’m grateful.

Saturday, we had district meeting, so that finally happened. Next week we’ll have it with the STLs and the ZLs. LOL. So, as you see we were barely in our sector this week, but we met some very cool people on exchanges and learned some very valuable things for the weeks to come.

I'm grateful to be out here in the mission field, learning the things I’m learning. I'm grateful for the people in my life and things I learn from each one of them. Thank you for everything you do for me! keep up the hard work and have a fabulous week!!

Soeur Hunt