Week 21

Bonjour,

Well, I am now officially into the last week of my second transfer in France! I can honestly not believe how quickly it has gone by. Almost three months in France now and I have been out on my mission for almost five. Can you believe that? I sure cannot! The last week has been good. The normal ups and downs of missionary work but it definitely helps to maintain a positive attitude, particularly on the days when everything seems to fall through and no one wants to be friendly.

On Monday, after I sent out my email we had a lesson with our investigator Wilson who I had mentioned a bit last week and it went really well. Mostly we took the time to answer his questions and untangle some of his confusion. It was a great lesson and I was so excited when he said that he had been able to read in the Book of Mormon. We actually have another rendez-vous with him this evening. I am very excited for it. We teach him at the Train Station (I know it sounds kind of ghetto but train stations in France are pretty nice, the one in Marseille is quite large) so it is a bit noisy and there are a lot of people but it is still a very cool experience.

Tuesday we had a rendez-vous fall through in the afternoon and then we had one in the evening. It was with Francisca who I have talked about a couple other times. She is the little lady who we thought was drunk the first time we met her. Well she is from Cap Vert which is a group of islands off the western coast of Africa and so she speaks Portugese and French so we wanted to find someone who spoke Portugese. We asked around and it was perfect because our Ward Mission Leader happens to be from Cap Vert and speaks Portugese and he works right down by where she lives! So he said he could come with us. We went down there on time and waited for a bit and then called him to see if he would still be able to come. He said yes but that he would be late. So, we decided to start with Francisca and then when our member came then he would join us. Of course Francisca wasn't even home! So Elder Keadle and I did some contacting for about an hour until the Ward Mission Leader came and then we hoped that by that time Francisca would be there and thank goodness, she was there! It was such an incredible lesson. Frère Fidalgo shared his conversion story and testified about how important the gospel has been for him and his family and it was such a great lesson. Francisca and Frère Fidalgo even knew several people in common who were from Cap Vert. It was a great lesson and she even committed to coming to church on Sunday.

On Wednesday, we ended up eating lunch with a member and then our rendez-vous fell through until 7. Our rendez-vous was with a very interesting person named André. The first time that I met him was last transfer and he was completely drunk. At first he told us he was the police, and then he told us he was God, and then continued by reading our palms. It was a bit interesting. He was taught once last transfer but I was on an exchange so I wasn't there. This transfer he was in and out of the hospital for an injury so we had a difficult time scheduling anything. We finally were able to meet with him on Wednesday evening and it was a pretty good lesson. He has major smoking problems and my companion and I left his house definitely smelling like smoke but it was a good lesson about Christ and his sacrifice for us. I am not sure how far it will go with André but you never know when the Lord will soften someone's heart.

Thursday and Friday both started out as being packed days. Between the two days we had 8 rendez-vous scheduled with people. We were so stoked! Well.... in the end we were not able to meet with any of them. We were a bit bummed and even contacting on those two days was not the greatest. They were a couple of rough days. We had been walking for a couple hours just contacting without any success on Friday and then my companion said, "Ok, we are going to do this. You take this side of the road and I will take that side. We are going to walk all the way to the end and we are going to get a contact!" I was like, heck yes, let's do this! Haha Unfortunately my companion wasn't able to get anyone's contact information but I was. I was pretty stoked and then I chatted with another lady for a few minutes who was in town visiting her daughter and so I gave her a card with our number to give to her daughter. That was pretty cool and then right after we met back up Elder Keadler and I ran across someone who was a less active member. He was a member in Northern France but stopped going before moving here and so the church had no idea where he was. He was a very nice guy but I felt bad for him because he was a member and now he is completely Atheist. Thankfully we were able to get his number so hopefully we can keep in contact with him.

Saturday was pretty good. We had a meeting at the church and then two rendez-vous there. One with a member and then one with a less active member. They went well. We were supposed to have an investigator meet us there but we weren't able to get ahold of him, which was a bummer.

Sunday we were so excited because we had three investigators promise us that they would be at church. We had talked to them all on Saturday night and everything was confirmed. We were stoked! One of them was Francisca, who we met at her house and so we went to the church together. Another was Monsieur Ecoffard who was supposed to take the metro and meet us at the metro stop closest to the church but we called him in the morning and he did not receive permission from the nursing home he lives in to leave so he didn't come and then the other investigator was Alexandre who miraculously came to church two weeks ago but he told us on the way to church that he wouldn't be able to come either. We were a bit disappointed but very grateful that Francisca was there. Unfortunately, she had to leave after the first meeting because she had things she needed to take care of. We were a little bummed but grateful she still came and we have another rendez-vous with her this week. After that, it was a normal Sunday (definitely no excitement like last week) and then we went to Ward Council meeting (which took up a good portion of the afternoon). After that we just contacted until the evening when we had a dinner appointment with a member.

It has been a good week and I am sure this week will go by super fast. There is a lot planned and then with the possibility of getting transferred. Who knows. Well I hope that you all are doing well and that everyone is remembering what the true Christmas season is about. I love this time of year just because of the mood that seems to be in the air. I love you all and am very grateful for each and everyone of you. Have a wonderful week!

Elder Kirkpatrick