Hello!

I hope that everyone is doing well. It has been another wonderful week full of blessings and miracles. We also received our calls from President Murdock this morning and my companion, Elder Nicholes, is leaving to Avignon on Wednesday and I will be staying in Montauban and getting Elder Fitch as my companion. I am pretty glad and happy to be staying in Montauban because of some of the exciting things that will be happening.

Well in the evening on Monday, we went and taught Auguste and talked about the ten commandements and obedience. It was a great lesson and he told us that he completely cut out coffee, tea, and alcohol and that he was diminishing the cigarettes. He is making such progress and everytime that we teach something it completely hits home with him and he understands perfectly and wants to follow it. He is incredible!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I forgot my other planner from the last transfer and so I have no idea what happened those two days.... Haha it is sad I can't remember what happened 6 days ago. Haha! Apprently it wasn't anything too important so I will move on to Thursday.

Thursday was a national holiday, basically their Independence Day here, and so we worked a bit extra in the morning and saw Soeur Galtier, a less active, and then did some good contacting and then we went with a member to another member's house where there were some other families from the Branch and we had a barbecue and had a good time together for lunch and a little bit of the afternoon and then we came back into Montauban and did some work for the evening. There weren't too many people out since it was a holiday and there were concerts and stuff going on so it wasn't too successful but we went back into the apartment for the night and we were able to watch the fire works since we are up on the fourth floor and right in the center of town, up on a hill. It was perfect!

Friday, we did our weekly planning in the morning, had lunch, did some contacting and then had a meeting with our ward mission leader. Afterwards, there is a girl in our ward named Clarisse that wants to serve a mission so she asked if she could go with us for an afternoon to some lessons and for some conacting. So she met us at the church and then we went to go see Frederick and we taught the Law of Chastity, which was interesting teaching with a 16 year old girl and a 45 year old man. But it worked out and he understands and follows it already so it was fine. We then went and passed an Armenian lady and finally she was home! We were able to have a bit of a lesson, which was great because she actually just had a death in her family and really needed some help seeing things in an eternal perspective. We headed back to the church to talk to the Branch President really quick and then Clarisse ended up having a meeting with him so she stayed. It was funny, in contacting, we had one guy who wasn't really rude just insisted that he wasn't interested and Clarisse was quite taken aback. It was kind of funny. But for us, it is very normal but most people aren't in the same situations as us so it would seem fairly shocking. We then walked to see Auguste. We had one major commandment left to teach and it was tithing. It was interesting because as we got in, I asked if he had questions and his question was about how the church functions financially and so it fit in perfectly. He completely understood and agreed that he would keep the commandment. It went super fast and so after, he was looking at the church website and watching videos. It was really cool. Once again, I am so shocked and grateful for Auguste and his progression!

Saturday, we had planned to go to Cahors, which is another city in our area to try to get ahold of less actives to get them to come to church and see what is possible there. We took a train for about 45 minutes and got their and passed a name and address that we got in the mail from the church. Unfortunately it didn't exist, so we stopped at a boulangerie to get something to eat. Right after, heading to a less active, Elder Nicholes realized that he didn't have the phone and we are pretty sure it fell out of his pocket in the train over. Obviously that complicates things. So we passed all of the people we had and only one of them was still at the same address and answered the door. She was very nice but didn't fully understand who we were but she was nice and we shared a little scripture with her. After passing several people, we then headed back to the train station to catch our train back so we could deal with the phone problem. We got back to Montauban and went to the church to use the phone. We called President and let him know and he said it was ok and that he would have the Larsens (the couple missionaries in Toulouse) get a phone to us. We headed out to one of our lessons but on the way we saw her getting in a fight with some guy in the middle of the street on the way to her house, so we kept walking and did some contacting. Haha! We then went to go pass Augusto, one of our investigators whose mom is a member, we had a lesson fixed but he wasn't there. We waited a bit and then left because he never showed up. We headed back into town and then went home for the evening but first made arrangements with the Larsens for getting another phone on Sunday.

Sunday it was raining and we got to church and then Frederick showed up and then at Sunday School Auguste came and then one of the members, Jean Pierre, brought a friend of his to church also. The talks were great during Sacrament and they announced the baptism for Auguste. Afterwards, the Branch President met with him just to get to know him because he has been out of town since Auguste has been coming to church. Afterwards talking to Auguste he was really impressed with him. I also asked him how it was going with the cigarettes and he said he stopped smoking completely and it has been not too hard. He said that because he has such a specific goal in mind it allows him to focus on that and that that's more important than smoking. After church, we went with Jean Pierre, his friend and another member Soeur Larivierre to go and eat at Jean Pierre's house. We had a great time and his friend is very cool and very spiritual. He dropped us off and then Soeur Lerivierre at the train station, because she lives in Cahor, and then came back to the church because he asked us to give him a blessing. We gave him a blessing and he seemed very touched by it. It was very great. He has recently come back to the church after leaving for 9 years. He is in the middle of turning his life around and it hasn't been easy but he is very courageous. I really respect him. After that, we met the Larsens and they gave us one of their phones for the next couple of weeks until we all get new phones the beginning of August. We then went and saw Soeur Korpal and answered some of her deep doctrine questions. We then headed back home and crashed for the night.

Well, we have had a great week and I hope all of you have had a great week as well! Be grateful for all the good moments in life and the difficult ones that allow you to be grateful for the good ones. I love you all and thanks for everything! Thank you for you're prayers for me, my companion, and all of our investigators. I am so grateful and I know they make a difference. Thank you! Ciao!

Elder Kirkpatrick