Packers France Paris Mission Blog 19
Packers in Paris Blog 19 – July 16th – July 22nd, of 2018
STRANDED BUT NOT ALONE
Jennifer
Ruff stranded in Paris, became our blessing!
We have come to
appreciate how the Lord works and how we can never second guess what He has up
his sleeve for us on any given day, no matter what else we have planned. We
have learned to go with His flow, not ours and it always works out so much
better!
Monday morning, we
received a phone call from a woman who sounded pretty shook up and emotional.
Her family had returned home, while she was going to continue on to spend time
with her best friend in Germany. There is much more to the story, but in short,
when she realized that after spending a long night in the bus station in Paris
and not getting anywhere and loaded down with an enormous backpack, bigger than
her, starving, dehydrated, and emotional, she knew she needed help. She called
the mission home and the Mission President gave her our number. She then called
us to ask for a place to repose and get herself figured out for her continued
journey. She was very hungry, dehydrated and emotionally distraught, and who
wouldn’t be!
We realized that the
time it would take for us to get to where she was and get her back here (especially
exhausting for her), would only delay her ability to get the needed help and rest
she lacked. We advised her to call for an uber to have them bring her to our
place. Once she came, we fed her breakfast, allowed her to rest as long as
needed and then she showered, and ate dinner with us.
We then connected on
Facebook and realized the sweet connections of a mutual friend we had (her
cousin and our friend, Belinda Lenhard). Through this mutual connection which
we shared and then telephoned, we also found out even more mutual interests
which turned out to be a wonderful blessing for many reasons!
One of the mutual
interests is her music. Jennifer Ruff is such a sweet, kind and beautiful woman,
mother and has a beautiful vocalist. She shared with us one of her recorded songs,
which we will share with you. She was such a humble, grateful and delightful
woman to get to know. We knew that the Lord’s hand was in our meeting and our helping
her that day, ended up blessing us as well.
Luckily, we had an old
suitcase from my parent’s several missions my brother had brought needed items
for us a while back. This particular suitcase has traveled the world around
multiple times during several of my parent’s missions. It gave her much respite
from the heavy backpack which seemed to be lugging her around, not the other
way around.
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| Jennifer Ruff and Renee |
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| The Wood missionary suitcase that has gone around the world multiple times! |
DEPARTING MISSIONARIES AND NEW BLUES!
Since we live so close
to the church in Paris, we are the lucky ones assigned to help make sure doors
are unlocked, help given where needed and to help monitor and give our love to
the dear departing and new blues (I will
share with you what “blues” stands for shortly)! We had a lot of departing
elders (11 this time) leave this past week and we so appreciate having known
some of them. They have touched our hearts and lifted our sights by their
example and faithful service. They will be missed, and we are confident they
will return home to make the world a much better place. Best to each of them! There
is a special feeling on each of these days where the sadness of departure and
excitement to return home, is filled with such mixed emotions. These are normal
emotions and we know they are going to be just fine! It’s my emotions I’m
worried about! 😉
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| President Sorensen (left) and his departing Elders |
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| Sister Petersen with other missionaries from the Kaysville/Layton Utah area |
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| Elder Ho wins the prize for being the most organized in his packing to leave home |
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| Just a small portion of the treats that Elder Sylva will be bringing home to his family |
We also welcomed new Blues
(4 Elders and 1 Sister)! We were so happy to meet Sister Petersen from Layton,
UT, from our old Stake. We didn’t know each other, but we knew she was coming
and we were so happy to finally meet her. It was obvious from the very first time
we met, that she will be an incredible missionary. She is filled with a humble confidence
in the Lord, a strong spirit of hope and will be one amazing and faithful
missionary.
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| Elder and Sister Packer with Sister Petersen |
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| Sister Petersen and Sister Dorton ( They hit it off so amazingly!) |
What does “Blue” stand for?
This last Wednesday we asked one of the AP (Assistant to the
President) why the new incoming missionaries, are called “Blues.” The answer
was quite beautiful and once again fit with our mission President’s love for
the lessons learned from the World Wars. From what little they told us, here
are my added perspectives.
Warriors in Blue! When the
new incoming French soldiers would come into battle field, they were wearing
blue uniforms, clean, fresh and spotless from the perils of war. Soon, they
would be thrust into battle with a desire to fight for their country’s freedom,
and their clothing would soon no longer be free from stain, or naïve of the
threats of being on the battle field. In the end, their clothing and souls had
been tattered, but not defeated!
The same is true with these “Blue” missionaries. They have not yet
been out in the battle field, so to speak, and seen how brutal it can be, or
how difficult it is to live a life of living each day following tighter standards
that will ultimately bless them, yet not always easy to follow. Often,
rejection can stain their physical and spiritual apparel, but they march on in
the work of the Lord.
By the time they are ready to go home, their love of the Lord, the
love of their companions, the people and those they’ve taught, and the beloved
lands they’ve served and grown to cherish, have changed their hearts, and they
will never be the same. They feel that their love for each of these has come
from having gone through a spiritual war of type and have come out as conquering
warriors. Their clothing and souls have also been tattered. They are not
defeated, but true heroes!
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| Sister Petersen |
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| The "Blues" off to battle! ;) |
INSTITUTE AND ANOTHER MEAL
FROM THE PACKERS
This was a fun day of experimentation for our meal, which our
children are familiar that I do quite often (not always with a positive turn
out). But, should I have experimented on the YSA’s and what if it didn’t turn
out, they might would have to leave hungry? Luckily the night went well and all
the food was eaten, either because they liked it OR they were just too kind! 😊 Once
again, too consumed with food preparations and clean up to remember to take pictures.
FRIDAY TEMPLE DATE (OUR
P-DAY) ON A NEW ROUTE
At times the RER systems need major repair and our favorite temple
destination route just a couple minutes from our apartment, is going under the
knife for 6 weeks and so we had to figure out an even different route that
hopefully wouldn’t be too difficult and challenging. Steve has become a pro in
finding varied routes to the same location. It was perfect! We were most
grateful for two fun blessings.
The Fox family made our day!
On our way to the temple, we met the awesome FOX family with their
six children on the RER. They are from Virginia and on the last leg of their
1-month vacation traveling all over Europe. Wow, I had to hand it to them. They
were an absolutely adorable family, filled with such joy, excitement (even
after a month) to see the sights, this time in Versailles. We couldn’t get
enough of them and their jubilant enthusiasm for the fun they were having, but
maybe they were also excited to see two Mormon missionaries! 😉
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| The Fox Family bundled with so much love! |
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| I think we might just adopt them! (Lisa, Brett, Jolie, Genevieve, Jillian, Jacob, Giselle and Joselyn) |
Their youngest daughter had caught our hearts and caused longing
feelings for our grandchildren even more. This picture below explains perfectly
why!
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| The youngest is always is the cutest! :) |
We loved our visit with them and as we were departing and
connecting via Facebook, we realized a great connection with them through dear mutual
friend, Kristi Snapp. Vivre the Fox family in Europe!
Our little angel of mercy on our way to
the temple
As we were getting close to the temple, there was a woman we met,
who had spotted our badges and said she worked in the temple and would show us
a shorter route that we could continue to take from here on out. It was
awesome!
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| Our Temple angel! |
Prior to entering the temple, we stopped into the Visitor Center
to meet with Elder and Sister Bush who are missionaries here and leaving to go
home in a few weeks. We left with them a book of my parents, that my sister,
Janine Green had written, hoping that those who serve at the visitor’s center
might be inspired reading about the blessings of their service in so many
countless of ways.
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| Elder and Sister Bush - excited to dig into the book! |
We enjoyed a beautiful session and then went outside afterwards
for pictures, of course! The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful!
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| Title found on all temples, "Holiness to the Lord" but in French |
SATURDAY IS A SPECIAL DAY,
IT’S THE DAY WE GOT READY FOR THIS TUESDAY!
For the past week we’ve been preparing a detailed task list for
our center that is needed to instigate and implement all needed items for our
center once it is completed. A couple of days ago, we found out that we will have
an in-person interview with our mission president next Tuesday. We then spent
all day Saturday putting together a visual proposal of all our plans once the
center is open with our operational plan, activities, the flow, our task list
and so on. We are now prepared to present this to him. It’s been exciting to
see how both of our viewpoints, impressions and revelation have come together to
put this all together in a short amount of time. We have much faith that it
will all come to pass with a lot of faith, diligent work, continued prayer and
the Lord’s immense help! This is His work, not ours!
Update photos of center – caught the electricity glitch just in time!
We’ve been so grateful for the few times we have just happened to
walk into the center just in time to catch something they had forgotten to do
that had been part of our plans, but in time so it wasn’t too late. There was a
missing line to a plug/internet outlet that had been forgotten. The worker
didn’t seem so pleased, but he called Bro. Vienne, who confirmed it should be
there. When we checked back later, he had made the necessary changes. Once the
electricity is set into the floor with cement, that’s it! Heaven’s help
intervened again!
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| We love to see this kind of progress! |
SUNDAY AT SAINT MERRI –
MANY SWEET ENCOUNTERS
Elder and Soeur Bonny were gone for the week to a YSA conference
in Southern France in the Ville of Lamoura, so we were on our own to run the English-speaking
Sacrament meeting. Our numbers were fewer than usual, but we enjoyed our time
with them immensely. Our sweet encounters with the dear people that we meet
week after week and connect with become memorable experiences that we just
can’t forget! Here are some photos of our visitors that brightened an already beautiful
day!
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| The Dyer Family from CA |
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| YSA's from England, heading off to Lamoura, France for the YSA conference for a few days |
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| Brother and Sister Evans - friends of Steve's brother in Gilbert, AZ |
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Chloé Hechmati - CA native, lives in Orem, UT and her mother is French
She is an amazing woman who has come through great odds!
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Brother and Sister Erickson - French Professor at BYU
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Curious visitors after church
As we were cleaning up and closing the chapel, Steve ran into two
gentlemen who were curious to see the inside of our chapel. As we invited them
to enter, they were quite surprised that it wasn’t ornate and full of statutes.
They began, in somewhat of a desire to dispute and ridicule our beliefs, but
since we had no desire to do so, and only engage in purposeful discussion, it turned
out quite well. I sent them a link of Elder Gérald Caussé’s talk from our last
conference, where he mentions a powerful experience that occurred with him
concerning the temple being built here in Paris in such a predominant Catholic region.
It is most inspiring how the authorities gladly welcomed the temple to be built
here in Paris once they personally checked our religion on their own.
Here is an excerpt from the talk and the link following.
It Is All About People - short excerpt
“While preparing for the construction of the
magnificent Paris France Temple, I had an experience I will never forget. In
2010, when property for the temple was found, the city mayor asked to meet with
us to know more about our Church. This meeting was a critical step in obtaining
a building permit. We meticulously prepared a presentation that included
several impressive pictures of Latter-day Saint temples. My most fervent hope
was that their architectural beauty would persuade the mayor to support our
project.
To my surprise, the mayor indicated that
rather than reviewing our presentation, he and his team preferred to conduct
their own investigation to find out what kind of church we were. The following
month, we were invited back to hear a report given by a city councilor who also
happened to be a professor of religious history. She said, “Above all else, we
wanted to understand who the members of your church are. First, we attended one
of your sacrament meetings. We sat at the back of the chapel and carefully
observed the people in the congregation and what they were doing. Then we met
with your neighbors—those who live around your stake center—and we asked them
what kind of people you Mormons are.”
“So what are your conclusions?” I asked,
feeling a little bit of anxiety. She replied, “We discovered that The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the closest to Jesus Christ’s original
Church than any other church we know of.” I almost objected by saying, “That’s
not completely accurate! It’s not the church that is closest; it is the Church of Jesus Christ—the
same Church, the true Church!” But I restrained myself and instead offered a
silent prayer of gratitude. The mayor then advised us that, based on their
findings, he and his team had no objections to the construction of a temple in
their community.”
MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR
PIONEER CONCERT VIEWED HERE IN PARIS!
What more can we ask for than to be able to reach far across the
ocean waves and listen to this wonderful choir and program from Utah to Paris,
France. It helps us to also feel not feel so far away knowing we can video chat
with our children, and also watch such uplifting programs as these that help us
to feel a bit closer to our heaven home in Utah.
If you have not had a chance to view this spectacular performance,
you’ll not want to miss it! You may just thank me later! 😉 The performance
is filled with familiar and heartwarming music from Rogers and Hammerstein and
Oscar Hammerstein’s incredible personal and career stories narrated by his
grandson. The music performed is some of my
most favorite pieces ever written from this genre of music. You will love
the voices of Mathew Morrison, Laura Michelle Kelly and Narrator, Oscar “Andy”
Hammerstein III.
Skip past the first hour of
prerecorded choir music before the program begins, unless
you want to watch at minus 57:12-57:00 min to see my sister Janine Green. (this
was before she finished with the choir) 😊
Click here to watch the full Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert - skip past the first hour of prerecorded prior to the program beginning
Who knew that there was even a song by Hammerstein, titled, “The
Last Time I Saw Paris.” This was piece
was just mentioned, not sung.
Click here to listen: This piece was not featured, but just mentioned
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| Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square |
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| Oscar Hammerstein III - Narrator |
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| Laura Michelle Kelly and |
FAMILY SEARCH & SAMULE
LEIGH WOOD (My great grandfather)
In honor of the 24th of July (Pioneer Day), I loved
receiving my Family Search email today highlighting one of my ancestors who is
an honored pioneer in our family! Thank
you, dear Great Grandpa Samuel Leigh Wood for your sacrifice and love for your
future posterity! To our children, we honor your Great, Great Grandpa Wood!
For those interested to know more, click, read here...
We hope that each of you can enjoy a spectacular week and for those
celebrating the 24th of July, maybe you might just seek out one more
of your relatives who were pioneers in their own way!
Tes missionaries pas si
blues (Your not so blue missionaries),
Grandpère et Mémé Packer (Please use our last name on any mail, or
it will get returned)
Our Address:
4 quai du Marché Neuf
75004 PARIS
FRANCE
You may still text or
FaceTime Renée at 801-564-1332
We are 8 hours ahead of
Mountain Standard Time
I love it all! Especially Julie Andrews 😉
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