Eighth email from France (Vitrolles)

Ahh- that’s so awesome! (Lovelace mission calls) I was wondering if they would go to totally different places. That makes me happy. Tell Eric Idaho is a little different than Florida but that’s gonna be so good. Then Jace has a little work to do in that mission. Gotta get them on the right track- I'm pretty sure that that’s the place that just had the big scandal with the Catholic Church and Elder Clyde has a cousin that’s there now- Elder Keck, so that’s cool. I’m really excited for them. I was disappointed last week when they didn’t know yet. Then Clay is gonna do so good learning Spanish. He will be at the MTC a lot longer than Jace and Eric though. It’s ok though, it went by pretty fast for me. Did they do anything when they opened them or just call and tell people? And Bryan, too, that’s really cool, Berlin. I figured you had told them I was in France. We should have stopped to see them on the way to the mtc, Mom, I know you wanted to- just not enough time. Anyways everything here is good. We’re just getting all packed up today to move tomorrow. I’m really excited to get into our own apartment. That will be nice. We already gave alot of our stuff to the assistants to bring in the big car to bring to a members house, Frere Vendrassi then tomorrow were gonna go to Vitrolles with the rest of our bags and meet Frere Renderanaridera and a guy from the rental company to make sure there isn’t any problems. Then after that we should be good to move in but we won’t have any of our stuff till tomorrow night cause that’s when a few members can help us. It’s normally not that big of a deal but since we’re the first ones we have like a bunk bed and desks, chairs and tables, dishes -just all the stuff we need to live there. So I guess we're gonna be busy doing all of that tomorrow but we still have 2 or 3 rendez vous for around noon tomorrow so im sure its gonna be crazy. I’m sure well be running back and forth all day. It was a little stressful last night because as we were trying to get all of our stuff together to give to the assistants today we had 8 elders there. They were just there for the night cause we had zone conference yesterday and 2 of them were headed back to Gap ( it's a city not a store) and the other 2 are going back to Aix en Provence today for blues conference.Oh yeah I got two things you sent me. I got first the pictures in the envelope from Whitneys birthday. Thanks those were good. I have to admit Evan looked more like me than I thought he ever has before in one of the pictures- freaky, maybe it was only cause he was wearing my shirt. Elder Clyde is convinced that our family is wild and y'all were the ones that spray painted on the wall...I said it was very possible but probably not. That’s cool though that she’s driving. I hope she is a little better than Ivy was, probably not though. Then I got the package yesterday at zone conference so that was cool. Thanks for the candy and stuff. ha and the hackeysacks- I’ll start working on doing the five. I never have any time so it might take a while. Yeah President Merrell is amazing. Elder Clyde is convinced he’s gonna be called as a 70 next. I wouldn’t be surprised at all. He’s the most spiritual man I think I’ve ever talked to. Yesterday we were there from 10 to 6 and for the most part he just talked about his life experiences and just the most amazing stories I’ve ever heard of miracles and blessing that he has seen and had. It was really really good. The main thing he talked about was music and the influences it makes on our lives and the difference it can make on our ability to have the spirit with us. He talked alot about how the process worked when President Monson became the president and applied that to how we should act and sustain the new mission president when he comes and do everything we can to have a smooth change making it easier for us and for him. I heard that when President Merrill came he only talked to the old president for 2 hours then took over. I also heard that the old president before him already had the transfers worked out but President Merrill came and just changed everything without even knowing the cities or the missionaries so I’m not sure how it will work with President Carter when he comes but we only have around 4 weeks left. Sister Merrill also talked to us about the Book of Mormon, she is the best teacher I have ever heard I think. I remember at blues conference she talked about the apostasy and it was just amazing. She is really good at using facts and scriptures to explain everything she teaches, yesterday she really explained the history of the Book of Mormon- she used timelines and all kinds of old documents form Cortez and the early Spaniards who invaded Mexico city and also non church history resources about the Mayas and their culture. She even had old national geographic cut outs and compared them with the references and dates in the Book of Mormon. It was really amazing- dad would have liked to hear it. Then she also had a lot of pictures from her trips down there to see the different ruins and stuff it was really neat and interesting. I’m doing really good though, the French is getting better and better- still no French dreams but I hear they will come. Love y’all, Taylor