Week 22

Sorry this is a little late, but I'm enjoying a little vacation in Texas with my sister and her family. Since I wanted to be selfish you all had to suffer! Enough waiting:

Bonjour,

Well, to say that this last week was a full week would definitely be quite an understatement! First of all, to my surprise I am still in Marseille. I am very glad to still be here. Although, my companion, Elder Keadle, was transferred. So, this is my third transfer and my third companion. Haha, oh well. My new companion is Elder Boehme. He is from the US too and he is close to the end of his mission. He is super cool and I am very excited for the next six weeks or more that we will be able to work together.

This last week was so jam packed with so many crazy and interesting things. It was busy like none other! So I will start out with after preparation day. After my last email last week, we went to the train station where we met one of our investigators and we had a pretty good lesson with him and then we caught a train to go to Toulon so that we could do an exchange with those Elders. The train takes only about an hour to get to Toulon but by the time we get there and then got to the apartment, it was pretty much time for bed. On Tuesday, I was in Toulon with Elder Meservy who came into the mission the same time as I did. He is a really nice Elder, he just hasn't had very many opportunities to be in Toulon by himself as the "senior companion" in a sense so he was a little lost. Apparently the Sunday before, they had a girl come to church who is from New Zealand, she is less active and she moved to Toulon because her fiance is a rugby player for Toulon, which apparently is quite a good team from what I understand... I have no idea about rugby so I will take there word for it. Anyway so she randomly showed up at church and then she miraculously called Elder Meservy on Tuesday because her baby had been sick and she was asking if we could give him a blessing. This was pretty big because her fiance isn't necessarily anti-mormon, he just doesn't want to be converted or really preached to. So it was really cool that she called to ask if we would do that because he told her that she was able to. So we scheduled that for the afternoon and in the meantime we had a couple of appointments. The other appointments fell through so we decided to pass by a town hall because they do English classes there and someone who took classes there said that the teachers are always looking for people who can speak English to do conversations with the people. So we stopped by and the guy kind of reluctantly said that he would go ask the teachers so he asked one teacher and she said, "Well I guess we can do that instead of what we had planned. That works." Right after she announced it to the class (this is a class of a bunch of senior citizens) another teacher marched in and briskly asked us who we were and where we came from and then she started yelling at us because we couldn't just walk in like that and that we had to go through the proper ways and she continued to just be very rude about it. Elder Meservy was not very happy about the way she talking to us and he started arguing with her about it and she told us that we needed to leave and he just continued to argue. In the end, I had to grab Elder Meservy and take him out of the room because he was not leaving. Needless to say, we had a nice little discussion afterwards because obviously he was not happy that I pulled him out of the room. So we talked everything out and then went back into the administrative place to see how we could set up them coming back and helping like we probably should have done in the first place. After that bit of craziness, we headed over to the New Zealand family to give the baby a blessing and wow he must do quite well on the rugby team because they have quite a nice house and a nice car and motorcycle. So we talked to them for a while and he was very nice and he chatted with us. It was very good. He was completely relaxed and asked us questions. We taught a bit about blessings and the importance and in the end she decided that she would like a blessing. Which I kind of figured was more of the case from the beginning. So, we gave her a blessing and it was very nice and she definitely seemed to not be so worried. I think she is under a lot of stress as she sees what she knows she should be doing and following the path that she should be following and the path that she actually is following and I think that it had been causing her some grief. After the blessing, they drove us to the train station so that we could head back towards Marseille. I had not been feeling very good so once we got back into the apartment there were 6 of us there and I just went to bed a little early while everyone was chatting and such.

The next day, was a Zone meeting in Aix-en-Provence. The first half of the meeting was instruction and all of that good stuff and the second half was a Spectacle de Noël. So we all did some talents and things and it was a lot of fun. We all had a good time. Afterwards, we all went to a big area in Aix and did some Christmas Caroling and contacting. The rest of the evening and the next morning on Thursday, I was on an exchange with Elder Yang (one of the zone leaders) and we taught some really good lessons on Wednesday evening and then Thursday morning we did our studies and headed back to Marseille. On Thursday we had a little meeting with all of the companionships in Marseille and the Zone Leaders. The rest of the day we did major contacting and ended up getting a ton of contacts! We had been trying out some different ways to contact and to cover more ground and more people and apparently that day was a bit of the fruits of our labors I guess.

On Friday, we received our phone calls of where we were going for the next transfer and we were all very surprised that I would be staying and that Elder Keadle was leaving. It was totally unexpected. I was ok with it, it just was not at all what I was expecting. In the afternoon we had a rendez-vous with M. Ecoffard who we have been teaching for two transfers now but he hasn't really been progressing but at that rendez-vous, he promised us that he would be at church that Sunday. After him, we had a rendez-vous with a recent convert who is just absolutely awesome. He is a great guy, super nice and has such a strong testimony. That went really well as always. Besides those, the other rendez-vous that we scheduled kind of fizzled out a bit but it was still a pretty good and productive day.

On Saturday we did some contacting and such until our rendez-vous with a less active member (the one who was telling me about my future a few weeks ago... he was very glad that I was staying here by the way....) and then afterwards we stayed for the ward Christmas Party and the less active member stayed too.

Sunday, was another very interesting day. We had four investigators who we were planning on being at church. One of them we were going to meet at the metro stop before the church and then go with her to the building. She didn't show up and didn't answer her phone so we started to head towards the church when a very drunk bum started heckling us. He was saying plenty of not good things and actually grabbed our plaques and threw them into the street. Needless to say, it wasn't a good situation but everything turned out ok and we were fine and nothing was taken or anything. A member saw it happen and so word spread around the church that something had happened. After that, everything went really well. Two of our investigators showed up at church one of which was M. Ecoffard! This is the first time in the last two transfers that he has actually come to church! It was awesome. He said he really enjoyed it. At the end of church one of the coolest things ever happened. A man just randomly walked into the building and I happened to be in the foyer and he asked how much it would cost him for a Book of Mormon. I told him that it was completely free and then gave him one. He then asked where the reading and praying promise was, so I showed him the passage in Moroni 10 and then he asked me if I could mark it for him. He then asked if he could see the chapel. So I took him in there and asked about the Prophet and had me write down his name so that he could remember. He then continues to say, and you practice baptism by immersion right? I said yes, and then he asked if he was allowed to see the baptismal font!! We took him in there and showed him that and he continued to just ask question after question about temples about prayer about everything! After awhile he said, "I better let you go so I don't take all of your time." I asked him if there was a time maybe this next week that we could see him to answer some more of his questions. And he said, "Really, I don't know why I am here. I was out buying a Nativity for Christmas and I had a voice say to me, 'Go talk to the Mormons.' I have no idea why but I just had to come here. I don't want to set anything up but I want to take this and pray, I have never really prayed but I really feel like I need to and will you pray for me?" Elder Keadler and I were just taken about. It was miraculous! When the guy left, he grabbed every pass along card at the church and then asked how much he could pay for a Sunday School manual of the teachings of Joseph Smith the Prophet and of course we just handed it to him. I have no idea what will happen with him but I know that there is some reason that he just came into the church. I cannot wait to see what will unfold with him. I am super excited though! So after that, everything else was pretty normal. We had a couple rendez-vous and such and they went well but obviously nothing could quite compare with what happened earlier.

So that was basically my week. There were so many very interesting things that happened. It was a busy busy week. I hope that everyone is doing well and I hope that everyone will enjoy the holidays and enjoy each others company and the true importance of this time of year. I love you all very very much. Joyeux Noël!!

Elder Kirkpatrick