Christmas Cookies, Conferences and the Lion King

Live Nativity

It's Christmas this week! This last week was a ton of fun, we got to go to a lot of members homes and go caroling for many people. We went out to this Suisse/Argentinian family in our ward, and had a blast there, they took us to this old medieval village for our PDay, then we went caroling with them to all of their neighbors homes, who loved it. We went to one more members home during the week and had a good time, laughed a lot, and then up until Saturday if we weren't with members we were outside talking with a bunch of people, and gave out a ton of Christmas cards, and had some really cool convos because of Christmas.

Then this weekend was incredible, we spent Saturday running around, printing off a ton of photos we took to give Christmas cards to the members, while the other elders turned our apartment into a little bakery, making a bit more than 400 snicker doodle cookies to give out. Then we went to help set up for the gigantic Christmas Soirée the two wards put on, and to practice the little performance we did with a member from the other ward. The soirée was a success, we had around 200 people there, including our ami George, and our performance went well, a ton of people came up to us after to tell us how much they loved it. Then Sunday we handed out all the tons of cookies and photos to all the members in little bundles, and they loved it a lot. We


spent the rest of the day in two different members’ homes and then went caroling with one. Overall an incredible week. It's incredible to see the love all around during the Christmas season.

Talking to the Family in Texas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that you all got to spend  some good time with our families, and got to eat until you hated yourself, best parts of Christmas! Our week was incredible, we had our mission conference this week for Christmas, they pulled a lot of strings to be able to get all of the missionaries together in Lyon, which was incredible. We had a phenomenal conference all together, multiple musical pieces were performed and we all felt the spirit quite strongly, fun little surprise as well, we got to watch The Lion King!

We went to four different members houses on the 24th to 26th,and ate our minds out as well as acted out a live nativity, and received pounds of chocolate, a sweater, and a Swiss Army Knife from Switzerland, all from the members! The best part of the week though was on the 26th, we went out about an hour from Annemasse with the sister missionaries to a member's house for the entire afternoon. They took us out caroling, even though it was the day after Christmas, for the most of our time out there, throughout their entire apartment building, the one next to them, and the houses nearby. It was incredible, we sang for many people who were really touched by it, and even had some people say goodbye to us with tears in their eyes. It was a special afternoon, and we were all really really happy afterwards. I hope you were all able to remember our Savior this Christmas as well, and had a wonderful time with your loved ones. I love you all, have a great week! I love you all and wish everyone MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Member Missionaries and Curfew

This week was a really good week for us here in Annemasse, despite the fact we didn't get to go outside much. Earlier on, I caught the same sickness that my companion had all of last week, so we went out and into the church or members houses to visit them or teach lessons, but didn't stay outside for very long periods of time, to help me heal.

However, we were able to see an incredible spirit in our ward this last week and this Sunday. With all that happened in Paris a few weeks ago, the mission has been given a curfew, we are no longer allowed to stay outside after dark (around 5:30 pm) unless we are with a member, for our own safety.

The ward found out about this, and has reacted in an unbelievable way. Last week we were only inside our own apartment very little after dark, we were either at members’ houses or teaching with them at the church many of the nights. Yesterday in fast and testimony meeting, a large portion of all the testimonies given were all about missionary work, and in ward council they asked us and made absolutely sure we weren't in our apartment any night this week. I was so overwhelmed by the love that the ward has shown us, we have so many people here who want to help us so much, and we're spoiled to be here. This upcoming week we have so many rendez vous with members it's incredible.

We had a lot of real great days where we spent a lot of time with the members, and were able to see some cool things. One recently returned missionary took us driving around our area, going through the list of members to go visit them, and we were able to see and get to know a guy that hasn't been to church in a very long time, he seemed really happy to see us and we got to know him pretty well, it was a good rendez vous. The rest of the week was relatively normal, and we got to go many members homes, then Saturday was great.

We had a Samedi Sportif in the morning, then service in the afternoon, but on the way back from the church to eat lunch, we ran into a man that had come to an English class of ours a while back, but we had never gotten his number, so we talked to him for a bit, then got his number and invited him to church, and he said he'd come. Many people say that to us, but the next morning, as we were greeting people at the door, he showed up! His name is George, and is really quiet, but curious to know more.

The ward was great, they all introduced themselves and made friends with him, and we were able to fix a rendez vous with him for this Wednesday, and have a member coming too! It was super exciting, we're thrilled to start teaching him! That was the best part of the week, I want to invite everyone at home to help the missionaries this Christmas season. It’s a super special spirit when we can work together. I hope everyone stays safe and has a good week, I love you all, au revoir!

Giving Thanks and Forgiving

I hope everyone is excited for thanksgiving, and are thinking about all the many many things we have to be grateful for. One of the things I'm grateful for is that I'm staying a second here in Annemasse with Elder Bentley! We're both super stoked to get to be here for Christmas, and we're also excited to continue to get to work here in Annemasse, we want to really start building off the success we're finally starting to see. We had the chance to go to another baptism this week for the sisters’ ami, who'd been taking the lessons for about six months, and finally made the choice to get married to his girlfriend, who's a member and had been helping him along the way, and get baptized. It was a really cool thing to get to talk to him and hear about all the changes he's made in his life, and it made me really thankful for the gospel.

 One of the coolest things I remarked on this week was something a member said yesterday in Sunday School. He said that the gospel and the scriptures in particular are like the seasons of the year. They're always the same, never changing, summer, fall, winter and spring, but you'll never have two winters or two summers exactly the same. In the same sense, the gospel and the scriptures never change, but we can get something new out of them every time we read them. It made me even more grateful for the chance to study the scriptures out here on a mission, cool experience.

I hope everybody is gearing up and ready for Christmas, because it's the best time of the year! This week was possibly the longest week of my mission, though not because anything particularly horrible happened to us, but mostly because my companion was sick all week. We had a normal Pday on Monday, but then Tuesday morning Elder Bentley woke up very very sick, and didn't get any better.

Sooo, long story short, we were in the apartment from Tuesday morning to Sunday morning. I spent the majority of my time either cleaning our apartment, taking care of my companion, calling people in the phone I don't know, or just studying my scriptures, made for a monotonous week.

However, church yesterday was a really neat, I wanted to share something. In Sunday School one of the sisters shared a really touching experience with the whole class. She talked about at one point in her life she had lived with her older sister for a while, and that they hadn't gotten along at all. They had had many arguments and she left with a lot of bitter feelings towards he sister. Then, shortly after she had moved out, her older sister died suddenly, without any warning. She started crying at this point and told us how much she wished she could have had the chance to apologize and reconcile with her sister before she passed away. The lesson was on forgiveness, and so she encouraged everybody really strongly to forgive others while we still can, that no matter what they may have done to us, we will feel much better if we forgive.



I wanted to encourage everyone at home, especially in the spirit of Christmas, to try and forgive someone, and to right a wrong, and watch how much better your Christmas season becomes because of it. I love you all, and pray for you, have a great week!

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!