Sorry to keep you all hanging....I moved...again and had no internet for a bit, but we are up and running and here is the letter from Monday Oct 24 that I owe you!
I hope that it has been another wonderful week for you. Fall is definitely here and the weather is cooling down, personally I am already starting to freeze. Hopefully you are all enjoying the weather wherever you are. It is a beautiful time of year. This last week was pretty busy and it went by quite quickly.
The week started out pretty busy because on Tuesday, I had to go out to Avignon to do an exchange with the District Leader, who is actually Elder Nicholes, one of my old companions from Montauban. I was really excited to be able to work with him again for the day, we really got along well when we were together in Montauban. I got to Avignon around 11 so we headed to get a bus pass and then went in and dropped off my stuff and then ate lunch and did a little bit of studies before heading out. We went and did some contacting and then had a lesson with an older couple. They were pretty funny. The old lady kept telling us lots of stories and I was next to her and she kept grabbing my leg and my hand and stuff and at the end she sang a song for us. Haha it wasn't the most spiritual lesson but it was rather humorous. We headed back into town a bit and then took a bus in another direction to do some door to door contacting. We met a lot of people that were very nice but no one was interested. We headed back into town and met and Irish man, that the Elders had fixed a lesson with, and his three friends, one from Canada, Germany and I think England. It was quite a diverse group that was there for studies in Avignon. They had a lot of really good questions and they weren't interested to learn more or to change their way of life in anyway but they were very impressed by what we believe and they way we live. They said that that was not at all what they were expecting. It was really a cool and neat experience. It really shows that if people take the time to get to know us they will find out that we are normal people just like them but that we have a strong faith in God and Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, we did studies in the morning and then passed a recent convert and then did some contacting before heading to the train station. By the time I got back to Aix it was about one so we ate and then went out and did some contacting and such, passed some different investigators until English Class in the evening? We did English class and there were quite a few people that showed up, it was really good.
Thursday we did some contacting in the morning and then went to meet with The Sinquin Family. They are a really nice couple that 2 of the daughters of the wife, are members of the church and she has known the church for a very long time. They are very nice and had some great questions. They know the doctrine very well but don't feel like they have ever had a confirmation that they need to join the church. They hesitate about how their children may react and that it might hurt the already damaged relationships. It is quite complicated. We had a great lesson with them and they really honestly have testimonies that it is true, especially Mrs. Sinquin. Afterwards, they invited us to eat lunch with them, so we stayed and then huried back to the apartment really fast before meeting a member to go see a less active with us. Unfortunately, the less active was not there and so we ended up going to do our language study instead. After that, we headed to see Becca, the American member that is here for studies, and we had a good lesson with her as well. We headed to try and see Gerard but he wasn't home so we went and saw Kim, a recent convert, and we had a nice lesson with her. She is so strong in the gospel, she basically taught us! She is great, and even wants to serve a mission. We then headed in for the evening.
Friday was a pretty big day because Elder Caussé, of the first quorum of the 70, came and visited us. We had a great conference and he really boosted and encouraged us to get more lessons and engage more people to baptize, to help them come unto Christ. We all were pretty pumped up after the meeting. After the meeting, it was a bit of a scramble trying to get missionaries to the train station and everything to get back home. After all of that we headed to the institute building to see Wang Quin and talk with her a bit before institute started. Institute was great and Wang Quin really enjoyed it.
Saturday, in the morning, we went to play soccer and then came back in to shower and do some studies. Afterwards, we went to see the Casels' because he was admitted into the hospital, so we went over to help clean up the house a bit. We then went to go see our investigator Franck and we had a great lesson with him. We engaged him for baptism and he said yes! He was super excited about it too. I think he finally realized why everything he has been taught is important. We then went to see Gerard and he is make great progress as well. Since we taught him about reading and praying everyday, he has been doing it everyday and he said that he noticed a difference. He has more energy and strength during the day. He even talked about tithing and how he could pay it. He really made a ton of progress. We talked about the word of wisdom and he said that he would follow that as well. It really was a great lesson. We then went and saw Irma, another recent convert and we talked about the Plan of Salvation and she remembered everything very well. She is from South America so she speaks French/Spanish so I don't always understand absolutely everything that she says because sometimes it is in Spanish but I get the general idea.
Sunday we had church, which was really good and Gerard stayed for the sacrament this week. We then actually all ate together at church for a ward picnic and then we headed back home and dropped off some stuff and then we went out and passed some people. We headed back in to do our weekly planning that we weren't able to do earlier in the week. We then went out to go see Fernando, a member, and we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon, and then we headed back home for the night.
We had another good week here in Aix with some great progress with our investigators as they are slowly progressing to understand the importance of God and Christ in their lives; I love you all and hope that you are all doing well. Have a great week and enjoy all the blessings that you have!
Elder Kirkpatrick
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