Week 30

Ethan resent last week's letter and I posted it in full under this one if you would like to finish it:

Bonjour!

I hope that everyone is doing very well and everything is working out very well. We have been very busy this last week and have seen a lot of really great things happen. And of course everything was centered around making sure that our baptisms on Saturday would still happen and that our investigators were ready. You will see the whole story unfold throughout the week.

On Monday, it was a normal preparation day and we met Daniel at the church to follow up and make sure that he was still prepared to get baptized for that Saturday. Daniel had been taught by the missionaries a few years ago and so we already knew that he had certain difficulties from the last time that he we needed to work out. Thankfully, some of those things had gone away over the two years but there were still some existing concerns. We decided that we needed to go through the baptismal questions thoroughly to make sure where any holes were and what things we needed to try to fix. In going through those, we learned that he had some challenges with things many many years ago long before he even knew anything about the church. With his baptism interview already planned for the thursday and with us trying to make sure that he was keeping the word of wisdom we had to call the Zone Leaders about another difficulty. There was a bunch of confusion back and forth and they weren't fully sure and so our district leader (who normally does the interviews) called President Carter to see exactly what we needed to do. He said that at the interview President Carter would have to talk to Daniel over the phone just to make sure everything was cleared up and he understood. So obviously, that worried us a little bit but there wasn't really anything we could do for tackling old things at this point and so we continued to focus on making sure he was keeping the Word of Wisdom. So we set up another rendez-vous with him the next day just to be sure that all was well.

On Tuesday, we had a district meeting in the morning and then our two rendez-vous right after got cancelled and so we ended up doing some contacting and met a pretty cool guy on the street. After, we headed to the church to have a rendez-vous with Daniel, he was still keeping the Word of Wisdom and we taught him about tithing, which he already knew about but just a nice little refresher. Right after him we taught Brigitte, who of course was still doing awesome. We had honestly taught her everything that we needed to teach her the week before and so we just went over some stuff. She was so ready for baptism. It was awesome. After her, we tried to pass Paul, who is the guy from Ghana. He was not there but his friend that we met weeks ago, Joseph, another refugee from African who is only 17 is actually living with Paul now and so we taught him. He doesn't speak English, speaks French a bit, but he undertstands well. It is a little difficult to communicate but we engaged him to be baptized in the beginning of March, which was cool.

On Wednesday, we had a rendez-vous with the guy that we had met on the street the day before. He is a very interesting guy. His name is Travs and he just goes on random tangents about pretty much nothing. He currently isn't working and really doesn't do much and at the end of the rendez-vous we asked if we could see him the next day and he told us that he needed to check his schedule, he then proceeds to pull out a brochure from his pocket that had the concert schedule for a bunch of techno groups in Marseille, after checking that there wasn't one the next day, he said he was free. It would be one thing if this was like a 21 year old guy but no, this guy is easily 45 if not older. Haha it was really funny. After him, we went and met Daniel just to make sure that the Word of Wisdom was still going well and that he was still on track for the interview on Thursday. We had a quick little lesson with him and just continued to give him our support and our faith in him. We left and headed to go drop off some cookies that we had made to an investigator and she wasn't home but we met an incredible lady on the street. She was very very Christian and she ended up talking with us for at least 45 minutes. Elder Boehme was inspired and brought up baptism and it completely touched her because she said she has not been baptized yet but that she knows she really needs to. It was a great discussion and she took the Book of Mormon and said that she would read the chapter that we gave her.

On Thursday, it was the day of the baptismal interviews but they weren't going to happen until later that afternoon and evening. Before that, we had a rendez-vous with a lady named Caroline, who we met last week. She is very very faithful but she has had a lot of struggles and she has some difficulties within her family and everytime we would talk about something it always seemed to go back to her family. She is an incredible lady and honestly, we could just see how amazing the gospel would be in her life and how much it could help her in her life. We gave her the Book of Mormon and a chapter to read, scheduled another rendez-vous and then hurried to the church because we needed to be there when the first interview happened. We got there right before Daniel got there and his interview lasted quite a long time and then after talking with President for awhile. We were a bit worried that we were going to have to push his baptism date back a little bit but after the interview President said that he was good for that Saturday as long as we went over a principle very thoroughly before. So we tried to schedule to meet with him on Friday but he wasn't available so we said that we would teach him Saturday a bit before the baptism. After that, Brigitte had her interview and she just breezed right through it, it was perfect. After the interviews we were starting to feel pretty good about Saturday, but it was still another day away, and who knows what could happen in that time. We then headed to Paul's house and we taught Joseph about the restoration and then engaged him to come to church on Sunday.

On Friday we passed by the Tahitian lady that we met (Odile) and gave her some cookies and taught her a bit. We headed to teach Serge, the recent convert, but he was sick. We ended up hurrying to drop the information for the programs for the baptism to a member really fast before we met Brigitte so that we could fill out all of the paperwork for the baptism. We ended up spending a little bit too much time over there and then were running late for a rendez-vous. We hurried to the rendez-vous, a lady named Meluka. We already knew that she was Muslim but we didn't know that her husband was a french blind Muslim man. It just took us a bit by surprise. After, we hurried to the train station to meet another investigator. We talked to him for a quick ten minutes and he said he was coming to church and then we hurried over to Dominos Pizza, where we met the other missionaries in Marseille because a member of the ward is American and a basketball player in France and occasionally he will buy pizza for all of us... MMM it is almost like pizza from the US.

Saturday, it was the day! The day of the baptism and about a million other things. The morning started out by us going to play some soccer with some investigators and members, like most saturdays. But while there, I ended up twisting my ankle. It hurt like crazy but I walked it off and it was ok after that. We ended up leaving a little bit early because we needed to get ready and grab everything we needed for the baptism and then go and eat with Odile and her son Jordan (the Tahitians). She made us homemade hamburgers and some french fries. It was delicious! She then made this little round fried things that are made from a thicker crepe mixture but with banana in it. Mmm that was good! After eating with them, we hurried to get to the church for the baptism but the longer we had been sitting at their house, the stiffer and more in pain my ankle was getting.... We got up to leave and I was limping pretty good. We got to the church, and Daniel was already there. We started teaching him and the cell phone kept going off, Elder Boehme would go and answer it because there were all about stuff with the baptism so I would keep teaching and then he would jump back in. After awhile I realized the time and it was 3:30 and we hadn't started the baptismal font yet!!! I ran and started it and then came back, we finished the lesson and then went out into the hall and Brigitte was already there. A couple minutes later, that guy Akhim, who basically lives behind the church in a giant horse caravan, walks into the chapel completely drunk "looking for his sack." We get him to leave and then five minutes later he is back! Urgh! We walked him back to his caravan, I ran and got the keys for the gate so we could lock it so that he wouldn't wander in during the baptism. I ran back out and we got him in his caravan and locked the gate but right after a member drove up in his van to get in so we unlocked it to let him in and ended up leaving it unlocked, praying that Akhim would stay in his trailer. We go back, Daniel and Brigitte and I get changed into our clothes and take some pictures. It is now fifteen minutes after the baptism was supposed to start and the Sister missionaries come with the programs and Daniel's last name is spelled wrong! I felt so bad. We went through a quick run through of how the actual baptism would work and now it was about 4:30 and the font was not ready! We started the service part, with the talks and everything. After the talks we went to the font and thankfully it was full. Daniel was first and I forgot to say his name before baptizing him but I corrected myself and all was good. Brigitte was next and she was a little bit worried about it but everything worked out just fine with her also. In the end everything worked out perfectly and it was a great day.

Unfortunately, I have no time to finish talking about Sunday, my time is out but I will finish this next week. But Sunday was good too and Brigitte talked about how amazing it was to receive the Holy Ghost. Anyway, it was a great week and the baptisms worked out perfect. I love you and hope all is well. Have a great week. Ciao!

Elder Kirkpatrick