Service with Thierry

Another day which begins with us sleeping in.... This is becoming a pattern.

We woke up around 11 am, rushed to get ready for service, then grabbed a sandwich and coffee and hopped on the metro to the 6eme to get some territory. We picked up the territory from a brother and sister that are crashing at Fleur's place, then got back on the metro. We got to Thierry's place by about 1:45 pm.

Thierry was a bit late since he had just closed the deal to sell his car. We left at around 4 and headed towards the territory. Actually, we ended up doing street work instead of our territory. We walked around the 16eme, looking for English people. Thierry demonstrated an awesome skill in being able to identify where a person comes from based on what they are wearing. We met a few people, but it was pretty slow... We mainly wandered around and chatted about fashion. He explained to me how long it takes for fashion to come from Paris to North America... He compared it to congregations within a circuit. Some congregations will adapt to new direction very quickly, some will take multiple circuit overseers to say the same thing. We in North America are the stubborn congregations, whereas Italy is the eager congregation. For example, they have had skinny ties in Paris since 2000, but practically no one in North America wears them. Along the way we met a Filipino woman, I left a Bible Teach book with her and Thierry took down her info. Hopefully something comes of it....

We kept talking and eventually reached Trocadero, a lookoff point between two museums. There's a great view of the Eiffel Tower from here, and so there were tons of tourists. We also saw about 12 Mormons in two separate groups. Thierry wanted to show us inside one of the museums, so we looked around. He pointed us towards a room in the lower level where last month he had a runway show. We also bought a couple of really funky thank-you cards for Chloé and Jeanine.

We started our walk back, and right beside where we parked, a man was sitting on a bench reading a book. I asked if he spoke English, he said no, so I asked him in French if he likes reading. He said 'yes, but not just anything'. I looked closer at his book and saw that it was a book of prayers. I told him I was a Witness and on vacation from Canada, I apologized in advance for my French and told him about our purpose. He said that he knows a lot of Witnesses and that there are a lot of similarities, but wonders why we don't have churches where people can come and pray, but instead he sees us always walking the streets. I explained that we have Kingdom Halls, and that we have 2 meetings a week. Then I read him Matt 28:19, 20 to explain why he always sees us in the streets, preaching. Anyways, the conversation continued, it was very pleasant, and he seemed interested. Thierry came over and got his information and we'll see what happens. Thierry happened to have a magazine with the article 'Do All Religions Lead to God' and we left it with him. As we were driving away, I could see he was reading it very attentively. So, we'll see if anything becomes of this call too.

Afterwards we came back to the Thomas' house, had some snacks and waited for Thierry & Ghislaine's friends, Phillipe & Joél to come. They arrived at around 8 pm, we waited some more for Aléxia to come, and at around 8:30 we gave up and headed out for supper. Thierry took us to a nearby place, called "4B". Food was OK. I was super tired from the day and had a little nap while we waited for our food. Aléxia finally arrived and interrupted my nap.

Then we came back to the Thomas' place, had a little apértif, I tried to hack through Romanza on guitar, Aléxia and Albérique played Heart & Soul on the piano, and Joel tried to remember the words to sing along.

Finally, Phillipe and Joél graciously gave us a lift home so we didn't have to take the entirely uphill bike ride home.

Tomorrow we will be cleaning the chaos we have wreaked on Chloé's apartment, probably do our packing, then go to the meeting in the evening.