80th email from France (Cannes)

Hey Everyone, So we have had a pretty good week starting with last week. We went to Nice. It was really cool to see everyone. We had a couple of hours to play. We started with soccer then ultimate Frisbee and yeah, as expected we creamed them. Also, this week we had our zone development meeting which was cool. We had to wake up early and drive to Aix en Provence to meet up with everyone but it was cool to see President and Soeur Carter again. Then after they just ordered like two hundred Euros worth of pizza so everyone got to chill for a while with President. In our interviews he said that I would probably stay here in Cannes for a while. I think we are going to be in a trio for one transfer then just me and someone else until I leave which I’m pretty excited about. It’s really cool having the car. We are actually the only missionaries with one in the mission that aren’t zone leaders or assistants. Our week went by pretty fast. We were able to see a few people and even had someone that came to church. It was a black girl named Precious that only speaks English but she liked it. This coming week should be cool. I get to go back to Toulouse for a big meeting for all the district leaders so I’m looking forward to that. I also talked to President about my foot he took a picture on his blackberry then emailed it to the regional doctor guy then the doc called me the next day and said it was a fungus thing but wasn’t that bad and shouldn’t spread or anything. He said just to wait till I’m home then ask a doctor about it so I guess I’ll just do that even though it seems better to just do it now. Yeah, I got Whitney’s letter. I'll try to send some more pictures. I have a bunch of sweet car pictures. There are just really nice cars everywhere here- Ferraris and Lamborghinis, Porsche, Lotus, Benz, BMW- they are everywhere.For school, I think that would be cool to go for three semesters then get back on the normal track but yeah I really don’t want to wait until August. I got an email from Soeur Daun today. She is up there with Sister Spencer the one from my mtc district that went to New Caledonia. They are roomies now. It’s weird that they are already back in school. You know today I have exactly three months till I’ll be there with y'all! Sorry but this week I didn’t make my list of things from the week and my emails aren’t nearly as good without them. This morning we went on a huge hunt for Elder Diamond’s wallet. He left it at this tobac like drug store when we were buying a map last week then the guy brought it to the police but that’s where we had to go to like four different places to finally find it. But he got it back which is cool. I gained a few pounds this week but not like fat, just from walking around and stuff so that’s good. That bureau was killing me. We should get transfer calls this week so next Monday I’ll know exactly what’s happening but I think Elder Hansen will go home cause he is at the end- then we will have three from the two groups there are here now and we will stay together and just dominate the whole French Riviera in the car- well at least from Antibes to St. Tropez. It’s cool that me and Elder Diamond have these few weeks to try and find some people in Cannes we have been able to see. It’s been great to see some people I taught while I was here but it’s still been kinda hard- we haven’t had a whole lot of rendez vous this week. Elder Diamond is cool. He’s from Provo and he is the same age in the mission I was the first time I was here, just before his year mark. Thanks for Aaron’s address and stuff. I don’t know why they need it. I think Pres. might send the bishops emails to say if we did good or not. He seems to really like me for some reason though I’m not sure why. St. Raph was cool but all the members we passed by weren’t there. Today I think we’re going to go bowling again so that should be pretty fun. Also, Elder Hansen dies so he wanted to buy some stuff for his family so we will probably chill in centreville for a while. Well, I don’t have much else to say. Sorry today’s email wasn’t structured very well. I’ll try to write stuff down this week. Love y’all, Taylor

79th email from France (back in Cannes!)

Hey everyone, Sorry I don’t have a whole lot of time to talk. We’re about to catch the train to Nice. We’re gonna kick their trash in ultimate Frisbee. It’s cool to be back here. What happened is before here in Cannes there was a trio, so President kinda wanted to start up two teams again so I said I would like to come back. It’s been really good so far. Most people remembered me even though it’s been about a year since I came the first time. One thing is for sure, I kinda forgot that the missionary work is a little harder here than in Toulouse! I kinda miss all the college students and people that were willing to listen but so far it hasn’t been too bad. We have fixed three rendez vous for this week just by talking to people on the streets. Also I’ve been trying to contact all the people I taught while I was here but we haven’t had much luck but being here also I'll be able to work a little in Saint Raphael. Actually tonight we have a rendez vous with a St. Ralph family. We’re gonna eat so it should be awesome. I will miss the bureau and all the cool stuff we did there but it’s cool to be out here. I’m back emailing you from this dumb cyber cafe but nothing too bad.I’m working with Elder Diamond. He’s alot younger in the mission but we’re doing good together. He is really cool and I can tell were gonna be friends even if it’s only been a few days. There are two more in the apartment both from Utah. One is going home in two weeks so he’s trying not to be too trunky. So, I was with Frère Paya, you know the French mark Morris? He’s still really funny but I was with him in the hall and he said to someone "yeah, if you don’t remember him its cause he had more hair the first time" I, to say the least, did not think his joke was very funny and now I’m more paranoid than ever about my hairline, even though it’s really not that bad. Last night we had a little rv with a member family. We just all talked and ate a bunch of crepes. It was cool. It’s still pretty hot here in Cannes and people are still in summer mode- not too bad, just kinda crazy down town near the beach and stuff. This week is zone development so its gonna be cool to see everyone then we only have about two more weeks until Elder Holland comes. Everyone is pretty excited about that. I’m gonna try to send a few pics then I’ll write more. Hey, I hope you got all those pics. There are some pretty cool ones. There are so many cool cars here. Hopefully soon we can go to Monaco since I didn’t the last time I was here. But today Nice should be fun. Love y’all, Taylor

78th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey, I’ll write more later. I'll be busy all morning playing golf with President C. Happy birthday to me! Pray that I play good!
Hey Everyone,This week went by pretty fast. We seemed to do alot of different things but I haven’t made the list I normally do so I hope I can remember everything. Well first off, this morning we went golfing with president! Awesome! It was just me, him and Elder Hill. We had joked about going together a few weeks ago then he really wanted to so we did. I played pretty bad which was kinda annoying but it was still fun. The course was nice but pretty hard with skinny fairways, water and lots of sand. The clubs we rented were really old and crappy but we had fun.

Conference was so cool. We had four amis that ended up coming so we were pretty excited about that. They seemed to like it and the translations weren’t too bad either. We didn’t get to watch Sunday night until this morning on the computers. Elder Holland’s was pretty powerful like always. It’s so cool that he is coming here to talk to all of us in a few weeks. I just hope he goes easy on us cause of our lack of baptisms. I’m sure he knows it’s hard. President told everyone that when he comes it will be a mission reunion with everyone from every city- probably the only time that will happen in President’s three years of serving here. Normally when apostles come they make do a tour of the mission but since he only has time for one conference before stake conference, everyone gets to come. It will be cool to see everyone but I’m not sure if we will have time to chat and take pictures. Probably just back to the train stations as fast as possible. Even the elders from Nice are going to rent a car to make it back the next day. So, I’m still in the bureau. I don’t know when I’ll be leaving. President didn’t say anything today. I get the feeling he wants me to stay a little more than I want to be here but anyways. Elder Hill can do everything that’s necessary so probably sometime this week. This week I got to go test drive a new car. That was cool. We met President at a dealership then worked out some stuff with a dealer then me and him went and drove around town for a while. I figured he would have wanted to drive but he told me to. Then just asked questions about how it handled and stuff. We should be getting at least one new one this week. It will be a pretty big change because we are changing from Renault to Opel. The ones we looked at are Opel Merivas which aren’t quite as cool as the Clios we have now, but not too bad. I won’t be driving one very much either way. Thanks for all the happy birthday stuff! Golfing was kinda like my gift. Write back when you get this. Also, I will send you some pictures I took this week. I’m trying to keep my camera with me every day before I leave Toulouse. Love y’all, Taylor

77th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone, So this week was pretty good. It seems like we mostly filled our nights with lessons making the days go by pretty fast. Church yesterday ended up really well! We had four of our amis that ended up coming so that was good. Also, it was our fast and testimony meeting and for the first time in a while there wasn’t any strange stories or weirdos that talked so our amis seemed to like it. As for my departure, I haven’t heard anything. President will come to the bureau tomorrow and I’ll probably ask him if he has been thinking about where I will go my guess is that I will leave next Monday, but as to where, I really don’t know. This week should be pretty busy. We have our zone conferences this week. Ours is Wednesday then of course this weekend is general conference. I’m pretty excited about that. Hopefully we will have some amis that will come. We have been inviting everyone. I will miss all of our investigators and members here in Toulouse when I leave. Today we are going bowling. I’m pretty excited cause we haven’t done anything really cool with our p days in a while, just chilled in the bureau. As for your questions, yeah sign me up for school. April wouldn’t be that bad. I would like to go to Provo but I’m not sure. Try, I guess, though. Yeah, summer and fall in Idaho would be different. I heard also sometimes you can go for the three summer fall and winter- maybe that would be a good idea- just to catch up a little. I had Elder Sellers email you with the questions and stuff. I think it’s not a problem to wait till the end of November but not any later than that, so it’s good that dad is taking care of that this week. I’ll send you some pics today. I took a few this week. Thailand seems really cool, I am jealous. Email me back. I’ll be here for a while or at least back on later today. I can’t believe will be 21 next week- I feel old. Also is there any blogs from Bryan or Andrew this week? Copy and paste them to me. I wrote Bryan last week. His mom sent me a little email with his address. I also wrote to Grandma and Grandpa. Hey, so we just got back from bowling it was fun. I had a solid 115 but not near as good as I was. That’s cool the letter finally came for Whitney today. She should write him back. So we have to go work soon but we don’t really have any rendez vous so hopefully we can find some people to talk to. We at least were planning passing someone named Adel that we used to teach when we came but then he gave us like five rendez vous but he wasn’t ever there so we stopped calling or going over. But hopefully he will be happy to see us since it’s been a few months. He lives in a pretty bad Mus. quartier so I hope we don’t have any problems. Because we are a trio, it’s better sometimes though. But still there are places I’ve been that I will never go back to, just not worth it cause there are so many raging, wild, mean rock throwing Ars. but anyways. Hopefully I will email you from my new ville next week!
Love y’all, Taylor

76th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone,
Thanks for the emails. It sounds like everyone is doing good. I enjoyed the pictures. Everyone looks so different. I really like Evan’s hair- ha. Maybe that’s the look I’ll go for after. I doubt it but it would be nice to cover my little receding hairline. First off, this week was crazy. We spent almost the first three days running around doing stuff for the transfers then right after we had people coming for carte de sejours medical visits so we had to taxi them around since no one else can drive. It all took up alot of time making it pretty hard training Elder Hill in all that he has to do after I leave. So yesterday at church the Russians came with three other amis so that were really cool! They really enjoyed church and should be there next week also. That was really exciting and we even got to teach them after with a member. Just to clarify a little also, we fixed a rendez vous with just the two Russians Saturday for a little "cours de française" or French classes since they don’t speak very well. Also today doing our shopping we met a really cool French lady that lived in New York and has been to Utah so knew alot about the church. After talking for a while she was trying to convince me to teach French after but that’s not very likely. I’m already pretty "bureau trunky" and extremely excited about going out into the full swing of missionary work , also with the time I am leaving Toulouse there is an opening somewhere that I would love to go to. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I try not to think about it much but it could happen. We might go eat but I’ll be back down later- hopefully I can sleep a little today. Thanks for the pictures. It was cool to see the city just in the background of that one of y’all walking to the car. Have you been using your new camera?
I can’t believe September is almost over. Goodness, it seems to have just started but really we only have a little less than a week left. I’m hoping to leave right after conference weekend. That’s normally about how long the person in my place trains someone else but I’m not sure. Also I was wondering if you have all the old pictures on the computer that I’ve sent you or if they are all at home. Let me know. The head honcho from Spain told me to go to Opel dealerships looking for a few "merivas". I guess it’s the next car they want replacing our Renault Clios. They are kind of like a small minivan. The ones we have now are really nice and cool. Thailand should be cool. I looked up the town you said, it looked like a random little place. Have fun at your bbq and beach tomorrow. It’s gonna be sweet not having school. I wish I could be lazy sometimes. Sorry I haven’t been sending pictures of anything. I’ll try better. It’s just I don’t really have my camera very often, maybe I’ll start wearing my backpack for a week or so and pull it out when there is cool stuff. It’s just I never have it with me now
Do you realize I have less than four months to go now? I can’t even believe that.
Love you very much,
Taylor

75th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey Everyone,
First off, thanks for all your emails and everything you sent me! It was fun to get the blogs and stuff. It’s always good to read what others are doing and they all seem to be doing pretty well. This was a good week. A lot of things didn’t go exactly as planned but it worked out. We had some really cool stuff too. After the zone formation meeting I went to Tarbes to do an exchange with Elder Beadle. I’ve been kinda excited for this exchange for a while because for the moment in Tarbes they are having a really rough time and not really teaching or finding lots of people. It had been almost a full transfer since they had any new amis or lessons with the members going over there. We said that we would talk to everyone and hopefully see some miracles in finding people that would be willing to talk to us and learn more. Later on walking and passing by old amis and kinda heading towards the area that we had a rendez vous planned for later on that day, there was a man crossing the road. He was way behind us but trying to be obedient in talking to everyone we see, we decided to turn around and contact him which lead to a wonderful lesson that lasted about an hour there on the street. We were able to set another rendez vous for this coming week making him a new ami and breaking the long streak of no new amis! This day in Tarbes helped me appreciate all the people here that are mostly willing to talk to us even when not really interested. It’s transfer day so I’m going to the gar to get some people. I’ll write more later. Ok, so we just got back all the missionaries that are going home are here now but it’s not too bad cause there are only three I think. Today were gonna get away with only doing two trips to the train station which isn’t too bad. To answer your question yes- we got another colleague today -his name is Elder Hill- aka la jeune sauterelle (young grasshopper) so I’ll be training him for about three weeks then leaving somewhere. I think my last weekend will be conference weekend making it around six months here in Toulouse, seeing that when I came the first week was the April conference. So Elder Hill is from Colorado but a few months ago his family moved to Houston. He seems really cool.

Dang, I just deleted the window and what I had typed; which kind of makes me think of all the stupid computers I had to use in the last year eeh I’m gonna miss the bureau but I’m really excited to get back in the full swing of missionary work. Here, it’s hard to explain, but just not the same. Good, but not the same. Sorry this letter is like in three emails- you know transfer days are pretty crazy for us! Now it looks like we have to go back to the gar cause some sisters bags got taken off the train then she kept going and now we have to try and send them on the next one to Bordeaux. For some of your questions: I like what you did last year for my birthday, just slip some money in my account then I’ll spend it when I need something most likely after I’m back but here I’m pretty set. I don’t want more stuff to lug around. You don’t even really need to send a box or anything- I feel like I just got one! Elder Page told me that there is a guy he knows from Utah that sends him dear elders and that he was talking about stuff I had written on my blog which makes me wonder about how many people really read it! Thanks for sending me copies and Andrew and Bryan’s emails from the blogs. Andrew seems like he is doing really well in Arizona but I can relate alot better to what Bryan said in his. I think Germany and France are a lot alike. Thanks again for the emails and have a great week! Love y’all, Taylor

74th email from France (the Bureau)

Hey, Thanks for your email. Sounds like yall have a good week. It just kind of flew by for us! We were pretty busy in the bureau but I think by Friday we had all the big problems taken care of. I’ve been on the phone often with our phone company trying to get a senior couples phone to make international calls then last week the Chinese elders went to Albi for a rendez vous and they kind of dented and scratched the side of the car. Two days ago someone told us at a stop light that our brake lights were always on and sure enough he was right. So, we’ll have to get that fixed soon. Then just this morning the elders in Cannes called saying their car was towed last night for being in a construction zone or something like that. I’m just hoping they can take care of it themselves. Then on top of that there is never ending coordonnées coming. Also this week was the end of the month so there were a bunch of reports that had to be turned into our supervisor office in Spain. Also this week I talked with someone from the big offices in England so that was kind of cool for the missionary work. I guess this week wasn’t as bad as I made it sound! W did have a few days with not a lot going on but the lessons we did have were pretty good. We had three people at church again which was cool. The Russians were there so we kind of skipped the end of sacrament meeting and watched a video with them which ended up pretty good. Also we’re going to see them Saturday -hopefully with our Russian members. This Saturday morning we had a lesson with Daniel, one of our amis from Dominican Republic with a member that went really well and we saw one of our new amis from last week named Guillaume. He’s so cool! It’s just always hard to get people interested enough to come to church and actually read or just do anything during the week when we are not there. So Soeur Oliver and another older soeur were at church Sunday so that was cool to talk to her and see kind of what life after is like. I’m trying not to be trunky but it’s kind of hard. I think getting out of Toulouse somewhere else will help me a lot. I just feel like I’ve been here so long now everything we do just seems second nature cause it’s been the same for so long. I can’t believe the transfer is over this week. I will be on the 13th. I still have a while so I’ll try not to think about it but If I had to guess...I'd say I’ll get someone to train in the bureau next week then be gone somewhere else three weeks after. Then I’ll most likely go to one more town where I’ll finish. This week it got really windy and cooler and I got thinking that summer was over but now it turned hot again. I’ll send a passport picture today maybe some others if I have. How is your camera working out? I saw one today that was the same d-90 but anyways I’m sure it’s cool. Are you learning how to use it and everything? I’m sure it’s complicated. Do you still read Andrew and Bryan B.’s letters? If so, email them to me next time. Oh I told you that Elder Holland is coming. So now I guess the Carter’s have set up something with Elder Holland to see all the missionaries in our mission! It’s going to be like a week after he is here for out stake conference so that should be really cool. The only problem is they said if the missionaries are somewhere that they couldn’t come and get back to their villes the same day they can’t come so most will probably get to go. Maybe for Nice and down there, it will be kind of iffy. Yeah, go BYU- that’s cool. Wasn’t it Oklahoma that LSU beat a few years ago for the national championships? Thanks for the LSU baseball shirt you send awhile back. I never would have known that LSU baseball was that good without the shirt! ha Love y’all, Taylor