Chapter 5 : Holidays Season

Arght !! These are the worst end of the year holidays of my entire life. Everything started in a wrong way and ended even worse! It is not because it is vacation time that we are on vacation, we as missionaries we don’t have holidays, and every day has to be used to good work for spreading our belief.
And Christmas time is everything except the preferred moment for people to see us at their doors. On that special date we didn’t have any appointment to meet with anybody, but no appointment is really good news when it means you have to spend your day out doing door to door when temperature is 23°F. Eight hours door to door is a long time when there is nobody willing to listen.

In the meantime we had beginning to work on a building, we heard (we were two, me and my colleague), some voices coming from the lower floor, we had a sneak look from the stairs to see what it was about. Oh no!!! Some Jehovah witnesses, can’t be true, Jehovah witnesses in the same building!? There is nothing worse than knocking at a door right after them.
So in this case the strategy to adopt is one and simple: to change building and fast. And this is what we have done. We had already worked on some door when we heard again some voices coming from the lower floor…no, this cannot be possible, two building in a row…we had a quick look….NOOOO!!!! It can’t be true!!!!! They do it on purpose or what? They are everywhere this Jehovah witnesses; they can’t leave few buildings for us? That is it, we went on for a 20 minutes’ walk to find for our next building seeing that apparently we were on their territory.
Unfortunately the building we had found was not a better deal. It was the worst of my all mission. Not even one friendly door, nor even an educated one, just insults, bad words and shouting, and dogs barking ready to jump on us, slamming doors. Each door had its horror.

The day went on, and I spare you the details of the drunk men that were after us. The only reasonable thing left us to do was going back to our apartment earlier then expected. What a bad day, our apartment was waiting for us, warm and comfortable…the first thing we’ve notice was the light through the beep hole. I said to my colleague: “haven’t you turned the light off?” and she:”yes” while turning at the same time the key in the lock. And there we started starring at the lock that was all turning with the key…and it falls on the hand of my colleague! Oh no! At once we understand what was happening and we step back. Hum… somebody else had found our apartment warm and comfortable and had the good idea to visit it…What a great chock we had when we found our apartment completely messed up like after a major earth quake… Nothing had been stolen. We asked ourselves what they were looking after.

After all this happening I wanted only one thing: leaving Geneva

You should know that when you are a mormon missionary every 6 weeks you have the possibility to change the town of your destination (but it is not something that we can personally do, neither when we go, where we go or who will be our colleague; this assignment is reserved to our president). So, for the last next 6 weeks of my mission, I have asked my president if he could change the city of my assignment. Staying there was out of the question. Unfortunately my president was not seeing things my way. “ If all these things are happening to you and push you to leave this only means that you have to stay, it is only opposition” (opposition is a term we use saying when the evil makes us difficult to keep the right path. When it gives us or put us in a position to make a bad judgment or to make the wrong choice). Great, I had to spend the last 6 weeks of my mission in Geneva…I was far from imagine all the strange things that would have happened to me. And my president made this possible.

It didn’t take long for my bad mood to change. Next Sunday I had the pleasant surprise to be able to talk again to the tattooed man, or « miracle man » as we missionaries were calling him. Yes, miracle man, since we should agree that if somebody alone from his own will ask us to be taught, it is like a miracle. I had to say it was more interesting to go to our Sundays meetings since with all his questions and remarks he was putting a special atmosphere. The last thing we can say is that he was the same of the other new people that were coming.
Once during a lesson on our marriage view, « miracle man » asked many questions. At the end of this lesson I asked him: « You have made many question about divorce. Have you already been married? »
-Yes, twice.
- Have you had any child?
-No, since any of the women I have been married with I could see as mother of my children
“Me, I could be very happy to be the mother of his children”. Out of the blue this sentence came out alone in my head. This chocked me. After I felt bad and said to myself “he, are you ok? You are a missionary ! Stop this kind of delire, what’s wrong in your head?” But really this sentence came out absolutely alone and it seamed so natural and so right, it is for this reason that made me sick. I am a missionary, he is old, I am not interested in him at all, no, no, and no. It is better I don’t talk to him anymore.

Unfortunately I didn’t really managed not to talk to him anymore, every Sunday we were sitting one facing the other and even though I were finding stupid excuses such as organizing and storing the Hims books, he always came to me if not for few seconds and this sentence was showing up again. So that whenever I was in presence of him, I was mentally focusing with all the things that I didn’t like of him. “He is old…He is 19 years older then you…he is already advanced in his age…” I couldn’t find many things to reproach to him except his age. I was doing my best to see him as I should have seen him, and I almost had managed to do it until that evening…

The 13th of February we had a very special happening, and at the end of this meeting, Max came to see me and ask an advice: “I have bought a telephone for a lady and I would like to know what do you think about to know if I have made a good choice”. It was at that same moment that an incredible jealousy set me on fire. Who was this lady? And after it came sadness: of course tomorrow is St.Valantin’s day, what do you think? For sure he has a girl friend, can’t you see how he is good? He is handsome, he is fun, he has some conversation, he is kind… interesting men like this are never alone. It was from that moment that I have realized that maybe at the end I liked him a little more then I should have.

It was the last Sunday of my mission, in 3 days I would have come back home and would have finished to be a missionary. This sentence that came out in my mind was annoying me quite a lot. I had the need to know if I had invented it or not. It was the day Max was receiving his confirmation. I said to myself ok if the bishop at the moment of his confirmation he’s going to talk to him about marriage this would mean that I am really the wife of his children. A man already married twice, of 42 years old, how many chances he has that in his confirmation they talk about marriage? Not a lot.
It has been already few minutes the bishop was talking and his speech was getting to its end and nothing… when after a pause he said his last sentence:” …if it his your will and the will of the Lord, then you could get married…” What???? Oh my goodness. If as it was not enough I wanted to pass it trough another test. Ok then it is true only if he is going to ask me what is my name And I was already going away when he said to me:”Since you are almost finished, I could know what is your name?”

I couldn’t believe, since even if I like him, I can’t see how a man like him could be interested in me? At his eyes I am only a young girl. It is not possible. It must be me. Everything is on my head. I have a great imagination.
It could never work between us (and then there is always this lady he bought the telephone for!) and then I had some guys that were “waiting” for my coming back home, then … then nothing let’s forget about it…

I was asking to myself how could I have done with these guys that were “waiting” for me. (In my head Max was not a possibility, then I didn’t think about him for a moment). I felt nobody was the right one, I couldn’t feel anything.

Before coming back home we as missionary have a last meeting with our mission president, in which meeting in general he talks about marriage. He asked me if I had somebody waiting for me, and I didn’t know what to answer, yes, I said, I don’t want.

After that I went with my mother to the temple, (the temple is the good place to ask questions, pray and talk to the Lord), and then I exposed Him my problem, I have some guys but I don’t feel them, I don’t know who to choose, since finally I don’t really like any of them, could You help me to choose?
You know I will be blocked with my sister; I don’t want to loose my time with a guy.

It was at that moment that I remembered of a lady in the street of Geneva, while we were going back to our apartment, she had stopped us and started to talk to us.
She was one-eyed and she then explained us she didn’t need her eyes for she had a gift, she could see through people, she was talking to me then all of a sudden gave a glance to my colleague and said things that it was not possible being more real! It was like she knew her, it really shocked me. Then this lady came to me and said: “You don’t worry young lady, our Lord has prepared a men for you, he is waiting and you are going to meet him soon, and she told me I had to be good to recognize him, since it was not going to be easy, she said I could have done as in Genesis 24 of the Bible, for Rebecca and Isaac: she will be the first that will propose him some water, she said the first” this shocked me.

Then since I was in the temple I asked if the first guy that would have written me could be the good one, so I could put my interest on him and not losing my time…I have felt well after this so I felt it was a good idea, I thought if was none of the guys which I was thinking about none of them would have write to me.

Before I have left, Max offered me a box, asking me not to open it until I would have finished being a missionary. I had to wait FIVE DAYS before opening this box!!! I couldn’t wait. Why I had to wait until I was not a missionary any more to open it? What was inside it???Argh, I am so curious and that waiting was horrible. Of course it was the first thing I did after I have been relieved from my missionary assignment.
With some nice presents (of which there was a telephone, ah,ah, it was me the lady, he doesn’t have a girl friend, yes!) and with a lot of elegance, he wrote me a letter telling me he would have liked to see me again…As soon as I opened the presents I understood that he liked me more than a little, and without giving me the time to realizing what he wrote me, my sister and then my mother came. They soon understood of what and of who was all about, and with no surprise considering the man in question, they have created such a beautiful atmosphere of acceptance of him and his gift that I was naturally taken from the decision of writing him saying that nothing would ever be possible between us considering our age difference.

But while I was opening my e- mail box, only one e-mail was waiting for me.

Miracle man had written me... and next day as for an unexpected stroke of luck all the other guys wrote me to say they had found another girl.

to be continued...