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