Week 13

Bonjour!

Well, it has been another busy week in Southern France full of many different things. I thought it would be fun to bullet point a couple of things that I have learned in the past week.


1.Don't ever think that a city is already dirty, because then the garbage workers will go on strike and trash will start piling the roads and the sidewalks (it has been a week and the strike is still going on.....)

2.There is nothing better than a warm fresh baguette on a cold windy day.

3.Don't ever rely too much on appointments.... they often fall through

4.I am a wimp when it comes to cold.... (the other night, we were out on the street and it was freezing and the wind was blowing and everybody we talked to was like, "Are you ok? You look like you are freezing".... consequently, I have pulled out my gloves, sweater, and scarves)

As normal, it has been a week full of many things. Yes, the garbage workers are on strike and there is trash everywhere! We take our trash down to the street from the apartment and just throw it in the big pile that is erupting everywhere. I don't know how much longer it will last but when they are off strike again, they will have a very nasty mess to clean up afterwards. And yes, that baguette when I was freezing was delicious.... and they are super cheap too, less than a euro! And yes.... I have been freezing the last couple days... the temperature dropped off and currently I am wearing a long sleeve shirt, a sweater and my suit jacket and this morning I had my scarf and gloves on too... it will be my first legitimately cold winter....

Alright so I shall begin with the events of the week. Mardi (Tuesday) was our preparation day for last week so we did all the P day stuff but in the evening we went to a member family's house for dinner. They are an older couple but they have these two young boys (people in France don't start to have kids until they are old). These two boys were freaking wild! Within the first twenty mintues one of them knocked over a glass onto the floor and it shattered everywhere! They kept trying to pour their own grape and apple juice and their parents were chasing them trying to get the cartons back. We finally sat down to eat and after we had dinner, the little one got up and kept turning the lights on and off, on and off, over and over again. Well, either way, they were a very nice family. The children were just a bit on the crazy side.

On mercredi (Wednesday), we started out by doing service at the "in-construction" home of a recent convert. He has had the house for 8 years and it has been in the process of being built that whole time...needless to say it, the grounds have gotten a bit out of control. So, Elder Mayer and I spent a couple hours out there clearing his drive out and that was quite a chore. We barely barely made a dent in it but it still looked better than it had before. After that, all of our rendez-vous fell through except we had dinner with a member family again. It was good and they are very nice. We ate with the parents, their daughter and her husband and their little girl who are all in the ward. As Elder Mayer loves to do, we did a "simulation" where I talked to the daughter and had to explain to me about the law of chastity... oh joy and I was her friend from work. I guess I don't mind the simulation things so much. It keeps me involved when other times they are all going off about who-knows-what in French and I just sit there trying to pick out words.

Jeudi (Thursday) I had an exchange with Elder Bowen and his companion Elder Baret went with my companion. They are the other companionship in our apartment so I didn't have to travel anywhere for this one. Basically, every single one of our appointments fell through.... but there were some definite highlights. Firstly, I had my first kabob! Woot! A kabob is this French thing that they love where they take lamb meat and put it in a baguette or a wrap and put in sauce and tomatoes and lettuce and onions and french fries. Basically it is a big greasy tasty mess. Ha! It was good. The other highlight was a crazy man that called Elder Bown and wanted to meet us. I am not sure how he got our number but he called us. So we went to meet him and he is this black guy and first he started telling us about how he can see the light of Christ in us and the authority that we have and all this stuff. So I was thinking, "wow, this guy could have some real potential." But then it just got weird. He would not stop talking and he was talking about Jesus and how much he loves him and he started crying and then he was jumping screaming about how he loves Jesus. People would walk by and he would yell at them that he loved them and that Jesus loved them and he started hugging some Muslim guy telling him about the love of Jesus. This went on for about 45 minutes before we could finally leave. It was so weird. He would grab us and tell us he loved us and that Jesus loved us and the work we are doing. It was odd. So that was thursday.

Vendredi (Friday) I had another exchange. Woot! This time it was with the Zone Leaders. So I went with the one Zone Leader to Aix-en-Provence and the other Zone Leader stayed in Marseille. I was totally fine with going to Aix. It is beautiful there!!... And we had a car! But it was such a great day. I went out "Brebis Boarding" for the first time. So we have this sign and stick it out on the sidewelk somewhere and we have a box of copies of The Book of Mormon and we would just give out Book of Mormons to anyone that wanted one. It was really cool and I talked to a lot of people, plenty who weren't interested but had a couple small converstaions with people and then if people would get into the conversation Elder Wilson would come over and help me out... I don't understand a lot. (A brebis is a sheep in French so like the scriptures talk about finding Christ's lost sheep, that's why we call it brebis boarding... that and because the board has a scripture on it about brebis.) After that we went and ate with the Bishop of the ward in Aix and he lives about 30 minutes away from Aix. He had a nice home in this little town, it was really cool. He had three of the most well behaved little children I have ever seen, they were so amazing the entire time and it was even late too. So I had an awesome day in Aix!

Samedi (Saturday) I met back up with my companion around 12:30 and once again, all of our appointments fell through. But we taught some less active members who were really cool.

Dimanche (Sunday) we had church and afterwards a young boy in the ward was baptized. We had one of our investigators come to church and stay for the baptism afterwards. There was also some random guy that came who no one knew who he was. He was at the bus stop where we got off but we didn't even talk to him but he randomly showed up at church. He wasn't wearing any shoes and he had this bag with him and a carton of pineapple juice that he was drinking. His name was Coco and he legitamitly thought he was Jesus. No joke! He even said it. My companion talked to him and apparently he was in a car accident a few years ago and his wife died and he has been a little crazy ever since. That was sad when I heard all that... After church... all of our appointments fell through... go figure, right? Ha! So we basically contacted around. Some crazy lady on the street called me a jeune fil! That means a young girl.... crazy women!!

Aujourd'hi (today) we were going to go to Château d'If like from Count of Monte Cristo but it is closed for refurbishment at least until the middle of November! Darn! But us four from our apartment and the Sœurs went to this Island right by the island with Château d'If on it and it was so cool. I have some pictures that I will send later because the card reading isn't working today but we walked all around and went up to this little castle thing and it was amazing. It was basically as you would picture any island in Greece. It was incredible.... and incredibly windy!

So anyway, that's how my week has been, I hope that you all are doing well. I love you all very much and I am so grateful for your constant support. Au revoir!

Elder Ethan Kirkpatrick