Bonjour à tous,

Well, I find myself once again in Montauban and for another six weeks. Honestly, I was quite ready to leave but apparently that is not what is meant to happen. So I have the next six weeks in Montauban to make it the best as possible.

On Tuesday, we did some contacting in the morning until lunchtime and then after munch we did some more untim we caught a bus to go out and see Patrick. We watched the first half of the Joseph: Prophet of the Restoration movie (we finally got it in French!). We then headed back and passed some different people until we went to the train station so that we could do an exchange with the Zone Leaders. So I headed to Toulouse with Elder Bollero and Elder Heywood (he happened to be in a three-some with the zone leaders for the end of the transfer) and so by the time we got into Toulouse, it was pretty late and so we just headed to the apartment.

Wednesday, we had a pretty full day in Toulouse. We had a couple rendez-vous and we did a bit of contacting as well in between the gaps. Then in the evening we went to the Young Adult Center and I remet Elder Fitch there and the Zone Leaders and Elder Heywood went for a lesson and so we stayed at the Young Adult Center and actually ate there with the Young Adults and celebrated Elder Larsen's birthday. He and Soeur Larsen are the older couple missionaries over the Youth Center in Toulouse. We then headed back to the apartment. It was a bit crazy because there were 5 of us in the apartment and then about 5 in the morning on Thursday the Assistants came in and fell asleep for a bit because they had exchanges to do so they took a night train from Geneva. So there were 7 of us in the morning all taking showers and all that so it was a bit crazy.

Thursday, as I said, was a bit crazy in the morning and then we went to have our District Meeting. After District Meeting, we headed back to Montauban, ate some lunch and went out to some rendez-vous that they had fixed the day before but none of them worked out unfortunately. We also stopped by to see Soeur Korpal because she had made us some food and wanted to give it to us. So we had a bit of a lesson with her and then took this enormous bowl of chicken that she had made back home (we ate it on Friday and it was really good!) and then went and did some contacting until meeting Frère Dieutre at the church. He picked us up and we went and ate dinner with them. While we were there he felt really pushed to invite his boss to his house the next Thursday with us so we can start to introduce him a bit to the church. He said that he wanted to paint the inside of the house a little bit first so we told him we would help and fixed a time for Saturday.

Friday we had our weekly planning in the morning and then in the afternoon we had a bunch of rendez-vous fixed. Unfortunately not one of them worked out! Out of four rendez-vous, every one of them, the person was not home. We were able to teach the husband of one of the ladies we had a rendez-vous with but he wasn't too interested in doing more than just talking a bit. But it was still pretty good. And with all of that, it was raining too. At least that helped cool it down, that is for sure. It felt pretty good actually. So at least walking around wasn't as bad. So at the end of the day we came in a bit tired.

Saturday we went to give a Book of Mormon to a Russian guy that we contacted the day before. He doesn't really speak any french at all so we gave him the Book of Mormon and a Brochure and invited him to come to church. We then did some contacting and met some pretty cool people before heading in for lunch. After lunch, we were supposed to have a lesson with Dmitri, but he didn't even show up so who knows what happened. So we went out and did some pass backs and then came back for a rendez-vous with a super cool guy named Ismael, who is from Cote D'Ivoire. We had a really good lesson with him, he is a really cool guy. He was very interested and open. It was awesome. Frère Dieutre then came and picked us up and we went to his house to paint and after painting they fed us dinner, which was very nice. They then took us back to our apartment.

Sunday, of course we had church, but what was super cool was that Auguste's Mother and Aunt from Martinique are here visiting and so he brought them to church with him! After church, where I had to play the piano again in Sacrament Meeting (I slid under the radar for the first half of my mission but they caught on here at Montauban.....), we went with Auguste, his Mom, Aunt and some members that he invited, to a picnic for his birthday. We had a nice time and his Aunt and Mom seemed to have really liked church. They are very open. I guess they know the church a bit back in Martinique. After a nice little time with them, we went back and dropped off some stuff, and went out for a couple rendez-vous but two got cancelled and then towards the end of the day we had a rendez-vous with a lady named Edith. We had a good lesson with her, she actually used to meet with the missionaries in Toulouse before, she has read quite a bit of the Book of Mormon already too. The missionaries before didn't fully explain why the Book of Mormon and so we talked about that and she really understood that if it was true, it meant a lot of things. We fixed another lesson with her and gave her a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon. We then headed back towards our apartment because it was a late.

Well, I hope that you are all doing well. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we don't always particularly want to be in, maybe like spending another six weeks in a little city, but dwelling on that doesn't help the morale at all. So keep moving and getting on with life. That is the only way to be happy. Just forget that the situation may not be what we want and make the best of it. I love you all and hope you are all doing well. Enjoy the week and I hope to hear from you soon! Que Dieu vous benisse!

Elder Kirkpatrick

These are a few pics of a castle Ethan visited on Monday.

Hello,

Well, I hope that, as always, everyone is doing well and enjoying life and that it hasn't been too hot. Well, if it has... sorry. At least you have air conditioning! We have had some days of about 107 degrees and no one in France has air conditioning... Yeah, it's fun. Haha! Things are still going fairly slow here with vacation still continuing. But it is still going alright. Vacation should be coming to close in the next couple weeks and hopefully the weather should start calming down too so there is at least hope on the horizon. Ha!

On Tuesday of last week, Dmitri came to the church in the morning and we taught the Plan of Salvation. We started out very simply and very basic and he was having a vey difficult time understanding. So we stuck with only doing the first half and using drawings and other very simple things to help him understand and a little drawing to take with him so that he could continue to remind himself throughout the week until our next lesson with him. We then went and did some contacting until lunch. After lunch, we went to the church to help Sœur Haas clean the chapel and then we went and saw Frère Truscello and had a nice little lesson with him and then went and saw Auguste in the evening and we redid the plan of salvation with him. Thankfully, we had no problems understanding. He is continuing to progress and it is great! We then went home for the evening.

Wednesday morning I had to go to the Préfecture, I am not sure what it is in English, but it is basically the government building for this department, so that I could renew my legality in France. Technically I will be illegal around the 25th of September so I had to file some paperwork and pay some money to have my legality for another year in France. So thankfully all of that went well and without problem, which is definitely good. So that took up most of the morning. In the afternoon, we had two rendez-vous get cancelled super last minute and they were back to back, which was super annoying. We ended up seeing Sœur Korpal and her kids, and we had a good lesson with her. The rest of the evening we ended up doing some pass backs and contacting.

Thursday morning, we tried to pass some people and do some contacting and then we went in for lunch. In the afternoon, we went to the Red Cross and did some service. Even the Red Cross was super slow!! We then went around for the end of the evening contacting and passing people until we had dinner with the Dieutre Family and Sœur Korpal and her daughter Rachel.

Friday morning, we did our weekly planning and since it was Elder Fitch's birthday, we had a little celebration. We had pizza and soda and pasteries for lunch. We then had a lesson at the church that didn't work out and then we went and saw Mirabelle and had a little lesson with her. We then went back to the chapel for a lesson with Dmitri where we finished the plan of salvation. Thankfully, he seemed to understand better this time. We then stayed at the church for some meetings with the members of the bishopric until we then went home for the evening.

Saturday, we met members of the Branch to go to the Branch activity, to a picnic, and Dmitri came with us. We had a nice time and the members really enjoyed it, as well as Dmitri. It ended up being quite long so we didn't get home until the evening and we were hot and sweaty and disgusting. So we showered and cleaned up and then by that time it was kind of late.

Sunday, Dmitri came to all three hours of church and seemed to enjoy it. I had to play piano in Sacrament Meeting, I managed to slide under the radar for the first half of my mission.... Unfortunately Auguste didn't come because he had to go and pick up his Mom who was up in Paris but he will be there next week. The rest of the day was very hot and quite slow. We weren't able to get too much accomplished. But sometimes that's life.

Voilà, that was our week. I hope that all of you are still doing well and that everything is going ok. Keep fighting everyday even when you wan't to lower your arms and give up. It may be hot, it may seem like everyone is against you, that nothing is working out, but keep fighting through it. It will pay off in the end! I love you all. Have a great week and hope to hear from you soon!

Elder Kirkpatrick

Hello Everyone!

I hope that everyone is doing well. With school starting soon or already started, with vacations coming to an end, I hope it has been a great summer for everyone. This week, I cannot lie has been a bit difficult. Tons of people on vacation, basically the whole country shuts down and closes for the month of August and everyone goes on vacation. Haha So consequently, we had not too many lessons this week and a lot of contacting with little success. I guess it is weeks like this that make you grateful for weeks when you barely have time to breath because there is so much going on. The one thing that did save us this week is that we were invited to eat with the members a lot, so that helped break up the week.

Monday night start out our week with, what we call, mangez-vous. It is like rendez-vous but with the verb for eating (manger). After we did our preparation day stuff we went with Auguste to go and eat at The Haas' house. We had a great time and Auguste just continues to amaze me with his progress. He is actually going to a conference for the Non married Adult members in Belgium in September. It is super cool!

Tuesday, we had a day with not much going on, we ended up doing lots and lots of walking and contacting and passing old investigators. We ended the day with 3 contacts and a lesson with Simon. All in all it was a pretty good day, just a bit long...

Wednesday definitely started out pretty crazy. We had a rendez-vous at the church and while we were waiting for the investigator to come, who didn't end up coming, a crazy man just walked into the church. He started asking for money and we told him we didn't have any and so he basically whined and complained. We tried to make him leave but he wouldn't and he ended up crouching down on the floor in the hallway and pounding his fists on the ground saying, "I want 100 dollars! I want 100 dollars!" It wasn't even euros, he was saying dollars. I threatened to call the police hoping that that would encourage him to leave but he just kept throwing a fit like a 5 year old. Unfortunately, I didn't even know the number to the police, so as I start to pretend to make a phone call to the police, thinking to myself oh dang, what am I going to do, I see a parking ticket cop just in front of the church. I hurried out there and told him the situation and he came in and he and his companion tried to persuade the guy to leave but he still kept banging his fists saying he wanted 100 dollars. So they get on their walkie talkie and call the real police and then the guy starts whining more and saying the the police are going to break his face but he still won't move. Another 8 minutes or so and the police finally get there and they tried to argue with him until they finally just pick him up and drag him out of the chapel. We get outside and lock the door and he falls on his knees and grabs Elder Fitch's ankle and keeps begging for 100 dollars. The police pull him off again and then tell us to leave so that he won't follow us. So that was the excitement for the morning. The afternoon we did a lot of contacting again and passing some people, we were able to get a couple lessons in thankfully and then we went to see Soeur Galtier with a male member so that we could go in to teach her but we get to the door and she tells us that her son is sleeping so we can't go in... That was a moment killer. But we had a decent lesson outside of her house even with all of the cars passing and everything. We did some more contacting and then went with Frere Giigns, a new family that just moved in, to his house to eat for the evening. We had a nice time and then headed back home for the night.

Thursday, we had District Meeting in the morning so we headed to Toulouse and by the time it was over and we headed to the train station the next train wasn't for about 3 hours. So we had a really fun time waiting in the train station before we were able to head back to Montauban. We had a bit of time and was able to get a lesson in and then headed with Jean-Pierre, a member, to the Dieutre's house to have dinner. We had a nice dinner and then headed back home.

Friday, we had our weekly planning in the morning and then we had a couple rendez-vous that didn't end up working out, which was frustrating. So we ended up doing more contacting and then we had a meeting in the evening with the Branch President because our Branch Mission Leader was released last week so we don't have one right now. We then headed out to pass some people and then happened to walk by Auguste's Driving School and he was there so he came out and we were chatting and then one of his friends came and so we started talking with him and he invited us to go to dinner with them so we went with them out to dinner and we had a nice time and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon and explain that a bit. His friend loves the United States and his absolutely hilarious. So we had a good time.

Saturday, we tried to do some street meeting, meaning putting up a big board with pictures and stuff but the cops came over and told us it was illegal, which I am not so sure about that, but we weren't going to argue so we took it down and just did some contacting (we had way too many run ins with the police this week...ha). We then went in the afternoon to go see Tatiana because we were able to get some brochures in her language but she still didn't seem to completely understand... so I am beginning to wonder if she is literate... We then had another rendez-vous that didn't end up working out and then did some contacting until a lesson with Soeur Korpal and her kids that went really well. We then headed to the church where President Fayol came and picked us up to go to his house and eat. We had a nice dinner with their family and then they took us back home... Five dinners with members... that has got to be a record!! Ha!

Sunday, we had a nice time at church and Auguste blessed the Sacrament for the first time!!! It was so incredible to be there and to see it. We also were able to have an investigator named Hassen come to church and he seemed to really enjoy it as well. After church, we went home and ate and then went to go and see Patrick, a less active, and we had a nice lesson with him. We then headed back into town to meet Frere Bonnet to go see our investigator Miriam. We had a really good lesson with her on the Plan of Salvation, she has a lot of really good questions. We then headed back into town and went home.

Today, we worked a bit this morning and then went to the Haas' house with a less active member to eat lunch and we spent most of the afternoon over there. It was a really nice time. The members definitely take good care of us here in a fairly small Branch.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying life. Know that I am grateful for you all and I send you my love. Have a great week and take care!

Elder Kirkpatrick

View from Ethan's Apt
Auguste and Ethan at the Baptism
Ethan, Auguste and Ethan's companion Elder Fitch

Hello everyone,

I hope that everyone is doing well and has had a great week. It has been another pretty good week here in Montauban.

Our week started out fairly well on Tuesday. We started the day off by Street Boarding, which is basically this big board that we set up in the middle of town with pictures on it and photos and such and then we are able to contact people. Unfortunately there weren't a ton of people out with vacation and everything. We went in and ate and then went and taught a guy that had kind of contacted us a bit before. Well, basically he is crazy, we even met him at the hospital where he is currently staying. He says he will get out soon so that he can start his own mission. Haha it was rather interesting. After him, we went and saw Soeur Korpal and her two boys. We did a cool example teaching about following the prophet that entertained the boys pretty well. They are nine and ten so you have to do something to hold their attention. We then went and did some pass backs, we went and saw Elyse at her pizza place, passed someone else and then on the way back, we saw Auguste sitting at his Driving School so we stopped in and spent some time with him before heading home.

Wednesday we saw Dmitri in the morning and went through the gospel of Jesus Christ very simply in hopes that he would retain it better, we used the chalk board and kept giving him little comprehension questions and it seemed to be a little bit better. We then went and did some contacting and then came in for lunch. Afterwards we went and stopped by and saw Tatiana and taught her. We are waiting to get some brochures in Czech so that she can understand a bit better too. In the afternoon we went and did contacting and passing people until about six when we met Frere Caplan and he took us to go the Haas' house and we had dinner and such.

Thursday in the morning we headed to Toulouse for our Zone Meeting and to have interviews with President Murdock in the afternoon. President Murdock definitely has a different style from President Carter but even with their differences you can tell that they both were called by the Lord. We had a good meeting and then got back into Montuaban around 6:30. We hurried and met Auguste and started talking about the Temple, he didn't have a ton of time and he understood how important of a subject it was so he said he wanted to talk more in depth later, so we fixed another lesson and then headed to see Simon. We talked about our relationship with God and how to cultivate that better in life and then headed home pretty tired.

Friday we had morning planning and then we went and taught Dmitri about the Word of Wisdom and he told us that he really wants to stop smoking and drinking so that he can get baptized. We then went and stopped by Miriam, who we had a rendez-vous with quite a few weeks ago but hadn't seen after. We had a really great lesson with her. She was super interested and was anxious to read the Book of Mormon, which is great! We then went and saw Mirabelle and had a lesson with her and then did some contacting until our meeting with the Branch Presidency in the evening.

Saturday, we had two lessons set up for the morning but unfortunately neither of them worked out, so we went contacting and such. We ate lunch and then went to see Patrick and had a good lesson with him, unfortunately he hasn't been coming to church because of work and that will continue for a little while. We then went and saw Auguste with the Branch President and finished talking about temples and then went over the specifics for Auguste receiving the Priesthood on Sunday. We then went and taught Soeur Korpal and her kids and had a good lesson and reviewed the Plan of Salvation, it was pretty good. We then went home for the evening.

Sunday was good because it was church and it was a particularly good fast Sunday too and then Auguste received the Priesthood afterwards too so that made it even better! After church, we came home, did some studying and then we went to Auguste's house to finish watching The Testaments. After the movie he expressed to us that when he first started coming to church he would here people say that they knew that this church was the only true church and he thought it was a bit odd and then he said that he started to think that maybe it was true as he started to learn more and then Sunday night he told us that only in the true church of Christ could you feel what you feel at our church. He talked about how he has really had a transformation in his life the last three weeks since his baptism. It is incredible to just see his progression and how much he just takes everything in so quickly. He treats us like we are the most educated people with so much knowledge when we are just twenty year olds but everything just rings so true to him. I honestly think that it is Auguste that has taught me.

Well, this has been another great week and I am sure this week will be great as well. I hope that you are all doing well. I love you all. Thank you for everything. Bye!

Elder Kirkpatrick

Hello Everyone!

I hope that you are all doing very well and are having a great week. We had a great week this week, we did have a bit of a disappointment this week but it was still good even still.

So Tuesday started out by having a lesson with a guy that actually followed us for about 45 minutes the Monday before all the way from the center of town all the way out to the very outskirts. Each time we would stop or trick him to make him pass us he would stop dead in his tracks or when he passed by he would grab his cell phone and act like he was talking to someone, he would walk a bit around a corner and then when we would start walking he again he would follow us again. So we decided we would go up to him, we started talking and he acted slightly shocked that we were talking to him.... even though he had been following us for 45 minutes. Anyway, we set up a rendez-vous and he met us at the church on Tuesday morning. We taught about the restoration and it was a good lesson but we didn't feel like he really understood very well. Anytime we would ask him a question he didn't have any kind of an answer, even when we had just said the answer. We then went and saw Tatiana and taught briefly about the Plan of Salvation, of course there is still a language barrier to her comprehension is a bit low but it was still a pretty good lesson. We came in, had lunch and then headed out to go see Patrick, a less active. He has been sick and busy with work so it was the first time we had seen him in a few weeks. We had a good lesson and his friend Alex happened to be there as well. We then hurried back into town to meet Sœur Korpal and then head out to see Frederick. We had a good lesson with him and talked about tithing and then we headed out and met the Van Tonders to go to the Haas' house to eat dinner. We had a nice time and then headed back home.

Wednesday morning we did some contacting for a bit and then went and saw Hassen at the church. We had a decent lesson with him and did some more contacting. We went and had lunch and then went and saw Mirabelle and really focused on the Apostasy and Restoration and it seemed like she understood pretty well and we engaged her to pray about whether the church was restored to the earth. We then went around passing different old investigators and contacting and such until another rendez-vous with Dmitri, the guy that followed us. We taught the plan of salvation but we are still not sure how much he retains, but it was a fairly good lesson even still. I ended up calling Frederick to confirm for a rendez-vous on Thursday and his sister answered and she told me that Frederick is a protected major and that she has all control over his decisions and that she does not want us seeing him anymore or for him to be in the church. She even went as far as saying that if we try to contact him, she will call the police. It was a huge disappointment. I was not very happy afterwards. It honestly took me a couple days to get over it because it was such a shock out of nowhere. I hope that one day he will be able to continue in the church and one day get baptized. In the evening, we went and met Auguste and he took us to his house and we ate pizza and he even invited one of his friends over. It was really cool. I was still a bit bummed but made the best of the situation.

Thursday we had a district meeting in Toulouse in the morning. It was really good and we got new cell phones. Yay, no more giant bricks! Haha! We ended up barely missing our train so we had to wait our in Toulouse at the gare for about 2 hours before the next train. When we got back, we went and saw Soeur Korpal and her three kids and had a good lesson with them, because her kids are not yet baptized. We then went around and did some contacting and such.

On Friday, we had weekly planning in the morning that takes the entire morning and then we went and helped a family moving to Montauban from Toulouse unload a packing trailer and that took most of the afternoon. By the time we got back into town we had to get ready and then went to a meeting with our ward mission leader and then we went and saw Auguste and talked about the Priesthood. He said he had an experience that week that fortified his testimony of prayer and increasing his faith. He had great questions and insights about the priesthood. It was a great lesson and he is such a great guy!

Saturday we had a lesson with a guy named Eric that we contacted the week before and we had a really good first lesson with him about the restoration, he had pretty good comments and ideas. It was a pretty good lesson. We then went home and ate and then went with Soeur Korpal and her daughter to teach Mirabelle. We talked about having a living prophet today and Mirabelle gave us some melons and we had just a quick lesson so that she could get back home to take care of her grand kids. We went back to the church and had a lesson with Soeur Korpal and her daughter about putting on the armour of God. We then went and got a celebratory patisserie for my one year mark (which was on Thursday but we hadn't had time to do it then, I am now officially over-the-hill!). We headed back to the church to meet a new investigator but he didn't show up so we did some contacting and went and saw Soeur Galtier and taught a little lesson with her.

Sunday we had tons of visitors at church but none were our visitors.... Unfortunately. None of our investigators were able to come but there were a lot of people visiting family members and such. Of course Auguste was there and he met with the Branch President after church to talk about the Priesthood and he should normally be getting it next week. We then had to wait to have a meeting with the Branch Council and of course those take forever. So we finally got home and ate and then went out and did some contacting and then Auguste came and picked us up and we headed to his house and started watching the Testaments. We stopped about halfway through so that we could go and meet these two BYU film students that are touring around France filming people. They had asked Auguste if they could film and interview him. It was so cool to watch and to listen to him. He talked about his baptism and his conversion and it was incredible! He is such a such person. I am honestly so grateful to have just been the missionary that the Lord blessed to be here when he was taught and baptized! We then hurried back to his house to grab our stuff and then he drove us back home.

Well, it has definitely been another busy, crazy week in Montauban. I am so very grateful for the many blessings that we have hear and for the help of the Lord continually. I love you all and hope that you are doing well. Have a great week and I hope to hear from you soon!

Elder Kirkpatrick