Love this Missionary!

5/27

Hey, I hope everything is going well.

 

So this week was really hard. I'm not tryna complain or make you feel sorry for me. I feel like I am learning a lot. It is really hard to stay positive, but that is about the only thing that we can do. I know that I am in St. Omer right now for a reason. I just hope I can do a good job. I hope that God is proud of us, because all we can do is try our best.

So this week for the first time really ever I really noticed that I LOVE the Book of Mormon. I love the stories and the advice. Its so crazy how everytime I read it I learn more. Its not that I notice different things, its just that I understand more and more. I am going through different things in my own life and the words on the page help me with that. I teach the youth in the branch. The new program that the church has is really really good and has been helping me a lot.  I wish that I would have had that as a youth. And I also wish that I would have honestly studied the scriptures everyday as a youth. I hope Bradley and Andrew do personal scripture study.

So there is a new missionary in our district from Bakersfield.

So french holidays are like way different. Our Labor Day was May 1st. Its called "fête de travaille" that means party of work. pretty oxymoronic. All the holidays are "fêtes" or parties. Yesterday was fête des mères. On holidays it is pretty hard because people just want to chill. We did a lot of porting but not a lot of doors were answered, but people were in the house (we could see them in the windows).

I hope Bradley has fun at the encampment. The one I went to at Medicine Lake when I was thirteen is like one of my best memories. They're so fun. I really miss scout camps. and school.

Speaking of school, have you found anything out? Have you looked at what I would have to do? Would it be cheap to go to a school in Utah? Like UVU or USU or maybe even BYU or U of U? or Chico State? or what? I feel like I could want to go to SVU and see if I like it, but it could just be a waste. Can you check that out?

I'm having a lot of fun and I'm super glad that I am here in St. Omer. I feel like this town is making me the missionary that God wants me to be.

Dyou have any advice for what i should do next year?

half way done!!

5/20

Hey everybody!  So as far as lessons and amies, no big news there. We met a lot of people who did NOT want to hear about the gospel this week, but its all ok. We're looking for people who DO want to listen. Those are a little harder to find here.

My new companion is named Elder S_____.  I had to go to Paris to help Elder H____n with his bags and then help Elder S_____ come up here.. he is from Roy, Utah. He is engaged.... He has been in France for 13 weeks now. I'm his 2nd comp. He plays football. He's really cool and reminds me of Spud.

I can do handstand pushups. My record is 8.

I want mom to reread what she said about the hearing aids, because that was so funny. 

I still have my camera but everytime I do emails I forget the cord.

So you know the primary song "pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked" we walk and walk.. President told me to knock on every door again. so we're doing it again. There are a lot of times where we knock on a door and no one is home, so we didn't really talk to everyone in St Omer. so we are going to do it. It'll take all transfer because some houses are like an hour and a half walk.

Our district changed at the beginning of this transfer and there are 3 brand new missionaries in it. I'm the 2nd oldest missionary in the transfer, which is so weird because i still feel like I'm a new missionary. Time is really flying and everyone says the 2nd year goes by SO fast but the first went by faster than lightning. I'm pretty scared. All my friends are finishing soon.

That's cool about Alfred. i was thinking about him the other day!  (A friend of his is getting ready to go on a mission.)

If you send a package put kool-aid in it!

and that's crazy about Chase getting married.

and the sink didn't get fixed yet. We have other sinks though.

Have you guys looked at colleges yet?  What would i need to do to go back to svu?

Day After Mothers Day

 (Note from Diane---I guess the day after Mother's Day e mail is short because we just got to talk to him yesterday.... but, here it is-)

 

So I'm staying in St Omer.. and that night our mirror fell through our sink... yep that's right..

so yeah. It was super cool seeing you guys. Andrew's voice is deeper...

I don't know what to do about the colleges..

or what to say

pictures

Zone Conference. I like William's smile.  It does look genuine, but I also kinda wonder if he is smiling because I once told him in a letter than is mission president's wife has a Facebook page, where she posts photos, and he has never been looking at the camera in them and most the time he was making a funny face.  This isn't his branch's building, this is the one in Lille.  I like all the bricks!  Looks like he is doing well. 

5/6

hey guys.

so this week was ok. It was LOTS of walking and knocking on doors. We now have to walk over an hour to get to places to knock on doors and then the next day we have to walk farther. So the bottom of my feet dont feel very good. We got let in once this week and it was a weird old man who just wanted to talk to some Americans and see what we were doing here.

 

I almost forgot. We did find someone pretty cool last week. His name is J______. After we met him he never answered his phone? So we just thought he was being a noob, but his phone wasnt working. He just sat in his apartment reading the Book of Mormon waiting for us to come back. We finally did and he was really excited.

 

So the France Paris Mission is going really well. We're getting like 7 baptisms a week. It's pretty exciting every week when we get to read about all the baptisms and where they were.

 

So about E_____, she didnt come to church on Sunday, which means she cant get baptized on Saturday. So a member came up with an idea to just baptize her the day after, after sacrament meeting. Which could work, but not all of the branch is too excited about her. they dont want her to go inactive right after, but thats up to them, not us. and they're very concerned that shes only been taught for a couple weeks. I dont want to be negative but I'm very upset with the attitude that people have to be PERFECT for them to get baptized. In the Bible there are no examples of people having to wait to get baptized. In every single story, they just go get in the water when they want to follow Christ and have their sins forgiven.

 

The mission came out with a new thing that instead of finding out on Saturday if you are getting transferred, we are going to find out on Monday. but I'm almost one hundred percent sure that I'm going to be staying here.

 

So for the Mothers Day call, they may be at 8? but if the baptism DOES happen it might be a little later or a lot later, but we should be fine. The only factor is that the baptism cant be here because we dont have a font. The nearest one is in Calais, so it'll be there. We'll have to drive there after church, but then the people will get angry because they wont eat lunch. So we are going to try to have a branch meal, then drive then,  but then again we arent even sure if that will happen.

 

so this is going to be my companion's last week in the mission. so he wants to live it up. It'll be good. I just really really want it to end with a baptism.

 

The weather has been pretty weird here too. It'll be super hot and super cold in the same day. It'll also be raining super hard but really hot rain. Its pretty exciting to walk in a hot rainstorm.

 

I got jumped on by a ST Bernard. I almost got knocked down to the ground.