Week 16

Bonjour,

How is everyone doing? I am sure that you are all just sitting on edge to see if I am staying in Marseille or not..... well..... I am! I am staying in Marseille and my companion, Elder Mayer is moving to Bordeaux as a Zone Leader and my new companion is Elder Kiddo. I am actually waiting for him at the Train Station since he is coming in from Bordeaux on the otherside of the mission. So he won't be in until this evening. Elder Baret in our apartment is also leaving, he is going to Albi and Elder Bowen is staying but getting a bleu missionary. He is pretty excited. So I won't be the new guy anymore! Yay! This has been a really good week for the last week of this transfer.

Monday after emails and all that, we went and did family Home evening with a member in the ward. It was really good and I think they enjoyed it because they invited us over to eat with them the very next night. Dinner invitations are always very exciting. They don't happen quite as often as in the states and definitely not like in Arizona where the missionaries get dinner EVERY night with members.
Tuesday was a crazy day. Since I had my new missionary Bring Back Meeting on Wednesday, the Elders from Toulon came into Marseille on Tuesday for District Meeting and then we did splits with them since we know the city and they don't, not that I really know it very well, ha. So I went with Elder Cunningham and we had a few appointments and Elder Merservy went with Elder Mayer. Elder Cunningham and I taught a lesson and then got tons and tons of "snaps" on the street. Snaps are coordinates of people. Name, number, address, etc. Anyway, we got tons of them! More than I have every gotten before. It was awesome. In the evening, we re-exchanged so that Elder Mayer and I could go eat with the family that invited us over for dinner. The food was good and the family is very nice. He is in the Bishopric and she is in Young Womens and they have two little boys. Afterwards, we got back to the apartment and the Elders from Toulon were staying the night so that we could all go to Toulouse early in the morning. It was PACKED with 6 of us in our tiny apartment. That was very crazy, that's for sure.

Wednesday was so awesome. I got to see all of the other bleus! We took a 3 and a half hour train trip to Toulouse and got in and had to get a physical and a couple other things done at a France Government agency so that we could get our right to live in France for the year. So, yay, I am legal in France! In a year, I will have to go and fill out some more paperwork to extend my stay. Afterwards we went to the chapel in Toulouse and had lunch with the other half of the new missionaries. It was so awesome to see everyone again and see how they were liking it and hear their stories. We had a little meeting, and then that half left to go back and we had another meeting that the other group had already had earlier in the morning. They all live closer to Toulouse. Then we hurried up to get to the train. Thankfully, our train was late or else we would have completely missed it. I ended up having to run to the train station with my backpack and a nice big box full of Books of Mormon because the traffic was so bad. I was very tired after that. We got into Marseille fairly late so just went back to the apartment.

On Thursday, we did some service for a member, taught an ami, had someone not show up for their appointment and then met with a part member family. The husband is a member but his wife isn't. She is very nice but doesn't see the need of the church and getting baptized into our church. She even comes to church with her husband pretty much every single week. It was a pretty good lesson but we haven't quite figured out how to give her the desire to find out for herself if the gospel is true. It's a bit tricky but we are working on it.

Friday...hmmm... definitely was the day for people not following through with appointments. Every single one of our appointments fell through. We actually started an appointment with an old Jewish man who believed in Jesus until someone came up to him, grabbed him by the arm and said that he can't talk with us, and took him away. It was very bizarre... So much for free agency.... But we found the Synagogue in the neighborhood and left a Book of Mormon for him there, hopefully he will receive it. After that, We had an appointment in the early evening with a Muslim family who was very nice. They are kind of a little bit odd but nice. They definitely liked to talk a lot. We didn't get a ton of teaching in but we did set up another appointment. After that, we had an appointment with an ami who did have a date for baptism but it didn't work out, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, the appointment didn't work out either, because he had to work. So we went and did a pass back to the lady who I told you about a couple weeks ago when I was with Elder Merservy. She is very Catholic and LOVES to talk. Well she wasn't home when we had an appointment with her the week before and we lost contact. Well it was a bit of a miracle and she was actually home when we stopped by! So we kind of gave a mini lesson, got her phone number and set up another appointment. Yay! I was glad for that.

Saturday, this was definitely the day for appointments that didn't work out. We didn't end up having any appointments work out. We did some contacting and even some port a port. (Door to door contacting, which doesn't work too well in France) Nothing too exciting happened until the evening we got in a big religious debate with a Muslim guy. That was exciting. I even threw down some awesome questions for him that he couldn't answer. I was happy. I also was able to understand a lot too. It was a big moment for me. Ha

Sunday was church and I think I chatted with members all by myself more than I ever have before. It was great. I can definitely see progress from 6 weeks ago. Thank goodness! We also had 4 investigators at church! How awesome! One of them was an ami who we haven't been able to see for weeks because of his work schedule. I was so ecstatic to see him. He is so incredible and so prepared. Afterwards, we had an appointment with a Portuguese Catholic guy that went pretty well and then we went and saw one of the members who we see pretty much every week at least one appointment with. He is a great guy, just has his ups and downs with things. He was definitely sad that Elder Mayer was leaving. After that, we met Timothy, our investigator that we haven't seen in weeks that came to church, and went to eat with a family in the ward. It was so awesome! They had set this nice table setting with China and sooo much food. It was definitely a great day for the end of the transfer!

So today, has basically consisted of hanging out in the train station until my companion gets in. Nothing too exciting but I ate Subway which was very exciting. Haha it felt like home. :)

Well, that has been my week. Pretty packed as I look back on it. It was a good week and a good first 6 weeks. There were ups and down and highs and lows but I can definitely say it has been a good experience and it flew by. I am ready to continue to learn, grow, and help others feel the joy of the gospel. I have vowed to myself that I am going to work harder and be a better missionary this transfer. Thanks again for all of your love and support. I love you all very very much! Merci beaucoup pour toutes choses!

Elder Kirkpatrick