Bonjour,

I hope that everyone is doing well and that you have had a great week, wherever you may be. It has been another fairly busy week here for Elder Fitch and me in Montauban. We had a lot of really good things happen and we met some pretty cool people a well.

On Tuesday, in the morning we did some contacting and passing a few people until we went and had lunch. After lunch we went and met a couple members and went to meet Frère Gaign to help him move some big pieces of dry walling into the house that he was building. There were over 160 sheets of dry wall that we hauled in, thankfully it didn't take too long. Afterward, we came back into the apartment, changed clothes and headed out to pass some people before the lesson that we had with Soeur Korpal and her kids. We head a nice lesson with them in the evening and then headed back home.

Wednesday was a fairly busy day because we had actually had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and they wanted to do part of the morning with all four of us here in Montauban so we had to plan and arrange some things. In the morning even before the Zone Leaders got there, we got a few good contacts and numbers and such. They came just before lunch, so we ate together and then split up. Elder Brown and I went to go and do some Street Meeting and once again, we were stopped by the police that we need a permit to have a standing fixed object in the common areas of town. So we went back to the town hall to see if we have a response and even after a month of waiting, we still have no answer for the moment. So I guess we will be waiting a little bit longer. After all that, Elder Brown and I went to Toulouse because they had quite a few rendez-vous. We had some good lessons with their investigators and there happened to be a ton of traffic in Toulouse so we parked their car by the old mission office, which is now the young adult center, and then took the metro to their apartment. Just before we got to the apartment, Elder Brown realized that he left the apartment key in the car and so we had to go all the way back. It worked out because then we ended up taking the car to the apartment so we could also have it for the morning. We didn't even end up getting back to the apartment until 10.

Thursday, we had a District Meeting and President and Soeur Murdock ended up coming, because they were passing by all of the apartments in this side of the mission. We had a great District Meeting. I actually taught and was taught by President Murdock in doing teaching practices and it was really really good. After the meeting, Elder Fitch and I headed back into Montauban, did the last meeting cleaning just to make sure that the surface stuff was all cleaned up (we had spent a few hours over a few days really deep cleaning the apartment). President and Soeur Murdock came to the apartment around 5 in the evening and, as we were hoping, they condemned our apartment!! It isn't horrible but there are some major problems, there are cockroaches, the floor reverberates everything and our neighbor underneath gets super upset when we even walk softly and she bangs on the floor, it is super super tiny, and the list goes on, so anyway, he told us to start looking for an apartment and they made a list of things to buy to put in a new apartment. So we have officially started the search! After they left, we went to go for a rendez-vous but the lady was not there. So we headed back in and then met Frère Dieutre to go and eat at there house for the evening.

Friday was quite a busily planned day with a lot of lessons. The morning, we had two but they didn't work out, one got rescheduled for the next day but the other one, he just didn't show up. Since we wouldn't have had time to do our weekly planning normally, it worked out because we were able to go and do our weekly planning in the morning. We then ate and went and passed a guy that we had a rendez-vous with but he wasn't home so we went directly to our next rendez-vous and unfortunately, he wasn't there either and we rescheduled the rendez-vous with him. We had a bit of time so we stopped by and talked to a real estate place and she actually showed us an apartment but it was old and not in great shape. The size was really nice and a nice location but not exactly what we were looking for. We then headed to go and see Stephanie and we actually had a really great lesson with her. It was probably one of the best that we have had with her. At the end of the lesson, she prayed for the first time. It was really great! She makes progress little by little. Afterwards we did some contacting and passing people until we had to be back at the church for a meeting with the Branch Presidency and some other leaders from the Branch. After that, we went to go see Simon, who had been gone in Canada for about a month. We had a nice lesson with him and then headed back home because it was quite late.

Saturday seemed to be a very promising day with a lot of lessons fixed. We were quite hopeful with 7 lessons fixed. Unfortunately only two of these lessons actually worked but it was ok. In the morning we had a lesson with Isaac, a Rugby player from Fiji who plays in a city about thirty minutes from Montauban and he came and met us at the church and we had a great lesson with him. He was very sincere and genuine. He is a really nice guy. The other lesson was with Sr; LaRivière who doesn't come to church too often but she wants us to teach her son, so we went over and had a pretty good lesson with them. The rest of the day was either waiting for people to come that didn't come, walking to people's houses and they weren't there and contacting. It wasn't too bad of a day but a little tiring.

Sunday was a really good day at church, there were great talks, lessons, it was a really good Sunday. Afterwards, we headed to go see Lyse at her pizza shop because she is redoing it and since Sunday at lunch time is the only time she isn't open, we had to go then to be able to help her. We did some painting and cleaning and moving things. We had to run back to the apartment to change so we could be ready for our lesson with Stephanie. I went to the lesson with paint all over my hands and arms and everything. We had a pretty good lesson with her, she would get off topic a bit but it was still pretty good. We then went and tried to see Miriam but she was't home so, since Frère Bonnet was with us, we went and visited Soeur Korpal because she was sick. We had a nice lesson and then he dropped us off at our apartment.

So, as you can see, it was a pretty good week. We were pretty busy and it went by quite quickly. I hope you are all doing well and that the week has been a good one. Always remember to see that there are different ways to view the same problem and different solutions that can always come up. Never feel overwhelmed, because there are always solutions. I love you all and hope to hear from you soon. Bonne semaine!

Elder Kirkpatrick