Journal January 12, 1964
Wayne Smith and Preston Parker. I forget which château, but it had to be close enough to visit by Lambretta
January 12—Arriving in Tours rather late Tuesday evening, I was rather weary all day Wednesday. Elder Hart, our new supervising elder–who lives in Le Mans–was there to tell us what we’d already learned the previous weekend at the leadership meeting. Nothing very startling. I’m glad that my S.E. lives about 65 kilometers from here. For all that, he seems to be an agreeable sort, but it’ll be restful to be able to work without a supervisor always on my back…

As for my new companion, [267] Elder George Preston (“Prodigy”) Parker is a very pleasant fellow and a skillful and capable missionary. He came from Utah only eight months ago, and he already knows all the discussions by heart. He knows how to apply them, too: the big cheeses showed wisdom by sending me to work with somebody I can count on. Elder Bennion sent me away from Paris, saying that I had two jobs to do: to prepare Elder Parker to be a leader in the Mission, and to baptize a counselor for President Roux of the Tours branch.

This branch is about as I remember it: one man with a firm and unshakable testimony, with nobody to help him but a group of rather gossipy old women and a whole lot of rather irresponsible teenage girls. There are fine people here, but not nearly enough, and there’s hardly any Priesthood at all. Our job, [268] apparently in the little time that remains to me, is to repair that situation insofar as possible.
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