55th email from France (the Bureau)

Bonjour tout le monde,
So, Ivy’s having a baby that’s cool. I figured she would while I was here. I’ve just been waiting for the news. I feel the same as Whitney, I’m not really good with kids but that’s good! I’m sure everyone is happy. MaMa said that everyone back home already knows. I’m sure news spread fast. The good news is we’ll get to talk about it when I call in a few weeks! I think Mother’s Day is the 10th so just next week email me what time I need to call. I hope you had a good week. It wasn’t too bad here. I’ve been a little stressed which I would say isn’t a very common thing for me. Everything’s a little calmer now. When I got here they gave me my own phone which at the time I thought was super sweet; now sometimes I want to throw it out the window because it never stops ringing! Yesterday we had our stake conference. It was really good. A girl talked that just got off her mission in Baton Rouge and she talked a lot about the Louisiana people and her little redneck hick towns she served in! I would like to talk to her more but I think she’s in Carcassonne. For the conference, the church had to rent a big building with stadium seating and a big stage probably about the size of the Lewis auditorium but really modern and nice. I’m actually lucky because I went to the stake conference in Nice when I was in St. Raphael then I came here and got it again. There were a few more people in Nice than here but it was still good to see everyone. We had a ton of missionaries staying at our apartment the night before which is always a little annoying when they are just all over. Maybe I’m just a little unsocial, the others don’t seem to mind it so much. I can’t believe this transfer is almost over. I can’t believe that time has gone by so fast- it’s unbelievable especially since I’ve been here in Toulouse. I guess the next transfer is my tenth of either 15 or 16- I still have to choose but either way it’s going downhill pretty fast. So we’ve been teaching a lot of people lately, at least kind of a lot for the time we have in the evenings. We did our weekly planning yesterday where we talk about all the people we see and plan lessons. We finished and I was like “wow, all of the people we see are from other places.” The French people are just super hardheaded and just don’t really care but being in a big city brings people from all over. The members are pretty open to work with us too, which is awesome. We have rendez-vous for almost every day set up with the members to come and help us. Everyone seems pretty shocked when I tell them where you live. The French people especially but they don’t really understand how it is. Thanks for all the candy and the shirt from Rome. I enjoyed the dates, they were really good. I’ve eaten them a lot but never like that, just always plain. We all enjoyed the Arab writing on the candy wrappers too. I’ll try to hop online later and send some pictures. I’m going to have to take some first. I haven’t since I came here but maybe of the bureau and our apartment. I would of the car but we just had to park it really far away. It’s a really nice little Renault Clio. I really enjoy using the manual transmission; it’s like a life dream come true. Well, I’ll send this then another later. Email quick if you have any other questions or if I didn’t answer some of the first ones. I’ll probably email Ivy now. Love y’all, Taylor

54th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone, Thanks for your emails. It sounds like you had a good week, us too. It went by really fast. I just got back from a garage in a little town called Puget. I had to take one of our cars there to get some problems fixed. Tomorrow we have a little perk of the bureau-Road Trip- well, kind of. We’re going down to Bèzier, a little town where the missionaries are moving so we’re going to bring the big van and help them move all the stuff. It should be fun. It’s going to be just me and Elder Wright. He’s my colleague now. Elder Mendenhall left this morning on the train to go to Montpellier for the next 3 weeks before he dies. I guess President didn’t want him to finish in the bureau so he sent him there. He was way happy because he was there for 6 months about a year ago so he already knows everybody. So now it’s just me and Elder Wright and only 4 in the bureau so that will be a little better. It’s going to be harder for the missionary work though, I think, because it was him that knew everything about the people we see and teach. I had a rendez-vous with President and a guy from SFR, a phone company, and we negotiated a whole new contract for the whole mission. We’ll be seeing him again this week to talk about the final prices and all that but it was a cool experience just to talk about all the stuff especially with President who is totally a business man! It’s actually a really good offer and so were gonna see if we could include the mission of Paris with us so I’ll be calling them all week trying to find out information for how many phones they have working and how much time they would need to change. Last night we ate with the Ficquet family. It was really good. They have a son who’s about to put in his papers so it was cool to talk to him. Then we ate this tuna tomato tart with cheese. It sounds weird but actually was very good. I’m pretty sure she invited us over because as soon as she found out I’m from Louisiana she realized she could use me to find her long lost member cousins she found while doing her genealogy so now I have 2 names of dead people from Morgan city I’m supposed to give to somebody to see if they still have family lines in the church! So that's gonna be cool. Caussé came this week. It was really good. Him and his wife talked. I talked to the wife about y’all being there. She said the trip was really good and that it was cool to meet all the members there. She also talked a lot about how nice it was to speak to us in French not English. Oh, I got your package today, thanks! Actually I haven’t had time to open it yet Oh yeah, you have to put mission or elder or something on the address when you send me stuff. We have this super pissy always- angry mail lady that absolutely hates us and today I could see the fire in her eyes as she asked if it was for us or the other people in the building cause it’s not like pogue is marked anywhere. But everyday she storms in, leaves the mail then storms out and if she has questions or has to get us to sign things it’s just like she’s ready to fight! It’s really dumb because we’re always super nice to her. As for our apartment, yeah it’s on the fourth floor above the bureau and it’s super big and nice. The square here is really cool. The Compans Caffarelli is all offices. There’s always business people walking around then the apartment is the only one I’ve ever had with like real framed pictures on the walls and paint and all that- just very nice. The whole city here is really artsy and cool, except our section has some really bad big (a certain religion named) areas just huge buildings that we try to avoid because they pretty much hate us. There’s one that we’re not allowed to go to because they got the car stolen one time then the tires cut another time. Then the other ones we only go to if we have meetings. I keep thinking about Alex going on his mission. Madagascar’s going to be so different. Elder Mendenhall had a colleague from there and he was always talking about just how his culture was so weird. Well, thanks for all the emails everybody. I’ll try to send some pictures later maybe. I don’t have my camera right now. Go ahead and call the BYU-Idaho people maybe just to see. Love y’all, Taylor

53rd email from France (the Bureau)

Hey, It sounds like you had a really good week in Rome. I really liked all the pictures. I’m glad y'all had a good time. We had a good week here also. There’s been a lot of stuff going on- lots of little random tasks things just needing attention that we have to do. I can see already that time is going to fly by very fast here. The two weeks since I came have already been super fast but I guess I’ve been in France now for over a year, that’s weird to think about! Church yesterday went really well. The ward seems all very nice. We even had a few people invite us over for this week so that’s always something to look forward to. The ward is a lot like Cannes, just pretty normal. Président Carter is in our ward so we’ll get to see him when he’s there. He was yesterday. It was good this week in the bureau. We had a guy come from French church headquarters here. He talked to us all about what we needed to do and just made sure we were keeping all of our files right and we were up to date on all the things- mostly for the apartment manager and secretary but he had some things for us with the insurance for cars and other stuff like that. He started talking a lot about the big audit in October were going to have by the French government and how it all has to be perfect for that. It was funny he was talking about October and everyone’s like “oh, I’m not going to be here”, then he looks at me and says “your new, right?, Yeah, you’ll probably be there.”So no one really knows but it’s possible I could stay for a long time. So far I’m okay with it. The ward is nice and the city is pretty cool and then having a car isn’t so bad either even though I can’t drive yet. I’ll be authorized this week so I’m looking forward to that. This week we have our zone conference which is going to be really cool. First off I’m in a different zone so there’s lots of missionaries I haven’t seen in a long time then also Elder Cossé is coming (the one that was in the Middle East with Elder Holland) I’m sure it’s going to be intense. He’ll probably teach us a lot but I hope it’s better than the last general authority that came. That one just kind of talked about numbers and percentages stuff like that. So all week I’ve been thinking of all this advice I could email Alex but I came to the conclusion that I don’t really have a huge list of do’s and don’ts but I thought of a few things I’ll email him tomorrow. We have a member lady that comes once a week to help us with French studies. It was cool last week, we all read an article then she helped us with pronunciation. I thought it was pretty helpful. Hey, happy birthday tomorrow, Mom! That’s cool. I guess Rome was a pretty good birthday present. Um, ok, for all you asked about what I want to do: I would really like to go to Saudi for a while just to see and just to have a passport to go there for later on. I could start seeing how I could do it now. (It’s a lot easier to do things like that here in the bureau) Also if you wanted to look and see when school starts and all that, that would be good. I guess just at BYU Idaho. Remember also that I have to choose 3 weeks early or later.( Feb. 6th so like early January or the end of February) I’m pretty sure the winter semester starts before I get off so I’ll probably have just to start in summer but try to email me the dates and I’ll think about it. Also see what information you could find out for the passport and visa for Saudi because I really would like to go back there. Thanks for the box and post cards, they should be coming soon, I’m excited for them. Yeah, Elder Wright was in my district -kind of taller big dark hair -you probably don’t have the pictures with you. Anyways, how are your two computers working out? That stinks the food wasn’t super good in Italy. I would love to show y’all all the good French stuff- different types of bread and cheeses- then all their different plates. I really would like to vacation here again after, I still don’t know about being picked up though. Elder Mendenhall’s family is coming in a few weeks when he finishes. They’re just renting a car and going to all the places he served. I’m sure it would be fun. I kind of forgot it was Easter too. We didn’t do anything special. Right now all the days run together- holidays- weekends its all the same. It doesn’t really make a difference. We just work. The primary did make us little bags of chocolate which were really good so that was nice. Well thanks for the email and all the pictures. I’ll probably send you some soon. I haven’t even taken any since I came to Toulouse though, it’s been raining and wet the last whole week. It’s a lot colder here than it was when I left St Raph. Have a good week! Love y’all, Taylor

52nd email from France (the Bureau)

Hey, so you’re there in Rome! I bet it’s really cool, probably not too different than here. Alex did email me! That is SO cool. Madagascar is going to be sweet! The people from there are so nice, everyone that I have known anyways. When I was in Vitrolles I talked about Frère Renderenaridera a lot, remember? He’s from there. Then everyone else that I have met from there has been really cool. There all seem to be pretty humble. I’m sure it will be pretty poor where he’s going and we can talk in French after. That’s going to be sweet! So my week has been really good here in the office. I’ve learned a lot more about what I’m going to be doing. So the referral thing is pretty important- we get names and addresses from all over the world, different visitor sites and just all over then we give them out to where ever they need to go. Then pretty much take care of all the 12 cars in the mission which isn’t that hard unless they get in wrecks which isn’t too often. Then we end up doing just lots of little other random jobs to keep things going smoothly. Um, we’re going to go eat- I’ll email more later. Hey so yeah, here in the office and it is really cool. I’m with Elder Wright from my mtc district, then Elder Monson who I was with in Cannes, then Elder Mak also from Hong Kong who is pretty much our personal chef! He cooks amazing meals every day. They’re way better than anything I’ve eaten since I got here. Then there are always missionaries all around, stopping in and doing things so it’s pretty fun! But there is a lot that we have to get done also. I take care of all the mail too, which is kind of cool to see but then of course I haven’t been getting much! You should probably send me something from Rome! That would be cool! You said Whitney wrote a letter which is pretty cool. Conference was really good. I guess you didn’t watch much of it. We were at the church so it was kind of the first time I met the members also. There are two wards here and they were all together for conference so it was kind of of hard to know who I would really be working with. All the new missionaries came in this week so it was kind of weird to see them all. They were all so “American”. You could really tell a difference in them and the ones that have been out for a while. There was one who kept saying “tight” and we haven’t stopped laughing at him! Well, I don’t have a whole lot to say. Have a good vacation! You should take some pictures and send them next week! Thanks a lot for your email! Love y’all, Taylor