Packers France Paris Mission Blog 37
Packers in Paris Blog 37 – November 19th – 25th of 2018
WE GATHER TOGETHER
This week was one full of gratitude and quiet reflection of those things we cherish most! We certainly missed our family during this traditional time to gather together, but we were grateful for those who invited us to join them for their celebrations.
Our hearts are always full of love and gratitude for family, friends, our good health and for our Savior, Jesus Christ! As we gathered together this past week to ask the Lord’s blessings, we are in awe of how immense His Love and Mercy is towards all of us!
The third verse of a well-known hymn reminds us of how truly grateful we are for one another and for the One who saves us all!
For the Beauty of the Earth
For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
Here is the John Rutter composition of this piece! Such a beautiful rendition!
John Rutter’s, All Things Bright and Beautiful
GRATITUDE & DESSERT & PDAY
This last Tuesday we invited Elder Durant, Elder Ludwig and their ami Fabrice (who was unable to make the train connections), to honor and thank them for all the efforts they made to help Fabrice with his Family History and to go to the temple. This was also Elder Durant’s last night with Elder Ludwig and most likely his last night to be able to join us in our apartment. We cherish our time with these incredible ambassadors!
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| A fuzzy selfie with Elders Durant and Ludwig |
Pday this Tuesday was not what we hope our Pdays will be, but there was a lot of catching up we had to do, to just feel like we could move forward. We are in hopes we will enjoy more of the sites in the future and accomplish things we can’t usually get done during the week.
REFOCUS AND NEW HOURS FOR OUR FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
On October 15th, we opened the center for the first time with 51+ hours per week ahead of us, that the center would be opened with us solely running the center. Our hopes were to quickly find someone to help take some of the shifts to allow us some personal time, like a weekly PDay and so forth.
Managing the center has many other responsibilities and we also have administrative tasks for the mission, the area, the stake and Family Search. We could quickly see that we weren’t getting these done as our center was keeping us busy. We realized a dramatic change needed to take place until further help came our way.
We love the activity that takes place in the center and our desire is to help keep the center even busier, as well as working through all the, behind the scenes, responsibilities. We organized more of what our daily, weekly, monthly tasks, one-time responsibilities, goals and much more are would be. Defining these tasks and goals helped us determine what our new schedule should be until more help is given.
We started our new schedule this week and we feel that we can literally breathe and focus better on all areas and know that all will work out in the end, especially as we get help from other sources. We’ve always been taught that we shouldn’t run faster than we have strength (Mosiah 4:27). Our administrative and other tasks that can be done out of the center, will now be done during the week in our apartment where we won’t be interrupted.
DEPARTURES, EXCHANGES AND BLUES!
Every six weeks, our hearts get a bit sentimental when we witness those who are going home at the end of their mission, or for those being transferred to another location, and then we are filled with so much compassion as we see the faces of the blues who have just come fresh from the MTC ready to get to work. This last Wednesday we witnessed such emotions from all three groups. It was a day with dear missionaries we love and will miss so much.
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| Pres Sorensen coming in for the Blues meeting (this is where the blues are put with their first companion who will be training them). It's an amazing feeling seeing them meet for the first time! |
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| New Blues - Make your own caption on these two photos! Love the looks on their faces! |
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| Standing with Elder Poulson |
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| Sister Van Duyse - Departing! How we love and will miss her! |
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| Sister Hicken - departing back to Utah, where she and I worked at the Ogden temple together! She is amazing! |
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| Sister Van Duyse |
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| Elder Poulson (far right) getting his new companion on the far left |
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| More departing Elders! Some of them literally grow up on their mission! Elder De Geus, Elder Lafferty, and Elder Morphis |
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| Sister Maeser just found and printed off a family name to take to the temple! I believe this was her first time! |
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| Sister....., Sister...., Sister...., Sister Maeser |
THANKSGIVING DINNER X 3 – SECOND TIME WITH SECRET AGENTS
We started Thanksgiving Day with a wonderful District Council by Elder Cheng, our District leader. His message was inspiring and very thought-provoking. A great discussion came from this meeting!
Afterward, we held a small Thanksgiving meal. It was wonderful to see everyone’s contributions to make this a wonderful gathering. I prepared my home-made rolls for a little home taste.
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| Our beloved new district! |
That evening, we took another dish to Don and Tina Hales’ home for quite a display of delicious food. We were surrounded though with four Secret Agents. It was quite an interesting conversation at times hearing their stories and what they do! We heard no secrets though but felt we were in safe hands. They did share a story of when several of them were together on a metro and were being pickpocketed and how their colleagues handled the situation.
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| Can you pick out who the Secret Agents are? |
We couldn’t resist telling them our secret agent story, of how our son wrote the coolest musical for the 8th grade in Idaho, of our family, called, “My Dad, the Secret Agent.” It brought back so many memories of and for our whole family.
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| My Dad the Secret Agent, - written and produced by Jaron Packer (the one in the grey jacket) Written for and put on by the 8th-grade in Idaho. A heart touching classic Packer family story that stole the hearts of at least those in the musical and the Packers! Maybe more! |
WALKS TO REMEMBER - STEPPING IT UP
Just when I was falling in love with our morning walking routine along the streets of Paris, we switched it up! I personally felt I needed more strength training in our walks and realized stairs would be very helpful. Near our apartment is a metro system that has mega stairs. I’ve never liked using them because there are so many, thus we usually take the elevator.
By the time we go up and down the stairs twice, we will have walked about 300 stairs in the metro, plus 100 stairs X 2 going down and back up to our apartment. I’m now feeling a bit more empowered for conquering the stairs. We then follow with a shorter walk.
OLDEST GRANDCHILD TURNS 15
I have been terrible at making mention of family birthdays or anniversaries of any of our children or grandchildren, but this past week on Friday, the 23rd, our oldest grandchild turned 15 and felt we should at least honor the oldest grandchild this time around. Maliyah Duckworth is such a dear, valiant and talented young woman. She has such a golden and kind heart and loves people, loves her family, loves the Lord and loves serving others. We love you Maliyah!
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| Maliyah Duckworth - 15 birthday |
PIERLUIGI’S RETURN VISIT
We had such a beautiful lesson with Pierluigi today at the center. We were so grateful that the Elders were at the center when he came and that we were able to go into the teaching room for another lesson. None of us were planning on a lesson right then, but he was thirsty for more and it was perfect. He has such a good and faithful heart and realizes that we are becoming people he can trust.
PRIMARY PROGRAM & NEW FRIEND – CONNECTIONS – THANKSGIVING AT HALLS’
Primary Program
There is something about the annual Primary Program that touches our hearts and that all who are present absolutely love! The children were adorable!!! Some of it was in English and some in French and they were so cute!
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| Nuria's daughter, Caroline is in the middle with the pink sweater. |
Nuria, our new friend, has been coming to church for about a month with her 8-year-old daughter, Caroline, who loves primary. With today being the primary program, Nuria also invited a good friend, Kristelle, who moved to Paris 1 month ago, to come and see Caroline sing in the program. Caroline also had a small speaking part that she did very well. Caroline loved being in the program and just glowed afterward. Nuria and Caroline are planning to get baptized in December.
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| Nuria and Caroline |
New friend
Kristelle has been going through some very tough times and coming to this program was an answer to her pleading heart to know where to turn. She instantly knew this was where she belonged and is excited to start taking the discussions from the missionaries. She was emotional with gratitude. I enjoyed my conversation with her and could see that she was ready to move forward.
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| Kristelle and Nuria |
Connections with the Hortons from Layton, UT
We enjoyed meeting friends from Layton, Utah. We have known the Horton family for many years and Landon is one of their sons. Landon served his mission here 6 years ago and wanted to bring his bride, Alyssa of 1.5 years to show her the sites and where he served. As they sat several rows behind us, he kept telling his wife that he was sure he knew us but wasn’t sure how. As soon as we turned around at the end and saw our name tags, he knew exactly who we were. It was so good to talk with them and reconnect with members of the great Horton family.
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| Landon and Alyssa Horton |
Thanksgiving at Halls’
On Sunday we attended another Thanksgiving celebration at the home of our Bishop, John Hall, and his wife, Renee. It was so lovely celebrating with our old and new friends. They always host a dinner for the Young Single Adults, the Senior Temple missionaries with the Bonny’s and us and also the younger missionaries, all on three different nights. How we love the Halls!
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| Renee Hall and their youngest |
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| Bishop Hall and daughter |
Reconnaissant pour tous (Grateful for all),
Elder et Soeur Packer
Grandpère et Mémé Packer (Please be sure and use the 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
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