Week 19

Bonjour!

I truly hope that everyone is doing well and that everything is going well. Everything is still going very well here and the work continues. This has been a good week, a bit interesting with some things but it has still been quite good. The weather really dropped off the last little bit so I have definitely been wearing my jacket and sweaters and gloves and scarves. Haha, I am definitely from Arizona. It wouldn't be so bad with the cold but there is a very specific wind here that is very well known in Marseille called the Minstrel and it just goes through everything. I can be all bundled up but the second that the wind blows through, I might as well be wearing shorts and a t-shirt! It's not terrible, I just pray that we don't have a hard rain with it anytime soon. Yikes! But everything is still going well and I am loving the South of France.

As far as our week goes with lessons and such, it has been another difficult week with fixing appointments with people who will actually keep those appointments. On Tuesday we taught someone that we have had a few rendez-vous with. He is very nice, he says that he is not believing but he is from Algeria and so there is definitely a lot of Muslim background. So that is definitely challenging but he is a good guy and is willing to listen and read so we will see where it goes.

On Wednesday, I was on an exchange with one of the Zone Leaders in Aix-en-Provence and that was a lot of fun. We found a lot of contacts and taught a girl from Japan in English and it was incredible! She has depression problems and a lot of struggles but she was so open and at the end she said, "I don't know what it is but I really like talking to you two." It was great and we fixed another rendez-vous with her for later in the week. I was a bit bummed that I wasn't going to be able to teach her too but it's ok. Afterwards, we had a rendez-vous in English with a girl from Vietnam who has a baptismal date fixed. She was so nice and has such a sweet spirit and love of Christ. It was a great rendez-vous. After that, we had taught English Class and that was a lot of fun. We talked about Thanksgiving and different cultural things and it was really cool. (If you didn't already guess it, there are a lot of Asians in Aix. It's a college town and there are a lot of foreigners, particularly Asian ones. In fact, there are three Chinese speaking Elders in Aix.) After English Class, we went to a little town outside of the main city of Aix (about thirty minutes by car) and we taught a member couple in the ward. They are recent converts and still having struggles to stop smoking. The husband asked for a blessing to help and he asked me to give it! I don't know why people always ask me to do it when they know that I don't speak French that well. Oh well, I guess it gives me practice. It was a really neat experience though and I am grateful I was able to do it. After that lesson, we went and taught a mom who is active and her son who is less active because he is with his dad on Sundays so he can't come to church. All in all, it was a really great day. There were so many small miracles and little differences that we were able make in other people's lives. It was amazing.

Thursday, we re-exchanged and I went back to Marseille in the morning. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving, Elder Keadler and I, the other companionship and the Soeur missionaries in Marseille all got together and bought pizza and had a little mini Thanksgiving feast in honor of the day. Elder Bowen's French companion didn't fully understand but he appreciated the pizza. Haha It is funny with a Frenchman in our apartment. Especially since, when we do speak English, he doesn't understand very much at all. He is a great guy and it definitely helps my French. The rest of the day was fairly good. It was quite a cold day and unfortunately all of our appointments fell through.

Friday was very chilly again and we only ended up having one rendez-vous that actually worked out. We taught a recent convert who we have taught multiple times. He is a great guy and has such a sweet spirit and love of the gospel. He still has some struggles that he is working through but he has been coming to church almost every Sunday and he loves it. I know that he can overcome his trials that he is having right now and he will come out even stronger.

Saturday we had out soccer game with the members which was fun but I was freezing my butt off! Haha but we had a good time. Afterwards we taught a less active member who is very very interesting. I had taught him one time when I was with Elder Mayer and he got some odd kind of attachment to me. That next Sunday he actually came to church and then he wanted my email so that he could email me and then gave me his so I could email him too. I didn't think too much about it until I realized he didn't ask Elder Mayer or any of the other missionaries and then I kind of forgot because we didn't teach him again that transfer. Well a couple weeks ago, he called because he wanted to meet with us and so we had a nice rendez-vous and then again this last Saturday he called again wanting a rendez-vous the same day and he was very adamant about asking if "The Irish Elder" would be there... yes yes, he thinks I am Irish. I never even said that to him and I definitely don't have an Irish accent but he still thinks that I am. I haven't managed to correct him because I think that it is kind of funny. Anyway, so the rendez-vous went well and it went way too long because he just talks and talks and there is no way of stopping him. So we got done with the appointment and then he specifically wanted to talk to me because there was something he needed to tell me. I was a bit weired out but thought, ok that's fine. So he begins to tell me about how after my mission I need to make sure that I follow the good path and that he has these feelings that I might fall away and then he continued to tell me about a wife that I will have and three kids and just a lot of bizarre stuff. To be completely honest, I really wish that I could have understood everything because he talked to me for 20 minutes! It was a little interesting to say the least. When he finished he told me how he gets these feelings and how he needs to tell the people that they are about so that they can know how take his advice. He said that he is psychic but that this just happens sometimes. The whole situation was just very peculiar. He is a nice guy and I use to think that he was completely normal but now... I am not so positive. After him, we had another rendez-vous a little bit later with a little lady from Portugal who, when we taught her was very drunk. She was very very nice and receptive and willing to let us come back and talk some more but she was definitely a bit tipsy. She would randomly giggle about things. Haha it was pretty funny. But she was very nice and we actually have another rendez-vous with her tonight so I hope that it goes well.

Sunday we had someone come to church. We were so excited! He was someone who we contacted on the street a while ago and we had been trying to fix appointments with him but they never worked out, but he showed up at church and he loved it! Every week our Ward Mission Leader teachs a class during Sunday School for our investigators and the whole time our investigator was taking notes because he loved it so much! We set up a rendez-vous with him for Thursday this week and he said he will definitely be a church next week. We are so excited! After that we had some appointments not work out and in the evening we went with the Soeurs to give a blessing to one of thier investigators who had an epileptic attack during one of their appointments a week ago so she wanted a blessing. I did the annointing this time and my companion gave the blessing and it was really really good.

So, yesterday (monday) is normally my preparation day but we had a Zone meeting in Aix and interviews with President Carter so we got today as our Preparation Day. The meeting was really good and then afterwards there is a member in the ward who is American and is actually playing Basketball professionally for a team here so he invited us to have pizza with him. It was so nice. It was Dominos! I can't tell you how much I missed American Pizza! It was delicious.

So that has been my week. As usual, there were busy days and then slow days but it was still a very good week. I can't believe that I am already half way through my second transfer in France! How weird is that?? It has been four months since I left AZ. Weird! It has gone by very fast. I hope that everyone is doing well and that you know how grateful I am for you and how much I love you. Thank you all so much for everything that you do! Au revoir!

Elder Kirkpatrick