Praying For France

Dear Everyone,

I'll start off by saying that I'm alright, I'm perfectly ok. We are a while from Paris, and so we were not affected in any large way by all the attacks. After a couple of hours of lockdown in our apartments we received the go ahead to go back to work, and so everything is alright at the moment. Thanks to everyone for the prayers on behalf of all those who were affected by the attacks, there are some families that we know here and an ami we're teaching who have loved ones in Paris, and were very concerned, but it seems as though everything has turned out ok for those friends.

It's inspiring to see how many people are supporting France right now, and to see the unity in the people here.

Apart from the attacks in Paris, this week was ok. We had a couple of meetings and service projects, and so were not able to do as much work in our sector as we wanted, but still were able to see a lot of people who we were able to help out. The best part of the week was easily the stake conference we had yesterday, where Elder Homer of one of the quorums of the seventy spoke to us. His entire talk was focused on the love of each other and how important it is for us to not judge one another. Only our Heavenly Father knows the desires and thoughts of all of us, and so we must try to work with others and interact with others and not judge them by our own limited knowledge of who we may think they are. It was an inspiring conference, and we all felt the spirit. Again, thank you sincerely for all the prayers for those affected here in France. I love you all, and wish you a great week!

Getting to know Annemasse

This week was a ton of fun for us, we got to go to many members homes kind of all over our sector's limits, so it was a lot of fun. We got on referral from an older sister in a ville north of Annemasse, and are still working on contacting it, so it should turn out well. Last week we also got to have a lot of fun with the zone, we went to a zone Pday with everyone after we did everything we needed to in Annemasse, so it was a blast. We got to teach our ami Nadia twice this past week, she's been seeing missionaries for many months now and loves coming to church, just has some very strong ties to her old faith, so we're hoping to get her to keep progressing. We had the chance to go to a baptism for the sister missionaries last Saturday, which was quite fun. It was great because their ami decided he wanted to be baptized in the lake, even though it's November, so it was a bit chilly, but a really neat thing.

Being Goofy in District Meeting

Today we had the chance to go out to Chamonix, a ville far out in our sector, to go for a fun hike with some members and eat lunch with a family who loves there. It's right below Mont Blanc, and is well known in Europe for skiing, so it was gorgeous, and a ton of fun. One thing I had the chance to do this week was kind of dive into the Book of Mormon in my studies, I just restarted it, and finished Lehi's dream. I love it a lot and am so grateful for the Book of Mormon, every day I find something new and clarifying that I hadn't seen before, I'd encourage everyone to read it every day if you can.

In Annemasse we spend a lot of time outside talking to people and visiting the members and less actives. We still are lacking in the amis category, but have a couple of potentials we're hoping to be able to start seeing regularly. The highlight of this week was the conference we had in Lausanne, Switzerland. Linda K. Burton, the General  Relief Society President, came to visit the Lausanne Stake, and so the two Switzerland zones, Geneva and Lausanne, had the opportunity to come and to listen to her for a missionary conference. It was fantastic, one of the biggest messages during the conference that I remarked on, was just how much the Lord will qualify us and change us during our missions if we are willing to let Him, and work hard.

Being Appropriate in District Meeting

At the beginning, it's like putting on a suit coat, the calling of a missionary, that is too big for us, we're not completely ready for it. As the mission progresses, the calling doesn't change, the suit coat, but the Lord will change us to fit that calling. We become stronger, more spiritually inclined, and more mature as we make the sacrifices required during a mission, and leave who we were behind to change into who the Lord wishes us to be, able to fit and fill the calling. At the end, when we are released, and the coat is taken away, the coat itself has not changed, but we inside of it have changed completely, to fill this calling, and are left a different person. It was a powerful message for us all, and inspiring to help us want to become that much better, and to make every effort while we're still here to become that what our Savior has in mind. Very touching conference.

We're starting to see some really neat things start to happen. We were able to find two new amis here in Annemasse, the first ones we've had in a while, with two other potentials who have told us they will come back to the church and learn more, waiting to see. The first one was a man named Nicholas, who was a referral from the elders in Nîmes, a ville near the south coast. He was very open, and happily agreed to a rendez-vous with us, and so we taught him on Wednesday. The other was a man who actually called us asking for a rendez-vous, and so we saw him for the first time last Friday, and will see him again tonight. It's really neat to see some small fruits of all the effort we've been giving here in the beginning.

We had both a district meeting this week and a zone conference, so they were fun, the whole conference was focused on how much more we could be using our planners, how much more we could the area book, and all the little tools we have to help us out in our missionary work. Other than that, we've just been working as hard as we can to keep going and finding more new people. It's a ton of fun with my companion, he's English, and it makes everything he says much funnier for it. I hope everyone had a good Halloween, and that y'all are staying warm. I love you all, au revoir!

In France, Near Switzerland, British Companion

Hello everyone!

Elder Bentley from Leeds

These last two weeks have been a little bit nuts, but the best part is that I am leaving the office and training a new missionary in the city of Annemasse! It's a very small ville that's directly up against Geneva, so still in France, but almost a suburb of Switzerland, so it's really neat! The last week of the transfer was good, it was hard to say goodbye to all the members I'd grown really close to in Ecully, I'd been there so long I knew all of the members super well.

I'm very excited to leave though, my new companion is fantastic, he's excited and ready to go to work, so it's going to be a good transfer! His name is Elder Bentley, and he's from a city near Leeds, England; so I got a British companion. We've been going through all the area books, the notes the old missionaries left us, and are really really excited, it seems like there's a lot of potential in Annemasse, so it's going to be a blast to serve here!

We’ve  been working really hard, and are already seeing some small fruits here in Annemasse. We spent a large part of the rest of last week walking around, getting to know the ville, and talking to everyone and their dog on the way, trying to teach, and we've been able to fix a couple of rendez-vous for next week and get some numbers of promising potentials. One of the most rewarding parts of the week was getting to go to church this last Sunday, and finally meet the Annemasse Ward. They were incredibly welcoming to both me and my companion, and have a lot of faith for the work here in Annemasse, the missionary spirit that we could see and feel in sacrament meeting and in ward council afterwards was incredible, they are really working hard to invite others to all kinds of activities and events, and to make those possible.

We got invited over to multiple homes this week, for service, to share a message, to talk about the work here, and one that we're really excited for, a partial member family where the wife wants us to work with her husband. It's shaping up to be a very very good transfer, we're stoked to really get to work here, and see the fruits of it. I hope everyone is alright at home, and that nobody is too cold, here it's starting to get very chilly, we're up in the mountains on the Switzerland border. I love you all, and pray for you, have a great week!
Elder Whiting

The Importance of Being Friends

Bonjour tout le monde!

This week was a fantastic week here, we had a general authority come and speak to the mission on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and it was a powerful spiritual experience to get to hear from him. His name is Elder Adler, from the third quorum of the Seventy. During the conference he, President Brown, their wives, and the local stake president spoke to us on a number of subjects, but one of them that I most remarked about was of how much importance it is in our missionary work to find friends for the amis that we find in the wards and branches we're serving in. He told and exhorted us to start a habit of offering a deep and sincere prayer with our companion every Sunday morning, pleading with Heavenly Father to find those in the congregation who would be good friends for those whom we teach coming to church. He expressed how it saddens him that too often the only friends our amis have are the missionaries who taught them, and how this is not in itself a bad thing to be their friend, obviously, but how hard it can be for them after we leave if we are their only friends. He told how when a member becomes a friend for your investigator, all of a sudden this constant source of support springs up for them in the church, another reason to want to come, a person who will be there for years afterword, who can support and take them to the temple to receive the blessings there. It was a powerful reminder to us all, and helped us think more about how we can do so with all the amis that we have right now, in bringing them closer and closer to Christ.

The conference went very smoothly, which was a blessing for all those involved with the logistics, and overall was phenomenal spiritual experience. I want to invite everybody at home to take some time to talk to the missionaries in your own wards and branches, and see if maybe there's someone they're teaching that you could become friends with. I hope everyone has a good week, and stays safe, au revoir!

Training Replacements and Being Babies

It seems from all the emails that I keep getting from everybody that life is going well back home for everyone. Here in the office life was a little bit hectic this week, but really good as well.

This transfer the office received a new senior couple, named the Mahaffeys, who will be taking over some of the responsibilities that were previously with the younger elders, so that we can have more time to go out proselyting and become more mobile to help out in other parts of the mission. Before that can fully happen however, me and my companion Elder Taylor, have to train them in all the responsibilities they will be taking over, so that they can fully understand their jobs. This week was the first week we got some really good sit down time with them, and were able to start training them in the various aspects of what we do. It's going well, they learn fast, and we've already been able to teach them some good portions of our responsibilities, so this will be very very helpful to office elders in the future.

The fun part of the week, though, was Wednesday evening, when us and the other Elders in our ward got together to go visit two different single, less-active women in the ward. The message that we shared was something that my companion had come up with, and really liked. He recently read in a book, an example of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. When two parents have a newborn child, it's a very exacting, draining, and involved experience. The baby can do nothing for itself, and when it's not being incredibly cute, it's crying, demanding attention, waking you up in the night, and draining your funds on all it's physical needs. Yet despite this, the love a mother and father have for their child is almost incomprehensible, and they make all the sacrifices necessary and more so that this child of theirs has the best life it possibly could have. It's the exact same with our Heavenly Father. We are all babies, we make mistakes, we cause problems, we mess up, and we can barely take care of ourselves sometimes. Despite this and more, our Heavenly Father still loves us with a love we cannot comprehend. It was a really cool message to share and talk about with these two less actives, and a good reminder for all of us.

Full Apartment and Book of Mormon Stories

This week we just finished was the last week of the transfer, so we had a good time preparing and trying to work hard before next transfer. We went through the whole transfer ticket process like normal, buying all the trains for everyone, and also planned out transfer week with the assistants, which will be a lot of fun, we're going to have Mission Leadership Council a little earlier than planned, so next week we'll have upwards of 70 to 80 missionaries sleeping at our apartment throughout the week, it'll be good fun.

The highlight of last week though was the district meeting we had on the Thursday, it was about the Book of Mormon, about coming back to and studying what is the most important parts of our missionary work. We didn't get to stay for the whole meeting unfortunately, but we were able to be there for a round the table recounting of everyone's favorite story from the Book of Mormon, and why it was so important to them. After some thought, I decided upon the story of Abinadi, the prophet who taught with such power to King Noah and his advisers. I love this story, the part that gets me the most, is that although Abinadi taught the King, and everyone in the city, as powerfully as he could, he never saw the fruits of his labors, he never saw in his lifetime any success. Alma the Elder was converted through the teachings of Abinadi, but Abinadi never had the opportunity to see this conversion. However, because Alma was converted, he went on the convert hundreds more, to start the Church in the land, and played a key role in the conversion of Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah, who all went on to convert hundreds and even thousands of more people. Abinadi had one of the largest missionary influences in history, and never got to see that while he still lived.


It's always been a strong reminder to me of how important it is that we press on no matter how futile it seems, that we are touching the lives of other people in more ways than we think. It was a great district meeting that helped remind me of that and help me re-remember it.
Transfer week was exhausting, but lots of fun, which is normal for a transfer week. All the new missionaries that came in were really great, this was a particularly good group that I have seen come in during my transfers here in Lyon, a lot of missionaries I think that are going to do real well. It was tons of fun to watch them get their trainers, and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. We didn't get a break from people at our apartment this week, because the Mission Leadership Council got moved to Thursday, but it was fun, we always had a ton of people to talk to in the evening.

The coolest part of this week though, was I think the story one of the newer French missionaries told me yesterday evening as we were all walking back to the apartment. He told me about something his district teacher had showed them in the MTC in Spain. The teacher had had them all take a balloon, and blow it up as much as possible. Then, he had them all pop their balloons, almost as soon as they had blown them up. The teacher told them that on their missions and during their lives, there will always be people who kind of want to take away your hope, and tear down your expectations. Missionaries who perhaps served in an area where they had had very little success, or where the reputation was maybe not so good, will often say it's not a good area, that you'll never find success there. If you come into a new area with expectations like that, you'll never succeed or surpass these expectations that you have already set yourself. You should always try to keep your balloon full, and not to let other people with little pins pop it before it can really grow to it's full potential. It was kind of a silly image at first, and I kind of laughed at it, but I really liked what the teacher was trying to say.

What is a Transportation Secretary?

My desk in the office is called the Transportation Secretary, though I have other things than just transportation. My responsibilities include:

The Transportation Secretary Sword

Transportation Secretary, which means I'm in charge of all train tickets, boat tickets, airplane tickets (we do have people fly places sometimes), and everything in regards to travel within mission boundaries. This can get a bit tedious at times, with gigantic conferences and lots of exchanges, but for the most part I like it!

Vehicle Coordinator, which means I am in charge of all the cars in the mission. Thankfully, we only have 24 cars in our mission, but I'm in charge of taking care of the maintenance for them all, all the accidents and wrecks we get, working with the insurance, and probably biggest, making sure all the drivers we have are legal in France to drive and are church certified. That is ongoing, I work with a lot of spreadsheets keeping up with the state of the cars and drivers, who is legal to drive, who will become illegal soon (after one year non-European

Office Meetings

drivers' licenses are invalid), and who is certified. This is probably my biggest and most stressful job.

First Year legality. This is me getting together a bunch of paperwork, like passport scans, proof of insurance, proof of residency, and stuff like that together for all the incoming missionaries to the mission, to get them all legal in the country, and to make sure they have all that they need to stay legal for the first year here.

Cell Phones. I'm in charge of replacing broken cell phones, ordering new ones every once in a while, re attributing numbers to different SIM cards when they get lost, and that sort of thing. It's alright, the mission cell phones seem to break often, so it's a fairly involved process. 

Teaching Long-Term Investigators and Playing Charades

Salut les gars!

I hope everyone is doing alright back stateside and across the globe, here in France life has been very fun! Last Sunday I had a really cool experience, one I don't think I expected on the mission. My companion, Elder Taylor, had an aunt and uncle coming through France on vacation, and so they really wanted to come see him at church while they were here. Elder Taylor asked President Brown, and he said yes! He even suggested us having dinner with them and having like a missionary rendez-vous, so it was really neat. They came to church, and loved it, thought it was really neat to have church in an other language other than English. Then that night we had dinner with them in the apartment of the office senior couple, the Sweeneys, who were kind enough to invite us over. It was a really really good dinner, and when we gave the spiritual thought at the end, Elder Taylor bore his testimony and almost started crying, the spirit was really strong. Overall, it was a really neat experience.

This week we were also able to see Cristelle, our ami, who's been sick for the last little while, again. We found out a little while back that her husband is American, and so she speaks fluent English, because he doesn't speak a word of French, despite living here. We normally still teach in French, because the gospel vocab is a little bit different than normal vocab, and it works better. In any case, she told us she had been looking up more about our church on the internet with her husband, who actually remembered that he had seen a film all about our church. He found it again on the internet, and turns out it was the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration film that the church produced! She loved it, and so we were thrilled that she had found that on her own, they watched in English because it's hard to find in French, so it worked out really well!

The rest of the week was spent in a lot of office work, we had to buy a huge amount of train tickets for the conferences next week, which took some time, and also took a missionary to the airport on Wednesday morning, he went home a little early for school.

Then Monday was the multi-zone conference we had up here in Lyon, we had four zones come in from the eastern half of the mission, and had a fantastic conference. President Brown is really emphasizing how important the temple is in our work, the whole conference was focused on how we can better apply the principles of the family, family history, and temple, into all our finding and teaching techniques. The spirit was there very powerfully, and we all felt how inspired our new mission president is with the new temple coming to Paris. Then in the afternoon we had a second testimony on his wife, who had us all come outside and play a role play charades-like game, which was a blast! All in all, it was a fun day.

Then throughout the week we got to so see two member families and share with them this new temple message, and both of the rendez-vous were excellent. We got to welcome in a new missionary who came in the middle of the transfer, because he was Chinese speaking. It was cool to see him speak what little Chinese he could with his trainer on the first day. The best part of the week was when I got to go on a mini-exchange with our district leader, we had some things we had to take care of and we couldn't do both at the same time, so we went on exchange, and I had the opportunity to teach one of their amis with him. She's been learning from the missionaries and taking the lessons for over fifty years, so each rendez-vous is a little bit different they told me, but this rendez-vous we were really able to touch her heart, and it was a great feeling.

She told us how she's been asking for such a long time about the truthfulness of the church. We felt prompted to talk to her about Moroni chapter 10, verse 4, and the importance of real intent when we pray, how that means we have a commitment in our hearts to act on the response we get even before we start praying. It was incredible to see kind of a comprehension come into her face, and she promised us she would keep trying. We'll see, but I hope I was able to help her path in a small way. We weren't able to write yesterday due to some extra work we had to do, but today is fine, and I hope everyone is having a good Sunday at home! Go to church!;)

Using the iPads to Teach

Bonjour à tous!

This week was fairly normal as regards to life here in Lyon. We had a very inspiring Mission Leadership Council on Tuesday, President is really really pushing for all kinds of new ways to use the temple in our day to day work. A large part of the council was spent in brainstorming sessions with all the leaders together figuring out some of the best ways we can integrate temples and the new temple in Paris into an already existing project focused on family history in our mission, called Project Elijah. It was so cool to see how, with so many people contributing, and so many great missionaries there, the spirit was truly able to guide us, and so many phenomenal ideas came forth out of the framework. So many different ways the mission is going to use this, and it's really exciting.

One of the new tools was actually created by my companion, Elder Taylor, who's really good with visual design and presentations on the computer, and he and I had a really cool experience with it. The assistants asked Elder Taylor a few days before the council to put together a presentation all about the temple, that all the missionaries could have on our new iPads, to show in rendez-vous' with our amis and the members, so last Sunday we took some time to go to the office, so that Elder Taylor could create and I could work on other things for a little bit.

We did that for a while, then went out and tried to pass a member, which didn't work out, so we decided to go contacting for a little while. As soon as we got out of the car, I started a conversation with the first man we saw, and after talking to us for a little bit, he told to come on in, turns out he lived right next to where we were parked. We went in, and after talking to him for a little bit about who we were, we mentioned temples, and he seemed really curious. We were able to use the presentation on Elder Taylor's iPad that he had made not even an hour beforehand. It went super well, he really liked it, especially where it talked about the guided tours during the open house before the temple is dedicated. He told us he thinks that would be a really neat thing to go see, and sounded legitimately interested. He told us he would love to have us back over another time, and talk more about what we had to say. It was a really cool miracle, and we were stoked that Elder Taylor's presentation worked so well. Other than that, the week went by very well, with Zone Training happening on Thursday, where I got to translate for a native French sister, it was fun. I love you all, and truly appreciate all the support you send me in your emails, have a great week!

Finding Lost Luggage and Getting to Know President Brown

French Driver's License

I hope these last weeks of July are treating everybody well, we had some good cooler weather here in Lyon the last couple of days, so that was really nice, we didn't wake up in pools of sweat like before! This week was transfer week, and so therefore, was completely nuts for the office elders. The sending off process for the departing missionaries went smoothly, given that we were sending about 25 missionaries home, all things considered, so that was a blessing, we got more sleep than normal, no all nighters this time. However, the incoming missionaries were a little bit more difficult. Due to some random flight miscommunications, half of the baggage for the incoming missionaries was lost in transit. This led to a hectic 48 hours, a lot of calls to a delivery company, a lot of missed deliveries, and finally a crazy road trip with me driving a very large van rather quicker than normal so as not to miss the deadline to a warehouse to get them all ourselves. But all turned out well, and we had a blast doing it, crazy situations are fun to laugh at, so it was a fun two days! 

The best part was still seeing all the new bleus get their trainers, so much excitement in one room, and so many hugs going on at one time. Tons of fun! we had a second transfer bleus conference on Thursday, and Friday was free, so we really enjoyed having a normal quiet day to frantically try and catch up on all the spreadsheets that changed with all the changes for the transfer. Overall a fun week. It was really neat to see President Brown go through his first experience with all the new missionaries, how he was just so happy, and how strong the spirit was when he was presenting to them for the first time. He was so powerful in explaining what our purpose is here in declaring the good news, it was almost like coming back and being a bleu again, even for us and the older missionaries there. It was wonderful, I'm really glad we have him as our mission president, the mission is going to grow a lot under his leadership, I'm sure of it.

Hot Weather and a New Mission President

Me and Elder Taylor took a trip down to Beziers to pick up a car from a senior couple who left. It was fun to visit, that's the ville where my first branch I served in is based, so it was neat to get to see everything again. On Tuesday we were able to teach our ami Cristelle again, and invited her to baptism after teaching her the gospel, she said she doesn't know yet, but she's willing to keep learning and think about it! The office received completely new computers on Wednesday, because of the new Mission President, so it's really nice, it's fun to kind of start over and work with a whole new computer. The funnest part about the week though is probably this temporary new companion we received! Our equip is now a four man equip, momentarily, so our apartment has six missionaries living in it. The laundry, shower, and food situation has now become very large. However, it's a ton of fun! He's one of the elders from Switzerland who left for a bit, and because he has a hurt ankle, he's staying with us. He's Tahitian, from the islands of Tahiti near Tonga and Samoa, and doesn't speak English hardly at all. However, when he speaks French with an American accent, it's super super funny, and he loves doing it! We all laugh a ton at it, so it's fun. Other than that, we had our District Meeting this week, which was a lot of fun, and was really really good for us I think. They talked a lot about kind of accepting ourselves, an

d others, and trying really hard not to compare ourselves. It's very easy I think to do so, want to be better, want to be seen better, and so it was good to remind ourselves that we're on the same team, and that we all have a part to play in this game. It was good. I hope everyone stay cool, it's burning here, so hopefully stateside it's better!

Welcome President and Sister Brown

I think this week was hopefully the last week of the severely hot weather we've been having here in Lyon, and the start of at least a brief respite, we had some good cool breezes and cloud cover, so that helped out a lot. We had a fantastic start to the week on Monday, President Brown had his first interview tour this transfer and our zone had our conference on Monday, so we got to hear from him for the first time. He was truly happy to be there, and loved talking to us, getting to know us, and during the actually conference got us all very excited. He really wants to make a push in the mission in regards to how much we talk about family history with others, specifically in regards to the first temple being built on French soil up in Paris. He says we are some of the first missionaries ever who get to announce the coming of a temple to the French people, and we should take full advantage of that. It was really inspiring. The interview I had with him went very well, he's going to be a phenomenal mission president for us I think.

It is hot in France

The rest of the week went well right up until transfers. Turns out our tripanionship is getting broken, me and Elder Taylor are going to stay here in the office, and Elder Pedersen is going to do his last four weeks in a beautiful ville he served in early on, called Annecy! We're excited for him, though we're sad to see him go. The tickets were the same, up very late into the night two nights in a row, but what was cool was that without any blatant indication, the whole process seemed to go by much much more smoothly than last time, which was kind of a cool blessing. In any case, the transfer ended on a good note, we got to go to the very well known cathedral here in Lyon, and it was really really neat inside, we got to go around and look over all Lyon at the edge. All in all, a good week. Hope everyone stays cool, au revoir!

Finishing up with President Roney and Planning Transfers

We started by going to the last Pday of the transfer, where President Roney gets all the missionaries in Lyon to come up to his house and we all eat lunch together, play sports, and just have a great Pday. It was a ton of fun, though it was sad, because it was the last time President Roney would be there to do it himself. Tuesday and Wednesday were fairly normal office work, though Tuesday we did have a really neat ward activity, one of the members put on an exposition over marriage. It was all about marriages in the past, how they've evolved over time, what they're like now, how the church does marriages, and so forth. We had a couple of good amis from other equips come, and a lot of members, so it was really good. Some of the missionaries sang, and there was a good spirit there.
Wednesday was great, we had our district meeting in the morning, helping us understand more about how we can use the iPads to their fulles

Adieu to the Roneys

t extent, and how we can be better prepared for the struggles and the temptations that will come with these new tools. It was a good meeting. Then the fun began. This week was the end of the transfer, so Thursday morning we had a big planning meeting at the President's house, planning how the first week was going to work, who would be going where, when they needed to be there, who was going to take them, and figuring out all the logistics of next week, with all the missionaries going home, coming in, and getting transferred. Then afterwards, we all played a celebratory game of pétanque, a French game kind of like bocci balls that is super common here, and tons of fun.

Then we, the office elders, went back to the office, to do the single most time consuming part of being an office elder here in Lyon, planning the transfer tickets. Because of the very very important rule that a missionary never be alone, even on a train, we try our very hardest to plan our the hundreds of different train tickets going from all sorts of villes in the mission so that nobody is ever left alone. Because of this, when we got back to the office, we put in all the old assignments, all the new assignments, and all the travel requirements into a couple of Excel spreadsheets already formatted in an incredible way, to start the process of just the planning them out, not yet the actual buying of the train tickets. We then spent the next 30ish hours, planning, checking, double checking, triple checking, entering, and buying all the train tickets involved. We went home during this time, and did a couple of other things, but the entire process took about that long. The first night we got home at 4 in the morning, and the next night somewhere around 12:30, so we've been having some late nights. However, it was a ton of fun, and I actually was able to see some very real help from God. We said a lot of prayers those nights, when it seemed like a train time wouldn't work or someone wasn't going to be able to get somewhere, and somehow each time we were able to find a solution. It was a really neat thing for me.

It takes a long time to plan the transfers.

It was transfer week, so we had the luck to take all the leaving missionaries to the airport, or at least their bags, to see them all off. It's always a little weird doing this, but at the same time, it's fun to see so many super happy people talking about and thinking about their missions, about the best times they had, the weirdest experiences, etc. A lot of them were really good friends I've made here, so it was hard to see them all off from the airport, but fun to see them all again. Then we got to welcome in the brand new bleus (new missionaries), who are seeing everything from the opposite end, so excited about France, and what they're about to get to do. It's always a lot of fun. We spent most of the working part of the week however planning out the three big zone conferences this next week, we spent some later nights at the office getting all the train tickets bought and such. It's President Roney's last conference here, so it's going to be very special, we're all kind of looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. President has done so much for the mission, and is so well loved here, he will be sorely missed. I love my mission president. One of the best parts of the week however, was the Stake Conference we had this weekend. The overwhelming theme of the conference was the family, and how important it is in our life. It made me reflect on how much I love my family, and how important that is in my life, how much I am grateful to be in a good family, and to have that in my life. I love my family a lot, and am so grateful they're supporting me from my home while I'm out here in France. I hope everyone has a good week, and doesn't take life TOO easy just because it's summer!

Breaking the Ukulele and Getting iPads

This week was fantastic, though very very stressful for the first couple of days, however everything is all good now, because the iPads finally came in! The beginning of this week was fun, last Sunday was hilarious, we didn't have time to sing Happy Birthday to our mission nurse last Saturday, which was her actual birthday, and so we decided to do it unexpectedly last Sunday. We showed up to her house with an almost broken/destroyed ukelele, then threw rocks at her window until we got her attention, and proceeded to sing a Tahitian birthday song in French while playing the ukelele, then at the very end, my companion smashed the ukelele on the sidewalk without further ado. Her face was smiling and laughing through the song, but was absolutely priceless when he busted the uke on the sidewalk. We were all laughing hysterically, and so she came down and we laughed and talked for a while so she could take a picture of us with the busted uke. It was a blast. After that we had a dinner appointment with one of the members, so all in all it was a fantastic day. The week was stressful for the first little bit though, we had received from church headquarters an estimated date of the iPad's arrival on Monday, and so we had made plans for all the Zone Trainings, surrounding that date, where we would hand out the iPads. Unfortunately, they didn't come Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. 

Good bye to the ukelele. 

Long story short, we had to cancel a few events, and then if the iPads hadn't come this week, lots and lots of events would have been wasted, and many things would have been put on hold. Yesterday, Friday, was the last day the iPads could come in, and they didn't come in the morning, nor all the way up until 4 oclock. The whole week before this my companion Elder Taylor had been digging, making hundreds of calls, and doing everything and anything possible in our power to find out where they were and how quickly we could get them here. Finally, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon yesterday, we get a call from a random shipping company asking us when the best day would be to make the delivery next week. Almost breathless, my companion asked if we could come get them ourselves that day. They said yes, if we could get out there in the next 3 hours. After two and a half frantic hours of running home, grabbing the car, unloading different things to make space, and driving in super thick Friday afternoon traffic, we made it there half an hour before closing time. We now have the iPads, and will now spend the first part of next week in the car traveling around the south of France delivering them to different Zone Trainings. It was a fun week. On a more spiritual note, on Thursday, we had a cool experience. At the end of the day, after we had gotten all our office work done and had waited until we felt comfortable leaving, in case the iPads showed up, we only had one hour left where we could work. We were all exhausted, worn out, stressed, and cranky for different reasons. The last thing we wanted to do was go out contacting, and try to find people, however that was the only thing we had any time to do in our circumstances. Reluctantly, we left the office, and started contacting. However, almost miraculously, as we stepped outside, started walking, breathing fresh air, and talking to people, all of our spirits lifted immensely. It felt like everyone wanted to talk to us, we had a ton of great conversations, and gave out lots of cards and numbers. When we finally had to go home, none of us really wanted to we were having so much fun. It was great for me to remember that when we go that little extra bit when we feel like doing anything else but that, the Lord will bless us in great ways. I hope everyone has a great week, and starts their summer off with some fun!

I love technology. 

This week was a lot of fun for me, even though I didn't get to go out all over the country like I thought I would. Because it's really hard to catch up on all the office work the longer we stay out of the office, we decided last minute that I would stay behind and stay with the Zone Leaders of Ecully, who live in my secteur, and work with them, or be in the office on "exchange" with the husband of the senior couple who works there. It worked out fine, I was able to get a lot of work done while they were gone, stuff that I really needed to do, and I got to go on kind of an exchange with the Ecully ZLs, which was a lot of fun, I learned a lot from them. One of the coolest parts about getting to stay behind though was that I got to hear the testimony of my Zone Leader during the Zone Training where we handed out the iPads, his last testimony before going home. It was powerful, and one of my favorite things that I really remarked on was at the end, he said he hadn't seen a vision, he didn't know with solid indisputable evidence that God lived, but he knew that this gospel is good. He knew that, because he felt so good while teaching it. It made me really reflect on what a blessing I have in my life. It was a very great experience, something I think I'll remember for a while. Sorry this email is pretty short, the rest of the week was fairly unexciting, we caught up with all our office work. I hope everybody gets to think on the many blessing that we have in our lives, they surprise us I think, when we think about them. Have a great everybody, au revoir!

Baptism and Calling Home

Mother's Day Skype

This week was a lot of fun, in part because I was able to talk to my family for mother's day, which was great and uplifting thing. I love getting to see some of the changes that go one in my little brothers and sisters. The day before that was also fantastic, one of the highlights of the week by far. One of my companions, the one who comes from Denmark, served in a small ville called Annecy about a year ago, and when he was there, him and his companion found a man who was open and willing to learn, and already knew quite a bit about the church before having spoken with the missionaries. Because of communication problems, and a couple other small things, they lost contact with him, and were unable to continue teaching him. However, a year later, the Elders in Annecy right now contacted us and told us how this man had refound them, and had become a fantastic progressing ami, and was going to be baptized, and had asked that my companion and his old comp be there as well. His old comp was already back in the United States, but because we had some supplies and errands to take care of in a ville not too far away from Annecy, President Roney gave us special permission to be able to go to this baptism.


It was a wonderful experience, really cool to see how touched my companion was, how happy and joyous the man who got baptized was after the ceremony. It didn't hurt that for us bystanders, everyone was happy, because the baptism took place in the lake around which the ville is situated. Annecy is known throughout the mission as one of the prettiest villes as well, partially thanks to this lake, so everyone I think was in a little awe at how beautiful it was. The baptism was wonderful, and the rest of that weekend went well too, ending in my Skype with my family, so all was great. This week itself was nothing too special, aside from a crisis we had with all the cell phone lines in Switzerland shutting down randomly. We are still trying to figure out the problem with the company, but thankfully most of the lines are back up and running again. All is well here in Lyon, my companion had a haircut today, and the best part of it was because he likes his hair a lot, we went to a coiffure, and I spent about 45 minutes to an hour talking to one of the people in there about our church and what we were doing there, so it was well worth the time, even though it took a little while. I love getting to be a missionary, we talked to a man last night on the subway system, and even though he wasn't interested to learn more, he really thanked us because we had helped him understand a lot more about who we were, and why we were there. It's things like that which make me happy to be here and enthusiastic about being a missionary.

Up All Night and Solving Airport Crises

Monday was when all the missionaries going home had their final interviews and such, and somehow everything ran a little later than normal, so in between getting everyone out to President's house, getting them back for the night, then going back to the office and loading all their luggage into the van, we didn't get home until about 2:10 or so in the morning. We had to be out the door and on our way to the airport the next morning at 4 in the morning, so we didn't sleep, just wrote a bit in our journal, and then showered and changed, then got back in the car and headed off to the airport. We were a little tired at first, but it wore off pretty quick at the airport, or at least for me, because everything seemed to go wrong.

Note the Time

I was in charge of getting all of the Americans and one German sister onto their flights, and everything with the German sister went fine, but we had a ton of issues with the Americans. All the machines where we were supposed to check them in for whatever reason didn't read the passports, and kept saying that we didn't have tickets. I frantically worked with the helper lady, seeing as we were already running late, and finally we got everyone into the line, waiting for the baggage check, where the lady said they'd get their tickets. I sprinted over to help the German sister with her final things, then sprinted back to get back in time to help pay for all the second baggage fees for all the Americans just in time for them to board their flight, and then sprint across the whole airport to grab a cell phone that a Finnish sister had accidentally forgotten to give back to us.

Surprise Birthday Party

All in all, kinda stressful, though the rest of the day was ok, despite the fact that right after that whole situation me and my companions were drifting hard core in and out of sleep for a few hours before the new missionaries got there. However, Thursday was my birthday, and it was fantastic. My companion had a bunch of missionaries in Lyon go to the institute without me knowing they even knew about my birthday, and then got me there on some excuse, where they threw me a surprise small birthday party. It was a ton of fun, and everyone was happy. After that, my companions and I went out to lunch with the assistants to a great taco place in Lyon, and had a ton of fun. After some last minute office work, we went out to our sector and taught a great lesson over the Savior to one of our amis, one of the best parts of the day, and then went out again to dinner with the mission nurse, one of the best people I've met on the mission. Overall, it was a fantastic week, and my birthday was a ton of fun, in the morning I got to read all the letters my family sent me, which might have been the best part of the day. I love everyone, and hope everyone had a good week as well, au revoir!

Out to Eat

Massive Mission Conference

This week was incredibly hectic and a ton of fun for us! the beginning of the week was fairly normal, except for Monday, President had the Assistants, us, and the senior couple equip in the office all over at 10 in the morning for a large planning session, for the massive mission conference we had this weekend, and for the next transfer coming up. It was really good, we were able to get a bunch of stuff planned, and able to coordinate everybody. Then afterwords, we had what is called President's Pday.

The last Pday of every transfer, President lets all the missionaries serving in Lyon come over to the mission home, which has a big ol' back yard, and play all kinds of sports and stuff after eating a lunch together, it was a lot of fun! After Monday however, life got hectic really fast. We had to plan for it, and then finally, the massive mission conference was there. Friday we helped transport tons of food out the chapel, and then buy and transport 200 pizzas for the missionaries that night for dinner. After a crazy night with quite a few phone calls for random situations with the hotels, we finally got everybody off the big buses, done with the pizzas and socializing, and in their hotel rooms, and got home and to bed at about 12:30. The next morning, we woke up at 5, and went and picked up a massive order of breakfast pastries, and transported it all out the chapel.

Then, the conference happened. It was absolutely amazing. We had Elder Nielson, who spoke at the last General Conference, and his wife, plus Elder Kearon of the 70 with his wife there. It really surprised me, I thought that the conference would be all about the little rules and details about the iPads, however, far from that; it was a very spiritually uplifting experience, something I guess I should have expected with General Authorities coming. They talked about and emphasized throughout the conference the power of agency. They testified that these tools can be used for tremendous good if we use them wisely, and can really help us in our missionary work if we let them. It truly was a great conference, they testified about the power we have and the light we can bring to the world with these tools, and really helped us all get excited and ready for them. I hope everyone had a great week, and I want to invite everyone to think about how maybe, without being offensive, we can share the church through the u



se of social media, and subject that was brought up again and again in the conference. I hope everyone stays safe, and keep the faith!

This weekend we'll be really busy driving in and around Switzerland, delivering some supplies and replacing a bed and a refrigerator, so we won't have time at all tomorrow for Pday activities, so we're doing our emails today! This week wasn't the most thrilling or exciting week, we spent some very long days completely at the office keeping up with all the workloads, and making sure everything stays ok in the mission. This week, for whatever reason, we had a couple of sticky situations rise up, the reason we spent almost two full days not leaving the office, but we got them all figured out eventually. We had first year legality appointments for all the new missionaries who just came in this week, which was fine, but the best part of the week was Leadership Council on Tuesday, where we spent the whole time discussing the best ways to help our mission adapt to the usage of iPads, which will be arriving in about 2 weeks for all the missionaries.

The thing that I most remarked on, and studied later, was the comparison President Roney made to our iPads and the vision of the tree of life. He reminded us about how in the vision of the tree of the life, the iron rod that leads to the tree is right next to the dark ravine, the river of filthiness. He told us about how with this new iPad, we are walking right alongside a cliff and dropoff very much like what is described in the vision, how much potential the iPad has for evil, while at the same time for good. He asked why we thought the Lord would put us right alongside this river of filthiness, why in our lives we are always so close to evil, why would the Prophet, First Presidency, and the Twelve Apostles give us the iPads when there is so much potential for bad? The answer is because the Lord, and his representatives on this earth, trust us. He has given us the way to stay pure and to keep pressing forward, He has given us the iron rod, in all aspects of our lives. He knows that although we have such a terrible ravine next to us, we can have a firm grip on the iron rod, and always stay true to Him, despite the temptations that may arrive in our lives. It was a comforting thought to think about, that despite this danger, we truly are safe if we follow His teachings and help ourselves be safer on the road to salvation.

200 Pizzas

Our normal Saturday Pday got postponed so we could help set up a senior couple apartment two and a half hours north of here in Besançon. It was a fun road trip, though it was the second time we were up there in four days. We had gone up on Thursday after our District Meeting to set up the first load of stuff, then came back late late that night, did some normal office work the next day and then bought the last stuff and took it up the next morning, and put it all together for the majority of Saturday.  Earlier on in the week, we had another road trip, this one to take down an apartment in Carcassone, about four and half hours south of Lyon. We left on Sunday and drove until Montpellier, then finished the drive the next morning and spent that whole day taking the apartment with the help of the Elders down there, and then driving back up.

In charge of ordering a truckload of pizza

It was a ton of fun, though really exhausting week, we got see a bunch of missionaries that are lots of fun, and help out a bunch of people. Our District Meeting was also lots of fun, the whole meeting was much more of a discussion, talking and reviewing the second chapter of Preach My Gospel, which was really interesting and helpful for us all. Possibly the coolest part of the week was today at church though, during the mini Ward Council we had after church was finished. The ward had taken a big trip to the temple during the week, something difficult for many members, seeing as the temple is in Switzerland, and not close. The bishop bore a powerful testimony in sacrament on the temple, and how he had seen it change and help the lives of the members who had gone. During the Ward Council, he announced he had strongly been impressed during the visit, that the ward should go from just one ward temple trip each year, to two. This was a big announcement, and they started making preparations immediately. It was a large testimony to me about how important the temple is to us, and seeing the sacrifices that these members were making to go there made me appreciate it all the more. I miss getting to go to the temple often at home, and want to invite all those who are able to go as often as they can. Je vous souhaite une super bonne semaine toute le monde, au revoir!

General Conference and Long-Distance Teaching

This week was fantastic, and largely in part to General Conference last weekend. For a missionary a General Conference is always fantastic, and this time especially so I feel. All the talks and messages shared held things for each of us, and I really feel like they helped me here. It's a wonderful opportunity to listen to a living prophet as well, and hear his words for our day. In any case, the weekend was great. So was Monday however, it was my Mission President's last interview conference of his mission, where he goes around the mission and does a Zone Conference with every zone, during which he has a personal interview with each missionary. It was wonderful to get to talk with him in that setting, seeing as he's so busy and not always around normally, so I made the most of it, and learned a lot.

Service with the Members

The conference was all about trusting the Lord, and moving forward with faith, even when maybe we can't see the end result. It was really good, and was a message I think many of us needed to hear, wonderful for his last interview conference. I had a really cool opportunity this week to help missionaries in Turkey help teach a man through Skype. He was from the Congo, a French speaking country, and they needed help translating and helping him understand the finer points of the gospel. It was really cool to see how truly connected we are, him coming from the Congo, us being in France, but the teaching going on in Turkey. The missionaries there are few, there are only 12 in the entire country, so the odds are not high of finding him, but they did, and now we get to help teach him, really neat experience for me. We had another lesson with a young guy who was leaving the next day for Montpellier, but it was really cool, when he had talked with my companion two days earlier he had said that he really liked it, and that he would bring a friend to the rendez-vous. He ended up bringing 2! We had a really fun rendez-vous with them, they were young and open, and they all ended up asking us for the Book of Mormon, which was really cool. Other than that, nothing too out of the ordinary happened this week, today me and my companions went to this huge, really neat wall painting here in Lyon. It's massive, and we took a ton of photos. Hope everybody can take some time to read some from General Conference, have a great week, au revoir!

Office Responsibilities and Kidney Stones

Life here in France has definitely gotten more interesting since I've been called to serve in the mission office. I'm learning a whole lot of new things about computers, printers, legality, and train tickets than I ever thought I was going to on a mission.  The church is implementing a new system for keeping track of all the cars for the mission, and I'm in charge of cars, so all of sudden I have a whole ton of stuff to do trying to register all the cars we already have into the system and all the legal drivers and such, so it's been a fun few days. Hunting down the last invoice records and maintenance forms for the cars, as well as updating all the new forms in the computer and getting them sent out to all the drivers in the mission along with all the normal stuff like train tickets and helping out with conference preparation has kept me very busy this week, so that was good. I'm also learning how to manage my time more efficiently, we're still missionaries and we still have time to go proselyting, so we try to organize our days carefully so we can get the most out of the time we have for contacting and visiting members and less actives.

The Missionaries from Texas (including Sister Roney)

We actually got to go to a whole lot of members' houses this week, and had dinner in many homes, less actives as well, which was really good. One of the less actives we got to see was really really interested in family history. We shared a message about the family and we all shared some stories about our own families and testified of it, and afterwards he took a real interest in family history, the member there was a consultant, so it was a wonderful surprise for us, hopefully he comes to church tomorrow. It's such a great feeling when you can a change in someone's countenance while talking about the gospel, and when the Spirit is there is magnifies our message, and we've seen it touch people's hearts. We also had our district meeting this week here in Lyon, and it was really good. My district leader is one of the coolest elders on the mission, and he's a lot of fun. It was really good meeting as well, we talked and reviewed all over our goal setting, which is always fun, and then talked about how we can be more effective in our mission right now with all the tools we have. We talked a lot about the talk by Quentin L. Cook called Choose Wisely from last conference, emphasizing how important our choices can be, as long as doing the little things day by day that will help us achieve our highest goals, and keep us on the right path to take us to heaven. It was really interesting, and I printed off the talk, I really liked it and invite everyone else to read it as well.  I'm really enjoying being here in Lyon, and liking the office a whole lot.

On Sunday my companion Elder Pedersen confirmed that the back pain he'd been having over the week was kidney stones, and so we went to the hospital to make sure he didn't have a blood infection or anything like that. He was in a lot of pain, so it was kind of rough, though he's doing ok now a week later. We had to make a couple of hospital trips this week, which took some time, but everything is ok now, he's alright, all the stones are gone. Tuesday we had a fun service project, where we went out and helped a member family mow their lawn. Because it was so overgrown and tall, we couldn't do it with normal lawn mowers, so did the entire thing with edger type things, which was interesting, but surprisingly fun. Though I guess most things can be fun with fur other missionaries around. The coolest part of the week though was yesterday (Friday) evening. The night before while planning we decided the biggest goal we wanted to get for the next day was to find a new ami.

Fun with the Office Elders

Because we're in the office, we don't have nearly as much time to find or teach people, so we really wanted to find someone in the two or three hours we would have the next day.  We went searching fairly fair in our sector the next evening to track down a referral one of the other equips in Lyon had given us, and we couldn't find them, even though we got into their apartment building. So we decided to just start going door to door in the building, and the second door we knocked on was this nice guy who let us in. After talking for a little while, we got onto a really good lesson with him, and were able to fix a follow up rendez vous with him for the upcoming week! We were so happy to have our prayers answered, he's a nice guy who's open, and we're excited to start teaching him. For the spiritual thought of the week, I read a poem this morning in personal study that I really liked, and made me think really hard about what I do on a day to day basis. It made me think of the Primary song If the Savior Stood Beside Me, and I really liked it. Here is a poem about it.


If Jesus came to your house
To spend some time with you,
If He came unexpected,
I wonder what you’d do.

Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room
To such an honored guest
And all the food you’d give to Him
Would be the very best.

And you would keep assuring Him
You’re glad to have Him there–
That serving Him in your home
Is joy beyond compare.

But when you saw Him coming,
Would you meet Him at the door
With arms outstretched in welcome
To your heavenly visitor?

Or would you have to change your clothes
Before you let Him in
Or hide some magazines
And put the Bible where they’d been

Would you hide your worldly music
and put some hymn books out?
Could you let Jesus walk right
in, or would you rush about?

And I wonder – if the Saviour
spent a day or two with you,
Would you go right on doing, the
things you always do?

Would you go right on saying, the
things you always say?
Or would life for you continue
as it does from day to day?

Would you take Jesus with you
everywhere you go?
Or would you maybe change your
plans for just a day or so?

Would you be glad to have Him
meet your closest friends?
Or would you hope they stay away,
until His visit ends?

Would you be glad to have Him
stay forever on and on?
Or would you sigh with great
relief when He at last was gone?

It might be interesting to know,
the things that you would do,
If Jesus came in person, to spend
some time with you.