First Week in France

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:04 AM, Nicholas Allan Davis <ndavis@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hello everyone! This has a lot of those red lines saying I'm spelling wrong. Well I made it to France safely as you know. I don't know if the email you got told you where my first area is but it's Brive-la-Gaillarde. My new adress for here is,

Elder Nicholas Davis

24 Bis, Avenue Emile Zola

F-19100 Brive-La-Gaillarde

France.

It's absolutely beautiful here! Although it's kind of cold and has been snowing the last couple days. The snow is strange though, it doesn't weigh enough to fall that much so it kind of floats in the air according to the breeze. The people here have been very nice, both members and non-members. I'm going to strart with the new stuff first though, so first thing I do after getting off the plain is to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was both for men and women. It was very strange to have the sisters in my group walk around behind me. Very weird. So then I go outside and one of the first things I see there is this old lady riding a one of those push scooters that you see little kids riding all the time! That was also quite strange. Next is the driving here in France, from what I can tell in cities there's two speeds, floor it and stop. There's not a whole lot in between that. And the other strange thing I noticed was in the first two days in Lyon, I saw more mini skirts than I have in my entire life, in winter nonetheless.

The first day I got here has been my favorite so far, we went up to this really beautiful catholic church (there's a lot of those here) that overlooked the entire city of Lyon. It was gorgeous and I'll have to send some pictures soon. Up there overlooking the city I got the strongest feeling that this is where I'm supposed to be. These people are the ones that I am supposed to be serving. It was an amazing experience.

So my first day here in Brive we went by a man's house and talked with him and I didn't understand a word he said to me. I was so freaked out! Come to find out, he's from the Middle East and learned Arabic as his first language. Further than that he has tzo teeth in his entire mouth. I then talked to some of the members and they're much easier to understand. Especially my DMP (Ward Mission Leader). Him and his familly are so great. His wife is exactly like Whoopi Goldburg I kid you not. If she spoke French this would be her. They're very patient with me and with my French.

Saturday we went porting (the French equivalent of tracting) and we ran into a Témoigne Jehovah. She was nice and we had a nice conversation with her but she's 92 and very unlikely to change. Shortly after that as we were walking home a guy decided to flip us off as he was driving home. Oh! And my first experience with a door being slammed in my face was kind of funny, it was a door that pulled out towards us so it wasn't in our face really and it also had hydrolics so it couldn't be slammed and broken (because it was glass). So as the guy walked off I couldn't help but laugh. My companion asked me why I was laughing and so I told him why I thought that was funny and it was the first door slammed on me. He didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did.

So my second day here we went to a member's home and ate food with them. Guess what we had? Tacos. They decided to make us Mexican food. That was funny too. It was pretty good. Then the other time I've eaten with a member we had lentels which I love anyways plus this really really good sausage. Much better than any sausage I've had up to now.

Yesterday church was good but I missed quite a lot of it. When they speak it's like they have bubbles coming out of their mouth. You hear, "blubblubblubblubblubblubblubblubb" and if your mind wanders for a moment or you dwell on a word too long you've lost the whole conversation and it's hard to catch on again. Kind of like a fish tank that is filled with all of one color fish to it's complete copacity and then they stick in a different colored fish. For just a moment you see the different colored fish but as soon as you're celebrating you saw it it's gone and you are looking at the same color again. But I felt the spirit there so I still enjoyed church.

We went grocery shopping this morning and it was really strange, they don't refridgerate (sorry for that missspelling) except for meat. Eggs, milk, stuff like that are not. I also don't know what to think of the milk here. Going down it tastes like normal milk but then it's over and you have a really strange taste in your mouth afterwards. I like the cereals here though, they are very good and I discovered something else that they have here that I really wish they had in the states, I can't remember what it's called but imagine nutella that's flavored like those honey graham bears things. It is heaven in a jar is what. Next week I'll make sure send you the name so you can order it offline or something.

Across the street from our apartment is two great food places. One's a dessert place that has really big eclaires for two euros and the other is a nice kabob place. Most eclaires in France are kind of small and like five euros but these are big and cheap too so that's nice. Then kabob is a special kind of sandwhich thing where they cook the meat vertical and rotisary style then cut off meat when it's done. It's really good but you have to be careful.

Well I think that's about it, it's really strange using a French Keyboard for English. You never realise how much you use W until it's in a defferent spot. Sometime try changing the language for the keyboard to French and type like that. 

I love you all and can't wait to tell you all of the new experiences of France!

-Elder Davis