2/25

Hey! So whats up? This week a lot of good things happened. We taught a BUNCH of lessons, but none of them really wanted to talk after that. We are having kinda a hard time keeping amies. Right now we really want to find good amis. We got a new DMP. He is so cool. He is the old DMP's little bro and the stake president's son. He is such a BOSS. He gets it done. He passed around a sheet for everyone in the ward to write down when they are available to come out and teach or go finding with us, and a lot of people signed up. I think that a wildfire of missionary work is starting here in Angers.

So my new comp is from Ottawa, but he doesn't like the Sens. He likes the NJ Devils... He is 2 transfers older than me in the mission, and he speaks french already (with the accent).

On Monday night right after we taught a lesson with 3 ladies, they were like ok... into the kitchen. They made us fufu and couscous, with pilli pilli and manyuk stew.. and the best part of the stew..... caterpillars!! Like legit grubs. They were 3 inches long and big and black. they kinda tasted like smoked salmon, but the crunchy and gooshy and squirty part killed me. So I definitely didn't get off the hook for eating weird things on my mission. After eating that "feast" we had to chase down the last bus or we woulda had to walk home 45 minutes in the rain... so we SPRINTED! and you can guess what happened... caterpillar puke.

I'm really excited to be a part of the great missionary effort that's going on in the world. I know that God continues to answer my prayers. I am so blessed to be in Angers right now.

I don't need a birthday present... Today I bought a suit for clearance... the big sales are over here and they have really cheap stuff left over.. so I bought my birthday present today.

ok so here is my paragraph so the ward:

Bonjour Chico 1st ward! Everything is going GREAT in France! It is a really exciting time to be a missionary, and I am blessed to be in the France Paris Mission. Although this mission has been the hardest thing I've ever done, it's also the best thing I've ever done. I really encourage everyone who can go on a mission to go, or if they cant yet, prepare to go. A word of advice to all future missionaries in the ward, the Missionary Training Center is not really where you are trained to be a missionary, it's in church and in your everyday life when you receive the best training. I was really blessed to grow up in this ward, this was the real MTC.

Seeing people grow in the gospel and begin to understand things with their minds is AWESOME, but when people learn the principles in their heart, that is when I feel the success and that I am really helping them. In the year 2012, in the France Paris Mission, there was the most baptisms in history for this mission. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. You are Chico 1st for a reason!

I hope Bradley keeps playing basketball.

The president of SVU wrote me about the block program for missionaries... would that even work for me?

Feb 18

hey guys! so this week was a lot of good times.

     So the transfer news is that I'm staying in Angers, my new comp is going to be a Canadian, and Elder Burgess is going to a town in Belgium called Charleroi. It was voted the ugliest city in Europe and some other news is that there is going to be another companionship of sister missionaries in our district. (That might be too many sisters!!!)

     Next transfer we are going to be moving to the other apartment. The one that is like 6 premier Alexandre or something. I know that I sent you the address before.

     So Wednesday (the day of miracles) for most of the day it seemed very average. We talked to millions of people and we prayed every 30 minutes. Towards the end of the day I was getting to the point to where I was like, "Well we've already been seeing a lot of good stuff lately, hopefully other people are seeing miracles! Hopefully God is hearing our prayers and blessing THEM."  And then at 8:30 we ported into a woman and asked if we could bless her home. She brought us in the living room where a man was sitting on the couch with a huge sinister grin on his face... We started talking and he knew a lot about Joseph Smith and brought up the Book of Mormon a lot. I finally asked how he knew so much and he said, "parce que je suis Mormon" (because I am Mormon). He had been baptized 10 years ago and moved to Paris and then went less active and then moved to Angers and no one ever came and found him. He told himself, "When the missionaries come find me I'll come back". So that's a miracle, but the bigger miracle is that he wants his wife to be baptized and she is open to the gospel.

     Another cool thing happened on Friday as a result of Wednesday.  So on Wednesday we contacted a woman and told her to pray about the church. She said she would but then walked away. On Friday we were porting and we ported into her, and her sisters, and her husband. She was shocked and was kinda like ummm how did you find me. Then she said "God must have lead you back to me so that I would pray about the church... huh?" OF COURSE!!

So the day of miracles really was a day of miracles.

I'm pretty sick but I can still work well enough.

     This Saturday E__ got baptized! It was very, very awesome. I was on exchanges the night before with the ZL so that he could do the baptismal interview. Since I was on exchanges, it was all up to me to call everyone that night and scrape together a good baptismal service and also invite all of our amies.

     When we showed up an hour early to fill up the font the water wasn't working properly so the water wasn't filling fast enough. The members and amies that came started an assembly line with buckets to fill up the font from the water from the kitchen sink. It was really cool to see how important the baptism was for everyone, but the last thing was that since the water wasn't working properly, the hot water was off. So E__ had a FREEZING cold baptism. Oh well, it didn't bother him.

     On the letter that I sent back with all the questions you asked me if I needed anything... I forgot to ask if you could find me my glasses and mail them to me.. last time I saw them they were in the Jeep in the console. I think I'm starting to need them more and more... :(

     I could probably ham on Bradley at basketball.

Feb 11

hey everyone! This week was ward conference, so there were a lot of people at church, and they didn't bring very much bread. I blessed the sacrament and we had to break the pieces into pieces that were about dime sized.  A lot of people teased us because the bread was so small! haha. Prez was there too. So it was cool to see him again.

We have been seeing a less active man who lives down the street from us. He hadn't prayed for 9 years and his life was falling apart. A couple weeks ago we started praying with him 3 times a week and now he is amazingly full of life.  He is way happier. He got a girlfriend. His daughters started talking to him again. He got a promotion and he is so happy. This week he found out that he has cancer. So on Wednesday he is checking in to the hospital. On Tuesday, we're going to give him a blessing with the elders quorum president. It's really sad, but he has a good attitude about it. He's pretty bummed about not having any hair.

We found a lady to teach and she has came to church a couple times. We passed her over to the sister missionaries. Its hard to teach her because we have to find another man to teach with us, but she came to church on Sunday and she was really confused because we did all the substainings (it was ward conference). She didn't know why errryone was raising their hands a zillion times.

This Wednesday all of the missionaries in this mission and the Lyon mission are going to do finding all day. We are not going to schedule rendez vous or visit the members or anything and every 30 minutes we are going to stop and pray for everyone else. We also invited everyone in the ward to pray for us every half hour. It's going to be a day of miracles!

From what it looks like right now we are still going to have E__'s baptism this Saturday.  He's keeping all of the commandments.

 

 

Recently all of the people that we have been finding have been women, so we have been giving them to the sister missionaries. So lately we have been praying to find a man or a family and last night at about 8:40 we found a really cool guy and we talked a lot. We're seeing him again Thursday, but because we talked for so long we missed the bus and had to walk home in the rain. It was worth it!

So one of our mission rules is that we have to wear a coat and a suit everyday. Since prez was in town he also brought his daughters. His youngest daughter saw us walking Saturday night without umbrellas and told everyone that we were walking without coats. (she got her words mixed up) of course we were wearing coats!! it was raining and freezing.!

So I was thinking.. I think out of all of the boys in our seminary class, I got the coldest mission!! Thailand, Mexico, Paraguay, Guam... I doubt they even wear their suits!!!

Feb 4

All the weeks fly together!! I cant believe its Monday again. This week we had interviews and a formation with president and his wife. In my interview with president he told me to do scary things. I dont know what that means. Well yeah I do, but I dont want to do DANGEROUS things. He said he loves my enthusiasm and that he expects a lot out of me. During the formation we talked about our missionary purpose.  In our zone there are a lot of young missionaries. I would say that I've been in the mission than longer than 60% of them.

We got new credit cards but we dont have our pin numbers, so we cant use them.. so we are still low on money.

We fixed a baptismal date for E__ on the 16th of February and he finally has a friend in the church so he is coming around.

This Sunday when we were walking home from church there was a circus and outside of the circus there was a lot of animals (camels yaks llamas and goats and stuff). They were just in a parking lot. It was pretty weird to see.

This week we did a lot of finding, but all of the peeps we found are girls and we give girls to the sister missionaries when we find them. They give us guys when they find them. One of the girls that we found randomly came to church. It was a big surprise! 

We dont have a DMP in our ward (he got a stake calling) so we have been meeting with the bishop. Its really good.

Last night we got invited to a members house for crêpes. The people live in the house that Pres used to live in. He's renting it to them.

This week my testimony built a lot. I saw a lot of times during the week just how much God personally knows each of his children.

Elder Webber and Elder Flitton are companions now and they are the Zone Leaders.

Bradley better be able to dunk by time I get home. I really want to play 1 on 1 and see who is better.

Remember while I was in the MTC you whole send me those questionnaires? You should keep doing that!

How is everyone doing?

How is Josh doing?

Why did the Sharks get Scott Gomez?