Who Turned Out the Lights?

Yesterday, The sisters convinced me to go caroling with them. Normally I don't do this, but I said yes. They lured me in with the words "Chocolat Chaud" (Hot chocolate). When it came time to meet up, they told me to go to Hotel de Ville, which is the smack center of Lyon, home to their largest street and the biggest commercial area...Great. One of the sisters said something that sort of helped soothe my burning desire to run and hide my face, she said: "If they see you, they see us." At least I'm not alone.

Overall, there were about 12 or 13 Missionaries there and awesomely enough just about all of them were from the US. We had a Texas, California, Arkansas, Nevada and one other. When I introduced myself to Sister California, she exclaimed, "That's my name!" Her name was Abby too!! I am totally going to Facebook stalk her, is that bad? There was one sister there from England who was 19 and had only been out in the field for 1 week!! I think she felt connected to me because of our age and asked a lot of questions about how it was for me to learn French, since she her French is still very basic. It was very fun to get to talk to her.

So, we sang. All in French, and from the Hymn Book. While I was singing, I came upon a very interesting question. Are the Hymns in the Hymn Book known to non-members too? Like, for the rest of the world, is "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" normal Christmas songs too? I realize this may sound like a very stupid question, but growing up in an LDS home and having LDS relatives I wouldn't know the difference. I have only ever heard these songs inside my home and at church and just assumed that the rest of the world did too. The same way I assumed that Funeral Potatoes were as common as green beans in the homes of the rest of the world too...Can anyone answer this?

The reason I thought this was because as we were sings, loads of people stopped to listen, and I didn't see any of them join along. No mumbling under their breath or even full out joining in. Maybe no one wanted to, or could it be that no one recognized the song? It was a little intimidating at first to be watched by all these passerbys on their way to do shopping but I got over it. All the sweet Missionaires seemed to be having fun. I saw a lot of them talking to those who did stop, and even one Missionary pulled out her appointment book. This was a great way to make some contacts. Bravo guys.

So yes, it was fun. The hot chocolate tasted watery but in the end, it didn't matter. I got to talk to a lot of different missionaires from all over the world (All in English thank goodness, my French wasn't working that day).

  

 

Went I went home that night, I opened my computer and connected my phone so I could import these pictures and start to blog about my evening. But then something happened that made my night just take a bad turn :/

My BFF necklace that Malorey and I have together slid off my table and landed right on my converter (that makes it so I can plug my American electronics into European outlets) plugged into a serge protector on the ground. The necklace is a metal of some sort so I'm sure it was much like sticking a fork in an electrical socket. There was a HUGE spark and then everything went dark. Oh dear...

I turned on the flash light on my phone and immediately unplugged everything because I was afraid I was going to start a fire after the size of that spark. My poor necklace was fried. In that millisecond it had broken and then re-welded itself. Now I have a charred necklace and a mini necklace that fits onto my finger. It's amazing how quickly that happened.

And my poor converter...It looks like a war zone on it really. I was screwed, how can I charge my phone and computer now if I didn't have an electrical converter? But, I had more pressing issues to worry about, like how do I turn the lights back on???

It was far too late to wake up my family, I don't even know how I would have explained what happened in French so I set out to fix this problem on my own. I knew where the breaker box was but that was about all I knew about it. I've seen movies where they flip switches so that's what I did. Nothing worked and I was starting to get scared. Yes, I could have just gone to bed and then asked Gilles in the morning but I couldn't do that, I had to fix this now. After 20 minutes of no luck, I was frustrated and I started to cry. I hadn't had the best day to begin with and this was just icing on the cake. Then, I had an idea..I should do what I normally do in a situation like that: Call my dad. He's always been there to fix things for me, why can't he do that now?

So I called my daddy. In tears and barely able to form words, I explained what had happened. I sent him a picture and he coached me through it. After just 5 minutes and from thousands of miles away, my dad was able to help me turn the lights back on!

So, thank you dad. I am so glad to know that I can call you whenever I am in trouble and you will always be there for me. Even if you are not even on the same continent as me, it really means a lot. I don't know what I would have done!

Here's some pictures of the aftermath...

 

Ps. The converter still works thank goodness, and I'm really sorry Malorey! It was an accident and now I'm super sad because it was the only necklace that I've worn since I've been here. It also make the third necklace I've accidentally broken in two months :/

It's kind of funny now lol but in the time, I was a wreck. At least now we can all look back and laugh...hah hah hah...


Abby