Rain, food, finding. In that order.

Hey everyone!

So it's been enough weeks in the field that every time I want to start writing one of these emails, I need to pull out my planner (well actually, my calendar app #technology) in order to see what I did this week.

First of all, everyone keeps asking about the flooding. Nothing in my life has really been affected, except a couple of flooded underground metro stops which make it harder to get where I want to go. The Seine is absurdly high though, it's true. What HAS been ruining my life is that it's rained almost every single day in the month of May. It apparently broke the record for most rain in a month in France since recording the weather became a thing.

We have a hilarious African member, Frère Belinga, who begins every conversation with "La paix du Christ" and ends each one with "Amen." I wish I had a picture of him. Anyway, he offered to pour me some juice, and I said "But I'm not sure which of these two cups is mine." He responded with: "Le Christ a dit, ce n'est pas ce que tu manges qui est sale." (Those of you English-only speakers can look up Matthew 15:11 to see the scripture he was referring to.) And he proceeded to pour it into one of the cups. And I drank it. Don't know why, just thought that was funny. Moving on...

Zone conference happened this week. It went really well. Except the part where the four of us were running through the streets of Paris holding food and beverage enough to feed 44 missionaries, late for the conference, in our nicest suits, in the rain, with no umbrellas, and with our metro being shut down due to a "suspicious package." But despite that, Elder Richards' stopping at every little red light, Elder Rivas' bitter complaints regarding his comfort level and Elder Chen's overly full bladder, we made it and everyone was well-fed with self-made baguette sandwiches. Many thanked us for not just lazily ordering pizzas like every other zone conference...but maybe we'll take Elder Rivas' advice and go that route next time. Way simpler.

Let's see, what else? We've found a bunch of new people to teach. A lot of hard work was put into that (Elder Rivas doesn't "feel peace" until he can go out contacting) and results are finally starting to show! More updates on them as they begin to progress. This next week we're hoping to see at least 6 of them come to church.

Well, I wish I had more for you, but the days fly by too fast for my emails to catch up. Hope you're all doing well! Loves!

Elder Stanford

PS I've actually met about 439932 American members in the streets of Paris so far, especially given that the church is between the Pompidou and Notre Dame. If you ever want to meet a Mormon fast, the best way is to put on a suit and name tag and stand in front of a tourist attraction. I've thought about just spending P-day in front of a tourist site and seeing how many members give me things, but I decided that was almost extortion.

PPS As for the TB issue, I do have a tuberculosis, but not one that has a bad attitude about life and freaks out over nothing. She's chill. Unfortunately we have to kill her anyway, because that breed has a tendency to get annoyed over a long period of time and lash out. Wouldn't want that. We're poisoning her by degrees; it's almost over.