Paris France Mission: 6 Years Later

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 Schwind said. 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.

“...Georgia? How was that?” I heard Elder Pieper say. He was talking to Elder Morgan.

“It was good. It was nice having the opportunity to speak and teach in English for a little while,” Elder Morgan responded, he had a deep voice that didn’t necessarily fit his look. He was just taller than me and wasn’t any bigger than me either.

“Wait, what are you guys talking about?” I butted into their conversation.

“Elder Morgan served a transfer in Georgia before coming here today because he fast-tracked the MTC,” Elder Pieper explained. Fast-tracking was our way of saying someone knew the language well enough they only needed to spend three weeks in the MTC before being shipped out.

“Oh, that’s why you were here, I thought you were one of the office missionaries or something,” I said.

“No,” Elder Morgan said with a laugh. “Yeah right, not me.”

The RER came to our stop and the gigantic group of us jumped off and headed back up into the brisk December air. The humidity was obvious from the moment we stepped outside. It wouldn’t have been as cold if it wasn’t humid outside. By the time we got off the RER, it was beginning to get dark outside.

We trekked through mud and cobblestone until we finally reached the mission home. It was a beautiful home in the suburbs of Versailles. We went inside and Sister Staheli was finishing up dinner.

We washed up and sat down at a giant table as instructed by President Staheli. Dinner was served. Whether it was because I was so hungry or it was just that good, I don’t know, but it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.

The conversation started with small talk and somehow found its way to the Utah/BYU game which took place nearly a month ago. Being at the MTC in Provo we had heard a lot of things about it and how BYU got screwed in the game. My family is die-hard for Utah, so I was told from my dad that everyone had been whining, but it was a fair call. The game ended with a blocked field goal by Utah’s Brandon Burton which gave Utah the 17-16 victory.

“I just watched it, actually,” President Staheli said. “Yeah, I don’t have the same rules as you. I am sent all the BYU games from BYU. It was a great game that was unfortunately decided by the referees.”

“Really?” I asked, surprising myself since I hadn’t said much the whole meal. “Because I heard it was the right call.”

“It wasn’t. I just watched it,” President Staheli responded.

“My family watched it and said it was right,” I said. I wasn’t trying to start an argument, especially since I hadn’t seen it, but I was just telling what I was told.

That was the end of that conversation and the conversations continued in a more neutral tone.

In the mission home, there were only a limited number of beds and out group was too big, so a group of us had to go to a hotel. It was alphabetical, so I was obviously chosen.

Elder Haas, one of the office elders, drove us to our hotel through Paris. He drove like a mad man and I thought I was going to die as he sped through traffic yelling at people. The van we were in whipped around corners and on tightest roads I had ever seen.

We made it there safely, and went straight to bed. I was so tired.

The next morning started early as we met Elder Haas outside the hotel at 6 am. It was still pitch black outside. I definitely didn't get enough sleep. We were swept off again to the mission home and the rest of the missionaries were already eating breakfast.

We sat down and had cereal, fruit, and yogurt. Then President Staheli appeared with his assistants Elder Schwind and Elder Helvey.

"Well, it's time to announce where you're all going to start your mission," President Staheli said.

He started listing people off and where they were heading. Apparently this wasn't alphabetical though because I wasn't first.

None of the places sounded familiar. They also received the name of their trainers. Some of the names were strange also. The strangest being an Elder Rakotondrainibe who was going to be Elder Hayden's trainer. He wasn't serving in Paris though, which was disappointing to me.

"Elder Abel, you will be serving in one of my favorite little cities,” President Staheli prefaced his telling me. “It’s a small town called Alençon. It’s in Normandy…”

‘Normandy,’ I thought upon hearing the word. ‘That’s the only place I have recognized.’

“...Your trainer will be Elder McQuay, who is a really hard working missionary. He is from Oregon. You two will do great things in Alençon,” President Staheli finished telling me.

“Alright,” President Staheli said after finishing telling everyone where they were headed and with who. “Now, we are going to go to Consecration Hill. Make sure you bring a notebook and something to write with.”

We trekked back out into the cool air and towards the RER’s. There seemed to be a mist in the air. It wasn’t raining, it was cloudy and gray, but not raining. The gray seemed to make everything look dimmer and uglier. It was such a beautiful place last night.

We got back on the RER and headed to some stop that I couldn’t pronounce, but was the last stop on the metro. We got off and walked a little ways to get to what was apparently Consecration Hill. We arrived and President Staheli was waiting for us.

“Here we are Elders and Sisters,” President Staheli started. “This is Consecration Hill. Usually you can see the Eiffel Tower from here, but its too foggy today. I want you all to find a quiet place and think about why you are here. I want you to write down your thoughts and how you feel about being here in France about to start your missions.”

I walked away from everyone a little bit and sat down on the fence that bordered the edge of the hill.

‘Why am I here?’ I repeated over and over again in my mind as if the answer was impossible to describe.

I’m here because I love my family. I began to write. From here the words seemed to come easier. My family means so much to me. The fact that we can live together forever is why I am here. I want to share that message with everyone I meet, because that is the greatest gift that God has given each one of us.

Tears started to form in my eyes thinking about my family. I knew that they knew I was in the right place though.

I’m so happy to be here in France today. I may not speak the language well, and I may not be able to understand anything anyone says, but I can’t wait until I can. I know that God has prepared some of these people specifically for me to come and find and teach them.

After some time, we started heading back down into the metros. To get to the RER though, we had to travel through what looked like a group of random kiosks. I took up the rear as I naturally did when in big groups to make sure nobody was left behind.

As the group passed one kiosk of flowers, Elder Hayden jumped into line. I didn’t want him to be left behind, so I turned and waited for him.

“Elder Hayden, what are you doing?” I asked in a hurried tone. “Everyone is going to leave us!”

“I want to buy flowers for my trainer,” He replied simply. I turned back towards the increasingly distant group. Elder Pieper must have seen me stop because he was about 20 yards from me looking at me.

Elder Hayden bought the flowers and the three of us ran down towards the RER.

“They’re gone.” I said in disbelief.

“It’s okay, we’ll just catch the next one,” Elder Hayden said, who was from Europe, so was more accustomed to these things.

We sat down on a train that had all the doors open and wasn’t moving. We sat for a few minutes without any movement. Another RER appeared going the opposite direction.

“Let’s jump on that one,” Elder Hayden suggested. We got on it and it whisked us away.

‘What if this is the wrong direction,’ I thought as the other train we had just vacated took off in the opposite direction. Then I realized it was the end of the line, so there was only one direction.

At the very next stop, Elder Schwind was waiting on the bench smiling.

“What happened?” Elder Schwind asked politely after we got off the RER.

“I wanted to buy my trainer a flower,” Elder Hayden responded.

We walked back to the mission home and received a sack lunch from Sister Staheli. We then loaded our bags into a vehicle and headed right back to the RER to go into Paris to meet our trainers.