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.

Surprise New Assignment and Not Sleeping

This transfer call was a little more involved for me than all the others. Just for recap of the week, it was a really good week, we taught a few of our amis once or twice, in addition to seeing quite a few of our less actives, and had a great few days, after our P-day where we went and did a service project for a members less active father, who then took us out to this very nice restaurant for lunch called La Calade, where we had some of the best pizza I've ever eaten, he recommended it highly, and it didn't disappoint. Then Wednesday night we took a train out to a small ville called Gap, where we had district meeting the next day. District meeting was great, we learned some good things, and then we all had a good lunch together.

P-Day

Then the next day, Friday, we got our transfer calls in the morning, and everything went nuts from then on. President Roney called me at about 8:30, and then proceeded to tell me that I was going to be the new office elder, which means I will be doing a lot of administrative work, taking care of all the train tickets, legality, cars, transfer information, all the tech stuff at the conferences, and basically doing a ton of behind the scenes stuff for the mission, in addition to still contacting and teaching in all of the spare moments we'll have from the office work. It's a lot of work, especially during the first week, and conference weeks, but after that they told me it'll be less so, and we'll get to do more of the actual missionary work, so it'll be ok. In any case, President told me I would be coming up the next day, Saturday, because for the transfer day and the first week, there is so much stuff to do, he wanted me to get a little bit more time to unpack and prepare before the week. I'm excited, but I wasn't able to say goodbye at church to all the members in Aix-en-Provence, which made me sad, but I was able to go to two last rendez-vous' with members before I left. Now my Pday is on Saturday, because office work takes most of the real week, the weekend is a little more free. All is well, but in my next week I did not get much sleep, but it's all good!

Llama ties

Life here in Lyon is very different now, life in the office is quite a lot of fun, while at the same time quite exhausting, especially during transfer week, with all the new missionaries coming in and the old ones leaving, but overall I'm beginning to love the office, its quite nice to be around everything going on, and knowing what's going to happen all the time. This week was nuts.

Spontaneously traded ties with a man on the bus
- but it smelled like beer and cigarettes.

Monday we took care of all the incoming missionaries to Lyon, and got all the missionaries going home out to the mission home in our car along with all their luggage. We then went and grabbed some dinner and planned for the week, before going back and grabbing the all again and taking them to where they were going to sleep, and still porting all their luggage, getting home at about 12 AM that night. Then the next morning we woke up at 3 AM to take all the luggage to the airport, where we spent most of the day, taking care of all the outgoing missionaries, and welcoming in the new missionaries with the APs, and then getting all of their luggage from place to place. Our car is rather large… or at least one of them is, we have two, one for all that, and one for normal days. Then Wednesday was spent getting all the newbies from place to place and helping them see their new trainers, which was a lot of fun. The rest of the week was spent helping out with the come back conference for the bleus (newbies)  who just finished their first transfer, and just taking care of all the needs of the mission, broken ovens, car wrecks, and dozens of train tickets.

Though today was really cool, we got to go to a baptism of a man named Elu, which in French literally means, "elect", and it was truly wonderful. When he came out of the water he just stood there for a moment, and started crying, he was so overcome with emotion. I think most of us in the audience were fairly close to shedding tears ourselves, he was radiating light and happiness. All is well here in Lyon, I truly love it here, and am still getting to go out and talk to people as a real missionary, which is the best. I hope everyone has a good week, au revoir!

Zone Baptism

Here in France this week went by quickly, and wasn't all that exciting until the very end of the week. In the beginning, we just worked pretty hard contacting and teaching, we got to see quite a few less actives this week, which was good, plus our ami with a baptismal date twice, which is great, he lives in a smaller ville outside of Aix-en-Provence itself, so we don't always get to see him as much. The best part of the week, however, was that the Zone Leaders in our ville had a baptism!!

This wonderful couple that they had been teaching for only a month was very excited about the lessons, especially the wife. She expressed the desire strongly that she wished to be baptized, and so the ZLs fixed a date with her, actually for next weekend. However, last Monday, she told them that she actually remembered she would be out of town that Sunday, so they wouldn't have been able to do the confirmation. They talked about pushing it back, when she asked them, "Well, why can't we just do it this week?" They were hesitant to rush it, but she insisted strongly for this week. They said ok, if we can get all the lessons taught to you! The husband said he would take some more time, that he wasn't quite ready.

They managed to get them all taught, all the interviews happened, and all the paperwork filled out, in time for her to be baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! it was a beautiful baptism, and very exciting for us all, she's was so happy and joyful, especially on the Sunday after the confirmation. It also touched her husband so strongly he told Elder Nye, one of the Zone Leaders, that he wanted himself to be baptized in three weeks! All went super well, and they are so happy, her name is Sister Blondelle, even when they began teaching her for some weird reason they called them brother and sister Blondelle, and so now she's truly part of the family. It was incredible, and so happy for all of us. That basically sums up this week, so I hope everyone can have a great week of their own, and feel our Saviour's love! Au revoir!

Spiritual Fun and Beach Visit

This week was one the most fun on my entire mission thus far, though one of the most exhausting as well. I didn't sleep on my own bed from Thursday night until last night, so its wonderful to be back in my own secteur! The week started off with some really good lessons with our ami's, we knew we wouldn't have a whole lot of time, so we fixed many many in the first few days, and it was awesome. One Ami in particular, named Frederic, said he really wants to be baptized, he's just hesitant to fix a date for his baptism, because he's not sure he's ready or when he'll have time to do it, but the lesson we taught was truly a good lesson, and he's really loving our church, it's only a matter of time. Then the weekend happened. I left the apartment to go on exchange with my zone leader with clothes for the whole weekend, because we had a Zone Conference in Nice on Friday, and then a stake conference there on Sunday, so we stayed in St. Raphael for the whole weekend, and we had a blast. Friday at the conference was fantastic, we got to see the new movie Meet the Mormons, and talked a lot about the new mission push on the family aspect of missionary work.

Then on Saturday, we had a 16 missionaries staying in St. Raphael, my whole Zone, because it was a multi-zone conference, and so we had to find something to do. So we all went to beach in the morning from 6:30-7 for morning exercises, because it was so close, so I got to the beach for the first time in my life, and then this awesome member who lives there put on a huge Samedi Sportif, where all the missionaries went and played basketball all morning with the member and a bunch of his friends, and then had a huge soccer game in the afternoon, it was fantastic! Then we all went to the adults’ session of the stake conference, because our President said we could, and it was transmitted to St. Raphael.

What was really cool, was that one of the members friends at the Samedi Sportif who didn’t know the missionaries before asked the member if he could go to the church thing that night with him. He was so impressed with all the missionaries there, what we were doing and sacrificing, for two years, that he really wanted to learn more. The missionaries for the St. Raphael secteur were thrilled of course, and now have all his info and will hopefully start teaching him soon. Then after the adults session, the same member (this guy is great) took us all out to this Chinese buffet, and made a deal with the owner to where we all only had to pay 12 euros, four less than normal. Such an awesome day. Then Sunday at Stake Conference was great, the talks were fantastic. The Stake President himself gave a very powerful talk about the law of chastity, reminding us all how sacred and important the bond between husband and wife is, and how this relationship is the key to our very existence. Overall a fantastic weekend, with so many missionaries in one ville we just had a blast. When we got back home yesterday we were exhausted and hungry, all weekend we had to wake up earlier than normal so we could all shower, so we slept well last night. Hope everyone has a good week, and stays safe and strong, love all of you, au revoir!

Testifying of the Plan of Salvation

Hello everybody! I don't know how many of you have heard, but my grandfather died this week, and it has been kind of hard for my family. My parents were allowed to call me on Wednesday when I got the news, after my mission president called me that morning. It was hard to hear that he passed, especially out here on the mission, but thank you to everyone and anyone that will ever read this who helped my family right now, it is much appreciated here in France.  I got the call from President Wednesday morning, when I was in the middle of a lesson. I took it anyway, you don't just ignore a call from President, and he told me the news, and said I could email my family, and that they could actually call me if they want.

I am incredibly sad, I'm going to miss Grandpa a lot, but it gave me a chance to testify right then in that moment. We were teaching the Restoration, and when we got to praying about the Book of Mormon, I was able to bear my testimony and talk about Grandpa. He was a convert to our church, and so I was able to testify about how if he hadn't received his own personal testimony, and joined the church, its possible I wouldn't have been on a mission in the first place. And for sure, my life would be quite different. Our investigators were really touched. It’s this couple we're teaching, and the man especially is very interested, and wants very much to know this for himself, he really appreciated the lesson, and we all felt the spirit. Grandpa affected my life in ways I'll never forget, I loved him a lot, and I know he loved me too.

The rest of the week was great, we taught many lessons, and actually contacted a college student on the street who we invited to church, and he came! His name is Jeffrey, and he is very interested in how our church works and how it started, so we fixed a rendez-vous to start teaching him this week, very excited about that! during the week we did some service too, helping out a less active member in a small ville outside of Aix-en-Provence, and also helping set up for the Valentines activity the ward had this week. We many many less actives and amis come to the activity, some of the members invited many friends, and so we found some new amis as well who are interested to learn a little more. It was a great night, we had a great turnout, and the ward loved it. The rest of the week was normal, so nothing special there, just a great church meeting, we have stake conference next week in Nice, so I'm really excited about that. Hope everyone is well, have a great week!

Teaching in Aix-En-Provence

This week was a great week here in France, we saw a miracle here in Aix-en-Provence, and have a new ami because of it. At the beginning I was able to do an exchange with my district leader in one of the smallest villes on the mission, which reminded me very much of Narbonne, plus he and I get along quite well, so it was one of my funner exchanges. Then when I came back, I found out that it turns out while I was on exchange, my companion taught an English class on Tuesday, with the other elder, and after everything was finished at the church and they were talking to one of our amis after the class, this random man walked into the church, without any invitation. It was lucky the missionaries were there, normally we're not and its locked, but they happened to be there, and the man asked if anyone was there who could help him with his genealogy, and give him a Book of Mormon. Of course, my companion and the other elder said yes, and quickly sat him down and had a small lesson with him, asking him where he was from and such.

Ward Mission Leader

Turns out he's a man who lives semi far from our ville, but really wanted to learn more, so just decided to come and ask! We've taught him once since then, and he has a sincere desire to learn more, and loves the Book of Mormon, so this is looking great! We don't know a whole ton yet about his story, but we'll be able to see, he wants to continue meeting with us, so life is pretty good. We also had a great zone training this week, the mission right now is making a very big push to have us talk about the family in every kind of teaching or contacting situation we have, we really want to focus on strengthening to family, and helping more and more people remember and discover the blessings that the gospel can give to families, so I want to invite everyone to kind of take a moment this week to think on how much we love our families, and how much they've influenced us throughout our lives. Valentine’s day came and went, nothing big happened there, other than we discovered couples are even less likely (it’s pretty unlikely in the first place) to talk to you on Valentine's Day, who knew?

The middle of February is the coldest month here in France, so I hope everyone is staying warm wherever you may be. This week was a very cool week, one of the better experiences here, I love my new ville a whole lot, we have much more going on here than we did in Narbonne. Narbonne was a very small ville, so we walked every single place we ever went. Here, we still do a fair amount of walking, but not nearly as much, there's a very nice bus system here, and we have bus passes for it all, very nice. We taught one of our amis this week who has a baptismal date, and is progressing very well towards that, he says he knows the church is true, and truly wants to join it. He was taught about year in the past too, so he knows to a point most of lessons already, we're just re-teaching many things so he is fully ready, and he still has to find a new place to live. However, one of the biggest things for him was coffee, he was addicted for a long time, but this week, in my very first rendez-vous with him, he told he had quit for good, he no longer drinks coffee at all anymore, and so we're super stoked right now, that was a large challenge for him.

Missionary Apartment

We also got to do a lot of service for some members this week, which helped me get to know them better, and I really like all the members here, they all seem very nice and welcoming to a newcomer, and its a lot of fun, church was fantastic, and I liked all the classes. We also had a pretty cool experience this week, when we were in companionship study getting ready to go out and do service for a less-active member, we weren't really sure what kind of small message to share with here afterwards, but we felt like we really should share something. I then had a random reference pop into my head, a scripture I didn’t know, James 1:4. At first I thought I was only thinking about the Joseph Smith experience, with James 1:5, but then I looked it up, and James 1:2-4 says:
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.



This scripture was perfect for we wanted her to know, because she has been going through kind of a hard time right now. It talks about how we must have patience through all things, that eventually it will be ok in the end, everything will work out in God's own timing, if we only have patience. It was a really cool experience, reminding me that Heavenly Father wants us to know how to help His children.