Packers France Paris Mission BLog 26

Packers in Paris Blog 26 – August 20^th – September 10^th, of 2018

LEAKY WC, SABRINA AND INSURANCE

This past Monday evening I met with Sabrina, our neighbor above us who had the leaky pipes! She came over after her work to begin filling out insurance papers so that the process could begin to get our damage repaired. It’s not fun dealing with insurance and at that in Europe, but Sabrina was absolutely a doll to talk this over with. She is an amazing woman of integrity and a low key attitude, allowing this process to be a piece of cake! Who knows when it’ll be repaired, but at least we got the hard part over with and in time. Timeliness here in Europe with insurance is the key!

REQUEST TO SPEAK AT SATURDAY NIGHT STAKE CONFERENCE

On Thursday, August 31^st, after our Zoom conference with our three Presidents, President Loisel asked that we speak at the Saturday night Stake Conference. We had 10-12 minutes to speak, and the topic would be on Family History. He said he could have an interpreter for us if we needed one.

On Friday morning, via my personal prayers, scripture study and listening again to Elder Renlund’s talk on Family History, I felt a strong impression that this talk should be given in French or else we would lose half of our valuable time on this important topic. With no intent in mind, I told my husband my thoughts and he quickly replied by telling me that I would need to be giving it then. I panicked for a second, and then felt peace that it would be ok. It’s been at least 40 years + since I’ve given a talk in French and this was not something I felt prepared to do.

That Friday I began the process to write it in English and had Steve review it to make sure that our topic was being covered properly. Since my French isn’t good enough to prepare a lengthy talk in French and have it done properly, I contacted our Bishop’s wife who offered her amazing 16-year-old daughter, Abby, to translate it for me. They are from the states but have lived here in Paris for 17 years. Abby does most of the translating for our Sunday meetings for those who need it in English.

By that Sunday evening she had finished her translation and then had her French Uncle check it for any improvements. It was then ready for me to begin my process of review. I’ll share the conclusion near the end.

PUBLICITY QUICK REPONSE

This week right before District Council, we received a message from our publicity contact that they needed the information quickly to get going on it for our Open House. We had to take a moment to finalize what we had been working on and get it to sent to him. How grateful we are for all those who are helping us out on this project, as we could never do it without them. Photos will come as we get our publicity to us!

DISTRICT COUNCIL

Recently the name of our District Meetings all over the church was changed to District Council. With our new District we have made some wonderful progress and have been more engaged in reporting and communicating with each other as well.

OFFI – INSTITUTE MEETING & NEW FRIENDS

Last Thursday was one long day, as we started off with going to the church at 11:00 am to meet the recently arrived missionaries to take them to OFII, to become legalized (one of our many assignments)! There were 8 missionaries going this time and we had such a wonderful time with them. What awesome missionaries they are. I took the time to visit with Sister Sorensen from CA, the niece to our mission president. She looked just like she was one of their daughters in every way. She gave me some of the greatest insights to our Mission President and his family and her own. She is an amazing missionary and so fun and amiable!

OFII with all 8 new missionaries not including us Seniors

Elders coming back from OFII

Sisters coming back from OFII

PHOTO OF PRESIDENT SORENSEN’S FAMILY HERE IN PARIS

 

President and Sister Sorensen Family

     New and Family Friends at Institute

After we got back and said goodbye to all the missionaries, we then went up to the Institute building to see how we could help the Bonny’s out. We didn’t leave till quite late after cleaning, went past the glimmering Eiffel Tower and got to bed late!

One of our many views while walking home!

While at Institute we met some new students. They will absolutely be such a blessing to our YSA. Katie is from DC and Janita is from Finland.

Katie & Janita 

Tiaou

Mauro D

We have such great YSA in our group and love them dearly! They are truly the life of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

LE TEMPLE NOUS MANQUE – WE MISS THE TEMPLE!

In French when you say that you miss something, it’s translated backwards, kind of sounding like it misses you! I kind of like that thought and maybe it applies here as well. Maybe the temple really does miss us when we haven't been!  

The past two weeks have been so incredibly busy with our Family History project that we had to forgo going to the temple. As we approach our deadlines and then once the center is opened, this will be more the case. We do feel that our constant work on Family History is a blessing to be working on when we can’t attend the temple. I keep remembering we are on a mission and that there are many who have no temples, but we are about doing a great work to help in this great work! It’s ALL one great work!

 

Our home away from home!

Paris Temple in Versailles

CENTER UPDATES

Checking on the center several times this week was fun to see their fast accomplishments. Getting the paint done makes a huge difference. They are now used to us dropping in and checking things out and even taking their photos as a documentary of who has worked on this project. They’ve been great and very obliging. They loved that I was going to put their picture in my blog! We wanted to honor them by putting some pictures of their great work and their photos as well. We don't have their names, but they were kind to pose for us, for the most part!

MY TALK AT THE SATURDAY NIGHT STAKE CONFERENCE IN VERSAILLE

If there was one miracle in this whole experience of my getting ready to speak (in French mind you) for the Saturday night session of Stake Conference, was the peace I felt from the beginning. No matter how I ended up doing, peace was what I needed!

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in life is that I need the Lord in my efforts in all things, and especially with those things that seem a bit, ok, quite daunting!

My efforts in preparing to give a talk in French was a great exercise for me. It forced me to rehearse enough times that I felt the flow and articulation coming together better than it had from the beginning. There's no doubt my pleadings with the Lord had been a great source of help and comfort. It’s one thing to just speak from your mind and be ok, because you are using your words that you are comfortable with, rather than my needing to read through a talk with a lot of words that weren’t so comfortable, but the Lord allowed me to give my best and He would do the rest. If I had had a month maybe I could’ve felt more confident to not read from it and look up a lot more. C’est la vie! The whole experience was an added blessing with my French especially on the topic of Family History. We both just need to just keep working on this in all aspects and it will bless us in our center.

The talk went fine from what I was told, and no matter, I gained greater strength from the Lord in His desire for me to keep learning, improving and I am grateful to receive His mercy and love!

The Lord is our guide and our staff and we are blessed to have His help, direction and peace at all times even in times of stormy weather!

Steve and Renée  just  prior to the Stake meeting prior to Saturday Stake Conference

SUNDAY STAKE CONFERENCE AND ENGLISH SACRAMENT MEETING BLESSINGS

This morning was our Stake Conference, which was broadcast to our meeting house in our normal Paris building. It was a great meeting and I was thankful to be on the receiving end of listening. We especially loved hearing from our mission President and his dear wife and our beloved Stake President, among other wonderful talks.

Afterwards, we still held the English speaking Sacrament meeting. We didn’t have a large crowd, about 50, but it was incredible to say the least! It’s as if each person who attended was meant to be there and bless us and maybe our meeting blessed them, as we later heard.

We met people we were so grateful to have met and learned from them and know that providence was present in all forms.

     Lessons learned – There were many, so we’ll keep it short!

-         We are asked to sacrifice

-         A man thanked the Lord for his testimony each day. It is not given without faith, effort, and mercy and another said, it is a gift from God we can all have

-         Witnessing two strangers helping one another in the metro, was touching

-         One man was lost and prayed to find the church and then was led to find it afterwards

     Greg and Teresa Coons – Associate Director of the Family History Library in Oakland, CA – & Update project photos

We met Brother and Sister Coon from Alamo, CA who work in the Family History Library in Oakland, CA. We told them what we were doing and they were thrilled for us. We invited them to take a quick tour of our facility to take a peek and learn of our plans. They were delightful and delighted! Sister Coons was so helpful to give us links that would give us more training and help for our center. She also will be an advocate of recruiting senior missionaries for our mission here! You can all be advocates of sending Senior Missionaries here! We so enjoyed our visit with them.

Greg & Teresa Coon

Coons and Packers in the Family History Center - Notice X marks the spot of the glass wall

As we walked into the center, we were grateful to see that our glass walls were finally up! How wonderful they look and will add to the beauty and open feeling, allowing the light to flow through. You can’t see the glass walls per say, but the X marks the spot in the background glass area. 😊

SUNDAY NIGHT FAMILY LETTERS

We try to use Sunday nights to write letters to one family each week! At this moment we are going to hand write them, but I may be forced to start using the computer. We’ll see how well I continue by hand! We love taking time for our family however we can, but especially when we can talk/skype/facetime with them. We are most looking forward in the next couple of weeks to seeing our son, Jordan and his wife, Larissa! What a glorious and happy week that will be!

Toujours garder une prière dans ton coeur (Always keep a prayer in your heart),

Elder et Soeur Packer                                                                                                  

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
Email address:                                                                                                                                         Renée: srpacker10@gmail.com                                                                                                                 Steve: wf-packer@hotmail.com

You may still text or FaceTime Renée at 801-564-1332

We are 8 hours ahead of Mountain Standard Time