Week 9

Bonjour!!

I cannot believe that this will be the last time that I am writing an email from the United States for two years! Each day it has been "this is the last Tuesday in America for two year... this is the last Wednesday... etc." It is very very peculiar but I am so very ready to head out. I have quite a bit to mention in this letter so I hope that I can get through everything. This week has been quite busy and of course everyone has been so anxious to get out and go into the field!

So, on Sunday (I completely forgot to mention this in the last email but we sang for our Branch's Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and the district wanted me to do a solo verse as they hummed the parts in the background) we performed our song for Sacrament Meeting and it went well. We sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace" (It was in French of course). I think I did alright, but I'm not sure. It's hard to tell from my perspective. So I hope I did well. That's the major stuff from Sunday. Nothing else overly exciting happened that day. At least from what I can remember.

On Monday, it was a bit crazy. Everyone was having a rather difficult time focusing with all of our classes and everything. Elder Wahlquist and I had an orientation meeting that we had to go to that evening. On our first day at the MTC we had a how to get to know investigators thing where we went into a room and there was an investigator and these missionaries came in and started to get to know them as if they were in a lesson and then after about 10 or 15 minutes the missionaries would leave and we as a huge group would continue. Anyway, last week Elder Wahlquist and I received a note in the mailbox asking if we would be the beginning missionaries who get to know the investigator before the other missionaries take over. I can't say I was overly thrilled to do it but I was very surprised that we were asked to do it. So we had a little mini training meeting for it (our instructor was 30 minutes late so it was definitely a mini orientation). We did learn some new techniques and that was good but it wasn't really anything that we didn't know already. After class that evening we had a "Health and Safety Meeting" during our gym time. It was basically how to stay healthy while out in the field. This old guy who is a Doctor gave the meeting and he was hilarious!! He just started right out about diarrhea and "feces transfer" and we were all dying laughing in the way he said everything. It was one of the most hilarious meetings I have been in. Maybe I have been in the MTC far too long... hmmm....

Tuesdays are always busy days so it went by quickly but nothing overly spectacular happened, from what I can recall. We were all hoping for a member of the 12 apostles to come to our devotional for our last one but unfortunately, we didn't get one. We had a member of the first quorum of the 70. He was pretty good but not incredible.

Wednesday, now this was a very busy day! The morning we just had class but in the afternoon we were able to host for the new missionaries coming in. We weren't supposed to but two member of our district went and persuaded someone to let us. We were all very thrilled, since it would be our last opportunity to do it. We had a little orientation before lunch and then went and hosted. There weren't a ton of missionaries this Wednesday so I was only able to do two. One was from Alaska and he was going to the Marshall Islands. The other was from Washington and going to Ohio. I still pick France! :) After hosting, we had class with Soeur Altamirano and we had our final TRC. Our two investigators were these two older people. The man spoke French pretty well and the women barely spoke French. I don't know how much she understood either. I asked a question and she said "Je ne comprend pas." She didn't understand what I was trying to ask. At first I thought, well maybe I'm not saying it right, but I definitely was saying it right and thankfully the older gentleman answered. So we didn't have the best investigators but I felt like we spoke French really well and still taught the lesson pretty well also. We just had to carry the time we had instead of relying on the investigators to speak more. After that we hurried to dinner so that Elder Wahlquist and I could do the how to get to know an investigator. We arrived and found out that we had two investigators. The first was a man named Stetson and he was from Texas and he was playing Basketball with a friend and his friend said that if he beat him that Stetson would have to let the missionaries come and talk to him. He wasn't overly responsive and ultimately I don't think it was our best job contacting either but we got to know him and brought up the gospel a bit but we didn't really get down deep into who he really is. Our second investigator was an older woman named Brigitta. She was originally from Sweden and had gone to a Mormon church once when she was 17, she saw us on the street and invited us to come over and talk to her. This was an amazing discussion with her! At first she was very closed off and had zero desire to be converted or anything but as we continued, I could completely see a change in her outlook. She didn't have any true meaning in her life, she didn't know what "made her tick" as she put it. We had such an amazing talk and I expressed how much the gospel has helped me. I honestly wish that we could have spent an hour with her talking and discussing. I did a lot of the talking for that one specifically. Elder Wahlquist got a little bit nervous with 70 missionaries watching us but teaching her was absolutely incredible! I was so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that.

Thrusday we had le Jeux Olympiques (The Olympic Games) with Frere Drean and that was fun. We played a bunch of missionary and French games. It was a lot of fun. Elder Wahlquist and I were France and we tied with the same number of medals as Elder Tudor and Elder Noyce (they were Nepal... haha random, I know). So that was fun and then we had Soeur Altamirano and it was our last class time with her. It was really sad. I wish we had been able to have her as our teacher the entire time. She was amazing. So we all get pictures and everything. After class we went back to the residence and everything put all the food in this huge massive pile and we just ate and ate. I am still full. We had so much food. I have pictures of the pile!

So that has been my week. It was been so crazy!! I cannot believe that I leave for France in three days. There is much to do!!! I still have tons of packing!

I love you all and I am so grateful for your continual example and support and lave. Je vous aime!!!

Elder Kirkpatrick