Hello Everyone,

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I certainly did, I probably ate too much, but it was great, I will give you the details a little bit later in the email. We had a pretty good week and we have an awesome new investigator that is great. It has started to get pretty chilly here as I am sure it is doing a bit everywhere. It is nice but now I am going to have to start wearing my warm jacket and my gloves and scarf and such. I am sure everyone is starting to get into the Christmas season and remember what a wonderful time of year it is to help others in a spirit of giving. I absolutely love this time of year.

This week started out pretty good on Monday because we started teaching a new investigator named Jinane on Monday and she is awesome. We had a great first discussion with her and she is full of questions and she is very open.

Tuesday we did some street meeting in the morning and we met a couple of cool people and then even set up a rendez-vous with someone later in the day. After lunch we did some phone calls trying to get back into contact with people the missionaries have already contacted. Afterwards we headed to meet the guy for our lesson and forgot but he headed to where we were going to meet after I called him. We started to head out to a place where we could talk together and about 2 minutes after we start walking he just starts running in the opposite direction but Elder Coenen kept walking so I was kind of stuck in the middle. I yelled at Elder Coenen and by the time I got his attention, the guy was completely out of sight. I am not entirely sure why he left but he said something about appointment with a doctor. In any case, he is a little crazy and actually lives in the hospital. We then did a bit of contacting until going to see Jennifer and Erica. We wanted to regive them all of the lessons because they kind of had them with their mom but not really so we decided to start over basically. So we started with the restoration but didn’t get too far because they really like to talk. But it was still a good lesson.

Wednesday we were supposed to teach our investigator Mehkat but she ended up being super late and then was able to make it and then we had to go to the institute building anyway to meet Jinane, so it didn’t really work out. We started the lesson with Jinane and she had read all of the introductions all the way to the tenth chapter of 1^st Nephi in the Book of Mormon!!! It was so awesome. She had so many questions and so we basically spent the time responding to her questions. It was really awesome. We then ate lunch and did our studies that we missed from the morning and then we went out and did some contacting before seeing the Sinquin Family. We had a good lesson but unfortunately the member who was with us completely took over the lesson. It was so frustrating! We weren’t able to teach what we wanted, but it was ok and the member did bring up some pretty good points. We then, being late, hurried to English class to give a spiritual thought afterwards and then we headed home.

Thursday we did some pass backs in the morning and then ate and saw Frère Phillibeaux. We had a good lesson with him and it is great to see someone even after 30 years of inactivity in the church, because of his work obligations, talk about how he also has a testimony and how much it continues to grow. We then went and did some Street Meeting and then did some phone calls and then went out to see our Ward Mission Leader at his house for our meeting because he was having back problems. We then headed to the eat Thanksgiving at the Gerard’s home. And oh my was it delicious. It was a traditional Thanksgiving: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, etc. Even down to the pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream. It was all homemade and so delicious. It was so kind of them to do that. They really put in a lot of work to make some Missionaries feel like they are at home even being far from their family and their country.

Friday morning we saw Jinane again and was able to teach the whole restoration lesson and she had some great questions. She is really hungry to know as much as possible. We then did some contacting until going home to eat and do our weekly planning. After planning we went to do some Street Meeting and met a couple of really cool new students that we should be seeing this week. We headed down for a meeting with the young adults but it got cancelled. So we did some contacting up to meet the Myuldermans for a “thanksgiving” at a restaurant. They decided they wanted to take us out to eat so we had a thanksgiving with traditional French Cuisine. Mmm that was good too. I had an entrée of a little salad with two mini éclairs filled with chevre cheese, a type of goat cheese. Then for the main dish I had boar that had been cooked in a sauce of red wine and chocolate for 6 hours and then I had a dessert that was a crispy wafer with three thick layers of three different types of chocolate on a bed of street cream. It was all absolutely delicious!

Saturday was a rather long day and not too much happened honestly until the end when we had a rendez-vous with Jennifer and Erica. Unfortunately we were a little bummed because they weren’t going to be able to come to church.

Sunday my companion and Elder Smith, from the other companionship, went up to Manosque for church and so Elder Baret and I stayed in Aix. Church was good and we were able to teach one of their investigators and a recent convert after church before the other missionaries came back. We then did some contacting and went to share the Joseph Smith movie with Soeur Chipouka and her kids and it was really great. The spirit was really strong in seeing all of the events of the restoration. We then headed back in to finish off a pretty busy week.

I love you all and sincerely hope that you had a great week in remembering all of the blessings that you have during thanksgiving. We all have reason to give thanks. Have a great week and remember to keep the spirit of thanksgiving and Christmas alive during this wonderful time of year!

Elder Kirkpatrick