Two Months In - 6/16/14

Bonjour!

I'm two months in everybody!

Heads up:

For my mailing address, be sure you write "(Les Missionaires) Elder Wheatley" for the name or else I might not get it. Usually the post man can figure it out, but it'd be a shame for a letter to come that close only to turn around.

Things different in France:

I realized recently that I've neglected to share with you some of the odd differences I've come across here in France, so I shall do so now:

- Because the milk here is not pasteurized, it does not need to be refrigerated. I was a bit shocked when my comp pulled it out of the cupboard.

-Eggs, too, are not refrigerated in the country. Shocked again...

-Evvvvverybody smokes here. All over the place too. I started talking to this kid in the train station the other day, only to look down and notice that he was rolling marijuana while talking to me. Haha! It was so chill about it too, like it was no big deal.

-I've witnessed urinations in public places multiple times... indoors too.

-Bread is super cheap. We bought a baguette today for 35 centimes, which is about 50 cents.

-Lots and lots of Muslims here. Some of them are aggressive, but they're pretty chill for the most part. Every missionary here has one or two crazy stories about their encounters with the muslims, so it's just a matter of time before I too have some for myself.

-They have these people called "controllers" in the train stations that bust people for not having tickets. They hop on trains at random to "control." Get this, they wear white shirts, black slacks, a tie, and have little black satchel/purses over their shoulders! You can only imagine what kind of response we get when we hop on a train and go up to someone, haha!

-EVERYBODY thinks that Mormons are polygamists! In fact, I've yet to meet a single person who thought that Mormons were relatively normal. I've said that I'm from Las Vegas only to hear, "No no no, all the Mormons are in Utah." Haha, it's been fun dismissing that.

That's the majority of it, however. For the most part, people are pretty normal here.

This Week:

Not too much happened this past week because there was a huge train strike. The system was super clogged, so we literally spent 6 hours in transit everyday this week. Lots of train contacting, but very few lessons taught, unfortunately. This week should be great though. Sosthine (who prefers to go by Sylvain now) has his baptism this Saturday and things are looking good!

It's been incredible watching the progression of Sylvain. He's had a tough life and has been searching for the church for a LONG time. In fact, he's explored Budhism, Islam, Judaism, and just about every Christian sect you can imagine. It helped strengthen my testimony when he said that this religion just makes sense, and he feels something powerful here that he hasn't felt elsewhere.

The Church is true!

-- Elder Wheatley

No walking on water? "Not today!" says my boy Peter. (For real though, this dude was just walking around the pool at the Louvre looking for money) Oh yeah, I saw Mona Lisa this week!

​Nutella-filled cereal?? Yes, please.

​I went on exchanges to a gorgeous little town called Troyes this week. It's gorgeous! It's definitely on my list for when I come back after the mission.

​The Cathedral of Troyes.... Every little ville has one here!

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