Week 3

I'm on time this week! Here it is:

Well hello family and friends!
I honestly sit down to write out about what I have done this week and update everyone and I have no clue what I actually did.... It feels like one continuous day. I sit down in the evenings to write in my journal and can't even remember what had happened five hours previously.

I will start with last Sunday I guess. I don't remember what happened last saturday. So on Sundays during sacrament meeting, all of the missionaries have to prepare a talk in French on a certain topic and then the Branch Presidency announces from the pulpit who will be speaking, so it is rather nerve wracking. I was really hoping not to be called on because my talk wasn't very good. What do they expect? We just got into the MTC. I'm most definitely not fluent in French. Well thankfully I was not called upon and they called two older missionaries. Of what I understood, it was really good.

Then I had Branch council and then leadership training. It's weird when I go to those meetings, I'm so used to Elder Wahlquist being with me at all times that it feels odd when I go to those and he isn't with me. Then we had priesthood... which I may have dozed through some of... and then lunch and then I had to give a lesson thing in my district and that went pretty well. That evening we had a devotional by Branch President Jackman and his wife and it was really good. He really focused on how important it is to remember how specific our mission calls are to each one of us. After the devotional we watched the Joseph Smith movie and it was amazing. I had forgotten how incredible it was. It was the one made not too long and kind of outlined the life of the prophet and the restoration of the church.

On monday we hit the French language hard and just kept moving. The French is a constant working effort but we are getting further in and it's nice to be able to have some variation as far as tenses. Everything isn't in present tense anymore. We had a TE (teaching evaluation) appointment with Frere Hill on Monday as well and we worked on contacting. He totally showed us how little we know about truly contacting people out on the street. It was really good and definitely something that we really need to work on. It wasn't even in French either. We just focused on doing it in English and we still weren't very good. Oh well, it will come with time and experience. We will be able to get the hang of it. It was just a very good and real wake up call.

Tuesday was a pretty big day for me and for our district. My companion, Elder Wahlquist, really taught me a lot on Tuesday. He is a great example to me of compassion for others. I really look up to him for that. We had a devotional that evening that was really good. A member of the first quorum of the seventy came and spoke and really emphasized that we as missionaries need to focus on the Book of Mormon with investigators and it really hit everyone in the district really hard that we need to get back to work and focus on the task that we have at hand. We sometimes get caught up in talking about back home and the things before entering the MTC but we realized that we need to put those things aside.

After the devotional, we had a district meeting and I have to get it started and then facilitate the conversation. I was really worried no one would say anything but the district really opened up some incredible discussions and kept the thoughts moving. Unfortunately, I had to leave to go to another leadership training so I left them to finish up the discussion and they decided that as a district, we have been very lax on a lot of things so we need to buckle down. So they decided that we as a district need to be only speaking French by this coming Wednesday. It is going to be very very difficult but everyone was super motivated. I wasn't there when they made the decision but I'm really proud of them for wanting to take such an active role in everything. It was nice to see some apathy kind of fade out.

Hmmm wednesday. I don't think anything in particular really specific happened on wednesday. Just a lot more French. We learned passe compose, future proche, passe resent, and imparfait the last couple days and it has been crazy. I drill verbs through my head daily.

Apparently the other night both my companion and I were talking in our sleep and he kept saying oui and I was saying a bunch of random stuff in French and then I said, "I can't believe I got an A minus" and then I just started laughing..... very bizarre. I laughed when one of our roommates told us that. Oh and speaking of our roommates, one of them twisted his ankle while we were playing soccer the other day so he was in quite a bit of pain. He asked if I would help give him a blessing and annoint the oil and I was very grateful that he asked me. I was definitely a little nervous at first but I was very honored that he asked if I would do it. It was truly a blessing.

Yesterday, everyone was kind of all over the place. It's like when everyone is super pumped about a goal and then it just quickly fades, well unfortunately that's what happened yesterday. My companion and I ended up leaving the classroom in the evening and going outside so that we could get some quiet productive studying done. I think the dictrict just needs a little reminder and everything will be fine. I don't know why I always get these callings, I guess I haven't fully learned what I am supposed to out of leadership callings because I am always put into them. Lets hope I learn what I need to quickly!!

Well I hope that everyone is doing well back at home and that everything is going great! I miss all of you and Je vous aime!!!! (I love you)

Elder Kirkpatrick