Soeur Hurd in Lyon: Loving Lyon!

Bonjour famille!

This week has been super weird and long but super fun at the same
time. The first thing I want to rave about though is how BEAUTIFUL the
weather here is though. Oh my gosh. I left the sauna of Cannes and
walked into a wonderland of fall weather just beginning in Lyon. It
has been even chilly! I wore a sweater dress to church! I think it's
still supposed to be a little warm all throughout September but still,
oh man I'm happy. Fall in Lyon is going to be GORGEOUS.

We had leadership conference on Thursday and it was so fun because I
got to see so many old friends! Soeur Castagno and Soeur holmes my old
comps, Soeurs Andersen and Nef from the MTC, and of course Allison and
people from my old zone. It was such a blast catching up with everyone
and seeing where they were. In the conference we got much needed
clarification about mission rules--it's interesting how many versions
of "exact obedience" you can have on the mission. Now we're all on the
same page haha.

One of the best things that happened this week was we had a rdv with a
less active woman in the wars in Vieux Lyon. You get off the metro and
it's in the cutest area of town with a huge beautiful cathedral and
the narrow streets and amazing restaurants everywhere you turn. The
European wonderland you imagine. She took us to this amazing ice cream
place where she spent a lot of money on six scoops of ice cream total.
She's such a foodie, and she knows where all the best food places in
Lyon are. Afterwards she took us to this other place and the whole way
she's just pointing out all these restaurants that we had to try and
all the ones we shouldn't go to. Finally we get to this hole in the
wall and you walk in and there are tons of American products all along
the wall. We were freaking out over things we hadn't seen in
forever--Marshmallow fluff, pop tarts, altoids, peanut butter m&ms, it
was amazing. Then she starts secretly collecting a ton of stuff in her
arms and soon enough she's bought us a jar of Reese's peanut butter,
peanut m&ms, tons of cinnamon altoids, and even LUCKY CHARMS. My
favorite cereal ever. We died. She shoved it all in our arms. She was
just totallyyyy thrilled to see us freaking out.

Yesterday was my first day at church and the ward is amazing! I'm so
excited to work here with them and get to know everyone. It seems like
there are a lot of cool families and recent converts. I'm sorry I'm
really lame and don't have a lot of time to write anything else and
don't know what else to write. We have some really cool amis that are
progressing and that I'm getting to know better.

OH! I forgot to write about the little trip we took to Grenoble! We
had to go for Sister Wallace's legality and so I've always wanted to
serve there but it's closed to sisters. But we took a little day trip
there for her appointment and the train ride was so beautiful. It's on
the way to Suisse so the mountains are just gorgeous as well as all
the tiny villages and cathedrals. We got to the prefecteur and turns
out the legality thing didn't work out cause of some complications,
but then we had time to take our lunch hour in this beautiful little
square of lovely buildings and fine weather. I'd love to go back one
day! Even though we didn't get the legality done, the trip was not all
for naugh. We had a really cool conversation with a cool German lady
about our age on the train and just had a good ole time.

I'm sitting with Allison right now and she's making funny videos with
her companion to send to maybe Juna and Elise. They're hilarious.

Je vous aime!

Soeur Melissa Hurd

View of our street and apartment! Mini Eiffel Tower and Fourviere