Better Late Than Never...

The past 2 days, our group has been one of the first ones to leave for the convention so we had no problem finding 6 seats together. Saturday was another story! Our bus was one of the last ones to leave and there was bad traffic. We got to the convention late and there were no seats in the English- at all. There were at least a couple hundred of us standing in the back because of no seats. We ended up sitting on the floor for a while, and eventually the brothers found seats for 4 of us. We would rotate the seats so everyone would get a chance to sit in a chair. We tried to sit in another language group, but there weren't any seats there either!

Emily and Teri volunteered to help clean since there weren’t enough seats, and there was a need for volunteers. They ended up cleaning the bathrooms (which stunk!) for 2 ½ hours! They were supposed to only help for 1 hour, but no one came to relieve them!

We had bathrooms in the facility, and there were outhouses set up on the outside of our section. One side is for the sisters, although occasionally a brother would be in there(it was open so anyone could walk around). The other side was for the guys. They had covered urinals set up, but there were no doors so the guys felt like they were peeing next to a tree. Occasionally there would be sisters on that side too- but they would be taking pictures usually.

Total attendance for Saturday: 54,425 people

That night, we were so tired so we just ate in our room again. We were talking about Skyping people back home- this brings us to the “Quote du Jour”:
Billy: “What’s with all these scabies?”
The rest of us: “It’s not SCABIES, it’s SKYPE.”

Cute little french girl

Filipino sisters in the Tagalog congregation- Jessica told them she was filipino 3 times and they didn't believe her.

South African outfit

Wonderful brothers and sisters from France.

Reports From Other Lands...

The convention program was pretty much the same as ours except twice a day, we would hear a special part of the program called “Reports from Other Lands” . This was- you guessed it- reports from other countries on their theocratic activity. As mentioned before, there were 2 other conventions in France going on the same time as ours- one in Lyon and one in Bordeaux. For this part,we were tied in to these conventions to hear the experiences from a Bethel family member from that country. Here are some highlights:

French Guana- A worldly man looked up our website and submitted a request for a visit from witnesses. 48 hrs later, a brother knocked on his door. He was amazed that he had submitted a request to the USA and 2 days later he was contacted in his own country. He attends meetings now.

Luxembourg- There are 5 members at the Bethel branch. In their country, government officials visit citizens on their 100th birthday. A sister was turning 100, and she refused to have any visitors or pictures on her birthday- but she said she would accept a visit after that day. 4 days later, the Mayor, the family minister of the Duke of Luxembourg, and other city officials visited her because they wanted to know about her life. She explained to them that prior to being a witness, she had been in concentration camps. She couldn’t understand why these so-called Christians were causing all this suffering. She explained she then learned about the Bible and she showed these officials scriptures explaining her beliefs for the next 30 mins. With old age, the sister was unable to see clearly to read, but she knew the Bible teach book by heart. She placed the book with each official and they all said they really would read it.

France- has 9,500 pioneers which is double than what they had 5 years ago. Many are learning multiple languages. There are 517 congregations and groups that are in 41 languages other than French. There are 360 members of the Bethel family.

Spain- I didn’t take good notes on Spain, but the English translator for this experience was Sebastian DelGrande. I don’t know if you remember, but he’s the French brother that gave a talk at our convention in Portland this past year. He’s really tall!

Martinique- They have 56 congregations and cover their territory every 2 weeks! As of 2008, they have 1 publisher per 89 inhabitants. The city mayor of one of the towns put a sign up on the road to the kingdom hall that says “Entrance to the Kingdom.”

Tahiti- 1 of 14 publishers is a pioneer. 1 of 30 inhabitants attended the memorial in 2008.
Ukraine- Around 144,000 publishers. In one village, every 4th person is a witness. In the same village, over half went to the memorial.

We also heard experiences from:
Cote D’Ivoire
Guadelupe
Switzerland
Portugal
Brazil
Canada
Poland
Maurites
New Caledonia
Belgium
South Africa
United States

Sisters wrapping a Sari- it's more complicated than it looks!

Brothers from South Aftrica

This is Andre- he's from Poland. We talked to him all 3 days. He's such a nice brother and trys so hard to speak English to us. He could be Journeyman's brother!

Cowboys from good ol USA (sorry for the sideways pic)

Single Ladies, Put Your Hands Up!

In case you didn’t know (we didn’t), the international convention is a single person’s dream! There are so many beautiful brother’s and sisters here. Not only are they good-looking, but they are very nice and many are in expanded forms of service. Add to that awesome accents and you pretty much hit the jackpot. Unfortunately, it's difficult to actually get pictures of the pretty people unless we talk to them. And who wants to talk to boring married americans? Sorry girls! The first day, we saw 2 sisters talking to a group of 6 brothers- all exchanging gifts and information- it was pretty obvious they were all single- lots of googly eyes!

Super nice brothers from Paris.

All of Jehovah’s people are awesome, but it seems us Americans are lowest on the totem pole. Everyone else speaks multiple languages. Some will say they don’t speak English, but then the next thing you know, you are having a conversation with them and they are telling you all their info- in English!

This brother was raised in Portugal, lives in France, but is still Korean at heart. He speaks all 3 languages too. Thumbs up!

Their clothes, accents, faces, backgrounds- even their gifts are better. When someone can't speak your language that doesn't know you, gives you something handmade, homemade, and unique and all you have to give to them is a bookmark you made at Kinko’s, you feel like a total loser! We will have to go to another international convention just to redeem ourselves!

After the session on Friday, we went on a sightseeing cruise on the Seine River. Jason and Krystal Young went with us. We got off at the last stop, which just so happened to be the Eiffel Tower. We got ice cream and beer and watched the sparkly lights at midnight. This is the third time at the Eiffel Tower and it hasn’t gotten old yet. I don’t think it will!

Notre Dame

Boys being silly on the Seine River

And yes, another picture of the Eiffel Tower..

First Day Jitters....

First day of the convention- it started in the afternoon. The afternoon started off with us trying to find seats in the English section. On the search, Shawn accidentally knocked someone’s pop can over and it spilled everywhere. Immediatley, he went to find the cleaning department- seeing as he was working with emergency spills again. Because of the language barrier, he ended up getting sent off on a wild goose chase- doing various things for the brothers. Each time he tried to explain that he needed cleaning supplies, he was sent somewhere else to help move something or clean something.

Not to be a Debbie downer, but we were a little disappointed to find that we weren’t going to be in a giant arena where everyone is all together. Our facility is a huge convention center with 7 different buildings or sections with each language in it’s own section. If we wanted to see people from another group, we have to walk to that building- which can be quite a long walk depending on where they are. But, don’t get us wrong- it’s such a great experience being here with all the different nationalities. It’s a bit like Epcot Center. Today we visited Poland and France!
For most parts, we have English speakers and then when it’s a governing body member or special report, we are tied into the French stage (which is the main stage) and we listen over the speakers to the talk.

It was soooo hard to stay awake today! We were so tired, but everyone around was sleeping too, so we didn’t feel that bad. But the fact that the whole program was about keeping on the watch and staying awake to our world conditions made it worse. Every speaker seemed to have analogies or an illustration having to deal with sleep and waking up. One brother asked, “How could Jesus’ apostles could have fallen asleep the night of Jesus’ arrest?” Well, maybe they had jet lag! Not even when Jessica was nursing has she been so tired. I’m talking about the ‘sleep- with-your-mouth-open-in-public-and-you-don’t –even-care’ tired. You know it’s bad when you don’t know you are sleeping until you are woken up by applause.
Nevertheless, we got thru the session. 3,000 English were expected to be in attendance, but today we had 5,346 English speakers and a total of 49,338 for the whole convention. In addition to the Paris convention, there are conventions being held in Bordeaux and Lyon as well. Total France convention for Thursday: approximately 149,000.
Our bus took 2 hours to get back to the hotel that night. By that time, it was late, so we got food at the store and ate in our room. It was just what you’d expect to eat in Paris- bread, cheese, and wine. All I can say is, the cheese definitely stands alone. Why? It’s alone because it kills everyone and everything around it with it’s FOUL STENCH. This cheese we got is the worst smelling thing ever! And if any of you are familiar with the McNulty’s, then you know we’ve dealt with our fare share of gross smells. But this cheese pretty much tops most things- sorry Laura!
The night was spent eating and talking- which brings us to a new addition to this blog entitled: “Quote Du Jour”. Bret was making fun of us girls wearing make-up and Teri replied:
“If I didn’t wear make-up, I’d look like you.” Touche' Teri, touche.'

Le Tour Eiffel + Bethel = Good times!

Who goes to the Eiffel Tower and writes : "We saw the Eiffel Tower and watched the sunset. You get the idea." and that's it??!! I can't let that go by- THE EIFFEL TOWER IS AWESOME. We went at the perfect time- evening when it was still very light. We climed up 700 steps (its cheaper of course and shorter lines) and by the time we got up to the middle, the sun started to set. Then as we climed back down, the sun set, and the lights came on. We also met fellow brothers and sisters on the way up and down as well. It was everything you think it will be times a hundred. Well worth the lines, the fees, and the scary climb up. We went across the street to the bank of the Seine river and had crepes and beer.

The only thing that can top the Eiffel Tower, is of course what we are really here for: Today we went on our tour. We met for breakfast in the lobby and let me tell you- Jehovah's organization does not skimp on food. We definitley had a proper breakfast! Then we drove 2 hrs to the French Bethel in the town of Louviers, in the Normandy region.

The French Bethel is very clean and cute. In some parts it even looks like an Ikea- very stylish. After a good breakfast and 2 hr drive, we needed a bathroom asap. So the first stop on the tour were bathrooms set up for the tour. Little did we know, we would be squatting in heels! Very interesting. What's funny is that at the end of the tour, they had more bathrooms set up for us with REAL TOILETS. I think they did that as a joke on us.

The boys were admiring the new carpet that looked like wood floors. This was humorous to the Bethelites. Weird americans taking pictures of the flooring! All the Bethel family were so nice- giving us gifts as we go along the tour. I kept making sure I still had my purse, and then I realized we were in the safest place - physically and spiritually. It was wonderful.

Family from Ukraine- one sister from Ukraine came up to Emily and I and said she loved us. It was the only English she knew. Very touching

Sisters handing out French candy.

We had boxed lunch on the way back to Paris- just a warning: if you are on the Atkins diet, don't even come to France until you are done. Our lunch was a giant baguette, a large piece of chocolate cake, and a smaller baguette-like cookie. People say even though you eat bread and cheese all day that you still lose weight because you walk everywhere. I have yet to experience this! Maybe we need to climb the Eiffel Tower again...

We ended the day, driving around Paris FOR 4 MORE HOURS. We did mostly drive-bys, hopped out at like 2 places, and still did not see all of the city. Everything about the city is so planned and beautiful to the eye- its overwhelming- but not a let down in anyway.

What good are these things if we can't share them with others? We really do miss everyone at home. The only thing that would make it better is if you all were here with us. Cheesy, but true. And that's not the jet-lag talking...

~ Jessica

First day

Can’t sleep:
It’s 4:38 am Paris time and none of us can sleep. For the first night, we (Bret and I) are sharing a room with Shawn and Emily. They messed up on the arrangements and we have only one bed in the room. So the 6 foot people are squeezed onto a sheet on the floor. Actually, Emily is sleeping on the carpet. We all want to get up now and see the sights but there isn’t anyone else out but French hookers.
Just a note about London- We took a train from the airport to the Chunnel train station. It was our first experience with the native people. On the train, NO ONE talked- AT ALL. So just imagine the 6 of us loud idiots fumbling onto this train. We’ve had no sleep, and Emily and I are trying so hard not to resist talking in our English accents like we do back in the states. Everything is starting to look funny and strange with the lack of sleep. Kinda like how at the meeting everything seems funnier because you can’t talk- but it’s really not that funny when you try to talk about it later- or write a blog about it later. So, sorry if this is not funny at all guys!
Anyways, there were no seats and the English people on the train wouldn’t respond to politeness- no moving your stuff over so someone can sit. You just have to go and pretty much sit on that person’s stuff and they will move. Personal space is not an option here and no one cares. But it’s weird sitting so close to people without anyone saying a word-very dry.
They were all dressed for work (it was a Monday morning ) and all reading the paper. Another thing is everyone looks like English actors from English movies. Just from seeing this little bit on our train, England looks just like it does in the movies. I even saw little knickers hanging on a clothesline behind a cottage. -Jessica
Bret-That was the beginning of our day. I’ll be brief. We went to Musee d’Orsay (which is a museum for the lay person) and saw lots of nudity. Really up close and personal. And also went to the Eiffel Tower and watched the sunset. You get the idea. Enjoy the pics. (btw accidently posted the pictures without rotating them first. whoops)

You know it's going to be a good trip when it starts out with......

...A goiter! (eeewww) Interesting start to our trip…My dad has had this goiter on his neck and a week ago it swelled up. So instead of going to the doctor then, he decides to go yesterday just before it explodes! The nurse relieved it and packed it with packing and now he has a big bandage on his neck. He's gross. The worst part is, so that it doesn’t get infected, every morning for the next three days we have to remove the stuffing with sterile tweezers and repack with stuffing. And believe me it’s not as easy as a nurse makes it look. Jessica saw surgery going on on her kitchen floor at 6 am and decided it was a good time to take her tranquilizers....and it was. Saying goodbye to Phoenix could have gone alot worse but we kept it together.

Today has been the longest day ever- after a plane delay, rush to get to our connecting flight, 2 trains, speaking english to french people, speaking spanish to french people, crying everytime we see a blond child, and monitoring a goiter- we finally made it!