Week 15

Hello everyone,

I hope that everything is going well back in your perspective places of residence. Most likely Arizona, but there may be the off chance that my blog has now made it to world wide acclaim. Unlikely I know, I can imagine right? Well, hmmm, every week is a bit of a struggle trying to figure out what it is that I want to actually tell that will be interesting. Interesting things happen here but not also interesting for you. Oh, one very good thing is that the trash strike is now officially over!! Yay! They have started taking care of the very large and very stinky piles of trash, thank heavens! One of the members said that a garbage worker was being interviewed right before the strike ended and he said, "Well, I have to get back to work soon, because I have no money to feed my family." Hmmm, I think that is a good reason to end a strike if you ask me. Anyway, I am just glad it is finally over. It was smelly. Not only that but the last few days has been very rainy..... non stop in fact, so the trash is just being dragged down the side walks by the rain and getting nasty and mushy. Lovely, I know. Sounds like "Romantic France" right? Haha! Alright, let me ponder and think of the highlights of the week....

Well, unfortunately, it has been another week of a lot of no show appointments and rendez-vous that haven't been working out. Our ami's (investigators) with baptismal dates kind of fell off the tracks a bit. One didn't show up for the last 5 rendez-vous and the other one works all the time and rarely has time or is super tired, so we haven't really seen him either. And the third one, was progressing along really really well, but something happened, I have no idea what, and he cancelled a rendez-vous and doesn't have time until later this week. Kind of a bummer, that's for sure. But, you never know what could happen this next week. We might see three grand miracles.... you never know.

On Wednesday, I had another exchange with the other companionship in Marseille. So Elder Baret and I had the appointments of Elder Mayer and I and Elder Mayer went with Elder Bowen. It was a good day. I had a Kabob for lunch.. mmmm and a Foret Noir (this incredible pastry that was basically little layers of chocolate cake with tons of cream in between each layer.... delicious! Ha! I love how the hightlights of my week include the food that I was able to try. I asked Elder Baret if he knew all the names of the pasteries and he said, "Duh, I'm French!" Haha! He is hilarious and from Grenoble, which is only about two hours from Marseille. We only ended up having one Rendez-vous that day because everyone cancelled on us or didn't show up but we had a good lesson. It was a bit long but it went well. It was with one of our continuous investigators. He has been an investigators for like 8 years or something crazy like that. We are working towards baptism but we still have a ways to go. He is a great guy though. His wife is very very Catholic and is the major reason that he won't get baptized, she doesn't approve at all.

On Thursday, we had some more appointments not work out. And we went and taught a Témoigne Jéhovah (Jehovah's Witness) for awhile. The TJ's (as we call them) are everywhere here! Not only that but everyone mistakes us for the TJs also. I couldn't really keep up with my companions lesson/debate with him so I talked to his TJ companion who was this old lady who actually translated the Bible from Ancient Greek into French for the TJs. I thought that was pretty interesting. So her and I just kind of chit chatted. Ha! She knows like 6 different languages. It's crazy! I just kept thinking, "She knows six languages and I am struggling learning a second, how is that fair??" Eh, c'est la vie! After that we went wih a member, who we recently reactivated.... (heck yes!!), to go and teach with us but the investigator wasn't home. So we went and stopped by an older less active lady in the ward. She is less active because she can't really get around very well so she can't physically make it to church. But she is the sweetest little old lady! She has all these pictures around in her apartment with different missionaries who would come and visit. It was so cool. She told us that she was still praying and reading the scriptures and she pulled this necklace that was tucked into her blouse and it was a rosery with a cross on it. Our member who was with us (who also used to be catholic) was like, you aren't Catholic anymore, why do you have that. And she said, "oh I know, but it helps me remember to pray." Haha it was funny. She was so sweet. When we went to leave, I went over to shake her hand to go and she was like, "no, no we are all Frères and Soeurs, we bisous." I hesitated because technically we aren't supposed to do that with Soeurs but she is like 84 years old, I couldn't tell her that we aren't supposed to do that. So I got some bisous from an old lady this week. Haha Oh bisous are those little French side cheek kisses (I'm not sure if I explained that already..... it is funny how stereotypically French that is but how everyone does it! I have seen teenage boys do it to each other... It's just cultural. So watch out everyone, in two years I will come home and want to bisous everyone.... yeah, probably not. Ha!)

On Friday we had a special meeting for the Zone in Aix-en-Provence for everyone in our zone and President and Soeur Carter. It was very good, as those meetings always are. I enjoy them partially because it is a day out of the oridnary and because we get to hear some awesome advice. It was ALL in French and I actually understood the whole thing. Yay! It's getting better, I know that it is. It's still very difficult but I can see little tiny specs of progress. After we got back to Marseille and had a Rendez-vous with a less active member but we got lost and ended up wandering around forever trying to find him. By the time he found us in his car, he had to drive us home and we gave a short lesson in the car ride.

Saturday... and thus commenced the rain.... We didn't really have much until we went to a rendez-vous with a Catholic Priest.... haha I know.... That was funny. He actually has a very interesting story. He was Muslim for most of his life until he converted to Catholicism and became a Priest. He works with a lot of different religions, so he wanted to know more about ours. So we taught him and he was interested and said he would read and we have another rendez-vous with him next week. Hopefully he actually read and prayed about the Book of Mormon, if he is already that religious, it will be interesting to see how the Book of Mormon effects him. Oh, on top of all that, we actually taught him in a building that the Catholic church owns and uses for various things. Ha, I thought that was somewhat ironic. After that, we basically wandered around in the rain without an umbrella for three hours... It was a bit needless, but that's another story entirely. Anyway, I was absolutely soaked from head to toe and freezing. I can't say that was super fun.
On Sunday it was Daylight Savings time so we got to sleep in an extra hour in the morning.. that was nice. Now, I think I am 10 hours different from Arizona... That's weird! Church was usual except that there were tons of investigators that came! Which was incredible! One of ours and then the Sister Missionaries had 6 come. Wow! They showed us up! But that's still amazing. They have a bunch that are very close to baptism. We are very thrilled... and slightly envious. Haha :) After church, we hurried and gave a guy a Polish Book of Mormon who we met last week before he left to move to Lille. That was really cool. He gave us hugs because he was so happy. He doesn't really speak French but he kind of speaks German so my companion was speaking to him in German so I am not entirely sure what happened. And when he would respond it would be in broken French-English... Although he says he doesn't know English. After that our appointments didn't work out but on the way back to the apartment, we met a semi-homeless older man on a bench and taught him the first lesson and it was amazing. He was super nice and humble. I am not sure how far it will go but we have another appointment on the same bench this week. Hopefully he will be there.

Today, has been good. Still rainy as it was yesterday too and as it is supposed to be until Wednesday. Yikes! We didn't really do anything too exciting today. Just went grocery shopping and such. This week should be pretty good because I get to go to Toulouse on Wednesday to have a meeting with all the new missionaries all day. I am so excited! It will be awesome to see everyone again and find out how they like their cities. I am stoked. And this is our last week of this transfer (I can't believe it is already over!!) and so on Friday we find out about Transfers and then transfers will happen next Monday. How crazy! So I will let you all know about the changes next P-day.

As always, thank you so much for your love and support continually. I love you all and am so grateful for you. I hope that my stories are at least somewhat interesting. Until next week! Bisous-bisous!! (Hahaha just kidding!) Au revoir!

Elder Kirkpatrick