25th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone. How’s it going? Really good here- same old stuff but we had a really good week, another really busy one. Anyways we’re in Marseille right now. I had to come for more papers and stuff. It’s starting to be pretty frustrating but its better than not being legal, I guess. I still have a while till I can finish it. I think the next step is coming for an x-ray of my chest which I think is kind of random- whatever. Vitrolles is going good. It’s starting to get a little cold and that’s kind of scaring me. I don’t like it but I hear its a lot warmer here than the other side by Bordeaux, so we’ll see. I should be staying in the south at least until all these Marseille trips are over with. Lots of little things happened that I wanted to write about so I’ll just start one thing. Well, Elder Calder is on this diet so we decided to buy healthier foods and one of these things that he wanted was carrots. One night he asked me if I wanted one and of course I was like no way I don’t like carrots- never really have. Then this memory came to my head of how Grandma Dees used to boil them and that I ate them but that was a while back. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about if I really liked boiled carrots and this is after I ate a normal one confirming that I don’t like them raw. So I boiled water, cut them up in little circles like I remember and I really liked them! So I might be doing that more often. I really should start eating better. I’m getting out of shape. I’m pretty excited for conference this weekend. I never really liked it as a kid but now I really want to see it. It will be in French which is ok, I can understand it but it’s not the same. With President Carter he wants everything to be in French which is good just different. President Merrill believed that the spirit spoke in English which I would have to agree with so we’ll see how that goes. We’ll be here in Marseille again Saturday for the priesthood so that will be cool to be with some other missionaries from the area and their will be a room with it broadcasted into English for that. Normally they do that at the bigger chapels. We had a cool thing the other day. We were just walking through centre ville and this lady comes running after us. She didn’t speak French really good but anyways she’s a member from Brazil and she just moved to a town like 30 minutes away and she’s been trying to find the church or missionaries. She couldn’t find it on the internet so we told her where it was and all that and she was there Sunday. It was really cool. Our members were really glad to see her. We went out to Salon to see Joris, the one in the picture that played basketball in Atlanta, because he just got back. So it was cool to see him again. We had a really cool service activity with the whole ward at Frere Renderanaridera’s house. There were so many people there- it doesn’t translate into English very well but people were describing it as "the whole chapel was there" and it really was like that. They did inside and out cleaning and painting then pretty much planted a garden and a few pretty big trees to grow. It was really good. He does a whole lot for the ward and everyone knows it so it was good to really help him out. Another thing- there is this recent convert named Jose deCamp -he’s really cool but his health isn’t so good. He’s deaf but can hear a little and he reads lips very well so he can talk with everyone fine but he hasn’t been good. He’s been losing his vision too so the bishop asked everyone to fast for him last Sunday then after church all of the men went in a room and gave him a blessing. It was really good and cool. That’s so cool that Aaron is the bishop. When I first read the email I thought one of the counselors was the other Clifford, the big biker dude. I was like- oh wow. But I don't think I know the Clifford's. We had an experience Sunday that gave me a little glimpse of what a bishop does. We have this less active lady that is just a little crazy and she always talks to me. Actually we ate with her one time and she bought us kebobs. I think I wrote about that but anyways after church she started talking to me and she explained her plan to leave the country to go to Canada- just to leave all her problems so I just told her to talk to the bishop. I wasn’t about to council her on that. Right, so after she’s like I’ll talk to him but only if y’all are in the rendez-vous. Geez so we went with her. Let’s just call it interesting but it was really cool just to see the council he gave her and how he handled the whole thing. I learned a lot from it. We actually randomly contacted the mayor of Marignane, just a little city next to Vitrolles. He wasn’t very interested but we talked for a little bit so it was cool. I should have told him I’m buds with the Vitrolles mayor ha not really. That’s cool that Andrew is training. He sounded like he was doing pretty good in his letters. I think they are having tons of baptisms which is cool. Andrew said that because in his last letter you deareldered me he said someone told me that he had a huge Texas smile so I let him know that he was indeed from Louisiana and not Texas. I got your birthday cards. I didn’t wait to open them sorry I couldn’t. It’s the same though. I’ll reread them probably on my b- day. I really liked the cards especially the Sweet Home Alabama one. I guess the strike wasn’t that big. That’s really cool about the football fireside and game, that seems like it was fun. Too bad they lost so bad. All those other stories were from my day in Aix so I don’t know how they’re doing really even though we were there yesterday eh I’m sick of traveling. I got a letter from Clay- he seemed so good! I’ll write him back today and Jace. Everything else is good. We really did have a good week. Thanks for your emails.
Love y’all, Taylor

24th email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Pretty good here. We're at the church writing emails because the place we normally go is really dumb and the guy isn’t ever there. So I just got done taking a little nap while Elder Calder did his. Ahh- I'm still in Vitrolles! Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I really didn’t want to go even though I figured I would. Everyone seems pretty shocked that I stayed here another transfer. That makes 5 which puts me here until the first week of November. This week has been good but kind of hard, too. We’ve been all over. I spent four nights without being here in Vitrolles. We were running around doing all the exchanges that we should have done earlier. So we’ve been in Aix, Avignon and then Marseille a little. It was lots of fun but pretty exhausting. This was the first transfer that I was really excited to have. Before we didn’t really see a lot of the missionaries but since Elder Calder was in the office before so he knows everyone and just being with a lot of other elders last week was good. We talked about transfers a lot. Just where everyone would go, who would become the new leaders and all that. We actually made predictions one night in Avignon. Not a whole lot changed though. Only one elder from the district left. Our exchanges were really cool. I actually worked in Aix with Elder Scott from the mtc so that was a lot of fun. We had a really good day. It kind of started rough, someone wasn’t there for a rendez vous so we were just kind of walking around centre ville and I see this girl who was just really excited to see us. So I walked over and kind of contacted her I guess. Then she’s like " I don’t speak French" ha so that was cool. But anyways she had just moved there from South Africa to be a nanny I guess. But she’s a member just a little less active so we talked to her for a long time- she bought us ice cream which was really good- then showed her where the church was. It was a sweet little miracle. Then later on in the day we had a member lesson planned and when we got there it was the family of Boris, the kid from the hike, so that was really cool to see him again. We got to laugh about how we "almost died". Later on in the day we had a rv with this lady who is a "voyant" or mind reader I guess. Not with a crystal ball but I think she reads palms so I figured it would be a little interesting but it wasn’t too bad. We taught a really good first lesson and invited her to come to church. Both Avignon and Aix are a lot bigger than Vitrolles so it was cool just to be around a lot of people. It was different but I think I wouldn’t mind a big city -I would really like to go to Marseille- it's my favorite. One morning in Avignon we all went to play rugby by the Pope's Palace which is in the middle of the town. I figured it would be pretty crowded but since we were there early we were the only ones.
It's absolutely the coolest castle I've ever seen. It's so big, I loved it and we just threw the ball around for about 30 minutes on the big slab right in front of it. I took a lot of good photos. I'll send y'all. OK, so we’ve been talking with Sonia a lot and we’ve planned to have the baptism October 18 which is really the biggest reason I'm glad to be staying. We gave her a blessing Sunday with the bishop to stop smoking but other than that she is ready. We hadn’t been seeing them that often but then she told us that she liked it when we used to have lots of rendez vous so we made a schedule where were going to see them times a week -Mondays, Thursdays and Saturday so that’s going to be really good. Last night I showed them all my pictures and we just talked about all of them for a while- it was fun.
One thing I started doing with Elder Calder is decorating our planners. We cut things out of all the publicity we get then glue them on, then put a nice layer of tape over. I really liked the one from last transfer- it just had Vitrolles written a lot but yesterday I made the new one it has a big 300 which is our goal for baptisms for the year. Then a big thing I cut out that says information immédiate demandez un rendez-vous then Vitrolles at the bottom. It is si cool. Elodie was at church Sunday so it was really cool to see her again. They said they would invite us over to eat some day so I hope they do. We went shopping today and spent 100 euros which is like 150 dollars. It was so much stuff- it should last at least 3 weeks. All the Muslim people are doing their Ramadan or whatever, their fast for the month of September where they eat really early then not all day until 9 I think. But anyways everyone keeps talking about this party they have every year at the end of it. Apparently they just go nuts for a whole day. I hope its not too bad considering were practically living in Tunisia and they are everywhere. Well, that’s about it everything is good. I'm really excited to be staying here for another 6 weeks. Love y'all, Taylor

Ok, I really don’t want to get you worried but people keep talking about this strike for the mail people that starts today and could last quite a long time. In the past they have been short but they said this could be a few months so maybe stuff will get lost or stolen or whatever. But I hope what you sent gets here but don’t send anything else until I know what’s up. I got your memory card and I'll send mine as soon as the strike is over.

23rd email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Really good here! I’m in Marseille right now. We came last night so I could do some stuff for my carte de sejour. That was pretty frustrating like always. We ended up sitting in a room forever waiting for them to call our number just to be able to set up another rendez vous for December. It’s really ridiculous but since we were already here we met up with all the missionaries from around here and went to see D'if. It was really, really cool. I think the best part was just being on a boat. The ride started at the base of the port here so it was cool to be on the water. There was a really, really huge yacht parked out there so that was exciting along with all the other boats. But then the castle was pretty cool. There were lots of little clips from the movie (Counte of Monte Cristo) then lots of historical facts. It cost like 13 dollars but still worth it.
This week was good. Oh yeah, I got your package. I really like the shirt. Too bad no one ever sais lessez le bon temps rouller- it’s just a translation but still cool. We had our zone development meeting this week in Aix- so that was pretty good to see president again. They’re really cool. I’m scared right now though because it’s getting near the end of the transfer. President told me the other day,” Ohh that makes 4 transfers for you to be there…” So we’ll see. I’ve been in Vitrolles for a long time though. I just don’t want to leave. It’s going to be weird to go anywhere else and me and elder Calder are working hard and starting to find some new people to teach. Things are going pretty good so we’ll see. I know I’m going to move eventually, I just don’t feel like I want to right now I really like all of our amis and the ward. We’ve been working with a lot of members. This last week we had 8 lessons with them which is the most we have had in a while. I going to be bummed if I leave but I’m sure the next place will be good if I do. This Sunday we got to go to this young single adults broadcast that was transmitted just to our chapel by satellite but when we get there I realized it was taped or whatever at byu. It was really good but also really weird for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I probably know a few people that are actually there and how I’m here all the way around the world listening to Elder Holland being translated into French. It was really good though, I liked it. Also this week was Aurelian’s wedding. It was Thursday night, actually the same day as our meeting with President. There were quite a few people there. He was excited and I’ve talked to his wife a few times before -she’s really cool but he’s gone now. I’m going to miss him. He was really good as our ward mission leader. There’s no telling how long its going to take for them to call us another one. We were there for the beginning but I heard that the ball he had lasted until 4 in the morning. I still can’t get over that and they were just jamming- all the Spanish music- Shakira and everything crazy, you name it. This Sunday when we left our apartment to walk to church, just out of nowhere there were just tons of people selling stuff on tables all up and down our road. It was really cool. Normally they have the outside marché further down town but they moved it to the village. I don’t know why but it was really cool. Sonia told me Sunday that she really thought about it and that she’s going to be baptized in October; so that’s really good- another reason why I want to stay. We’re going to have two more exchanges this week with the elders from Avignon and Aix so I’m pretty excited for that. I’ll probably work with Elder Scott later on in the week so that will be good. Just one question- ok, so we’re on the bus quite often and hear the radio a little bit but every single time there is just this one song that the people here just love and I’m wondering if it’s big there too- it’s something about “I kissed a girl and I liked it”…..it’s so weird-everybody sings it all the time. So that’s just a question also what’s Ryan been doing since he came home? Update me on Eric, Jace and Clay, Alex… it seems like the last few weeks I’ve only gotten hurricane information which kind of sucks. I saw a picture of Galveston harbor the other day in the newspaper so I figured y’all were all right. That sucks about the flooding though. I really like Marseille. I really would like to serve here- just the big city feel. Besides that everything is pretty good. I’m really anxious for the transfer calls that should come Saturday night. Actually my birthday is going to be on a prep day so I’m sure we can do something with some other guys. I should have some pictures to send you soon. I took a lot of good ones today. Our neighbor is obcessed with Madonna. He plays music pretty loud during the day. It's not too bad as long as it's not in our study time in the morning. Andrew sent me a letter and it was really cool because I had already written him one and I went to send it the same morning that I received his but I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I just waited so then I could answer to the things he asked. I thought that was cool. Tell Whitney to be sure to send me their homecoming pics. That’s cool. I made a cheesecake Sunday morning . It was amazing! It was just one from a box like I love. We came back after church and ate it all. If you ever want to send me food, send that! ahh it was so good. What’s Eric doing? He never emails me anymore and I really want him to. What have they heard from Jace and Clay? When does Shawn leave? That’s cool. Do you ever hear how Matt, Christa and Andrew T. are doing? Send me a long email next week. I really want to know how everyone’s doing. That’s all I can think of for now, but love y'all! Taylor

22nd email from France (Vitrolles)

Hey, what’s going on? I forgot my planner that I’ve been writing things down all week to ask you. I’ll remember most of them but it helps to have the list. We didn’t do that much today, just shopping for food and stuff. We’ve been buying it for 2 weeks so we don’t have to mess with it that often so that works. The assistants are coming down from Toulouse to do exchanges with us. Apparently that’s a pretty big deal -we're not sure exactly why they are coming. Normally it means some kind of change is going to happen. Maybe Elder Calder could train but that’s not likely because there is only one kid coming in this transfer also maybe I could go senior companion. I don’t know- its weird how there are just slowly more and more that are younger than me. Time is going by so fast- 7 months now. I’m excited for next preparation day- we’re going to be in Marseille already for my carte de sejour stuff so were going to go out to the castle or chateau d'if, the one where the Counte of Monte Cristo was or whatever, apparently its a big deal but you have to take a boat ride out to it so that’s going to be sweet. Yesterday we went to Port de Buc. It’s just a little town on the Mediterranean. It was really sweet, we just kind of walked around by the beach for a while. No one was there but so we ended up taking some pretty cool pictures. I bought a photo album today and printed a bunch off of my camera so I’m pretty excited about that. The only problem is that’s its one of those ones with the babies dressed up like flowers- that’s the only one they had that was the right size so I’ll be trying to change out the picture. This week has been really good. We found a lot of new people. We talked to this Chinese guy. He gave us a bunch of Virgin Mary ornament things for a nativity set. They’re all different. He paints them for his work. They’re actually really good quality but its just funny. Vitrolles is crazy. School started again this last week. It’s been messing us up so bad. First thing all the busses changed routes to bring kids back home so it takes forever to go anywhere. Then also all the little punk Muslim kids are back in their little groups all day just chilling waiting to cuss us out and throw rocks. But no big deal, it’s just frustrating. We have the ward council tonight. I’m really bummed cause I can’t go- I’m going to be with Elder Reese in a rendez vous. It’s hard cause us four are staying in Vitrolles so we had to plan like 5 people to see. That’s sweet about the house being ok. I hope this other one doesn’t do anything too bad. I really hope you sent the other memory card, I’ve been waiting for it. I don’t know if the evacuation messed it up. I’ll send you mine when I get it. I got the thing on President Merrill, apparently so did some others in the bureau so I'm not the only one. Sunday was fast Sunday so we all ate at the church after. It was all pretty good food until the bishop’s wife came over with this seafood salade. It was shrimp, that wasn’t too bad but the she gave me like 20 mussels. I don’t know how to explain it, we had fun trying to figure out what they were. Finally I just clamped my two hands together and open and closed them and the whole table goes “Voila”. It was funny. They actually weren’t too bad just kind of squishy. We’ve actually been to Istre and Martiques too this week which are both over an hour away. It’s hard to get out there but its really cool to see the people that haven’t seen us in a while, they’re always way excited when they see us. It’s just really hard for them to come to church. We were out on this dock and Elder Calder started to freak out-finally he told me that it was his first time to see jellyfish. I thought that was pretty funny. I got a email from Jace before they went in. He seemed really happy. I bet they had so much fun with Elliot. That’s sweet that he took them around. I feel bad for Clay because 9 weeks in the mtc feels like forever but that’s really cool. He'll do awesome. That's cool that Dad and Evan went to help out the people in Baton Rouge. I really wish that we had pamphlets that talked about church services and how much we do. All the people here are convinced that every church is in it for money. A lot of people don’t even believe us when we say no one is paid to do all the stuff- bishops and all. Everyone here still talks about Obama all the time. They say cause they don’t like war. Of course they have no chance against any other country. We had a rv yesterday and the guy absolutely loves the U.S. so all he talked about was America the whole time. Then he played some Toby Keith American soldier so we weren’t complaining. The thing is that he told us he didn’t understand any of the words so we invited him to our cours d'anglais. Hopefully he will come. Not that many people come anymore, just this one guy William. Well, I have to go. Tell me how everything is. OK, bye. Love y'all, Taylor

21st email from France (Vitrolles)

Ok, first off, I’ve been freaking out. I’ve been hearing about this hurricane for about a week now. First they said it did a lot of damage in the islands and all that, then just on the street someone told me it was heading towards Florida AND Louisiana so I figured they didn’t really know- just somewhere in that general direction. I asked a lot of people at church if they knew anything about it but no one had any real details. We talked to a lady about two days ago and she’s like, “oh you’re from Louisiana? Well I hope not from the southern part!” I was just like “oh that’s great.” Then the biggest thing was this morning we were at our bus station and on the front page of someone’s newspaper it sais la louisiane limite les dégats then it talks about New Orleans so just like that Louisiana missed the damage. So then I’m thinking well it’s still talking about Louisiana so where did it hit. But then there was a little map and I saw it was a little to the east of us. I’m glad its probably not too bad. That’s right where Elder Lundberg’s from so I wonder if he’s heard anything. But I’m good here. Everything’s good. I got those pictures of the camper- that’s really cool- I’m excited for that. I could just see a big tree falling on it but it’s good that y’all took it. Probably not too good for the gas though. It’s good that y’all got a few vacation days. Take some pictures for me while y’all are up there. We’re here in Aix en Provence today. We came to play ping pong- yeah you’re right we’re going to be playing a lot now. It was fun. The other elders came down from Gap and Manosque so there were like 10 of us there. We just started this thing in the mission where were all going to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year- the only thing is we have to wake up 15 minutes earlier everyday to do it. It’s not that bad though. We’ll see how it goes. We just started yesterday. Not too many things happened this week. One cool thing, we were at a rendez vous with this girl Eliza and she said that because her mom is pretty sick people come from their church every Wednesday night and sing songs and stuff. They’re evangelists so were like heck yeah we’d love to come. Then when the other people got there the guy playing the guitar was Collin Harris, one of our other amis! So that was really cool. We just sang and listened to him play the guitar. It was really cool. Actually one of the songs was exactly the same as I Need Thee Every Hour so I thought that was pretty good. I had a long conversation on the bus with this guy about Obama and McCain. I guess he picked the Alaskan lady. I heard in their last speeches Obama was up on a throne or something with big pillars behind him. Do you know what I’m talking about? A lot of people ask us about that. I told a member Sunday that y’all would be voting for McCain and he just went off on “oh so your voting for more war” and all this stuff. He was nice but still. Another pretty funny thing: so we had a rv with the family Albertini and I wore the tie that you sent me, the really colorful one that’s red, yellow and blue (first off I really like this tie) So finally we get there and they just start laughing and just couldn’t stop. I think it was so funny because I was explaining how much I like the tie. So finally the next time we saw them one of the first things they ask is “vous lavez jeter la cravate” - so pretty much “have you thrown it away?” It was pretty funny, they really thought it was ugly! That was the first time I’ve ever worn it, now maybe the last. Before I wasn’t sure if it was too casual but then Soeur Carter told us that it’s good to have a little personality so I figured why not. It’s been weird lately- fires have been popping up all over town. I’ve seen like 6 now always with the big planes and helicopters. The other day we were walking though the park and ashes just start falling down all around us. Then we saw all the helicopters coming but passing us way up because the fire was actually in the next town over in Berre. But then we keep on walking and 20 minutes later there was a big fire in the park we were just in so the helicopters had to go put that one out. I guess just because it’s so dry. I’m in a library and I can’t copy and paste so im going to send you another email. I’ve been doing a lot of exchanges. We did them with the zone leaders then with all of our district members because Elder Calder is the district leader. I was with Elder Hitoto- he’s from Paris so it was kind of weird to think that I actually spent the whole day with a French guy without any problems or anything. I think im going to go to Avignon again next week so though that should be fun. I really liked the camper pictures. So far I've gotten 2 pictures of Evan -the first he had on my Hollister pink shirt then the last time he had my Redstone gold shirt then my swimming suit and my boxers! Come on, Evan!! This week we planned to be healthy and go up to the plateau thing for exercises every day but we only did it once and we’ve eaten worse than ever before so that didn’t work out too well. I ate like a half a gallon if ice cream in 2 days. Tell me about the other missionaries from our ward and if you have any other updates on the Lovelace’s. The other night we slept on a balcony for an exchange here in Aix. It was pretty relaxing. I should be in Marseille this week for some more carte de sejour stuff so well see how that goes. I really like Marseille. I wouldn’t mind being in a big city. Well that’s about it. I hope everything’s good with the house and stuff. Thanks for the Jimmy Johnson thing. That’s cool . Love y'all, Taylor