38th email from France (Cannes)

Hey everyone, thanks for all your emails! This week was really good- it went by really fast. First off, I’m glad to hear your doing really good. That’s great that you like everything. I’m sure it will get more and more normal every day. Sounds like the house is really good and the people are nice. I figured they would be and Dad likes work so that’s super cool! Christmas was really good It was great just to be with the members. Christmas Eve was really cool. The family Gonzaco invited us to come eat. We actually got lost trying to find their house and didn’t even have their number. Finally after talking to all the neighbors we found their house but at first we weren’t even on the same street. The food was pretty good, well mostly The first thing we ate were big huge oysters. I didn’t like them that much but a had a few. Then they had a big duck wing- just like a chicken wing but duck. It was really good then just a bunch of other stuff- lots of salmon, then different sausages and cheeses, then to finish a big ice cream cake. I guess ice ream cake is common for Christmas dinners. Then the next day, Christmas Day we went to the church to eat with just whoever wanted to come. There was about 15 of us so that was really fun. This meal was a little more interesting. It started with these cracker things with different types of meat on top; one was some raw ham which was a little weird then tuna and some more salmon- that was really good. Then they brought us some potatoes with the liver in the middle wrapped in some kind of meat that looked like bacon but tasted a lot weirder. The liver wasn’t that bad but I don’t think I would want to eat just a chunk of it. After that we all had a huge steak of duck but this time it was like a real steak! It was really good meat but a little gross because it wasn’t really cooked at all. After I finished I had a huge puddle of blood on my plate then of course more cheese and ice cream cakes. We stayed there most of the day talking to people, it was pretty relaxing. Yesterday we went to St. Raphael for a meeting and when we came back we ran into the bishop and his wife who were getting back from Toulouse and they invited us to eat at their house tonight. They’re pretty young and cool so I’m sure it’s going to be fun. I’m excited. It kind of rained for Christmas so that stunk but it’s been getting better. We had a few days where it was pretty cold in fact I hear that it snowed pretty much all the mission except here on the Riviera but I’m not complaining because I really don’t like the cold. This week should be pretty good too. There’s going to be a big party thing for the New Year. Actually I might be in St. EvRaphael again for an exchange if so I’ll just go to the party at their chapel. Thanks for your Christmas box, all the gifts, money, all the candy! I’ve been eating a lot of it and the money I don’t know what I’m going to buy. How many people were Friday? Are there old people that live their or just workers? How was the mall or whatever? One guy we talked to said that it would be just horrible to live there and that it would be almost impossible but I was just like whatever because I knew he didn’t know the situation and all that. It’s not really like you just moved there like a normal person out in the country somewhere. Are you able to call people or will the internet be coming soon? How is the TV? Does it work with the channels from home? Do you have furniture or not much? Why do you have a yard boy to water was that like part of the deal or something? There are lots of little Arab shops for food like that here too. Was there traces of Christmas or not at all or does everyone just have "vacation"? I hope all the people come back soon. Do you know or have other neighbors? I would really like some pictures but take care of all the other stuff first. I’m sure your pretty busy you could always just email a few. Whitney thanks for the email! How do you like busses? I’m used to them, we take at least 5 every day! So your going to buy a car, what kinds do they have there? Love y'all! Happy New Year! Taylor

37th email from France (Cannes)

Salem hallicom, bonjour, and hello! I guess the family is kind of spread out now. The first one is Arab if you didn’t know. First off, I guess you’re at the new house in Saudi! That’s really cool. I hope everything went pretty smoothly. We had a really good week. Our Christmas night in Marseille went really well. Everyone seemed to like it. There was just a bunch of little movie clips then people read Christmas stories then we would sing. I liked it; at least it’s always just good to be with the other missionaries. It’s kind of like what you said about everyone coming over before yall left -it’s just good to know you have friends, especially when we don’t see each other that often. Things like that are always fun just to talk and see what everyone’s been doing. The best part is that Sonia, Barbara and Laetitia were there. I got to talk to them a lot after it was finished actually. Sonia is getting baptized or I guess she already has last Sunday. I was super excited when she told me so they seem to be doing good. Joelle and Laurent were there also which kind of shocked me. They seemed good too. They really liked the program anyways. Also there were a few other members from Vitrolles but not too many. President and Soeur Carter played and sang this really cool Quebec Christmas song and it was surprisingly very good. A few people invited us to come over for Christmas which is good because I was getting worried. Actually we’ll be with a family tomorrow night for Christmas Eve then the 25th were going to eat at the church with all the single adults but there’s going to be like 20 people there and also just a lot of the younger people that don’t have family around so I’m actually really excited for that. I’m not too sure about the food though. I’m a little scared at what they might try to feed us. Normally the French traditional meals are a little bizarre. I know the main course of the meal at the church is called foie gras which actually is the liver of ducks that have been force-fed so there super fatty so we’ll see. Normally there should be lots of really good stuff, maybe some new cheeses you never know. I’m sure there will be lots of nasty mushrooms and stinky olives but that’s normal and there’s almost no getting around it even in a normal meal. We had a kind of special fhe at the church. Well, not really special we just made sure to invite everyone. This was last night and there was about 15 people who came. It was pretty fun. We just watched a little film about the nativity then played a little game then talked for a while after. Everyone seemed to like it. It was a good change because normally our little Monday night things are pretty dinky and rarely are there more amis than missionaries. Me and Elder Monson finally had one of our investigators at church this Sunday so that was cool. He’s just a normal guy that doesn’t do much and really has no reason not to come every Sunday but still it was cool. But this week we have been teaching a lot of lessons and have been seeing some really cool normal people! So you’re in Saudi! ahh Let me know how it is! I hope you can email me soon maybe some pictures. Tell me how the trip was and all that. I hope Chelsea did ok poor thing on the luggage belt. I hope they didn’t just throw her in there like luggage. MaMa said that they were going to surprise y’all with a tree and some food. I was actually thinking if they even did trees or if Christmas was like a top secret kind of deal. Is everyone open about going to church or just how does that all work? I’m sure you don’t even really know either. Is there a wall around this compound? That’s how I picture it. Do you have a yard? What are the streets and stuff like? I guess it’s green and stuff not just desert. ooh Maybe you will have kebobs the big veal sandwiches. We still eat those all the time and their definitely Arabian! Did we change phone plans and all that? Did the bank stay the same? Tell me about the ward. How’s the house? Does Chelsea like it?
I really hope you have a good first week and get to know everyone. Especially Dad at work. I’m sure that will be all new. Get Whitney and Evan to email me or at least Whitney -Evan just did. Are the kids on vacation there too or are they just starting school when they get there? Let me know how that goes. Did the phone thing work where it transfers and all that or the sling box thing for TV? So do you just not have any furniture or what? I know you didn’t bring any. What is there to do around town? I still don’t know where you’re at exactly. We’re going to go to a book store and find a map or something.
Well cool! Hope everything’s good! Merry Christmas!
Love y’all, Taylor

36th email from France (Cannes)

Hey! This week was pretty good. The transfer ended yesterday. I guess we’re both staying here together so that’s cool. That puts me here until almost my year mark. It’s going by so fast. Really nothing too big is going on here. I don’t have a lot to say. Just the same stuff- looking for people to teach. Sunday we went to watch the First Presidency’s Christmas devotional so that was really good. Finally someone invited us to eat for last night- an older couple, he cooked pizza that was pretty good then had a big plate of different cheeses so that’s always interesting. He has some really strong blue cheese that I ate a lot of. I know you really want to hear all the news about our amis but it’s really going pretty slow right now. Ivy sent me a letter this week so that was cool. It was kind of for my birthday and Christmas with money too so that’s always good! Thank y’all. I’m going to buy some Christmas cards today to send to a few people. For the call- I don’t know- I might be able to do it this week. I would just call from the church. I guess I could give you a time. OK, we figured it out. I will call you Thursday night at 5:30 here so it should be 7 hours ahead for you so the call would come Thursday morning at 10:30. I’ll call president but I figure he won’t have a problem. So I hope you don’t already have the anything planned at that time. If so you can maybe email President giving him a time I can call. So that should work! It might be just hectic to call after your there. I’ll just call from the church then we have our ward missionary meeting after. That’s Thursday, the 18th! Cool. Other things going on- not much! We have our Christmas party this week in Marseille. That should be really good. We are really looking forward to that. Saudi! That is really cool! Y’all have a lot to do I guess. I am super amazed about the garage holding 2 cars. That’s crazy about not letting anything Christian into the country. I still need to find a map because I don’t know where y’all are going to be exactly- that’s been bugging me. It’s cool the ward people have been in touch. I’m sure they will be happy to have a few more people. I guess you probably won’t be able to email this week after you get there. You know I want to know all about what it’s like. I have it all imagined in my mind but I could be way off. I’m sure it will be cool though. How were people at Dad’s work when he said he was leaving?? He’s been there forever. I guess today is his last day Well, I hope everything goes good. I’ll be praying for y’all. Sorry this is a lame email but we’ll talk Thursday. Can’t wait.

Love y’all, Taylor

35th email from France (Cannes)

Hey everyone thanks for your email. Wow that’s really cool that y’all finally made a decision. I’m excited. I think that’s going to be sweet. I bet everyone was pretty shocked! Today was fun. There are a few missionaries in Nice that are finishing so we met them half way in Antibes and we ate on the beach and walked around. It was a lot of fun. The weather wasn’t the best. The sun wasn’t out but there was a lot of sun. It was cool to see all the snow covered Alps. I don’t think I’ve ever seen big mountains and the beach before. It was cool. I took lots of pictures. I’ll try to send them to y’all. That was today. Other than that we also had a pretty good week.-just more normal stuff. I guess I just passed ten months so that’s cool. Time is really going fast. I can’t believe this transfer is almost over. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be staying here in Cannes so whatever. We’ve been around a little this week mostly to St. Raphael. I was there for an exchange which was really cool then also again for a zone meeting. We practiced singing for the big Christmas party at Marseille. It was good to see everyone but you know how I feel about organized singing! I’m getting better -I don’t mind it but anything you have to practice for is just dumb. This Sunday we ate with some members for the first time here so that’s exciting. It was the family Wally. They were super cool and we just joked around. It was a good change from walking around all day. Also we have been meeting some pretty cool people just here and there so we’ll see. The only problem is that no one can come to church so really its lame. Tonight we have a rv with this family that’s pretty cool. We might even eat but I’m not sure. I got a letter from Sonia, Leticia and Barbara from Vitrolles so that was pretty exciting. I’ll have to write them back soon. I’m hoping to see some people I know at the party in Vitrolles cause its not to far. The amis and members are invited so I’m sure a few will come. OK wow Saudi- that’s really sweet- your leaving soon too. What is everybody saying? Were Dad’s work people shocked? He’s been there forever. Just tell me what everyone said- I’m really interested. I have no idea how the phone is going to work. ohhhhh what about the cell phones I would like to keep my number and all that, I hope it doesn’t change. What are you doing with all of our stuff? Cars? House? Who’s going to keep it up and all that? Who’s going to have keys and be there? Are you trying to sell the older truck or what? Or the boat? Don’t you dare! How much stuff can you bring like just suitcases or what? Evan said you can come back every 5 months or so. I guess means summers and Christmas’s. that seems very often. For the visa I don’t know maybe it would be easier from my end. I seem to be at the stupid prefecture place often enough. We’re going next Monday to Nice for Elder Monson- he still isn’t legal and he’s been here over a year.I’m sure your Christmas will be good. Your little ward is going to be so happy to have a new family. Watch Dad will be the bishop in like a month. I guess I’ll come live with yall for awhile after, then school for summer sounds good. I haven’t really even thought about after that much. I still have to decide three weeks earlier or later. I’m waiting for Christmas to open the box. Well that’s about it. You can take out a lot of this stuff. Send me lots of details about everything your doing to get ready to go. Love y’all. Taylor

One other thing: Whitney and Evan get ready because international school is going to kick your butt…don’t forget I called it.

34th email from France (Cannes)

Hey everyone! This week was good- pretty normal, nothing to exciting happened. It’s been kind of nasty weather lately. It’s been raining for the last few days but I think it should be getting better. It’s been a little crazy the last few days. Last Thursday until Sunday night we had 8 staying at our apartment so that was interesting and a little annoying if anything but they’re gone now and its nice and quiet again. Elder Kelley moved to Toulouse to be the new assistant! Now we have Elder Shrotzki with us. He’s German. He’s the same age as me-mission wise- so I know him a little from the mtc. There he didn’t really speak English very well. He’s really cool and funny. I’m going to really miss Elder Kelley. He was the one to always joke with so now its a lot more quiet, but relaxing too. Sunday was cool because there were 10 of us there in church. All the members were like “ahh y’all are in force today!” Our fhe’s at the church are going better too. Last night there was like 9 people there- lots of fun too. It felt really good to leave for the day for Marseille. We went in the car with the zone leaders so it was pretty fast. We stopped in Toulon to pick up the elders from Corsica. It was cool to see them and big boat they come over on. It’s the Corsican ferry but it’s a huge pretty much cruise ship. They have to take to come back but they just closed the area there so it kind of killed everyone’s hopes. It’s the one place everyone dreams about going to. The meeting in Marseille was good! The 70 was super cool and nice. It was a different feeling though- kind of like a board room- we all had tables and it lasted super long and we talked about numbers and stuff. It was not near as interesting and uplifting as usual but still good. It was like that Sunday too. They presented the ward mission plan to the members so it was a huge PowerPoint and all that stuff. We had another class for all the amis watching a church movie I think. But they really discussed what they wanted to do and what they didn’t think would work. It seemed like the bishop was pretty scared because he didn’t know how everyone would take it. They presented all the goals for references and baptisms and percentages for lessons with members and all that. Before he was all like we’re going to ask for 50 referrals for the year- ahh ca fait peur- or that causes fear but he presented it all very well and for the most part they were willing to do a little more. So I hope it all works out for us and them. Getting to know the members is about the same. We did do service for someone Saturday so at least I know where one person lives but after that not much. I hope our Christmas isn’t boring just chilling at our apartment. Thanksgiving was good- we ate pretty good- mashed potatoes, gravy, canned turkey- it wasn’t bad! Of course Elder Kelley and Parker got invited to eat with a family but it wasn’t too bad for us. The old assistant Elder Hill just left. I had an exchange with him his last day so that was cool. He should be home now. I never have thought about me saying “we’ll see” a lot and about it being so different! But I must say it because here we say “on verra” a lot and it’s just the translation. But I’m doing really good on the language. The accent is the hardest part but it’s not a problem- its just obvious that we’re American. With our amis its still going pretty slow. The two people that we see every now and then- one lives on a boat in the port and the other lives in the back room of a snack shop- so if that answers your question. We’re doing ok but no one wants to or can come to church so it’s really lame because that’s what we’re really looking for. And really the only thing that leads to progression is actually coming to church. It’s kind of hard sometimes when just nobody has time to talk but then we have all day just looking for people. It’s going ok though. You didn’t say what you wanted me to do about sending the Christmas box. I did get your package, though. Thanks! Are you already using the laptop? What kind did dad buy? I hope Dad starts feeling better. I’ve been a little sick too but you know I’m like this every year so its normal. Good luck Evan for the basketball tournament. Disney 2010 -yeah I’m in- we’ve been talking about Disney lately. Elder Monson really likes it much more than me but it does bring back good memories talking about it. But yeah that sounds super fun and if Grandpa could get the presidential suite- woo –awesome. I never thought I would break in but last Tuesday I bought a scarf and the second I put it on I lost just a little bit of my American accent! Haha. Lots of people just email a few pictures home from their cameras. I can start that if you want. Y’all asked how I speak. I do well. There’s no more practicing just actual conversations. It’s still getting better though mostly just learning lots of vocab and all the little verbs that aren’t used very often. Please check and see how much money I have on my account. Maybe I should use my card for something so they don’t close it or something like the other time. A lot of this is junk you can take out when you print out my emails- do you print it then change it for the blog? I hope so! (Note- yes I do edit it for the blog but keep the unedited versions as well!) Well, love y’all, Taylor

33rd email from France (Cannes)

First thing is that I got finally got your letter! Thanks for that. Hey everyone, I guess your getting ready to leave for Arkansas. That’s cool. Tell everyone hey for me. We had a pretty good week here just normal stuff. Time is passing by really fast- it’s incredible. Today we went shopping and I found a Dr. Pepper for the first time since I got here so that was pretty exciting! Elder Kelley and Parker left for Toulouse today so are alone for a few days. Nothing too much is going on. I know I was complaining about always being gone before but now I really miss it. It’s pretty hard just to work in the same place every day. We have to really work hard to find stuff to do especially because we don’t go to the other towns around here. The others do because they have the car so were just here in centre ville all day. Finally Thursday we’ll be heading to Marseille for the zone conference. I’m really, really excited to see everyone. I talked to Elder Calder on the phone the other night. He seemed to be doing well with his greenie. Also, there’s going to be someone from the 70 there- Elder Kipishika, I think. So I’m sure it’s going to be really good- different, though, because it’s going to be in English. We haven’t had any meetings or anything in English for a long time, since President Merrill, so well see how that goes. Our week was pretty normal. Sunday was good. They had the primary program just like ours, they sang and gave little talks. It was really funny- they other elders have this ami that’s been coming to church for a few months now and they asked her to come thinking about the question if she needs to be baptized. So one of the little kids was giving his little talk in-between songs and he said something like”… we’re only baptized once to show we have faith in Jesus…”- and this lady like everyone in France, was already baptized Catholic. So Elder Kelley and Parker were all like “ahh- I hate that little kid- why didn’t he say we’re only baptized once by the authority restored by Joseph Smith??? haha So we’ll see what happens there. We finally got our cell phone last night so that’s pretty exciting. Now we’ll be able to call people and fix stuff. Before, it was pretty hard to manage. I still like Cannes a lot. This week there has been a huge real estate convention so there has been people all over from all over so that was pretty cool. I think we’re going to do some more shopping today- just looking around. Here the word for window shopping is lèche vitrines or “window licking”. Last Tuesday we found this shop with cell phones that cost about 10 thousand dollars. I’m not sure why but they do. Oh, tell Jacob that CTR in French is CLB- choisir le bien. Why did he ask? Thanks for the pictures and card. Whitney would fit in perfectly in Cannes with those huge sun glasses. Everyone here is obsessed with Bob Marley too! Lots of kids have little man purses with his face on them and in Vitrolles one of our friends had a dog named after him! I never though his pic would end up in our house but whatever. What kind of stuff is Evan playing on the guitar? Yesterday we met the chillest old guys ever. They were on the south beach and every day they assemble themselves at the same place to feed old bread to two ducks. We sat with them for a while and talked. There’s 3 of them and they all come on bike and have been doing it for years. So if we’re ever bored around 3 o’clock we’ll head down there with em.
Hey, this is for Dad. I forgot to answer the questions but I don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of fish markets and there is lots of fresh fish in the stores. Today they had a big shark just cut up. I think it’s just whatever they catch. They’re super crazy about soccer. I really like it a lot more now. Everyone even here in Cannes, likes the OM Marseille team even more than the Nice team. I saw the Seahawks playing on TV in a bar the other day- from the street of course- but that is the first NFL I’ve seen in a while! President Carter did away with the English class. Everyone was pretty bummed. Some of the bigger cities had like 15 students every week. Let me know what’s up! OK, bye again! Love y’all, Taylor

32nd email from France (Cannes)

Hey everyone, Things are going fine in Cannes. Oh and don’t be too worried that I haven’t gotten the memory card yet. I didn’t know there was money in there too. I think it’s either in Toulouse or in Vitrolles but it hasn’t gotten here yet. I did get mamas for my birthday though- all that came fine. Money for Christmas is really fine, that’s what I want. Oh yeah, you know I’m going to buy some sweet French shoes-some nice pointy ones- that’s how they do it here. They are kind of like elves shoes. I’ll probably get a scarf also and maybe a coat. It’s actually really nice weather here now, not cold at all. We wear short sleeves and no jackets.
But hey, thanks for the emails. It was really good but it seems I’ve been hearing only from mom and mama and not anyone else. Of course not that I don’t like hearing from you mom! This week was good. We did a lot of finding stuff. There is a whole area book of just people and numbers that haven’t ever been contacted so we’ve been going everywhere- it’s cool. I really like Cannes. I don’t know what were going to do after all these people are finished because we don’t have that many people to teach, but I’m sure we’ll find some. We’re finding a few, it’s just slow. We met this guy from Turkey who is really cool and we saw him the other day then well see him again tomorrow. He lives in a sailboat in the port which I think is awesome. So we’ll see. Tonight we have a rv with someone the other missionaries put us in contact with and we have a member to come with us so that’s exciting. That’s our first member lesson since we’ve been here. It’s not that bad being with 4 and it’s cool to see the sisters around every now and then. We had our fhe thing last night at the church. It was fun- we played this game that’s like Mafia. There weren’t a whole lot of people there but enough. I had talked to this less active really cool guy at church for like 30 minutes then invited him to come and he showed up so that was cool. Then afterwards the other elders set a time to go see him because he lives in an outside city- so that’s kind of annoying but whatever. The other elders are pretty ticked right now because the sisters set up a mangez-vous with their ami at church last Sunday so it’s kind of hard for stuff like that but for everything else it’s not bad. Christmas is going to be cool- what they’re going to do is have a big party for all the missionaries and members in Marseille. It’s a little long for the people here in Cannes but I’m pretty sure the Vitrolles people will come if anything to meet President Carter. Do you even know who the mission president is there or care?? Here it’s like a big deal. Everyone knows who he is and his story. Maybe it’s just because President Merrill was so amazing that they want to know President Carter, too. Everyone loved President Merrill and they’ll love Carter. It’s going to be a talent show thing I think. So they’ve been asking who can do stuff and I don’t think juggling would make it. Good thing I’ve been practicing my opera voice- me and Monson could sing. He sings a lot, I think it’s dumb but it doesn’t bother me so whatever. He really is a genius though. He builds robots and stuff. He created his own 3d game- just a total computer whiz but super smart too. His brain is different, I can’t explain it. Just one example is he does origami without thinking. He just sees it and can do it. He told me in high school he hated the computer nerds because they thought they knew a lot. He’s really, really cool though. We get along good. Thanks for the info- the Gideon’s ahh I was wondering just because we met one and they were trying to tell me he was evangelist but I was pretty sure that wasn’t it. Everything else is good. I really like it here. They’re starting to put up lots of Christmas decorations so that’s cool and were doing ok meeting people. Church was good, it’s just going to be really hard to get to know people. It’s not their fault. They already knew 4 then we all show up. They are nice and happy were there but that’s it, so we’ll see how that works out. Then on top of that the others are sisters and zone leaders so we’re at the bottom of the food chain haha- anyways it’s not bad. We’ve been playing soccer in the mornings just right around the corner. There is a community field with turf grass just open for everyone. It’s really nice and pretty fun too. We still don’t have a phone and it’s bad because we can’t call anyone or do anything to set up appointments. We’re just lost and they haven’t sent us one yet. Get Whitney and Evan to write or email or something MaMa is my only loyal writer and you. No, I really don’t mind. Use my computer and we can get me another one when I get home. That works better for all of us- mostly me! Thanks for answering my questions and for finding Mike for me. Eric’s been emailing me. He seems to be doing good and working out a lot. Apparently he’s training to wrestle with clye b., my old paintball buddy somewhere in Westlake. Well, that’s about it. Write a big letter next week. Love y’all,

Taylor

31st email from France (Cannes)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Things are really good here in Cannes. This week went by really fast. We’ve been doing a lot of finding stuff. We don’t really know anyone yet and they didn’t leave us with many amis so we’ve just been kind of wandering around passing by people and visiting. We have one cool ami that we finally just met last night and he seems really cool. We’re going to see him Thursday, I think. He came to a little thing we had at the church last night so that was good. We played catch phrase and just kind of messed around. Elder Monson is cool. Of course, everyone at church asked him if he’s a grandson or something but he’s not. It rained the first three days we were here so I’m a little sick right now but nothing to bad. Church was really good. It’s more normal than Vitrolles was. (or I should say more like the way I’m used to) There are lots of families and people that know how a normal ward works. There are lots of returned missionaries. We went to the ward council and they all seem pretty excited about the missionary work so that’s good. It’s still going to be hard with 6 of us, I’m still not sure how that’s going to work. The members were just like wow that’s good but didn’t do much to get to know us or anything yet so we’ll see. Soeur Daun is there along with Soeur Mahuru from Tahiti so that’s cool. We just passed 9 months so the sisters are going downhill now! It’s going by really fast. Elder Monson is pretty much a genius. His dad works for the Church in the genealogy department. So I think that’s pretty cool. He was a byu ball room dancer. The other day we went to St. Raphael for our district meeting. It was awesome. We took the train and the whole way was along the beach. There was tons of huge houses and lots of ports just filled with yachts. The next town after St. Raph is St. Tropez so maybe we can make it out there one day. I heard it’s not that nice though. Here in Cannes is super rich too. There aren’t any bad areas because everyone is stinking rich. The first day we were just walking around and we found a Bentley dealership then kept walking just to find a Lamborghini dealership. It’s pretty crazy. The people are pretty open to talk though so it's great. Yeah, all the people were pretty happy for Obama. All the members told us they stayed up all night to see who would win. I figure y’all did the same thing. One thing I think is funny- our ward mission leader is the exact French twin of Mark Morris. They’re exactly the same, even the jokes and little comments they make. They even look alike and have the same laugh. We walked along the beach road the other day and they had a lot of the guys doing the huge sand castles. They were really, really cool. We need to go back and take some pictures. Today I think we’re just going to do some shopping around centre ville. They have all the really nice stores- Dior and Chanel and all that good stuff. I never got the Halloween things yet but I think they stopped forwarding mail for a while for the transfers. So hopefully it will come soon. I don’t have that many pictures right now but I’ll try to get a few more and send them. Just take more good ones on the card you have and then send me it. I only have one card right now. You have one and one is somewhere in Toulouse or in the mail. I don’t know what you need to do for Christmas. I’m really just ok with getting money and a tie or something chocolate. Just whatever you think. I’m going to try and send y’all something. I might do some shopping for that today. How’s my blog going? You haven’t said anything about it in a while.Thanks so much for Blake’s email. I have another name and this will take skills- Mike Michie who lives I think in South Carolina maybe but if not somewhere on the east coast- but the kicker is he’s on his mission already so I need his myldsmail email so if you could search for that it would be much appreciated! How’s Bishop Young doing? Our bishop here is pretty young. He seems super nice. I didn’t talk to him very long but he seems great. What’s Ryan T. doing? Is he still there and Will? Oh- question- who are the guys that give out the red bibles for schools and hotels and stuff? I need to know their name. The other day we met a really nice member from Utah. She was window shopping as she described it. Her husband was there for business so we talked to her for a while. She has a son somewhere in Europe as a missionary so she was cool to talk to. That really sucks for Clay’s mission not getting to email. I wouldn’t like that at all. Try to get his address for Washington. I wrote Andrew today. How’s basketball going? Are they practicing or playing already? It still feels pretty nice outside so I’m liking that. I really didn’t want to go somewhere that’s way cold. It’s really weird here, I don’t even know how to describe it. There are just lots of rich people or normal people doing a good job making me think their rich. They even hhave little rich French dogs- crazy. How’s Chelsea doing?Everything’s good here- no problems. Elder Davis is in Toulon so he’s in my district. It was good to see him the other day. When I came down here it was on the train. I was with Elder Gibbons- he was in the MTC with me. I really like him. But anyway his dad’s name is Berry Gibbons- I think he produces the efy cds but anyways this elder is in a band with his brothers called The Gibbons and they have a song on the last efy cd. Whitney should have it. Tell her to listen to the song and tell me if she likes it. He said they have a cd at Wal-Mart but I would be surprised if it makes it to our Wal-Mart. Write lots this week. Love y’all,Taylor

30th email from France (Cannes bound)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? So I guess you would like to know where I’m going. I’m emailing you from Marseille but in a few hours I’ll be chilling in Cannes (kan),which I’m very excited about! I escaped the twilight zone one more time. So Cannes- everyone’s been telling me it’s about the prettiest place in the mission. It’s pretty much the French Riviera at its finest. I’ve heard it’s quite a rich town just outside of Nice. I’m really, really excited. I’ll be with Elder Monson. I don’t really know him but I’m sure it will be great. Also, I’ve heard our apartment is one of the best in the mission. We’ll be living with 2 other guys, Elder Kelley and Parker. I know Elder Kelley from when he was in Aix and I’ve heard from a lot of people that Elder Parker is really cool. Also there is Soeur Dawn from the mtc who is in our ward, so it should be really good. I’m not sure how that’s going to work with 6 of us in a ward but I’m excited. Elder Calder is going to Toulouse right now to pick up his ‘bleu’ or greenie so the ward here was pretty excited to get another young one. I really liked serving with him. We had a lot of fun. There was a branch that closed called Antibes so I think we will be working with their old amis a little but I’m not sure. I know it’s not a super big city so I hope there’s enough stuff for us to do. It’s a whitewash too. Elder Monson was in St. Raphael before so he doesn’t know the area either. I’m sure that will be fun getting around for the first few weeks! Another good thing is- that puts us in range for preparation day Monaco trips! So we’ll see if that works out. I would love to go there. I’ve seen some pictures of it and it looks amazing. The last few days we’ve just been running around saying bye to people so it’s been really good. Sunday was good, they called me up first to talk in sacrament so that was cool. You'll like this one funny thing that happened this week- The other night we had an rv with Robert but it was raining super hard. We were in our apartment and not really feeling like walking over to his house in the pouring rain. Just then, he called to see if he could come get us so that was really cool. We were just kind of waiting by our window to see when he got there. So finally a car comes up and stops so were like ok he’s there and we get all of our stuff and run out. We go down our stairs and Elder Calder goes to the front door and I go in the back seat. So as Elder Calder’s running around I jump into the back seat and close the door. The first thing I hear is this old lady yelling "c'est qui" or ‘who is it’. So I look up and see it’s not Rob! It’s this old couple so I’m like ohhhh and jump back out of the car. Then I realized I should probably explain something so I open the door and say “I thought you were someone else” and ran back into our apartment so that was pretty funny. Then when Rob came a few minutes later Elder Calder could not stop laughing! It’s interesting how much French people care about our elections. That’s all they want to talk about. We were eating with this family last night and the husband just wanted to talk about that and his wife kept getting aggravated. He was explaining that maybe we’re not supposed to talk about politics with other people but with members it’s fine. It was pretty funny. I enjoyed it. Everyone here wants Obama to win but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. That’s really sweet that Evan made the basketball team. Is it because he’s really tall or did he find some cordination skills other than in his fingers for computer games? How often do they practice? Is it still Coach F.?
Yes, we have daylight savings here. It’s ok I guess but it messes us up because it gets dark later. It’s really hard to get around. The busses stop sooner. There isn’t anyone outside and it’s getting colder so that doesn’t help any. The members were really happy that I’m going to Cannes- not for me to leave- but just because the town is so cool and the ward. It will be a good place to be for Christmas. Someone told me that she thought it was good that I started in Vitrolles because it can only get better. But I totally disagree, I love it here. Also there are a lot of activities there so a lot of people said they would be there often and will see me. All the youth have something there this Saturday so hopefully I’ll get to see some of them. Leticia actually told me “your lucky your going to see all the celebrities”. I doubt it but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll get to teach some of them.
Today was really cool because Marseille is such a huge station for the trains. There were about 12 missionaries there and we just chilled for a while and talked about who’s going where and all that. Apparently Muslims don’t have Halloween so there wasn’t really anything going on. There were a few kids walking around but nothing too big. Some of our amis told us they knocked on our door but I guess we weren’t there. My foot is fine, don’t worry about it- thanks for worrying though.
I have a quest for Whitney go on my space or face book whatever and find me B. F.’s email address. He lives in Shreveport. Do a friend request if you have to become and ask. Please try and don’t forget I really really want it. So Christmas is coming up. I really think you need to send whatever your sending pretty soon. I’m not sure if the Christmas zone conference is before or after Christmas but if it is after I won’t have the stuff until after Christmas so if you send it now I should get it for this zone conference and have it for Christmas day. I really don’t know what I want just money I guess. I’ve been thinking about buying a coat thing and some shoes, we’ll see. Everything else is good. Oh send me Jell-O- that doesn’t exist here and people are amazed by it. Every time they’re just like ‘ohhh it moves’. We’ve been doing that then teaching a little thought about having a firm foundation. It works out pretty well. Ok well, I’m going but thanks for everything. I’ll tell you how Cannes is next week! Love y’all, Taylor

29th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey, how is everyone? I’m really good. Yeah, glad you liked all my pictures. I can try to answer your questions. I have no idea for the couple with the tattoo arm and Stg. Pepper shirt- doesn’t help me at all because I have no idea what that is- I think it’s really funny that you described those girls as Spanish. One is Mali gash and the other is Mimelle, the Muslim girl we talked about a while back. I really like the little figures the guy painted for us. They are from our ami, Lee. He paints them for this store. I actually have quite a few more now. He’s really cool but recently moved to Aix so now those elders are getting them- we’re pretty upset. Ok about my haircut-that was Elder Calder’s first time to cut hair. He’s about to cut mine again soon so pray for him. It was pretty bad! It only stayed like that for a few days though then grew out. He thought it was pretty funny, me- not so much. The freaky elder you asked about is just Elder Scott being dumb. Hey yeah, Matt Damon-wow. I really like that picture and that hat! Nobody’s ever said I look like Matt Damon before. Oh yeah, I’m in Marseille right now and I’m holding my carte de sejour. Finally!! It took forever but now that definitely means I’m leaving. So I’m pretty nervous. I’m sure it will be ok wherever I go. You’re right about the twilight zone though. I still don’t want to go over there. A lot of people told me it’s even better though so we’ll see. It’s going to be hard to leave Vitrolles but I’m ready, I think. Yeah we're still going with Rob and his family today so I'm really excited about that. We're meeting them at their house at 1 so we need head back over there pretty soon. I hope Evan didn’t take a bunch of stupid pictures. I really wanted some good ones of around the house and stuff and yall. What are y'all doing going to Japanese grills- that’s just weird for you but that’s cool. CITGO picnic -how come they didn’t do tours in the past? I remember going on a tour once but I was really young. I bet that was fun. Thanks for the Tony's. You can send them separately if you want if it's not too much more. For Christmas I really don’t need anything.I can buy some shoes here. I still like ties but im slowly becoming more European so I can't wear the big ones anymore- just sheik stylin ones. Stocking yeah candy and stuff only chocolate actually- would be great. Oh haha I just thought of the picture you mean- the couple that’s Joelle and Laurent- that’s funny- we’re actually going to be over there Thursday. ha I still am not sure what Sgt Pepper is. My foot is still hurting. I'm not sure what I'm going to do though. Don’t you have two memory cards now? I'm pretty sure you do. Send them both back please. Don’t forget the plastic cases too. Actually, look in my camera box somewhere in my room. I think there is another case for a memory card. I have one less and it bugs me just having one laying around but take lots of pictures and send it back. Whitneyand Evan need to write me. You, Dad and Ivy email me but I never hear from them. I hope I get a Halloween card since you said you got one for all my friends! How is Jace doing? I haven’t heard from him. I emailed him though. I hear from Andrew- six baptisms- what that’s crazy- that’s more than the average for each person here in two years. Y'all make video clips to send them to me. I'll try to send you some pics pretty soon of les Beux be Provence some time this week. Well that’s about it. Sorry this one wasn’t in a very formal letter form. There’s a lot of junk. I heard from Eric. He's going to Lamar next semester he told me. I didn’t have any good stories or anything this week but everything’s good. I'll know Saturday where I'm going. But anyways, hope y'all are good. Love y'all, Taylor

A few cute video clips......

If you can't hear him at the beginning, he says "Elder Calder is sick in bed tonight so I'll be juggling for you."



And playing a little ping pong. And then in true Taylor fashion, the Napoleon Dynamite run.....



And if y'all don't leave a comment on these, your just never going to! haha

28th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone! Thanks for all your emails. Everything’s going good here. We’ve had another pretty busy week and it was a really good p-day today. We have just been hanging out which was really pretty relaxing. We went a bunch of different stores and shopped around. I’m glad you got the pictures. I was hoping you would. Yesterday we were in Aix for a little zone meeting and our interviews and president told me that I’m leaving- at least if all the stuff goes normally in Marseille for the medical visit- so we’ll see. I’m sure it will though. I feel really weird about leaving. I’ve been here for so long. Everyone seems to think I’m going to Bordeaux on the other side. That’s pretty weird especially cause I don’t really know any of the missionaries over there but they all say its the best place to be for Noel or Christmas so I guess we’ll see. But that transfer will be November 4th I think. So I’ll be getting ready for that, starting to pack up all my stuff. Somehow I seem to have a lot more junk than when I came. But it will be ok. This last Sunday was really good. Everyone was pretty excited because a family in the ward had a son in Belgium on a mission and he just got back so they were all way excited to see him. I knew he was coming home for a while now and I was pretty excited to see him but then when he got there I was just like well this sucks-kind of makes me miss everyone back home. Especially because after he was all explaining how he got off the plane and saw his family and all that and how he realized it was over and all that. But he’s really cool though. He said he wants work with us and stuff so that’s going to be good. Then finally we got a new ward mission leader, Frere Vendassi- he’s going to be really good. His son is on a mission in Canada right now and he seems to really like us. We haven’t had anyone since Aurelian left a few months ago. So we should be starting to meet with him hopefully at least once a week. Sunday night we went to see Robert. They invited us over to eat. We just had a big crêpes party. They were really good. We both felt very unhealthy after but it was worth it. The best part is that they invited us to come with them next week to a little town called les Beux de Provence. It’s about an hour away and it’s a really old city with a bunch of shops and some kind of castle in the middle. We’re really excited about that. Actually Elder Calder had already bought a post card of the city because it was so cool and Frenchy so hopefully that works out for next Tuesday. If you want to laugh a little more about the silver- suited groom just know that his name is Sebastian ha He’s really cool though. Thanks for the complements on the apartment. We have already talked about how ugly the border is. Actually it doesn’t bother us. I really like this apartment, though. It’s a lot better than most of the other ones I’ve been to. oh yeah another good thing about Sunday a relief society president asked us last week if they could do anything for us cook or other stuff so we asked if they could fix all of our falling apart suits and stuff so I gave them a pair of pants that should be fixed by next week so that’s exciting. The bottom was falling where they fitted it and I had already put a safety pen to hold them up but it just wasn’t doing it. It was the green suit ones. I should be doing an exchange here in Vitrolles with Elder Scott this week so I'm pretty excited about that. We're going to be busy this week again. Tonight actually were going to Marseille and coming back tomorrow morning then were going to be in Martigues then two days in Salon then back in Aix. Yesterday we didn’t do much, we were in Aix all day for the meeting. I'm excited about going to Marseille. There is a French elder there that’s only been there for about a week or so. Elder Wright just left to go to Nice when he came making me the longest to still be in their first city in our whole group. There’s going to be 10 more coming for this transfer so that’s cool. I think Elder Calder's going to train. I bought a USB port today so that was a nice gift to myself. It should be a pretty good one. I'm going to start stealing peoples good photos and saving them. I bought a sweet address book today I'm pretty excited about that. I'll get everyone to give me their info. We got the new church magazines yesterday so that’s pretty exciting. I haven’t read much but it looks good. I got a letter from Andrew and some pics of him golfing. He seems to be doing good and another one from Clay. He seems to really be liking the mtc like I did. I kind of miss it. If my shirts are going kind of brown is there anything I can do for them? I've had this blister thing on my foot for a long time now and then someone told me it was a wart so I gave myself surgery and cut it off. It seems to be doing better, we'll see though. It really hurt before. You need to send my memory card back with some pics around the house and stuff. That would be appreciated-soon if you can. Also, maybe 2 more Tony's. Elder Calder really likes it but then so does everyone but if you could send two. I don’t really need anything else. I don’t know what I want for Christmas. How far ahead you should send stuff? I don’t really need anything. I would kind of like to buy some French shoes maybe. I can juggle better now. Maybe I'll send another video. Elder Calder is now hooked on it too. Love yall, Taylor

27th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hello! Everyone sounds like your all doing good. Me too. This week went by fast. The elders from Aix came down for the day and just left. That’s Elder Scott and Gill so we just ate lunch together then chilled at the church and played ping pong which is always a blast. I guess we will see them tomorrow in Aix for our district meeting. We’re still pretty busy running around tonight. We have a train that leaves around 7 to go to Avignon which I’m pretty excited about. I’ll be working there for the day with Elder Hanson so that should be fun but we’re going tonight just so we can plan together. Then tomorrow we’ll all come down to Aix again for the district meeting then I’ll go back to Avignon then probably won’t return to Vitrolles until Thursday morning. So that will probably be a little stressful. Then next week I’ll probably email you from Marseille because I’ll be there for my doctor’s thing for the carte de sejour. Wow, this week wasn’t too bad though. The only thing we left for was zone conference. It was really good, always exciting to see President and Soeur Carter. They’re really nice and of course it’s good to see all the other missionaries. For the rest of the week Elder Calder was sick so we didn’t really leave or do anything. It was a little boring but there was stuff for me to do. I actually read quite a bit which was a nice, relaxing change. I started with Our Heritage which is just a little short one about all the history of the church. It was interesting because that talked a lot about all the stuff we saw coming back down from Minnesota but then I read Kimball’s Miracle of Forgiveness which I really liked. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it but its pretty dang powerful so that’s what I did all week. It was good though. We finally went out Saturday afternoon but we didn’t have anything planned so we just went and saw some old people then came back. So one thing at zone conference, President Carter told us all something- lets call it the buzz of the mission, everyone’s talking about it- ok, so as of right now all the missionaries from Provo come in every 6 weeks then in the middle of every transfer or 3 weeks after the Provo ones come we get all the missionaries from the Madrid mtc. So it’s just kind of inconvenient so I guess President called some people and got this to change so that they all come at once. The thing is they changed when the ones from Provo come not the ones from Madrid. So what’s going to happen is were going to have one long transfer 9 weeks not 6 and then we will be on the transfer schedule three weeks off as what we are now. Why this matters is because that makes everyone that leaves after this 9 week transfer have a different date that they go home on. So it won’t be Feb. 6th for me now we have the choice to go home 3 weeks early or 3 weeks later. So it’s just something to think about. I don’t have any idea if it changes anything for me, I won’t have to know for a while but it’s something to think about. Let me know what you think but he told us it’s just totally whichever one works the best for us. Yeah, they have Halloween here. I’m not sure why either but its fun. Maybe they will do something at the church- that would be cool. If not it doesn’t change that much for us. We stopped by the other night to see Robert, the army jeep parade guy, and talked for a while. They have a lot of crazy stories of old missionaries that were here. He invited us back to have a barbeque, we just need to tell him whether it’s better for us Saturday or Sunday- so that should be fun. I sent your memory card Saturday, sorry it took so long but it should be there soon. This week I have a lot of good pictures you’ll probably have some questions about. But there are some really good ones, quite few of them too. I’m wearing the beret in one of them and I am absolutely studly- its my favorite. I think no I don’t know the girl that got baptized but that’s cool. Thanks for the missionary update. Keep it up. It’s interesting to see what they’re doing. Send me a memory card with lots of pictures just of everything. I never got homecoming pics. In reference to his comment, tell Evan he has no chance against this! How’s Chelsea doing? When is Ivy going to Delaware? She didn’t say when it was for. Ok well I got to go but love y’all. Oh yeah, transfers are November 2nd. I think and I’m pretty sure I’m going. Almost positive, I’m just going to start telling people I’m going soon but I’m ready, I guess. I’ve been here forever- longer than anyone that came in with me. You can even ask the missionaries there- Five transfers is a long time. Taylor

26th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone thanks for all your emails. This week was really good. We had a lot of fun, especially with conference. It was really good to translate it. They just did it really fast, I guess, then sent it. We watched Saturday morning at like 6:00 that night, then we had the night session Sunday morning and Sunday morning Sunday night. It stinks because we didn’t get to see the ending session because it would have been so late. I guess we’ll get it in the Ensign or here its "le liahona" which is the church magazine but it has parts from the Friend, Ensign in one. We ended up going to Marseille for the priesthood. We got a member to bring us. We took this really cool road to get to the church; it went all around the city just next to the beach. We saw a lot of the industrial port where they were building a few huge yachts. Then there were about a million sailboats out which sucks cause it was Sunday, but still a really cool sight. That was really fun too because there was about 20 missionaries there that came from all over. Elder Davis was there so it was good to see him again. He seems to be doing good in Toulon. I’ll see them all again this week in Aix for zone conference so we’re pretty excited about that. I’ve had a good birthday- three different people called and sang- just other missionaries but still pretty exciting. We didn’t do much but go shopping. We actually spent like three hours at the store just looking around. It’s like Wal-Mart with everything. Actually something that really cool happened yesterday, we were at Carrefour the same store as today to buy some medicine for Elder Caulder cause he’s been sick and we ended up buying a few other things. It was like 40 euros so quite a bit of stuff actually. Then when we were checking out when the receipt came out the lady was like oh vous avez gagné or “you won” so at first were just like whatever we need to hurry so we don’t miss our buss then she’s like no vous avez gagné! Then she explained that it was free so that was really cool- they gave us 40 bucks in gift cards. I think it’s for the birthday for the store but what a birthday for me. We used the money that we won today- I bought a really cool big flag for the France soccer team then me and Elder Caulder picked out a tie so that was exciting.Another thing about conference that was cool is that Elder Neil A. Anderson served in Paris so he recorded his talk in French and then another guy, Chaussé, I think is French from a city in our mission, Agen, so he recorded his own too. I did really good understanding. The only thing is you have to pay attention, you can’t just let your mind wander and still know what’s going on so it was a little tiresome. We watched the thing in between about President Monson and he was telling a story about Shreveport so that was cool. Also our members were pretty excited when they announced the temple in Rome. I guess its not too far away. They all really want one in France. I really liked the kids choir too. I was in Aix again for an exchange and I got to go to their ward council. It was fun but not like ours. I guess I just didn’t know anybody so I didn’t really care. We didn’t really leave the apartment yesterday cause Elder Caulder’s sick so I just spent all day cleaning and mopping. It wasn’t too bad though, it actually went by really fast. I’ve been getting a little stuffy but I do every year so whatever. I finally got some news from Marseille. I should be having a medical visit the 22nd then after that I should be all good and legal so that’s exciting. Also that means I’m good to go anywhere in the mission even the Bordeaux side. That scares me a little bit but I hear its the best place to be for Christmas. I can’t believe 8 months already. It’s going by so fast. I feel like just left. It’s going to be a year before I know it. I bought this tarte de citron or just like a lemon meringue pie thing to make for myself but I don’t know if its going to work. It said to mix the stuff with water and 4 eggs then cook it for 10 minutes on low so I did but it just looked like scrambled eggs were forming there at the end so we’ll see when we get back. It’s in the fridge now ha "la frigo". Also I bought a little fruit cake which I love. I had never had fruit cake before but I really really like it (that’s before I came to France- I’ve eaten it pretty often here) That sucks about the missionaries being sick. There has been lot sick here too. I want you to write a little every week about what y’all do with the missionaries. Tell me what they teach y’all and if they’re cool or not. Do they still come every Monday? If so, that’s cool. Ivy said they’re probably going to Delaware which seems really boring to me. Don’t know why but it does. That’s cool though. I’m sure it will be good. I never got homecoming pics but be sure to send them. I’ll send the memory card today.
Sorry I didn’t have that much this week. This keyboard is stupid so you might have to go through and add letters. Love y’all, everything is good here!
Taylor

25th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone. How’s it going? Really good here- same old stuff but we had a really good week, another really busy one. Anyways we’re in Marseille right now. I had to come for more papers and stuff. It’s starting to be pretty frustrating but its better than not being legal, I guess. I still have a while till I can finish it. I think the next step is coming for an x-ray of my chest which I think is kind of random- whatever. Vitrolles is going good. It’s starting to get a little cold and that’s kind of scaring me. I don’t like it but I hear its a lot warmer here than the other side by Bordeaux, so we’ll see. I should be staying in the south at least until all these Marseille trips are over with. Lots of little things happened that I wanted to write about so I’ll just start one thing. Well, Elder Calder is on this diet so we decided to buy healthier foods and one of these things that he wanted was carrots. One night he asked me if I wanted one and of course I was like no way I don’t like carrots- never really have. Then this memory came to my head of how Grandma Dees used to boil them and that I ate them but that was a while back. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about if I really liked boiled carrots and this is after I ate a normal one confirming that I don’t like them raw. So I boiled water, cut them up in little circles like I remember and I really liked them! So I might be doing that more often. I really should start eating better. I’m getting out of shape. I’m pretty excited for conference this weekend. I never really liked it as a kid but now I really want to see it. It will be in French which is ok, I can understand it but it’s not the same. With President Carter he wants everything to be in French which is good just different. President Merrill believed that the spirit spoke in English which I would have to agree with so we’ll see how that goes. We’ll be here in Marseille again Saturday for the priesthood so that will be cool to be with some other missionaries from the area and their will be a room with it broadcasted into English for that. Normally they do that at the bigger chapels. We had a cool thing the other day. We were just walking through centre ville and this lady comes running after us. She didn’t speak French really good but anyways she’s a member from Brazil and she just moved to a town like 30 minutes away and she’s been trying to find the church or missionaries. She couldn’t find it on the internet so we told her where it was and all that and she was there Sunday. It was really cool. Our members were really glad to see her. We went out to Salon to see Joris, the one in the picture that played basketball in Atlanta, because he just got back. So it was cool to see him again. We had a really cool service activity with the whole ward at Frere Renderanaridera’s house. There were so many people there- it doesn’t translate into English very well but people were describing it as "the whole chapel was there" and it really was like that. They did inside and out cleaning and painting then pretty much planted a garden and a few pretty big trees to grow. It was really good. He does a whole lot for the ward and everyone knows it so it was good to really help him out. Another thing- there is this recent convert named Jose deCamp -he’s really cool but his health isn’t so good. He’s deaf but can hear a little and he reads lips very well so he can talk with everyone fine but he hasn’t been good. He’s been losing his vision too so the bishop asked everyone to fast for him last Sunday then after church all of the men went in a room and gave him a blessing. It was really good and cool. That’s so cool that Aaron is the bishop. When I first read the email I thought one of the counselors was the other Clifford, the big biker dude. I was like- oh wow. But I don't think I know the Clifford's. We had an experience Sunday that gave me a little glimpse of what a bishop does. We have this less active lady that is just a little crazy and she always talks to me. Actually we ate with her one time and she bought us kebobs. I think I wrote about that but anyways after church she started talking to me and she explained her plan to leave the country to go to Canada- just to leave all her problems so I just told her to talk to the bishop. I wasn’t about to council her on that. Right, so after she’s like I’ll talk to him but only if y’all are in the rendez-vous. Geez so we went with her. Let’s just call it interesting but it was really cool just to see the council he gave her and how he handled the whole thing. I learned a lot from it. We actually randomly contacted the mayor of Marignane, just a little city next to Vitrolles. He wasn’t very interested but we talked for a little bit so it was cool. I should have told him I’m buds with the Vitrolles mayor ha not really. That’s cool that Andrew is training. He sounded like he was doing pretty good in his letters. I think they are having tons of baptisms which is cool. Andrew said that because in his last letter you deareldered me he said someone told me that he had a huge Texas smile so I let him know that he was indeed from Louisiana and not Texas. I got your birthday cards. I didn’t wait to open them sorry I couldn’t. It’s the same though. I’ll reread them probably on my b- day. I really liked the cards especially the Sweet Home Alabama one. I guess the strike wasn’t that big. That’s really cool about the football fireside and game, that seems like it was fun. Too bad they lost so bad. All those other stories were from my day in Aix so I don’t know how they’re doing really even though we were there yesterday eh I’m sick of traveling. I got a letter from Clay- he seemed so good! I’ll write him back today and Jace. Everything else is good. We really did have a good week. Thanks for your emails.
Love y’all, Taylor

24th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Pretty good here. We're at the church writing emails because the place we normally go is really dumb and the guy isn’t ever there. So I just got done taking a little nap while Elder Calder did his. Ahh- I'm still in Vitrolles! Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I really didn’t want to go even though I figured I would. Everyone seems pretty shocked that I stayed here another transfer. That makes 5 which puts me here until the first week of November. This week has been good but kind of hard, too. We’ve been all over. I spent four nights without being here in Vitrolles. We were running around doing all the exchanges that we should have done earlier. So we’ve been in Aix, Avignon and then Marseille a little. It was lots of fun but pretty exhausting. This was the first transfer that I was really excited to have. Before we didn’t really see a lot of the missionaries but since Elder Calder was in the office before so he knows everyone and just being with a lot of other elders last week was good. We talked about transfers a lot. Just where everyone would go, who would become the new leaders and all that. We actually made predictions one night in Avignon. Not a whole lot changed though. Only one elder from the district left. Our exchanges were really cool. I actually worked in Aix with Elder Scott from the mtc so that was a lot of fun. We had a really good day. It kind of started rough, someone wasn’t there for a rendez vous so we were just kind of walking around centre ville and I see this girl who was just really excited to see us. So I walked over and kind of contacted her I guess. Then she’s like " I don’t speak French" ha so that was cool. But anyways she had just moved there from South Africa to be a nanny I guess. But she’s a member just a little less active so we talked to her for a long time- she bought us ice cream which was really good- then showed her where the church was. It was a sweet little miracle. Then later on in the day we had a member lesson planned and when we got there it was the family of Boris, the kid from the hike, so that was really cool to see him again. We got to laugh about how we "almost died". Later on in the day we had a rv with this lady who is a "voyant" or mind reader I guess. Not with a crystal ball but I think she reads palms so I figured it would be a little interesting but it wasn’t too bad. We taught a really good first lesson and invited her to come to church. Both Avignon and Aix are a lot bigger than Vitrolles so it was cool just to be around a lot of people. It was different but I think I wouldn’t mind a big city -I would really like to go to Marseille- it's my favorite. One morning in Avignon we all went to play rugby by the Pope's Palace which is in the middle of the town. I figured it would be pretty crowded but since we were there early we were the only ones.
It's absolutely the coolest castle I've ever seen. It's so big, I loved it and we just threw the ball around for about 30 minutes on the big slab right in front of it. I took a lot of good photos. I'll send y'all. OK, so we’ve been talking with Sonia a lot and we’ve planned to have the baptism October 18 which is really the biggest reason I'm glad to be staying. We gave her a blessing Sunday with the bishop to stop smoking but other than that she is ready. We hadn’t been seeing them that often but then she told us that she liked it when we used to have lots of rendez vous so we made a schedule where were going to see them times a week -Mondays, Thursdays and Saturday so that’s going to be really good. Last night I showed them all my pictures and we just talked about all of them for a while- it was fun.
One thing I started doing with Elder Calder is decorating our planners. We cut things out of all the publicity we get then glue them on, then put a nice layer of tape over. I really liked the one from last transfer- it just had Vitrolles written a lot but yesterday I made the new one it has a big 300 which is our goal for baptisms for the year. Then a big thing I cut out that says information immédiate demandez un rendez-vous then Vitrolles at the bottom. It is si cool. Elodie was at church Sunday so it was really cool to see her again. They said they would invite us over to eat some day so I hope they do. We went shopping today and spent 100 euros which is like 150 dollars. It was so much stuff- it should last at least 3 weeks. All the Muslim people are doing their Ramadan or whatever, their fast for the month of September where they eat really early then not all day until 9 I think. But anyways everyone keeps talking about this party they have every year at the end of it. Apparently they just go nuts for a whole day. I hope its not too bad considering were practically living in Tunisia and they are everywhere. Well, that’s about it everything is good. I'm really excited to be staying here for another 6 weeks. Love y'all, Taylor

Ok, I really don’t want to get you worried but people keep talking about this strike for the mail people that starts today and could last quite a long time. In the past they have been short but they said this could be a few months so maybe stuff will get lost or stolen or whatever. But I hope what you sent gets here but don’t send anything else until I know what’s up. I got your memory card and I'll send mine as soon as the strike is over.

23rd email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Really good here! I’m in Marseille right now. We came last night so I could do some stuff for my carte de sejour. That was pretty frustrating like always. We ended up sitting in a room forever waiting for them to call our number just to be able to set up another rendez vous for December. It’s really ridiculous but since we were already here we met up with all the missionaries from around here and went to see D'if. It was really, really cool. I think the best part was just being on a boat. The ride started at the base of the port here so it was cool to be on the water. There was a really, really huge yacht parked out there so that was exciting along with all the other boats. But then the castle was pretty cool. There were lots of little clips from the movie (Counte of Monte Cristo) then lots of historical facts. It cost like 13 dollars but still worth it.
This week was good. Oh yeah, I got your package. I really like the shirt. Too bad no one ever sais lessez le bon temps rouller- it’s just a translation but still cool. We had our zone development meeting this week in Aix- so that was pretty good to see president again. They’re really cool. I’m scared right now though because it’s getting near the end of the transfer. President told me the other day,” Ohh that makes 4 transfers for you to be there…” So we’ll see. I’ve been in Vitrolles for a long time though. I just don’t want to leave. It’s going to be weird to go anywhere else and me and elder Calder are working hard and starting to find some new people to teach. Things are going pretty good so we’ll see. I know I’m going to move eventually, I just don’t feel like I want to right now I really like all of our amis and the ward. We’ve been working with a lot of members. This last week we had 8 lessons with them which is the most we have had in a while. I going to be bummed if I leave but I’m sure the next place will be good if I do. This Sunday we got to go to this young single adults broadcast that was transmitted just to our chapel by satellite but when we get there I realized it was taped or whatever at byu. It was really good but also really weird for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I probably know a few people that are actually there and how I’m here all the way around the world listening to Elder Holland being translated into French. It was really good though, I liked it. Also this week was Aurelian’s wedding. It was Thursday night, actually the same day as our meeting with President. There were quite a few people there. He was excited and I’ve talked to his wife a few times before -she’s really cool but he’s gone now. I’m going to miss him. He was really good as our ward mission leader. There’s no telling how long its going to take for them to call us another one. We were there for the beginning but I heard that the ball he had lasted until 4 in the morning. I still can’t get over that and they were just jamming- all the Spanish music- Shakira and everything crazy, you name it. This Sunday when we left our apartment to walk to church, just out of nowhere there were just tons of people selling stuff on tables all up and down our road. It was really cool. Normally they have the outside marché further down town but they moved it to the village. I don’t know why but it was really cool. Sonia told me Sunday that she really thought about it and that she’s going to be baptized in October; so that’s really good- another reason why I want to stay. We’re going to have two more exchanges this week with the elders from Avignon and Aix so I’m pretty excited for that. I’ll probably work with Elder Scott later on in the week so that will be good. Just one question- ok, so we’re on the bus quite often and hear the radio a little bit but every single time there is just this one song that the people here just love and I’m wondering if it’s big there too- it’s something about “I kissed a girl and I liked it”…..it’s so weird-everybody sings it all the time. So that’s just a question also what’s Ryan been doing since he came home? Update me on Eric, Jace and Clay, Alex… it seems like the last few weeks I’ve only gotten hurricane information which kind of sucks. I saw a picture of Galveston harbor the other day in the newspaper so I figured y’all were all right. That sucks about the flooding though. I really like Marseille. I really would like to serve here- just the big city feel. Besides that everything is pretty good. I’m really anxious for the transfer calls that should come Saturday night. Actually my birthday is going to be on a prep day so I’m sure we can do something with some other guys. I should have some pictures to send you soon. I took a lot of good ones today. Our neighbor is obcessed with Madonna. He plays music pretty loud during the day. It's not too bad as long as it's not in our study time in the morning. Andrew sent me a letter and it was really cool because I had already written him one and I went to send it the same morning that I received his but I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I just waited so then I could answer to the things he asked. I thought that was cool. Tell Whitney to be sure to send me their homecoming pics. That’s cool. I made a cheesecake Sunday morning . It was amazing! It was just one from a box like I love. We came back after church and ate it all. If you ever want to send me food, send that! ahh it was so good. What’s Eric doing? He never emails me anymore and I really want him to. What have they heard from Jace and Clay? When does Shawn leave? That’s cool. Do you ever hear how Matt, Christa and Andrew T. are doing? Send me a long email next week. I really want to know how everyone’s doing. That’s all I can think of for now, but love y'all! Taylor

22nd email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey, what’s going on? I forgot my planner that I’ve been writing things down all week to ask you. I’ll remember most of them but it helps to have the list. We didn’t do that much today, just shopping for food and stuff. We’ve been buying it for 2 weeks so we don’t have to mess with it that often so that works. The assistants are coming down from Toulouse to do exchanges with us. Apparently that’s a pretty big deal -we're not sure exactly why they are coming. Normally it means some kind of change is going to happen. Maybe Elder Calder could train but that’s not likely because there is only one kid coming in this transfer also maybe I could go senior companion. I don’t know- its weird how there are just slowly more and more that are younger than me. Time is going by so fast- 7 months now. I’m excited for next preparation day- we’re going to be in Marseille already for my carte de sejour stuff so were going to go out to the castle or chateau d'if, the one where the Counte of Monte Cristo was or whatever, apparently its a big deal but you have to take a boat ride out to it so that’s going to be sweet. Yesterday we went to Port de Buc. It’s just a little town on the Mediterranean. It was really sweet, we just kind of walked around by the beach for a while. No one was there but so we ended up taking some pretty cool pictures. I bought a photo album today and printed a bunch off of my camera so I’m pretty excited about that. The only problem is that’s its one of those ones with the babies dressed up like flowers- that’s the only one they had that was the right size so I’ll be trying to change out the picture. This week has been really good. We found a lot of new people. We talked to this Chinese guy. He gave us a bunch of Virgin Mary ornament things for a nativity set. They’re all different. He paints them for his work. They’re actually really good quality but its just funny. Vitrolles is crazy. School started again this last week. It’s been messing us up so bad. First thing all the busses changed routes to bring kids back home so it takes forever to go anywhere. Then also all the little punk Muslim kids are back in their little groups all day just chilling waiting to cuss us out and throw rocks. But no big deal, it’s just frustrating. We have the ward council tonight. I’m really bummed cause I can’t go- I’m going to be with Elder Reese in a rendez vous. It’s hard cause us four are staying in Vitrolles so we had to plan like 5 people to see. That’s sweet about the house being ok. I hope this other one doesn’t do anything too bad. I really hope you sent the other memory card, I’ve been waiting for it. I don’t know if the evacuation messed it up. I’ll send you mine when I get it. I got the thing on President Merrill, apparently so did some others in the bureau so I'm not the only one. Sunday was fast Sunday so we all ate at the church after. It was all pretty good food until the bishop’s wife came over with this seafood salade. It was shrimp, that wasn’t too bad but the she gave me like 20 mussels. I don’t know how to explain it, we had fun trying to figure out what they were. Finally I just clamped my two hands together and open and closed them and the whole table goes “Voila”. It was funny. They actually weren’t too bad just kind of squishy. We’ve actually been to Istre and Martiques too this week which are both over an hour away. It’s hard to get out there but its really cool to see the people that haven’t seen us in a while, they’re always way excited when they see us. It’s just really hard for them to come to church. We were out on this dock and Elder Calder started to freak out-finally he told me that it was his first time to see jellyfish. I thought that was pretty funny. I got a email from Jace before they went in. He seemed really happy. I bet they had so much fun with Elliot. That’s sweet that he took them around. I feel bad for Clay because 9 weeks in the mtc feels like forever but that’s really cool. He'll do awesome. That's cool that Dad and Evan went to help out the people in Baton Rouge. I really wish that we had pamphlets that talked about church services and how much we do. All the people here are convinced that every church is in it for money. A lot of people don’t even believe us when we say no one is paid to do all the stuff- bishops and all. Everyone here still talks about Obama all the time. They say cause they don’t like war. Of course they have no chance against any other country. We had a rv yesterday and the guy absolutely loves the U.S. so all he talked about was America the whole time. Then he played some Toby Keith American soldier so we weren’t complaining. The thing is that he told us he didn’t understand any of the words so we invited him to our cours d'anglais. Hopefully he will come. Not that many people come anymore, just this one guy William. Well, I have to go. Tell me how everything is. OK, bye. Love y'all, Taylor

21st email from France (Vitrolles)

Ok, first off, I’ve been freaking out. I’ve been hearing about this hurricane for about a week now. First they said it did a lot of damage in the islands and all that, then just on the street someone told me it was heading towards Florida AND Louisiana so I figured they didn’t really know- just somewhere in that general direction. I asked a lot of people at church if they knew anything about it but no one had any real details. We talked to a lady about two days ago and she’s like, “oh you’re from Louisiana? Well I hope not from the southern part!” I was just like “oh that’s great.” Then the biggest thing was this morning we were at our bus station and on the front page of someone’s newspaper it sais la louisiane limite les dégats then it talks about New Orleans so just like that Louisiana missed the damage. So then I’m thinking well it’s still talking about Louisiana so where did it hit. But then there was a little map and I saw it was a little to the east of us. I’m glad its probably not too bad. That’s right where Elder Lundberg’s from so I wonder if he’s heard anything. But I’m good here. Everything’s good. I got those pictures of the camper- that’s really cool- I’m excited for that. I could just see a big tree falling on it but it’s good that y’all took it. Probably not too good for the gas though. It’s good that y’all got a few vacation days. Take some pictures for me while y’all are up there. We’re here in Aix en Provence today. We came to play ping pong- yeah you’re right we’re going to be playing a lot now. It was fun. The other elders came down from Gap and Manosque so there were like 10 of us there. We just started this thing in the mission where were all going to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year- the only thing is we have to wake up 15 minutes earlier everyday to do it. It’s not that bad though. We’ll see how it goes. We just started yesterday. Not too many things happened this week. One cool thing, we were at a rendez vous with this girl Eliza and she said that because her mom is pretty sick people come from their church every Wednesday night and sing songs and stuff. They’re evangelists so were like heck yeah we’d love to come. Then when the other people got there the guy playing the guitar was Collin Harris, one of our other amis! So that was really cool. We just sang and listened to him play the guitar. It was really cool. Actually one of the songs was exactly the same as I Need Thee Every Hour so I thought that was pretty good. I had a long conversation on the bus with this guy about Obama and McCain. I guess he picked the Alaskan lady. I heard in their last speeches Obama was up on a throne or something with big pillars behind him. Do you know what I’m talking about? A lot of people ask us about that. I told a member Sunday that y’all would be voting for McCain and he just went off on “oh so your voting for more war” and all this stuff. He was nice but still. Another pretty funny thing: so we had a rv with the family Albertini and I wore the tie that you sent me, the really colorful one that’s red, yellow and blue (first off I really like this tie) So finally we get there and they just start laughing and just couldn’t stop. I think it was so funny because I was explaining how much I like the tie. So finally the next time we saw them one of the first things they ask is “vous lavez jeter la cravate” - so pretty much “have you thrown it away?” It was pretty funny, they really thought it was ugly! That was the first time I’ve ever worn it, now maybe the last. Before I wasn’t sure if it was too casual but then Soeur Carter told us that it’s good to have a little personality so I figured why not. It’s been weird lately- fires have been popping up all over town. I’ve seen like 6 now always with the big planes and helicopters. The other day we were walking though the park and ashes just start falling down all around us. Then we saw all the helicopters coming but passing us way up because the fire was actually in the next town over in Berre. But then we keep on walking and 20 minutes later there was a big fire in the park we were just in so the helicopters had to go put that one out. I guess just because it’s so dry. I’m in a library and I can’t copy and paste so im going to send you another email. I’ve been doing a lot of exchanges. We did them with the zone leaders then with all of our district members because Elder Calder is the district leader. I was with Elder Hitoto- he’s from Paris so it was kind of weird to think that I actually spent the whole day with a French guy without any problems or anything. I think im going to go to Avignon again next week so though that should be fun. I really liked the camper pictures. So far I've gotten 2 pictures of Evan -the first he had on my Hollister pink shirt then the last time he had my Redstone gold shirt then my swimming suit and my boxers! Come on, Evan!! This week we planned to be healthy and go up to the plateau thing for exercises every day but we only did it once and we’ve eaten worse than ever before so that didn’t work out too well. I ate like a half a gallon if ice cream in 2 days. Tell me about the other missionaries from our ward and if you have any other updates on the Lovelace’s. The other night we slept on a balcony for an exchange here in Aix. It was pretty relaxing. I should be in Marseille this week for some more carte de sejour stuff so well see how that goes. I really like Marseille. I wouldn’t mind being in a big city. Well that’s about it. I hope everything’s good with the house and stuff. Thanks for the Jimmy Johnson thing. That’s cool . Love y'all, Taylor

Twentieth email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone. How’s it going? It’s really good here. We have had a really good week, nothing to exciting has happened- it was just good. The work has actually been pretty hard. It seems like everyone has been on vacation so that’s been hard both for our amis and for our members to teach with us. Their school starts in about a week so I hope that will get better. We haven’t done that much for p-day today but me and Elder Calder did go to the church to play ping pong. We’ve been taunting I guess you could say for the last few days about who would win. We played for about an hour. We had set the table up in the relief society room. Actually after some good warm ups I won the first game. It was very intense. We ended up playing to whoever won five games first and he won. I had four though. It was close. We had our zone conference yesterday in Aix it was good to see President and Soeur Carter again. They are really cool. I really want that article thing about the Merrell’s so could you send it? They are just amazing. I think everyone misses them a little- just their spirit and knowledge of the gospel was amazing. The Carter’s are really awesome, too, though. One thing that was kind of funny this week was, we were just kind of eating and cooking around 9 or 10 the other night and I hear this chanting thing. I wasn’t sure what it was then the next thing I look out our window and I see this big statue of Mary up on the shoulders of four guys then hundreds of people following with candles saying prayers. It was a little different but what was so funny was they turned the corner right across from our window so they all saw us looking right at them. So the next day was the actual holiday and everything was closed. But the best part was we asked tons of people why it was a holiday and no one knew they just knew it was a holiday. This was actually last week I just forgot to writ about it in the last email. It really messed us up though cause we had a lot of rvs planned and we didn’t know the busses weren’t going to work.
The game they were playing with the silver balls its called boules. I thought I told you about that. It’s awesome. I really, really like it. All the old guys play all day. There are arenas for people to play and when there is a tournament there is so many people. They actually had the big championships in Marseille not to long ago. I’m sure that was cool. We’re actually looking to find some of the balls so we can play for our exercises- you know hand eye coordination. Ahh- I cant believe Ryan’s back. That’s so cool. I bet it is a shock to be home. I remember when Dallin came back he was really quiet. I can’t see myself being really shocked or quiet but maybe. I don’t think so anyways. That’s cool that Alex is going to school. You never said anything more about his trip, did they go to Paris or not? Cest vrai je veux ecrire en François mais je sais que vous allez comprendre rien alors cest nul. Ok so the whole Roquefort cheese thing, I really gave it a good effort- I just can’t come to like it. I’ve been joking with Elder Calder saying well maybe when I’ve been here over a year and a little more French I’ll be able to eat it cause he can eat it better than I can. It’s still really strong though. So I didn’t get your package but I will in like 3 weeks. You asked if I wanted to transfer. It really seems weird to think about being somewhere else but either way, we'll see, but yeah that’s true I really would like to stay a little longer. Elder Calder is really cool. Yeah, ok I figured it out, the picutre of the guy with earrings- that’s Joris- he’s actually in Georgia right now trying to play basketball for a college. He’s really good just not big enough. He’s actually coming back this week. We're friends with him. We played with him one p- day. You said how weird that all the guys were capris. I don’t know about the capris but you would really think it's weird if you saw all the bissous they do- that’s the cheek kiss thing on both sides. Everyone does it- well except us but I remember thinking how weird it was when I got here but it's normal now- everybody does it with everybody. I'll be in Marseille tomorrow for some carte de sejour stuff so that’s gona be cool. I'll stay with Elder Wright probably and yeah that’s the loft apartment. Ivy and Calder, so no more Mocha- sad. I don’t know how the eggs worked out either but those baby snakes are worth a lot I think. Quelle domage- whatever. I say get some lizards those would be cool. Evan, that’s sweet that you won $170 bucks! Well, that’s all for now. Love y'all, Taylor

Nineteenth email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey, how’s it going? Really good here! We’ve been trying all day to find somewhere to do emails. The place we thought was perfect didn’t work; we needed like
photo cards and a check to pay for the whole year so that didn’t work. We’re good now. As for the pictures, I’m glad you liked them. Try to take a bunch of pictures before you send it back just of whatever- the house and all and then I can delete them when I get it. OK- the questions you asked about the pictures: The big striped building is a church in Marseille probably the one up on a big hill- it’s pretty cool.

The kid with the worn out shoe is Boris, the kid that was with us on our “disaster hike” and yeah that was his shoe at the end. We got him some new ones, though. At the wedding, that’s Alice, Elodie’s sister. She’s really cool. Yeah, the three girls are at girl’s camp. Yeah the kitchen window is extremely cool! Those are our weights I don’t use them that much. I’m actually a lot smaller then when I left but I’ll start again when I get back. The guy on the scooter is awesome. He’s a member in Marseille but I’ve seen him like three times maybe four. Yeah, that’s Frere Renderanaridera and his daughter Camille. At the beach, that’s the Mediterranean. Ok, those fish- we passed to see this family around supper time and they were eating. They have kids and they were eating all the other food but not even touching this huge plate of fish. So the mom says, “oh I can give y’all some food to take home” and she gives us more than half of them. They were really disgusting. They were all different like someone just cast netted in the Gulf of Mexico and they were slimy. Then the little meat they had was filled with tiny bones. We kind of picked at them for a while then just threw them away. But it was nice of her. So this week was good. We’ve been passing by a bunch of people so they can meet Elder Calder. It’s been fun. The members really seemed to like him Sunday. He’s from Utah. He’s really cool and fun. I really like him. He’s been in the office for the last months so he’s really excited to be back in a normal city. He’s also been in Nice and in Agin which is more on the other side by Bordeaux. We had our district meeting yesterday in Aix. It was cool to see Elder Scott. Nothing much new has been going on. This week was actually pretty hard. We had a lot of our rvs canceled. A few were with members too, so that’s always sucky. Last night we had a rv with this guy then he wasn’t even there so we went to see Mme. Parody with Fr. Fernandez cause he was already with us. So it turned out ok. She had the Olympics on the whole time so I was happy. I really wish I could watch more of them. I saw the girl pole vaulters- it was freaking amazing. Then the gymnastic guys, I was impressed. That was the first time I really saw the stadium in Beijing- it’s huge. I got the letter from Whitney today. I really hope you took some pictures of all the stuff you did when Ivy and Calder were there. Send them to me soon. I don’t think I really need anything in the next box not that I can think of. I cant believe that they started school. Time is going by so fast here for me. Elder Calder thinks for sure I'm going to go next transfer. The Carter's are cool. Everybody really likes them. They approved lots of music that wasn’t approved before. We can listen to all the Disney songs without words, Phantom of the Opera, too, just lots of stuff so that’s exciting. This week we have eaten pretty good. We had one meal and we had le foi du canard- something like that but it was duck liver but made in to a spread. It was ok. Then today we were at the store and I told myself that I was going to buy some Roquefort cheese and just force myself to eat it until I liked it so I started today. I ate a little bit but it was just horribly strong. The French people like it a lot though. Yesterday I had an exchange with Elder Hansen, he’s in Avignon now. It was good. That’s about it. Sorry I don’t have that much to say but everything is good. Love y'all, Taylor