Hello Everyone!

Well I can honestly not believe that we are now halfway through this new transfer! Woah time flies by very quickly. We had a lot of really good things happen this week and it definitely ended on a good note with General Conference, which, as always, was very good.

On Monday evening after our preparation day, we went to go and visit Michel Calderini and we had a good lesson with him about modern day prophets. Of course we took good advantage with this week being general conference, to talk about all of that with our investigators. We had a good lesson and then we ended up eating dinner with Michel and his wife Annie afterwards.

Tuesday, we had a very full and busy day. In the morning, our rendez-vous didn't work out but we ended up getting some pretty good contacts anyway. Right after lunch we went to meet Hector at the church. We had a little lesson to see exactly what Hector wants in continuing to meet with us. He told us that truly his intention is more that just getting help on his English but that at this moment because of his commitments with work and the fact that at University religion cannot be any part of it he doesn't want to get baptized while he is still in the environment. After we chatted a bit, of course we then helped him with his class he is going to teach in English. After, we hurried to get to our next rendez-vous which was with the guy we contacted named Franck, the one who kind of stood us up the week before. We got to his apartment and he wasn't there but we called him and they said they were on their way. Much to our surprise we met one of the nicest families! Clara (Franck's girlfriend) was baptized at eight and grew up in the church until her parents divorced and then they started to go a lot less. Franck has never been baptized but he has had the lessons with the missionaries before and loves the church also. They have two children, an 11 year old boy and a 2 year old boy. This family is incredible and Clara even gave us the name of her sister's cell phone because her sister, who is also less active, wanted to meet with us and invite us all over to eat sometime. All of this just from a guy on the street! After Franck, we hurried and met Rudi and then went with him to help him figure things out at the phone store because his home phone hadn't been working and he can't speak French and the people at the store don't really speak English. So we were the intermediators between the two and we got everything all fixed and worked out. Rudi said he tried to go in the day before and do it himself and it was just a mess and it was much easier with us to translate. Ha! We gave him a quick lesson about general conference and then headed back into town to meet Jacira. Well Jacira said that we had scheduled it for the day after and that even still tonight wouldn't be a good night. So we headed back home contacting. On the way we ran into a young guy named Thomas, who is very practicing Catholic (which was very surprising especially for a 24 year old). We talked quite a bit and then he invited us to come to a thing at his church that evening where they were going to be talking about how the Catholic church was true. We thought it would be interesting so we decided to go. We couldn't stay the whole time but it was interesting because everything that the Priest said we were completely in agreeance with except for the fact that the authority had been passed to the Catholic Church. We left, because it was late and fixed a rendez-vous with him for the next day to talk some more.

Wednesday we started out the day by going to visit Horacio, the less active member. He hadn't come to church the last Sunday because it was raining, apparently, but we had a little lesson with him and as usual tried to understand exactly what he was trying to say.... and once again, we didn't succeed. Ha! After lunch, we went and saw Benedine, another less active, and had an interesting lesson with him. He started throwing in some weird doctrine about angels and how if he becomes spiritually close enough to God he can live forever on this Earth without dying because he said it on Highlander (a science fiction show). We tried to help him understand that A). Gospel Doctrine that he comes up with from television shows and music that he hears on the radio isn't really valid and that B). He needs to get his information directly from out of the scriptures. There were a few moments that I had a hard time not laughing just because of how ridiculous it was. It was definitely entertaining. The next rendez-vous was with Thomas again, the same guy from the night before, and we taught about the restoration and a TON of other things. He had a lot of questions. Not really seeking to know because of interest but rather to see if he could find the holes. After lots of questions it seemed like he burned out and didn't really have any major objections left, other than the one that we are the true church on the earth. We set up another rendez-vous for a few days later and then headed to the church for our meeting with the Ward Mission Leader and Ward Missionaries. Afterwards, we tried to go back to Jacira's but she forgot and she wasn't home and we waited and by the time she got back she was tired and decided to move it to Thursday. So we just headed home because it was getting late anyway.

Thursday definitely started out with a kick. We had a rendez-vous fixed but he didn't show up, so we were contacting on the way home and happened to be taking money out of the ATM when this old man stops right in front of me and starts asking me questions in English. It is very difficult to explain the entire story and express how absolutely bizarre it was but this was an 86 year old man who has more money than he knows what to do with and he speaks pretty much every major language that you could think of, French, Spanish, Italian, English, Polish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, even Arab and I am sure that I am missing some too. I am not sure why but he first bought us something to drink and then proceeded to take us out to lunch. He ordered for us and then was disgusted that we were drinking the tap water so he ordered us something to drink. The entire time he is drinking some alcoholic drink and then quite a bit of wine. By the end, he was a bit drunk and saying some bad phrases in many different languages. Right to the point that he said something not very good in Arab and a guy next to us turned around and asked if that was directed towards him. Well anyway, after a rather long meal, we had to walk him home and he told us that if we ever needed anything, he gave us his phone number and he showed us how to find him in his building and that we could always see him if we needed anything. It was quite an experience. Afterwards, we hurried to stop by a Vietnamese lady and give her a book of mormon. We had actually set the rendez-vous up the night before from a random number and name and address that a member found on a piece of paper on the church. Anyway, so we showed up at her house and her husband told us that she had just left that morning for America for three months.... As much as I wanted to believe that, I just couldn't. Regardless, we headed over to meet Saida at a big open area in the center of the city. We met her and had her friend with her who was also Muslim. It was a very interesting rendez-vous and she is very very much based on her beliefs and has a very difficult time thinking outside of that. So we really stressed the importance of praying and asking God for direction and help because she seems very confused right now. We then went to the church building for our English class and the same lady came but also this new lady named Jocelyne who wants to learn English because she will be moving to the States but she has absolutely no background in the language. So that was a bit tough but we taught some basics. We then went for a third time to try and see Jacira and once again, we couldn't get in. Ugh! So we left and went to see Laura with Manon and her mom. We had a pretty good impromptu lesson and then headed home afterwards.

Friday we had morning planning and then went to this restaurant run by some Catholic missionaries from Brazil. We found it funny that the Catholic church sends over Brazilians into France to convert them. Anyway, we had met one of them a few days before so we decided to stop by and eat there. We chatted a little bit and then headed out to meet Thomas again. He had read in the Book of Mormon but it was much more for searching for the faults in it rather than the truths. He had a lot of questions but was not at all open to the answers and to even consider them to be truth. After a lengthy rendez-vous, we ended with a thanks for the time we have shared together but you aren't even willing to do anything to see if it is true so I hope that one day you will be more open. We then hurried to the church to meet the other Thomas, who we have been teaching for a long time, we were very happy in the progress that he made because he cut down the number of cigarettes each day in half! We were proud and he found an apartment that is a lot closer to town so it will be so much easier to have rendez-vous and such now. We then stayed at the church to talk with a member (we are trying to get the ward involved in giving us people to teach) and he said that he will pray over this big list of names that he has of who would be ready right now. So that was prety cool. After that, we basically made our way home for the evening.

Saturday morning was pretty hectic because we had a rendez-vous with Jocelyne and we had to teach her EVERYTHING. This was our last opportunity to teach everything else before her interview and her baptism. It was a great lesson and she didn't have a problem with anything. She talked about how much her life has changed in the short amount of time since she has met the church and especially since she chose a baptismal date. It was great and she is so ready for baptism. We are very excited for next week. We then headed home, ate lunch, and then did some contacting, played some basketball and then met with Hector again. We had a good lesson and then did some more helping with his English. Afterwards was supposed to be the first session of General Conference but they couldn't get it to work at the church building which wasn't looking very promising for the next day and all of the sessions. At the end of the evening, we got a confirmation that a member would give us a ride to Marseille for the Priesthood session and then stay for the next session (the saturday afternoon session).

Sunday morning we got up and got ready and then headed to Marseille with two members for the Priesthood session. We watched that session and then the next session and then headed back to Toulon. One of the members in Toulon hooked up his laptop to the internet and the project so we had it streaming from the wii. We encountered a couple technical difficulties but other than that, it ran smoothly. It was a very good conference and I can't wait to read the talks that I missed from the Saturday Morning Session and the Sunday Afternoon Session. I hope that everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

Today has been pretty busy and we did some cool sight seeing over on this phenomenon called a double tumbolo and a presqu'ile. It was absolutely beautifully. One can't help but find beauty in the environment of the French Riviera!

I hope that you all have had very good weeks as well and that you will continue to enjoy work and school and motherhood and everything that you all do everyday. Every day is a blessing and a miracle. Make the best of it! I love you all very much, have a great week!

Elder Kirkpatrick