Hello!

Well, I am sorry that I am a little bit late with this but this last monday was a holiday here and basically a ghost town, everything was closed. So that is why I am so late in getting this out. Well, this has been a very interesting week and definitely an interesting transition into a new little city. There are definitely a lot of challenges here that have been a lot different than my other cities but I am excited to see what happens for the rest of the transfer.

On Tuesday, we started out the morning by doing some contacting and we met a couple cool people and then in the afternoon we went and met a less active member and had a good lesson with him and then went out passing some old investigators and contacting until we went and saw Mr. Copa, an older man that likes to talk a lot and we had a little lesson with him, and that was basically our day.

Wednesday, we went contacting in the morning and the rest of the afternoon. We ended up getting a couple quick lessons in and we were able to get the numbers of quite a few people. At the end of the day, we went and saw Natasha, who actually has a baptismal date for July and so we taught about prophets. It was a pretty good lesson and she feels like she needs to continue thinking and praying about her baptismal date.

Thursday we passed by Tatiana, a lady from the Czech Republique, and then went to the Red Cross in the afternoon to do some service. We then came back and did some contacting and went to eat dinner with a family in the ward, The Dieutre Family, and we had a nice meal and then we went home.

On Friday, we did our weekly planning and then went and taught Frere Truscello, a less active member, about preparing to go to the temple and it was a really good lesson. It was something that he really wanted to fix as a goal for himself. Afterwards, we went and visited Patrick, who is another less active member that is our age who wants to prepare to go on a mission. We then went to the church for a quick meeting and then after that, we went and met Simon, who is another less active, and we talked about what he can do to prepare himself to go to the temple in September (apparently he has already bought his plane ticket), but he just works a ton so he never has time. So, it was definitely a day with a lot of less actives. It was good to see them make a little progress in their lives, because for all of them, they know that the gospel is true, it's just not always convenient in life.

On Saturday, we met a guy at the church that we had contacted earlier in the week and we had a pretty good lesson with him and fixed another lesson for the next week. We then left to do some contacting and then about 1, a member went and picked us up for a barbecue at their house celebrating the return of their son from his mission. We had a nice time and then they brought us back to Montauban (very few members actually live in Montauban) and then we went and visited Soeur Korpal, who is another less active. We actually had a really really good lesson with her.

Sunday, we didn't have any investigators come to church but all of our less actives came, except for Simon, because he had to work. It was great to see everyone there and to meet the ward. We then stayed for a Branch Council Meeting the lasted awhile. After we ate lunch, we went to a couple rendez-vous that we had but no one was there so we did some contacting. We ran into a man sitting on a bench and so we started teaching him. The lesson was going super well, he was asking great questions, and we had just finished explaining about Joseph Smith when this man walks up flipping his cane around. He started probing us for questions and we told him we would talk later, but he insisted and it turns out the he is a Evangelist Priest and he stole our lesson!! It ended up being pretty ridiculous down to the moment that he actually blessed the guy and gave him the holy ghost right there on the street. It was funny, right after the man's wife came out and the priest explained to her, oh I just blessed your husband, he was crying, I was crying, I started speaking in tongues.... First of all, no one was crying, and second of all, he must think speaking in French is in tongues because everything he said was all in French. After that, we ended up leaving because the guy got really into it and started chanting to himself and stuff, it was weird. We were a bit upset that he just came over and stole our investigator but there wasn't really much more that we could have done.

Well, that was our week. I know, it wasn't too overly exciting but we are really starting from the ground up here in Montauban. The work is going well, just slowly. As small as it is here, I am grateful to be here and see the things that we can do here in Montauban. I hope that you are all doing well and that life is going well. I love you all and thank you so much for everything that you do. I know I say it a lot, but I truly mean it. Have a good week!

Elder Kirkpatrick