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