Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Seventh email from France (Vitrolles)

5/27/08

Hey, what’s up? Sounds like everything is good with y’all. Gosh, I can’t even believe Whitney and Evan are done with school already. I didn’t even think it was near that time. It’s really going fast here. The weeks really just fly by here. We’re still in Marseille in the same apartment but we’re with the 2 other Marseille elders now. So that’s ok. I don’t like it so much, you know how I am. I would just rather be by myself than in a room with 4 guys all trying to walk around and no real places to sit. But its not that bad and we’re moving a week from today on the 4th so I’m looking forward to that. I think the office elders are going to drive down and help us move. They have all of our appliances and stuff because they are from the old Marseille apartment that we had to clear out last week. I don’t have an address for you to look online but our apartment in Vitrolles is right next to the big rocher or the big plateau thing. It’s in the really cool looking old part of downtown too, so I’m excited! I’m sure its not gonna be the best but it will work. It’s just gonna be good to just have our stuff to mess with because the apartment we’re in now has been a missionary apartment for years so there is just collected junk laying around- stuff that I would just throw away if it was my choice. So next p-day we should spend all day moving and stuff, this week really has been kinda frustrating. It’s really hard not having the car. We have to get up get ready, study and stuff, then go get on the Marseille metro to the bus station then to Vitrolles. Its just a mess and its taking alot of money. Just the metro is like 3 euros every day, then the bus is 3 euros each way. So its over 10 dollars a day- it’s a little ridiculous but I guess we have to do it. We bought this 7 day pass for 19 but we found out yesterday it won’t even work for the line of busses we use. The girls at the station- I don’t think they like us cause they can’t figure out how to use our credit cards because they have to slide. Everybody’s here has a little chip to scan. So I’m completely out of money now on my card until the first. Just the traveling has cost so much. I have 90 euros in reimbursements I need to send in so that will be good when all of that goes through. Another thing is the last bus from Vitrolles to Marseille is at like 7 so we come back really early every night. Gosh I can’t believe its summer already. I hope y’all are having fun. Tell me what plans y’all have coming up. Are y’all still going to the family reunion thing? I’ll try to get y’all some pictures. The only thing is that it’s like really 25 cents for every picture I would print out. I know I need to for y’all. I just don’t want to spend that much money. What Elder Clyde does is just sends memory cards back and fourth so maybe we can so something like that or I can just print out the really good ones. I have been taking alot though. I have like 280 from the start of the MTC. I bought a book of postcards to of Marseille so I’m gonna start sending people those, there alot easier ha I just need to buy stamps. We didn’t have as many amis at church this week cause it was Mothers Day or “fete de meres” here which is like mother’s party in English. (which I think is cooler anyways ha) They have been having a lot of “greves” or "strikes". But the thing is they're not like actual strikes they're more like scheduled days for not working. People just like sit outside in lawn chairs saying there not gonna work but they know they're just off for that day and they will work the next day. So they don’t get anything more out of it. That really messed up our trip to Vitrolles one day this week cause all the busses and metros weren’t going. Oh yeah everyone asks us about the presidential campaign. We’re not really supposed to talk about it at all. I think most of the people here like Obama. They really don’t like Bush at all. ahh Crawfish sound so good right now. We ate last night at the church with the family Renderanaridera for FHE- it was really good and fun. He has helped us so much to find our apartment. He has gone to every meeting with us and really just done everything to help us. He makes all the phone calls and everything. He doesn’t really work so he is always there to teach with us too, so that’s cool. He always finds people for us to teach. Awesome. We had district meeting yesterday in Aix- that was good. We have us 2 then Soeur Oliver so that’s really good to see her, then then our zone leaders than that’s it just 6. It was really good though. But that was another big mess with the busses, to get back to Vitrolles another thing is that the busses don’t go on Sundays so we had to take a train to church and get someone to pick us up in the town over Marinane which is okay- its just gonna be really nice to finally live in our area. The trains are really cool though, I really wish we had them at home- it would just make it so easy to go to Houston or somewhere for the day. The trip to Angoulem was really cool. I got to see alot of cool sights. There were a bunch of castles. One that really reminded me of Hogwarts, seriously. It was that big with that many spires and stuff. It was really cool. You know how she writes in the Harry Potter books, she writes his name in an english accent like "arry otter" or something like that- that's how they say it here. It's so cool. They don't really pronounce the h or the p. Today we played ultimate frisbee in the park, that was pretty fun. It was really windy. One of these days I want to play ping pong. They have alot of tables here, all the churches have them. So I'm gonna have to get that going. Take this out cause it's wierd to talk about but my arms are shrinking every day. It stinks! ha I got so much bigger in the MTC working out everyday, especially with the powder I had. I'm in really good shape though -we walk alot and its starting to get hotter. It rained really hard the other night. I really liked it. I really missed the rain when I was in the MTC. It's rained a few times here so its not to bad. It's not nearly as humid as it is there so that's good. I dont have that much more to say. I was really hoping to hear where the Lovelaces were goin this week -hopefully next week. Well that's about it. I hope everything is good! Love y'all, Taylor

Friday, May 23, 2008

NOTE

I recently went back and added all the MTC emails to the beginning of this blog. They are very entertaining so check them out if you get a chance- especially the MTC week 7 one- it's the day the French Ambassador came to visit! I'll delete this post soon, just wanted to tell you. Also, drop me a comment so I'll know who's reading!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Sixth email from France (Vitrolles)


05.20.08
Bonjour!
How’s everything? Everything here is good. Ok, I’m really sorry but this computer is really messed up so I can’t space between words. I guess just try to go through and fix it before you send it to people. (You’re welcome, everyone! It did take some time-Gwen) haha This is gonna be really hard for you probably. Get Evan to do it or something! We’re in Marseille right now. Looks like I’m gonna be here for another six weeks at least. (if everything works out with the apartment we think we’re getting). I’m pretty excited about that. Everything seems to be going good. We’re still in the Marseille apartment for now but we should have the one in Vitrolles soon. I think if everything goes right, we will move in the first of June. Until then we will have four elders at our apartment- us and two of the other Marseille elders. The papers for the new apartment aren’t finished but I think there shouldn’t be any problems with it. President Merrell said Sunday that if we don’t have it by this week, we are definitely going to have to go somewhere else and he said it probably won’t be Marseille and it probably won’t be together. So the Lovelace’s calls haven’t come yet? That’s too bad. I really want to know. Hopefully next week. Today we haven’t done that much. We’ve just kind of cleaned our apartment for the new guys coming in. We had six elders at our place last night because it was transfers, so that was crazy. One of them is going home today so he was really excited. Thanks for the email. It sounds like everything is going good. Barbara got baptized Saturday! It was really amazing. There were a lot of people there. I’ll send y’all some pictures somehow. The program and stuff- it was really good and spiritual. Her sister, Laticia was crying after and the bishope asked me if the spirit had come and “hit her in the face or something”. It was funny. Awesome! Yes, President Merrell did come and was there for the confirmation on Sunday. He didn’t actually do it. She wanted someone from the ward to do it, which was good I think. We probably tried too hard to convince her for President Merrell to do it but she didn’t even know him. Frere Hotz from the ward did it and it was really great. We’re still working with her mom and sister. They should get baptized in two weeks. They are ready. We normally see them like three or four times a week. After the baptism we had a little lunch with them planned at the church. We met there and cooked the food. It was so great. Everything was good, we had so much food. Bet y’all had fun at the campout at the Brooks. Have you seen Daniel at all lately? I never even got to talk to him between school and when I left for the MTC. That’s funny about Whitney’s story. That sounds just like her. I was always tardy, too. It’s a family curse. Guess it worked out for her anyway. I’m actually getting used to waking up early, though. It’s not bad at all anymore. I like to think that I could do it after I get home, too. But going to bed at 10:30 isn’t that easy normally so I’ll see, I guess. I don’t really need anything at all. That’s cool about Alex’s job at the plant. Is he still at Frasch? Did he decide to go to Provo? Probably- that should be cool. Send a picture of my room. I don’t know if you have changed anything or not. Yeah, I should write Coach Suarez. He would like that. I don’t know his address or anything and about Coach Bourgeois, that sucks. Does Coach Lebato have cancer? Oh yeah, Happy Birthday, Whitney! That’s crazy. I guess your gonna drive the truck. That’s sweet. Keep working on getting that jeep, though. Oh yeah, Mom, find that kid that owns my car and get the pictures. So yeah there are a lot of iffy things. Just keep praying that we can get the apartment thing going. We have been talking to President all the time, trying to get all the papers worked out. Today is the last day for us to have a car, so we will be taking the bus everyday. That’s not too bad. It will just be a little inconvenient. Sorry again for the not spacing. It will only space if I type really slow but I don’t have time to. Well, I’m gonna go. I’ll let you know how everything is next week. We had seven amis at church Sunday so that’s pretty amazing. That made 85 all together. Our ward is sweet!

Love y’all, Taylor

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Fifth email from France (Vitrolles)

05.13.08

This stupid computer logged me off when I was writing an email to you so it wouldn’t let me sent it so this is my second. So we're in a different place than normal now. The other cyber cafe was full of gamers I guess so we’re down by the shore. We just took some pictures of this huge church. We're gonna go to Aix today for Soeur Douber’s birthday, it should be fun. We’re way later than everyone else though, they already went. It should be a good p-day, though. Anyways everything is good! Just the same stuff. The French is getting better every day. It’s still hard to understand the people -they talk really fast and especially the old people cause they just mumble everything. It was good to talk to y’all. I wish I could have talked to dad more but it seems like y’all are doing good. I feel bad cause you were just telling me how good I was doing on the emails but I don’t have much to say today. I hate to mess up your blogspot. hmm So I’ll try to get some pictures for y’all. I’ve been taking them just haven’t had time to print any out. I’ll try to find a place. Everything will be easier when we don’t have a car and we actually live in the city we are working. I guess we will know Thursday if we are staying or not. I hope everything works out, it’s kinda iffy, though. If we get the apartment in Vitrolles we would probably have bikes. Yeah I think there are bikes from missionaries before us in the bureau that we could use and not have to buy one, so that’s cool. We had our last district meeting yesterday. Elder Green is leaving pretty much for sure. Apparently President Merrell loves to tell people that they are leaving “unless the angel Moroni comes and tells him differently.” ha But Elder Green is really cool. I really liked the day with him in Marseille last week. I will be there again this Thursday cause he has to be here to give a baptismal interview so I will just be with Elder Wright. I hope that goes ok cause you know he came at the same time as me. It should be good though, I think we know enough to get around. The zones are changing too this transfer so that’s gonna change some things. I’m not sure how it was before but some of the boundaries are gonna change and districts. I’m really excited to hear where the Lovelace’s are going. I guess it shouldn’t be before next Tuesday but in a few weeks or something - so that’s exciting. Tell everyone I said hey. I’m gonna start writing stuff during the week to write about because I always forget stuff. I should have alot more to say next week- it’s weird cause I just talked to you yesterday! Well, love y’all - Taylor

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Fourth email from France (Vitrolles)

5.09.08

Hey what’s up? I guess its Wednesday again. We had another zone development meeting yesterday in Ax en Province so today is our p-day. Sounds like y’all are doing good. ha except Evan’s baseball team. Oh I can call you Sunday I just don’t know how or when. So your right- it was three months yesterday. that’s crazy. It's going pretty fast. France is cool, its different. The language is getting better. My accent still sounds the same I think but the people can understand me a little better so I guess its changing a little. Our trip to Angouleme was really good the train took forever. I wrote Jenny and the Lovelace’s letters but I don’t know when I will send them. I should. I got a letter from Melanie today so that’s cool. I’ll probably write her one back. Oh yeah, is Andrew in Arizona already? I don’t know if you ever told me. I was hoping to get my package yesterday at the meeting cause that’s when we get packages just at the big meetings and stuff but I didn’t have anything. I just don’t have any idea how long it takes to send stuff. I’ll try to send y’all something soon. I need to print out some pictures I have some pretty cool ones. Elder Clyde said there was a golf course in Angouleme and we were gonna go see it but it was raining. I haven’t seen any yet though. I think were about to go meet all the other missionaries in the park around here it. I think its pretty close to the sea so that should be cool. We took the Autoroute that followed the shoreline yesterday going to the conference so that was cool and we paid 2 euros to go in the express tunnel which was really cool. Its like 5 miles long and was alot like need for speed. That stinks about the Lovelaces papers not being complete. I hope that gets worked out soon. I still don’t know about the notary thing I’ll figure out before I call you Sunday. Were y’all off school for labor day? that’s a holiday here so that was cool...not that it changed anything for us. We still haven’t found a place to stay. we have been looking alot. We have people from the ward looking, too. There just isn’t anywhere and the end of this transfer is the 17th so I don’t know whets gonna happen. What kind of iron thing would go on the tv, I mean I don’t care but that just reminded me to ask if y’all ever fixed it. OK so we now have 6 baptismal dates set. It's a little complicated though -one for sure isn’t gonna work, then 3 with the family Albertini, the 3 girls that’s goin good- the mom is on our 7days to stop smoking right now and doing really good but that’s normal- everyone smokes here. The other day we were at a middle school and just walking through the parking lot and there was these kids seriously 12 and 13 ( i asked how old they were) smoking. Its pretty sick how young they start here. But then we have Joelle and Laurent- they are awesome. We contacted them through their window like three weeks ago ha then that was on a Saturday and they showed up at church the next day and we didn’t even ask them to but so that’s another 2 there. That's so sweet about my car. You really need to get that kid to give you some pictures. I really want to see that. That’s so awesome Roman is that still there . Dad you need to go fishing it should be pretty good this time of year at least start up the boat so it doesn’t die. That’s sweet about the Zachary’s camp. Thats really cool ha oh yeah the family reunion that’s cool should be a good trip. I would say to take some pics for me but I’m sure I wouldn’t know anybody anyways. Sounds like your swap meet was fun. I like stuff like that. I probably would have liked it. EFY in San Antonio that’s pretty cool. I guess we will have a new president pretty soon. President Merrell is really cool so I hope the new one is to. Yeah I stayed with Elder Mayo in Angouleme so that was cool. That's good about the releif society thing. Oh yeah, that reminds me I got to go to ward council. It was sweet -maybe the most entertaining meeting I’ve ever been in. There was like 15 people there all the presidencies so like men and women and there was quite a bit of contention and glares haha I really enjoyed it but didn’t understand much. We have a big picnique this Monday at some park so that should be really fun. We still need to invite our amis. ok i don’t know what word I put in French in my last email remind me though cause I didn’t mean to. So Pogue is Irish /Scottish. I really wished I knew that, an old lady asked me last night. I think they ask so much cause everyone knows that Louisiana was French so they want it to be French. I knew it wasn’t though. We went shopping today that was fun. I cant think of that much to say - how is everybody, has anything exciting happened -how is Whitney’s boy from school How’s Tiger and Jimmie doing- oh yeah and Sulphur golf- the regional’s would have been at Frasch this year cause we won last year. How did that go? I’m not sure when exactly it is but I thing it should be really soon or just like a few weeks ago um..oh yeah happy birthday Alex and then I think the next birthday for our family is Whitney. I’m not sure though then like a bunch in a row. It’s starting to get kind of hot here but its not humid so its really not to bad. Gonna start writing the things down during the week for me to email you cause i always forget after i send it i'll talk to you Sunday I guess though I’m not sure how or where from I guess ill figure out the time difference I think its 6 hours just be sure to have your cell phones on. There is like a satellite phone in the church I’m not really sure why its like in the hall I think we can call on that maybe. Have fun with seminary just be sure to tell everyone I said hey. I don’t know who you send these to. I still want some pictures oh yeah that’s another thing I want some pictures of the town and our house after Rita ha because everyone asks about the "cyclone" so that will be cool to show people. I got some pictures in the mail from Sister Merrell just like printed off on the computer from the first few days and a little card and note oh yeah Elder Davis is in Parapinone- I really don’t know how to spell that but that’s what it sounds like but I still haven’t seen him. so everything is good oh yeah dad asked we had 72 at church Sunday and 7 were amis so that’s about normal. I haven’t really eaten any real French food I mean we really haven’t eaten with members. We did one day after church for lunch our first day then like we have had little deserts and stuff at like family home evenings, oh yeah tomorrow ill be on an exchange in Marseille so that should be cool with Elder Green- he is Elder Wright's comp now and Elder Wright will be with Clyde in Vitrolles or actually in Marignane. Thats where we planned to go tomorrow and we have like a bunch of rendez vous but I won't get to do our cours d'anglais so that stinks -those are always fun. Well I’m gonna go. I’ll talk to you Sunday on Mother's Day. Love y’all, Taylor

Third email from France (Vitrolles)


4.29.08

Hey what’s up- thanks for all yalls email, they are awesome. That’s sweet about the Lovelace’s getting their papers in. When will they know where there goin? ok so I’m like an hour away from getting on a train to Anguleme- something like that, look on the map. It’s all the way on the north west of our mission. Its gonna be a 8 hour train ride there and then 8 hours tomorrow. I’m gonna be stayin with Elder Mayo overnight. I think I sent you a picture. He was my zone leader at the mtc so I’m really excited about the whole trip. Elder Clyde has to pick up his carte de sejour so that’s really cool. I’m going to write everyone letters so be looking for those. I normally don’t have that much time to but 8 hours I’m sure I can write a few. One thing, where does the name Pogue come from? Everyone asks me especially cause Louisiana was French so they all want to hear that its a French name but I’m pretty sure its not. try to send me some pics. I really don’t have any just of the house and stuff maybe our trucks cause people ask about the cars being bigger there cause they are all so small here seriously I haven’t seen anything bigger than our van so our trucks are going to be huge for them. And send some of our family and stuff really just everything. I never got one of our painted house and Chelsea -how is she doing? Be sure to try and send stuff in envelopes cause they just forward our letters but our packages they keep at the bureau until the next time were together so that’s pretty gay . I don’t know how long that will be. I’m not really sure how it works. That’s sweet about Alex’s eagle thing. take pictures of stuff like that and send me just whatever. Tell Uncle Chris I enjoy his emails. that’s funny about Mr. Zack saying Ryan and Taylor instead of Lance and Evan. When is Ryan coming back. I just realized than i dont know how to punctuate if i wanted to. The only period I know how to use is over by the numbers on the right hmm weird. I still don’t know about the notary thing. I’ll figure that out this week . I need to call the bureau. I feel so bad for the missionaries who work in there. I don’t think I would like that very much. I think I might have a place in Vitrolles -well at least we have an agency that has worked with the church before so they know that we are good . The only problem before was that we don’t get paid so no one would work with us but Frere Renderanaridera (ha yeah he is Mallagasi)he is sweet he is the one that’s always at the church I mean every day but he is helping us alot and he always calls President Merrell to check up on things. He helps us so much. It's sweet cause whenever we are around we just go get him to come teach with us and he always does. Alot of times he is just sleeping in his car ha or he will just come with us and tell his daughters to wait there at the church. Our cours danglais is sweet. We only had one person, Carole come last week but we had this miracle last week. Like we were about to start and it was only us and Carole so it was kind of weird but then Elody Fernandez just showed up. Didn’t even know we were there so she stayed (she said that she was going to buy shoes but to stay would be better). Frere Renderanaridera was there so it would have been ok just weird and Elody just got off her mission to England so she speaks English which was perfect. Next week we should have more though. Then we have the mom and two daughters who are still awesome. We were with them last night in Marigane for fhe with the Allanic family. It was so cool. We just taught a little lesson about prophets and then ate. They have a 2 year old Bastian who is cool, then like a one month old baby. Then we played a game where you had a commandment taped on our backs and you had to ask questions to figure out what it was. Mine was going to church every week which was pretty easy but we ended up teaching tithing which wasnt the best time but it as ok I thought. We heard that President Merrill will be there the 18th for their confirmation so that’s cool. We still have alot to teach but they are so ready its awesome. So hopefully that date works and we don’t have any problems. Our other investigators are sweet. We had only 5 this Sunday but 2 really were out of town and one is sick in the hospital so they are still good-just weren’t there. Have fun in Dallas at your flea market thing that should be cool keep looking for ties I guess. Just whatever I should probably go we have to get on our train soon. Ill write yall letters though * Love yall ,Taylor

Second email from France (Vitrolles)

4.22.08


Ok, first I hope you realize that you asked like a million questions but everything is good, really good. We just went shopping for food which is cool. I think we got some stuff that should be pretty good. For the packages, you just sent them to the bureau in Toulouse then we get them whenever. I got the dear elder you sent like 6 days ago actually. The last two days I was in Aix en Provence for meetings. We had " blues" conference Monday which was cool but i dindùt get to see Elder Davis so I was bummed about that. I guess cause he is on the other side but i don’t know what city really. Our address here is Marseille rue arras -that’s all I know. There is a big church on the end. But everything is good, we really need to find a place in Virtolles to live cause if we don’t there gonna have to take the missionaries out again. That would suck but I hear that pretty much everybody transfers on their first transfer anyways. Wow 5 hackysacks, thanks no promises but I'll try my best. I have a while to learn I don’t know about the notary thing I’ll call and tell them to look for it when we go to Vitrolles. I still probably won't need a bike. There are only like a few areas here where you need one. We will just take alot of busses. I don’t really need anything. For my power converter I need like a 4 mm extension so it can reach into the sockets. I think that I will find one here though. Every night we call and say how many of everything we had for the day like lessons and contacts and member lessons stuff like that. English class should be good this week. I think that we will have alot of people there so that’s exciting. I have to teach the advanced class if we need one cause I canùt explain everything in French. That should be interesting; normally we speak English in the apartment but French when we are out doing stuff. We have only eaten with members once so far. Last Sunday we planned on it but no one asked us to so we just didn’t eat all day- that kinda sucked. Our ward has like 60 something like that- pretty big. If you want to look on google earth our area is all around the lake by Vitrolles like Fort de buc istre then the other side to like Salon de provence. Its actually really big. There used to be a ward in Salon so there is a bunch of members there. That must have been the first time for anyone from our family to go to Ironman- good job. I never really wanted to. I bet that was fun though. The Grease at the parc sounded pretty cool though. We have an appointment tonight or rendez vous with this sweet family, well a mom her 2 daughters like 17 and 11. They are really cool, just like a normal family that one of the members took to church. We’re gonna eat at another members house, its gonna be fun. They like want to be members so there gonna be baptized. It’s pretty sweet here- amazing. Then we had 7 amis at church Sunday so thats quite a bit. That was sweet. That’s cool about the missionary stickers at church. Tell Sister Matheson to get me some more papers that everyone signed, that was really cool. I can’t believe Tiger didn’t win the masters. I was sure he would that’s disappointing. This was supposed to be his grand slam year then. That’s cool about Johnson. Keep me updated but everything else is good. That’s cool that y’all are reading every night and stuff. The Tony’s is really good we put it on everything. Clyde likes it too. Tell everyone I said hey I’m trying to take some cool pictures. I don’t have that many though look for the big cliff thing in Vitrolles on google earth. Its just like a circle that jets out with this really old building on it. Monday we toured this really old catholic church. it was so sweet -freaking huge. It had a real baptismal font. Then later Sister Merrell taught us the apostasy with a bunch of scriptures only from the bible. It was pretty cool but the church was in Aix where we had blues conference. Blue here is like green there. I think its cause here when the police are new they have to wear blue berets. Everyone here is playing world of warcraft. We’re in the same computer cybercafe as last time. Alot of the people here don’t work, like I said last week. They just get government money and live off of that if that answers your question. I’m getting used to the keyboard, it’s not as bad now. Tell Uncle Chris thanks for the email. I’ll learn to do 5 for him. We had an elder from the 70 at zone conference yesterday so that was cool. In Vitrolles there is one park with a lake in the middle of it. That's our area so we’re always around there. Look for that but that’s about it. Tell everyone I said hey.
Love y’all, Taylor

First email from France (Vitrolles)



4.15.08

Ok, first thing is that the keyboard is different here so i might mess up a lot. The and q are switched then the w and z and the m and , so weird, ahh but everything is great. I’m doing so good. I mean I can't speak very well, I do ok though, its getting better every day I think. The main thing is I can’t understand what the other people are saying they all speak so fast. We’re in this computer cafe and they have on the Simpsons in French, it’s so funny. ha Vitrolles is sweet -its amazing. I love it. Our members are amazing- they were so excited when they saw us. They haven’t had missionaries in like 3 or 4 months. They didn’t know we were coming so it was sweet. They are pretty laid back, like the bishope didn’t have his top shirt buttoned and his tie was all loose...how it should be everywhere! But they all have people for us to teach. They were saying like yeah we have friends who want to be members- doesn’t get better than that. There is like 70,000 in the city with a big -its hard to explain -like a circle cliff shooting up in the middle of the city with a castle on top. Elder Clyde is sweet, he’s from Alaska. It was so weird when we left just our whole MTC district and went to different parts. Oh this is real important- did we ever get the notary thing that sais that the church will take care of my finances ever? That is very important. I might email you again soon I’m not sure. Look on a map at the lake with Vitrolles by it. Our area is all around that lake. We went to Viello yesterday and talked with a sweet member family, well just Flo and Justin were home so we just talked to them for a long time then taught them the first lesson for practice. In France when you turn 25 the government will pay for you to have a little apartment and money to live so in Vitrolles we have like 20 just high rise apartments and people just chill in the parks all day. Then the kids have 2 weeks in school then 2 weeks off so right now they are just chillin everywhere too. There is always bunches of Muslim kids that hate us at first then we talk to them for a while then we’re cool. So we don’t have an apartment in Vitrolles now so we live in Marsaille which is a big city. It takes forever to get parking every night. I’ve seen 4 trucks since I have been here so that’s different. They really have only small cars. They have the smart cars that I swear that me and Clyde could pick up. There is like sweet statues everywhere on the train ride from Toulouse. We saw a few castles that was sweet. Sunday they had us get up and say a little stuff in sacrament. I said a few things then I’m like" je pens que je besoin de travailler dans mon accent un peu" -or " i think that i need to work on my accent a little." They were all laughing- it was great. Elder Clyde has been here for 6 months so he speaks really good. We ate kabobs the other day. It's like a fast food but they just have this big chunk of meat that’s spinning out in the front and you order and they scrape some meat off and put it with fries in a wrap thing with sauce. The meat is veal which was really good. We ate with some members Sunday for lunch. They have a son on a mission in Canada now so they were way nice. But we ate couscous -it's an Arab dish kind of like rice. They eat so slow here, but were only supposed to sit for an hour or so. Just so were not there for 4 hours. They said on Christmas they can eat for like 8 -that’s so crazy. They made it obvious that they thought the one hour rule was stupid. We're about to go play soccer everyone does here. The bishope has a big soccer trophy in his office. ha They all listen to the popular American music here- it's weird cause they don’t understand any of it. Not as many speak English as I thought. We teach English classes at the church every Thursday. We have found alot of people to come already. That should be interesting ha Our clerk at church pretty much lives there, every time we go to the church he is there with his kids. Yesterday he was sleeping in his car when we showed up and his 3 girls were inside watching a movie. It was funny but different. His girls are sweet- they got us a bunch of flowers the other day. The weather is perfect. It's sunny but not hot with a little wind and its been like that since I got here. President Merrell and his wife have a really nice house. We slept there the first night before we knew where we were going. We were playing ping pong; there is also a ping pong table at the church so hopefully we bust that out soon- I need to put that paddle to work. I don’t really need anything I have so much stuff. The only think I can think of is find me 3 hackeysacks to juggle. The only place I can think would have them is like Hot Topic in the mall. I’m gonna be an expert I can feel it. Tell everyone I said what’s up. Keep looking for ties. I’ll try to get you some pics. I’m just trying to get settled first. I still don’t have euros but today I will transfer my cash over. I have the credit card from the church though so that’s cool. That’s about it I don’t know about that notary if its real important ill get in touch with you. We should be moving to Vitrolles pretty soon but then we probably wont have a car so that will suck with so much area to cover. President Merrell told Elder Clyde that the members said that they didn’t want missionaries unless they were gonna be serious so that’s kinda cool that he sent me. That’s sweet that Calder got the job. ha That’s funny I was watching that stupid airplane go across the map, too. I swear it never moved. OK well that’s about it. So I’ll email you next week I guess. Hey make sure that everyone gets this email. Tell Eric or someone to send it to Brett somehow. I bet Clay has his address. I don’t have time now. And Jenny, tell them to write me later.

Love y’all, Taylor