We've both been exmos for almost seventeen years, left the church around the same time (although we weren't in touch at that time), and haven't seen each other in like man, I think since a little after we returned from our missions almost 24 years ago. Even though, in only the first few years, we talked frequently following our mission, I re-initiated contact with her a few years after leaving the church since she was one of the coolest companions I had and because we'd developed a friendship beyond our mission. We were both blown away that we'd both left the church. (I just remembered that she was in attendance at my temple wedding, too. Whoa.)

Anyway, I'm heading to her neck of the woods on vacation this summer so I contacted her to see if we could stop by her place. We figured out the timing of it all and it turns out we'll have a few days together. We also discussed meals, going out to restaurants and then I had this beautiful thought: we can share a glass/bottle of wine because we're full-fledged adults living in a free world without restrictions.

We served together in southern France during the winter months where, I'm not joking, it seemed like all the birds from northern Europe migrated. We made it a point to not be caught downtown after dinnertime/sunset because the birds would fly in and settle in the trees after eating all day in the vineyards outside our city. The ominous sight of the sky becoming dark announced their arrival in town. There were so many birds that they made the sky go black. And then they pooped. They dumped so much crap from those trees that people brought umbrellas to prevent clothes from being ruined. Because we'd incorrectly planned tracting visits, we were caught a few times under direct shot of the birds' release. Among the missionaries in that district, we had a contest to see who would be pooped on the least.

It gets better. To commemorate our "reunion", my former companion/exmo friend just ordered wine online from the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France where we lived. When we get together, we can toast to the craziness of our lives at that time and how far we've come with wine from those vineyards outside the town that those birds ate. I can't wait.

Have a lot of fun on your trip. I am happy for you!

I wish everyone of us who've left could have this type of reunion.

You are going to have so much fun, i'm jealous, you two have so much in common, what a true friendship.

Of my mission companions, I laughed the most with her. My god, she was hilarious. She had the driest sense of humor mixed with a brilliant mind and I just delighted in so much of what she said and did. I'm so happy we've been friends all these years, albeit through email exchanges and phone calls.

On our mission, she also surprised me a few times by leaving our apartment in the morning before I woke up and then coming back after I had showered and dressed. She told me she needed "alone time" and I understood completely. She typically would buy something at a patisserie that we could eat together when she'd returned.

I found out when we both left the church that she had her doubts while a missionary and the rules really bugged her. Even though I was the most staunch TBM, I was OK with her leaving on those mornings to breathe. I think part of my acceptance was from being a convert. Maybe I just agreed with her reasoning deep down because I believed them too.

You are lucky. All thoes I have contacted after my mission are still hard core believers, though they have some rebelliousness that gives me hope. It is sad and hard for me to believe in the information age with the internet and all that. Remeber when we had to look up information in an encyclopedia. No wonder I did not have enough info. to discover the truth about the "true church".

She and I constantly shake our heads knowing that we got along so well in the mission field and then both left the church around the same time.

I'm glad you still have contact with some of your companions. I'm friends with two others from the mission field who are awesome to hang with even though they're TBMs as well. I'll be surprised if either of them leave because it's their way of life. Never say, never, though, right?

I, too, spent a winter in southern France as a missionary about 25 years ago. I was in the Switzerland, Geneva mission--were you perhaps in the Toulouse mission?

Holy crap, dude, we were in the same mission. I was there for 18 months from 1986-1987 and these were my cities, from start to end:

Cannes
Vevey
Perpignan (in the bird-poop area I described above during the Christmas season)
Lyon
Toulon

Where and when did you serve? (And if you know me from the cities I listed, please don't shout out my name here.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2012 09:46AM by toto.

I was there a little earlier than you were--the early 80's. So, @#$%&, I'm older than I thought.

My cities:

We share Toulon. I wasn't too impressed. I did like the fact that sometimes we would get American sailors for whom we had to translate on Sundays. Didn't happen often, but it was a nice diversion when it did. I was one of the elders that helped build the walls out of what I can only call plaster legos. I'm certain we didn't do a good job--but we were in levis so nothing else really mattered. My first memory of Toulon was three men in the front of the chapel holding purses giving each other kisses before the meeting started. This of course was the bishopric--I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore (actually SLC).

Then, in no particular order:

Dijon--loved it.
Manosque--loved it.
Bésonçon--don't really remember it.
Montbéliard--don't really remember it.
Geneva--well just outside of it--kind of loved it. However, there were members from both France and Switzerland in this ward. The stake/ward building was near the Swiss/French border. The Swiss members kind of looked down on the French members (in a way that only the Swiss can). This trickled down to the missionaries as well. Those that lived in Geneva-proper were fully accepted by the Swiss members, those of us that lived outside of Geneva were never looked at as being quite as good.

It is nice to go back as a regular person. I have been lucky enough to have spent quite a bit of time in France since I left the church about 15 years ago. One of my favorite memories was having a glass of wine with my son in one of the cafés I used to walk past. I have stayed in touch with one of the members that was my age when I was there. She too has left the church. We have had some great conversations.

...since I converted to the church at almost 22, then went on my mission when I was 23. I'm 49. Not old at all, us.

Sisters replaced one pair of elders in Toulon right before I got there. So we could have shared the same apartment. We were in a bunk bed in one small room and in the mornings I would get up and hover with a blanket over me next to the heater to warm up. The kitchen area/study room was also small and was situated on the other side of the bedroom. That mission district was awesome because we got along so well. Also, we had a pretty cool Christmas where the six of us gave a Christmas story presentation with music (me on my flute) from one member's house to the next. In the background, I played a French piece that I loved while my companion and the elders told the Christmas story. We ended the presentation by singing a French carol together with each family/single member.

Did you "score" on your mission? I did. In my last city. Only once. I was devastated that I didn't make it through without scoring.

Did you hear about the Five Country Club? I didn't until I returned, then was blown away. Were you a part of it?

I actually loved Toulon. I'm sorry you didn't.

But I'm jealous, because I haven't returned to France or Switzerland. I also think it's awesome you kept in touch with a member you met there. You sound like a friend of mine who left the church around the same time as me; we were in the Swiss/Geneva mission together as well but only knew of each other's names (he was an elder and me a sister). He's been back to France several times and also has a son. In fact, accidentally bumping into him and his wife at a recovery meeting in Salt Lake made everything about leaving the church OK. I haven't talked with him in years since moving away from Salt Lake but I couldn't have made it without them.

And when I got to Toulon, I also remember shaking my head thinking, "Man, now I have to learn French all over again," because the twang in southern France was so hard to initially understand. Words with "en" ended with "ing" instead: bien was bi-ing.

And yeah, sharing "la bise" was surprising but eventually became standard. I got used to greeting people that way but I never saw elders doing it. And the number of times to kiss cheeks changed from area to area.

Au revoir.

Well, I can say with certainty that we did not use the same apartment. When I first arrived in Toulon, the elders (2 teams) lived 2 doors from each other in a building that should have been condemned after the war (you choose the war). They were being punished. Here's the story: When I got my call a guy had just moved into my ward in SLC. He was a recently returned missionary from the Switzerland, Geneva mission, and told me that I should pray that I get sent to Toulon because he had just left there, and the apartment was amazing—right on the beach (Toulon being on the Mediterranean coast). Well, against all odds, I was sent directly to Toulon and couldn’t stop thinking about how nice this apartment was going to be. What I didn’t know was that the guy that had recently moved into my ward had rented the apartment before the Assistants to the President had a chance to approve it. When the President got around to visiting the new apartment and saw that it was literally right on the beach (I did get to see the building) he threw a fit and even though the elders that had initially rented it were long since transferred or gone home, he set out to find the worst apartment in Toulon that he could in the time he had. He was a man on a mission to set an example.

God was on his side that day, because he found a total and complete dump—two of them as a matter of fact. And that is where I ended up. Each apartment was one room with a little shower/toilet room off of the side. The paint was peeling, the plumbing only worked half the time, and the floors were so bad even a 19-year-old male wouldn’t want to walk on them barefoot. The front door was like a barn door, and didn’t cover the last 5 or 6 inches of the entrance. There was a big field in front of the apartments. The mice were out of control. One day we cared enough to try to get rid of them. We set one trap, and caught 18; one right after the other. We finally gave up—it was obvious there were more of them than we had time to catch. I was there 4 months and kept asking myself if I could really do this for 2 years. The only thing that helped is that my older brother had gone to South America on his mission, and I know that he stayed in places that were far worse than the one I was in. Luckily, the rest of the apartments I stayed in were much better than my first. It was a perfect definition of a hellhole. I loved being punished for something a couple of elders did a couple of months before I even got there.

To make the story better, the 2 elders that had been in the apartment before I got there had just had a fight, and had thrown their dinner at each other. They had split-pea soup. It was all over the walls and the sink and the little stove. The dishes were caked in it. It had dried to a spackle-like consistency and had to be chipped off of everything it was on. This is what I walked in on my first day in my first city in my first apartment. So my dislike of the city Toulon may be a little jaded—I’ll admit.

And in full disclosure, I must add that the mission president and the assistants and the office staff share twin villas in Geneva on a park-like piece of property. The mission president and his family have one of the villas and the staff share the other villa where the offices are. They are beautiful. I would be hard pressed to believe that anyone there ever ate split-pea soup; let alone scrape it off the walls.

Not sure what the 5 Country Club was. I did get a lot of questions thought about the group a couple of years ahead of me that fell away and started their own church bringing back plural marriage.

There was a time on this BB about 10 years ago that if you started a thread on a French mission it would close in a number of minutes because of the number of us that were there and now here. I don't see that so much anymore. When I first went out in the early 80's France had a reputation for ruining the testimony of more missionaries than any other country. People would actually tell me to "be careful" when they learned where I was going. I wouldn't say that France ruined my testimony, but it certainly did open my eyes to a world that I had no idea even existed.

I'm glad that you have reconnected with a good companion and that you will be able to have a real friendship with her. Take care. I'll be in Salt Lake in the fall, If I remember, maybe we can set up a get-together of of frenchies!

Man, oh man. Those elders. Was Sperry your president, too? I had Sperry and Hassel. I could see Sperry definitely making a change in apartments down there. He was the one who arranged sisters to replace elders as well in Toulon. OK. Damn. I just realized something. It's been WAY too long ago since I was in the mission field... I'm getting Toulon and Perpignan mixed up... maybe I'm older than I thought. The apartment I described as being in Toulon was in Perp (as well as the twang and Christmas celebration). In Toulon, we lived in a one-room apartment but it was in a better apartment complex than the one you described. I'm sorry about mixing up the towns, I was thinking of Perpignan because I'm meeting my former companion and yet writing Toulon instead because that was a place of connection between you and I.

But yes, I did like Toulon. We were the second set of sisters to replace elders in that town and our district gathered together from surrounding cities. One of two companions in Toulon was a swimmer and it took everything I had to keep her away from the beach. My favorite dude in the Toulon apartment complex was the eccentric manager who had rules for everything and ended his daily tirades towards us with "Comprenez?". It took everything for me not to laugh in his face. I ended my mission in Toulon and lived there for the last four months riding a bike in the summer and early fall. I loved the area and the people I met but I was given as a "gift" to my last companion because she physically punched her comp before me and I was known as easy to get along with (I was the relief companion for a few who'd had negative relationships with their most recent companions but fortunately, I had awesome comps in between).

And yeah, I stayed at the mission home my first two nights in the "field" (cough) with my MTC companions (there was this big sister missionary conference thing going on when I arrived), so I know the place well. I actually couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. Mission home? How about mission fortress/castle in the country?

Five Country Club. In order to gain membership, a missionary needed to get their passport stamped by each country/municipality surrounding and including our mission: Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, and Monaco. I could have easily gotten a stamp for Spain because of living on the border in Toulon, but Italy would've been a stretch. I did get a stamp for Monaco because Sperry allowed missionaries to travel there before a zone conference in Nice.

They brought back polygamy? Are you serious? I remember many elders falling in love with French women/girls but my god, starting another church? I wonder what it is about French missions and leaving the church? Hmmm. Well, if we keep going, my thread might close soon as well (but the discussion is fun, so keep it up).

It would be awesome to have a get-together of frenchies in Salt Lake but I live in Colorado with no plans to return except for weddings and funerals. My friends know they can visit me here anytime they'd like, though. Thanks for sharing your experiences and sorry about mixing my image of the apartment in Perpignan for the one in Toulon (and my experiences in Perp as well).

Sorry, I read that as the 5 Country Clubs, not the Club of 5 Countries. Yes, I heard of it, no I wasn't a member of it. Living in Toulon you could have easily gotten Italy in a day trip. We thought a lot about it, but I never had the courage to do so. We would occasionally have to show our passports at Zone Meetings to show that we had no new stamps. I remember Lyon being a great city to go for Zone Meeting.

My first President was Bennion. I think he left in '83. He was a fairly down-to-earth guy. I liked his wife, and his kids were young. As a matter-of-fact, they had a child while on their mission.

When I find the time I'll investigate the French mission/polygamy connection. It is a 'must read' for anyone that served there.

Even though I don't know you, and we were a number of years apart, it was nice to connect. I know that some here hated their missions. I didn't love mine, but hell, I was in France--how bad could it have been! I look back and see it as an experience I would never have had. A few months back, I was talking to a friend of my son's (he's about 23). It came up that I had lived in France. He asked me why, and I said that I just spent a couple of years there, but now that I'm married and have kids, I don't talk about it a lot. His eyes got huge, I left it at that, and who knows what he thought I was doing. Whatever he came up with has got to be better that "doing ports".

...I was close to Italy when I was in Toulon and didn't even think about it. But then, again, I didn't even know the club existed until after my mission. Really? They asked you for your passports? I don't remember doing that.

It was great to connect and do share the story of the polygamy group that began. What a bizarre thing. And I don't share why I lived in France and Switzerland, either. Since I minored in French, many have assumed I was studying abroad. That's fine with me.

RE the birds:

Sounds like European starling migrations. Rome is famous for that, too, as well as other parts of Europe. They are called "murmurations" of starlings. Here's a short video from the UK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE

Oh man, a few of those scenes gave me the creeps again when the birds flew into the trees. I also remembered the sound of those birds; it was deafening. Shop owners were great to rinse off the pavement in front of their businesses morning after morning during those months. The smell. Aaaahhh!

Thanks for sharing this video link. Those birds were like nothing I'd ever seen before or since.

That sounds great! I'm so glad you found a fellow kindred spirit to enjoy some wine with and reminisce about your mishie experience. :-)

Mr. ambivalentmo wants to get in touch with a companion
from the 1993-1995 Brussels/northern France French speaking mission.
This companion left the church in 2000...
Anyone know of a website/other place he could
find contact info for former companions?
I believe his mission presidents were eccles and frogley.....