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