59th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey everyone, We had a really good week which is good because after the last one we were kind of bummed and on top of that it’s been pretty hot. So we’ve all been more tired than normal and there seems to be lots of pollen and stuff in the air making us all not feel too good. But this week we actually taught a lot and got to see and find more people. We even had a few rendez-vous with the members and that’s always good. Well we were with the same member twice but anyways it’s better than nothing. Church was good. I don’t know if we have the same lesson plans every week but they talked about gifts of the spirit in Sunday school. We ended up talking a lot about the gift of tongues and how we don’t speak in tongues but it exists in other ways such as to share the gospel things like this. So it was going good then the teacher starts talking about the "promise"! ohh la la He was explaining how a prophet said that if you read the book of Mormon in another language at the end you will speak like a native! I think he’s getting his prophecies mixed up with the movie "the other side of heaven" but now we have half the ward ordering book of Mormons in other crazy languages such as Russian and Dutch! That’s France for you. So we’ve been trying to explain that it will help you learn a language but it sure as heck isn’t going to just come that easily. I’ve read it almost three times in French and I’m still far from a native speaker. But anyways, that was the excitement at church this week! It’s too bad we didn’t have any investigators there, because maybe that would have encouraged them to actually read, the one thing they all seem to have problems with! ha This Saturday the ward is planning a missionary activity. They’re going to meet at the church then go on splits, kind of just to get the members to work a little with us. They seem kind of excited about it. The idea was for them to set up little rendez-vous with their friends then we could go together. We’re going to set up a few rendezvous also because I would be surprised if they actually had enough for the six missionaries in our ward, but with our amis and theirs, it still should be fun. I’ve never worked with a member like that, we almost did a split once in Vitrolles when we had two rendez-vous the same night but one got canceled. It’s not very often we have more to do than we can handle. Probably our best ami, Daniel, that we have been seeing a few times a week, is about to go home to the Dominican Republic for two months so I’m kind of bummed about that. I’m going to call him today to see if he would like to talk to the missionaries while he is there. Two months is a long time. Zone conference is this week. I’m pretty excited to see some people that moved into our zone this last transfer. Also Elder Page will be there because has in Paripinon now. This week I got to do all the car inspections which was pretty cool. They were all at president’s house. All the zone leaders came from all over for their meeting. There were a few I was happy to see again. Also I took a few pictures I’ll send to you. That’s good Whitney had a good birthday. It seems like y’all go to movies a lot. You talk about them every week. Oh, this week we were doing service for this lady and she had a weight bench in her backyard that she gave us. That pretty much made my whole week. We cleaned it all off and it’s set up in our apartment. It’s like the one back home just a little smaller. Did you get the copy my passport last week? I was going to ask about gnc today because you didn’t say anything last week. If you could go check it out, that would be cool. Today we’re going to go to ville just to see all the stuff, maybe shop around. I’m hoping ill still be here for the soldes so I can buy a nice suit and shoes and stuff, in a lot of the smaller villes there wouldn’t be any of the nice stores. We’re about to go eat. I’m really hungry. We’ve been fasting for our district just to find new amis and just for the work to go better. Everyone seems to be having a rough time. Like you said, we all have good weeks and bad weeks. That’s kind of normal I guess. But even when we do have a few good weeks, that doesn’t really lead to baptisms, which is the goal really. We’re not really here to see how many lessons we can teach every week. If no one comes to church after, it’s a little useless but we'll keep trying. Well, I hope you have a good week. Love y’all! Taylor
PS: Hey, I forgot to tell you that our mission has a website. It's http://www.missionfrancaisedetoulouse.com/. There is a bunch of stories and conversion stories and miracles from old missionaries and information about the mission. You're gonna think its cool even though alot is in French.

58th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone, Thanks for the emails! We just got back from Auchon doing our shopping for the week. It took way too long, almost two hours. I’m pretty tired. I hope we get to relax a little bit today but it’s not looking like it. We have had a pretty hard week, we couldn’t really find many people to teach or see. It’s always hard to leave the apartment when you don’t have a lot of things already planned. This next week is looking a lot better. We already have quite a few things planned that are pretty solid. Sunday wasn’t the best either. I really thought we would have had at least 4 investigators there, we had confirmed everyone, made sure they knew exactly how to get there, what time and everything then just no one! I called a few of them after the first hour and finally got one to come but just for the last hour which is sacrament so I guess it was ok. President and Soeur Carter were there for the first time in forever and there was only I think, one person during the class for the investigators. I’m getting tired of all these French holidays. There has been something big almost every week since I’ve been here but now there’s a really big one coming up- the day of "assencion", the Catholic day to celebrate Mary. Remember last year in Vitrolles where they did the huge parade with candles and a big statue of her in the front. It was just ridiculous, but to make it even better this time it falls on a Thursday so they do something they call "le pont" or the bridge so they just make Friday a holiday also and start a four- day weekend. French people are unbelievable! haha Even the bureau work has been slow this week. The biggest thing is that Elder C. put gas in the car but it takes diesel. It’s at the shop now- I’m just hoping they don’t have to redo the engine or anything. He was freaking out after he realized what he did but I think it’s gonna be ok. All the new greenies came from the mtc this week, that was fun! They all seemed pretty cool. Oh, my two choices for coming home are 19 January or 8 March. January is sounding really good. I’m probably going for that. It’s really funny, at the beginning when they said we could choose everyone was like “oh yeah, woo-hoo another couple months to serve!!” but now almost everyone is taking the early date- but I don’t blame them, there’s a lot of time in between January and March. There’s a few going home this transfer that are gonna be two or three days late for the BYU semester- that’s one thing I don’t think I would like to do, but there all from Salt Lake or around there so they will still be with their families. I’ll send another email later with my passport and maybe some pictures. I think we might go try to see this museum in Centreville but I’m not sure. If we do that we would have to come straight back and go to work again then we would be all tired for the rest of the week. It would be fun though. I really liked the pictures of the camel market- pretty crazy! Well, we’re gonna go eat. Love y’all, Taylor

57th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone, What a day! We’ve been all over picking up and dropping off the missionaries for the transfers. It’s always good to see the ones that have been in other zones for a while. Also all the ones going home are here so that’s always kind of hard to be around- it just makes us all feel super trunky. We’re all pretty busy with the transfer, updating things with the new missionaries and making sure everything is going smoothly. Now tomorrow will be a different story with all the new ones coming in. We’re getting 6 sisters and three elders. They seem to be all pretty cool with the pictures we have, it’s always cool to see how American they are and all the little things that they find interesting and are completely normal for us now. Tonight we have a rendez vous with a member so we’ll need to leave around six or so. I hope that goes well. It’s a lady and it’s the second time we’ve seen her. I called to make sure it was still good so I hope all goes well, but you never know. It always seems to be a hassle meeting people in town then going to see someone. But most of the time it goes smoothly. This week has been good- we’ve been able to teach quite a bit and found some cool people. We had three amis or investigations at church so that’s pretty good even though one had to leave early cause he had things to do. The other two seemed to like it and hopefully we’ll be able to see them this week. I don’t have that much to say since I just talked to you yesterday. It was really good talking to y’all! I really enjoyed it. Sorry if I was boring on the phone. I realized I was a little lame after I hung up, sorry. (For the record, he wasn’t lame or boring in any way. Mom) I’ll send a picture of my passport soon. You talked about the gnc stuff. What I had before was called no xplode and it was made by bsn if you wanted to look that would be cool. But you don’t have to buy it if it costs a whole lot just that would be a lot better in a box than a bunch of chocolate, I think! I saw some elders today that I hadn’t seen in a while today. They were going crazy just super ready to get home. I could see myself being like that too, though maybe not that much! Well, thanks for everything! Love y’all, I hope you have a good week. Taylor

56th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey everyone, thanks for the emails. Sounds like you had a pretty normal week, the same here. Everything has been pretty relaxed and not so stressful. It’s been starting to get hotter too, but there’s still a lot of little rain storms that come in every now and then. The other day we were in the hot sun then it started to rain but I guess with the wind and direction of the rain we didn’t have any clouds over us or nearby. It was kind of weird. We actually had a really good week with the missionary work, the best since I’ve been here and in a long time. I guess we were able to teach at least one person every day which I guess doesn’t seem that hard but you would be surprised sometimes. We actually were able to find a few new people that are pretty interested also! I’m a little worried about this week also because we don’t have too many things planned out but that’s normally how it is, then they just fall into place as the week goes on. I’m glad its preparation day today because I’ve been a little tired lately. You know what I do, it seems like every time I’m tired like this I end up getting a little sick and just sleeping for a day. So I hope that doesn’t happen. But it’s not like we can just take a nap either, which is something I miss. You know how much I like to just sleep even if it is a waste of time! Getting up at six thirty every day kind of wears down on you after a while. Saturday we talked to this guy that seemed pretty cool and said we could come back Sunday. So we went and his wife was all excited to see us. I guess when she was younger one of her brothers or sisters was really sick and they had some member neighbors that proposed that the elders come over to give a blessing. They let them come then she told us that the kid was completely healed and that all the pain was gone. So that was pretty cool and we’re going to see them again next Sunday. Well, I guess I’ll call Sunday around 5 or 5:30. I hope we can do it just here from the bureau. We have like three lines. I’ll need to buy a calling card this week. I still have time on my last one but I think it’s only good for a year and I bought it for the first call. Yeah, I hope Whitney and Evan are there this time. When are y’all planning on going back for summer? Do you know your flight plans and all that? Does Dad get to go or does he stay and how long are you going to stay? Yeah, you said something about your camera class last week, that’s cool. What camera are you using, just the digital one? How did Dad and Evan’s scuba diving night work? Have they actually done any diving yet? The basketball pictures were pretty cool. Maybe I’ll take one today then send them later in the day. The desk from last week isn’t actually mine, it’s the secretary’s but it looks cooler and bigger so I took a picture in it. I’ve been thinking about David T. flying around in his plane all week. Sister Brooks’ blog was really funny especially the home teaching remark at the end. Thanks for sending me that story, I like stuff like that. I’m sure he is just nuts when he flies. Well, try to email back a little something then I’ll get back on later maybe with some pictures. Love y’all, Taylor