I had only been in Nice about two weeks when I attended my first Zone Conference under the direction of our mission president, President Wilcox. Each mission has a defined geographic area, and they are divided into smaller geographic areas called zones. In our mission, the zones were made up of a large city or two and all of the surrounding towns. Those portions of the mission meet together once a month in a meeting called a Zone Conference. In our mission, President was always in attendance. My trainer and I were stationed in Nice and the zone conference was in a nearby town. On the train ride to the zone conference in the wee hours of the morning, I wrote a letter to my friend Jake (prior SOTM) about how frustrated I was that I the language wasn't coming more quickly.
So there I was, as new as could be, sitting at my first zone conference, with my notebook dutifully opened. As I listened to the speakers, I took notes from the words of the speakers and made personal notes in the margins of my impressions. When President (as we called him) got up to speak, at one point he addressed me directly and said, 'Sister Methot, do you ever feel frustrated about the language?' I was shocked. How, amid all of the missionaries did he think to ask me? It was as if he could read my mind. As he went on to speak, I became even more shocked as he quoted several of the notes I had written in the margins of my notebook. I knew that he had no idea what I'd written in the margins, nor what I'd written Jake in my letter earlier that morning. That was when I came to realize what an inspired man under whose direction I would be serving for the next eighteen months.
This past weekend a friend from my mission came to visit. We talked well into the night about what an amazing person President Wilcox is. Story after story revealed his patience and love for us missionaries. He was so kind, so patient, so understanding, so forgiving time and time again. On the flip side, we were so young, so selfish, so immature, yet he saw the better side of us. He believed in us...I don't know how. I will say that both he and Sister Wilcox were amazing. Really, they taught by example how to be Christlike.
In a way, he was like the Bishop of Digne (reference to Les Miserables). His actions were in line with what he taught. In his younger years he had served a three-year mission in France, so he was ever compassionate and aware of what we were going through. He really sought to understand, and always reacted with compassion.
Even after the mission, he volunteered to write a recommendation for me for law school. Never mind the fact that he was insanely busy, traveling between Paris, New York, and Colorado at the time. He was also humble. Rumor has it that he is beyond brilliant, but you'd never even get a hint of it from him. His demeanor is unassuming and quiet.
I wish there were a way to express how lucky I was to have him as my mission president and how much appreciation I feel for the quality of person that he is. Even seven years after the fact, I still have an ever growing sense of respect for the quality of person that he is. And gossip never hurts his case. The hidden stories only further reveal what a great job he did as our mission president.
