Week 2

Things are easier this week than last at Ethan's house. My mom can walk into Ethan's room without tears. I noticed the vacuum marks on the carpet and knew my Mom was a bit back to normal. The house is quiet and my son looks around when Uncle Ethan is mentioned while we are visiting. It's sad to realize we pretty much have to start all over getting acquainted with Ethan when he returns. He still sounds great.

Sorry to you all, I didn't check my mail soon enough and then headed out of town. But lucky for you the out of town was super short so I'm back and here is Ethan's second letter only one day late!

Bonjour!
I cannot believe that I have been here for over a week now! I am officially no longer a "new" missionary since the new group came in on wednesday. This week has been such a blur. It feels as if I never had a life outside of the MTC, it's a very odd feeling. When a teacher has a cell phone, it's like a distant dream that one day long long ago, I too had one of those bizarre ringing and vibrating boxes. :) But seriously, I have been so busy that I haven't even thought about it, not having one hasn't even been an issue for me at all, despite what you all may have thought! There was no withdrawal period.

Ha... I am not even entireyl sure what to say... I am having a hard time remembering what has even happened this week. I should write notes before sitting down to write my email. Well, let's start with this last Sunday. It was fast Sunday and the testimonies were all very good, although I only understood bits and pieces because they were all in French. It's good to hear it non stop all the time because it is helping me pick up on things and helping my listening skills a lot. I am able to understand a lot more with context clues even when I am not entirely sure of every word that they are saying. Then for the rest of Sunday we had a lot of downtime and study time and devotionals oh and I had a couple District Leader meetings.

Monday was just more French and more learning from Preach My Gospel. Our two teachers Frére Drean and Soeur Redd are really good. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing but Soeur Redd is very pretty. It's kind of a joke between the zone that everyone like Soeur Redd. They both have very different teaching styles. We typically have one in the morning for about hour hours and then another one in the afternoon for another four hours.

On tuesday it was a lot of the same and we focused on preparing to teach our first investigator in the TRC which was on Wednesday. The TRC is the teaching Resource Center and we go and teach an investigator, who is a volunteer from the community, and our teachers watch us from a different room from a computer monitor and then give us advice and feedback about how we did. So Tuesday was spent mostly working on that and of course French. There is so much French! We have learned to pray in French and so all of my prayers have been in French now and how to bear our testimonies in French. And we have been working on conjugating and contacting people, door approaches, contacting just out in public. It has been crazy! There is so much to learn.

So Wednesday was an incredible day! First we started with class and were interrupted by the main teacher of all the French teachers and he asked if our class would help out a little workshop that he was doing to train the teachers in how to be more effective teachers. So we went in there and was given a teacher and then an "investigator" came in and told us about himself. Then the teacher basically helped us prepare to teach the investigator and he had all of these great questions that really allowed me to understand how to teach the investigator better. It really helped. After we prepared, then the main teacher ended the activity and asked us questions about it and then asked the teachers questions and my teacher raised his hand and said what a great experience it was and he said, "My missionary is totally ready for the field." It totally took me by surprise but I was very happy to hear that, but believe me, I still have SO much work left to do!

That afternoon, our entire ddistrict went to the TRC to do contacting and then teach the first lesson. The contacting in French was pretty difficult and then our investigator was this Haitian guy and he is so difficult. He basically wouldn't even let us talk about the first lesson and we just went wherever we had to. He asked us about EVERYTHING! From the Sacrament to the Priesthoods to the Holy Ghost to the Restoration to the Book of Mormon to the way the church is organized to baptism. Basically everything that could possibly be covered was. But I came out feeling really good about the experience. We were able to bear our testimonies and get him to make a commitment. The whole experience was hard but really showed me that I can do this.... now all I need is the French!.... and definitely some more practice and learning from Preach My Gospel. But things are definitely coming along.

Thursday was just another day of classes and such and our district got together and we were singing hymns in French in three parts all acappela. It was amazing. We really have an incredible district!

So three of our Elders in the District get to go to San Francisco on Wednesday to pick up their Visas from the French Consulate. To be able to get a Visa for France you have to physically go to the consulate now. The French purposefully made it a pain in the rear to go get one but that just means that we get to have a fun day trip to San Fran! So the rest of us should be getting notice soon as well. If we don't get this next week, we will probably go the week after, it should be fun and a nice change.

So anyway my time is almost up and my laundry is all done. We get to go to the temple this afternoon after lunch, so that will be nice. Well, I hope that you are all doing well and I can't wait to hear from you all!!! Je vous aime! (I love you)

Elder Kirkpatrick