Grenoble France

April 11, 2016: 

This week wasn't super busy with seeing people and other rdv's so we had a lot of time to go explore a little while looking for members trying to bring them little treats to try and spark them up or

something. I explained a little bit of our goal as a mission this transfer to dad but just to bring you up to speed, president has asked us to get 91 baptisms this coming transfer... On the whole year so far

we have 36. So we have to essentially triple that number! It sounds insane! But I think things are looking bright here in Grenoble and we should be able to do our part to contribute to the numbers of baptisms that president has felt inspired to challenge us to have. This past week I learned how much I like to be up to date with everything. Being new in a place is always odd at first, so I have to ask a lot of questions to get what I need to know. At the beginning of my mission I was really laid back and didn't mind really knowing what we were doing or when we had a rdv or what members names were or anything, but now I need to know. Haha I have become way more organized in my mind as far

as planning and everything. It's funny to me that that is something I have developed. But this coming week we are going to district meeting, it will be in valance so I will be going back there again! But aside from that we have a couple people that have invited over to eat at their house and we have some lessons set up with Amis. But we will see what holds and what falls through the cracks.. Most the time everything falls through the cracks and our days get pretty empty pretty fast. But that's what you get sometimes. There wasn't anything too funny that happened this past week, except that I had to explain to my dear sweet, innocent new companion what a baked potato is. Apparently he has never had a potato cooked in the oven, covered in chili and sour cream... Like I thought that was a normal thing... But I guess not? He's from Washington as well! Like they export the most potatoes in the whole USA! But that was sort of a funny experience.

April 18, 2016: Letter to Mom-

It's crazy to see all the things that are going down in your guys life from this far away! I can see a ton of growth in all of you in many aspects of your lives and I bet you guys feel like everything is just

going as normal. It is only when we take a step back and look at things from a different perspective that we start to realize all the hints that are changing or have developed that weren't even there before. I am sure the same has happened with me but I am not super good at noticing it yet. Haha that's why I have companions and family to help me realize the efforts I make and to encourage me to keep

going with things that are making me better in one way or another. A good example that comes to mind is learning French.. I haven't noticed but little by little my French has been coming and becoming better and better throughout the mission even though sometimes I don't realize it at all. I even get annoyed sometimes cause there are things I don't know or expressions I don't understand but in reality I have made way more progress than I notice right up front. There are plenty of other things like that in our life but I just wanted to use that as an example really fast.

Anyway dad will be able to share some stories or experiences that we had this week, but something else I would like to share is that there is this convert here in Grenoble who is super awesome her name is Maddelana and has been a member for just over a year, well anyway she got her mission call this past week! And she is going to serve in the Athens, Greece mission! She opened her call at church with everyone around because her family are all in Italy, where is is normally from.. But it was a really cool experience to have another one of those mission opening things happen! It brought back so many memories of when I opened my call and found out I would be coming here to France and all the emotions and thoughts that flooded my head. Then all the peace and comfort as well, knowing that it is the right place for me. There is no experience like opening a mission call! It has been over two years since I have opened my call and I am so thankful for everything that has come from my decision to serve a mission andto sacrifice these two years to bless other people in whatever way I can. I have found my talents and my weaknesses out here and I don't know if I would have had the same life changing experience anywhere else. So I am just thankful to you all as well for supporting me and everything else you do for me! Anyway, love you all! Talk to you soon

Letter to Dad-

This week was a little slow actually which was too bad. We had so many people cancel on us! Haha it had a few days this week were it was just pouring rain and so being outside and contacting people wasn't really the most effective thing to do so we decided to go around and try to pass some less active or old Amis that haven't seen the missionaries in a while. We were able to see a few less actives and that was actually pretty cool! We got some corned beef given to us by one of them cause she didn't want to leave us out in the rain with no food or something like that. My morale is ok. 

This week we ended up playing basketball with a bunch of people by our house in these courts that are pretty nice. I heard that missionaries used to go there and play a bunch of basketball with people and then start teaching them afterwards cause people would ask them why they were there. So that is what we started to do! It was so much fun to actually, me and one of the other elders played while my comp and one other elder sat on the sides and talked to the people and got their numbers and stuff. We set up a time to play with them again this coming week. Most of them speak English too, they are from China, India, Iowa and two from France. I like playing basketball, I am not the best but I can hold my own against these dudes and it gives me a little time to get my energy out. The members here are super cool! We are going to a few peoples houses this week to eat and to see their families. I am really liking them and it has only been like two weeks I've been here. Ha there is a lot of stuff to but sometimes we still end up scratching for stuff because we have three people not show up to our rdv's. Best spiritual experience this past week, was probably at district meeting. We just have the chance to share our testimonies and we were talking about the importance of getting our Amis to church and it was a really cool experience this week.

April 25, 2016

The Annecy Amis are doing super well actually! There are a lot of them that are still ready and preparing for baptism. There should be one in the coming two weeks which president brown said I could actually return and watch. It is the one for Julien, the super cool one who looks like Tom Cruise! He got married two days ago to his girlfriend who is already a member and now we are just waiting to find out when he is free to be baptized. George is doing very well, but they are still waiting for his wife to be ready so they can baptize both at the same time. And there is Halbert who I engaged to baptism while I was in valance for a few weeks but he lived in annecy, from what I have heard he has made complete 360 turn and is now going super strong rather than struggling like how he was when I we first engaged him! Elder Wilkey is taking really good care of our Amis over there haha I

actually got to see elder Wilkey this past week at zone conference! It was combined with Lyon, Geneva, Lausanne, and Ecully zones.

Mother's Day skype will work just fine for me at 3:30. I should be free around then and I'm sure that Elder Warner won't mind doing it around the same time or maybe a little bit later cause his family is

an hour behind.. But whatever. I will plan on doing that so you do not have to worry about getting to church on time. Make sure everyone is awake though haha it will be the last time I talk to you guys before I am back so we gotta make it a good one!

As for recipes I actually need a recipe for a cake! Any kind of cake, but there is a member that loves cooking and wants me to bring her a recipe for an American cake so she can make it for a bunch of people. Already me and my comp buy about 2kg of apples a week and a kilo of bananas and oranges, with a few bags of frozen and fresh vegis... So like we eat pretty well. I am just in the situation where I don't know what to make with all these ingredients that I have haha so any like quesadilla things or any like healthy dinner options would be awesome! Otherwise I will continue to eat just plain carrots haha.

So this past week we had a bunch of stuff going on, even though through out the week I felt like we almost weren't doing anything. It was raining and wasn't super beautiful outside so people weren't

really outside either. Contacting people in conditions like that is always super hard, so we didn't have much success in terms of contacting and finding new people this week. That being said, we have

had some super awesome miracles this week as well! I was on an exchange with Elder Berry (the same one who I lived with when I started in Lyon) and we had a great time! We taught our ami Sihem who we have been teaching for about two weeks. She came to our rdv like an hour early and we were busy cooking an apple tart for a dinner appointment we had later that night, but we finished really fast and got straight to teaching her. I kid you not, first thing she says is 'I want to be baptized' so the lesson progressed from there haha we taught her and set her date for the 7th of May! Such a miracle!! So we have seen her a few times and she literally knows everything we teach already! She has read most of the gospel principles book and is sooo ready for baptism. She has been to church three times now, and the members love her.

As for another cool blessing or miracle actually is there is that 14 year old girl I think I told you about who suddenly decided she wanted to be baptized? Well anyway she got back from a two week vacation and she said it is still good to go! So we will be teaching her a few times and she will be getting baptized in the very near future! It is cool to see how these people are just getting so prepared so fast! When I heard that our goal as a mission was 91 baptisms in this transfer I thought there was no way, but things are going very well I think there are maybe 20 baptisms that have already happened and we should be having many more May 7th! There are a few children being baptized his week and that will be good practice for us to watch and figure everything out wi how to work the font for our baptism that will happen in a few weeks.

This week was a pretty good well though! I love Grenoble, it is a beautiful place with really cool people and a super awesome ward!

April 26, 2016 Letter to Dad:

Hey sorry we didn't have a lot of time for emails yesterday, I am therefore taking my time today to finish my emails. We had a bunch of home teaching visits to do with a member and so we cut our p day short and just went to do that. It wasn't the most interesting thing but it was pretty fun to go see a few families. Today as well we had the chance to go do service for an older couple that aren't members, but they are friends of some members that live in a summer home in a little village about an hour outside of Grenoble, it was so beautiful and they fed us an amazing meal! Like all French people usually do

👌🏼. But I think it was a really good thing to do, they want to keep contact with us and took our emails and they have our phone number and want us to come back to eat and go on a hike with them and just talk about 'good stuff' which we can do! So I hope I'll get the chance to go back and have that experience again soon! We also had a less active come with us and it was really cool to see him participate in the discussion we were having, he was explaining all the things he liked about the church and how things worked as well, which I think did him a lot of good even if he didn't really think anything of it.

I want pictures of the boat the second you get it! Maybe even videos showing me all the cool new features haha I am super excited for you guys! That thing is gonna be getting used so much this coming summer I already know it.

As for things out here, there are some pretty cool things happening actually! Even though I didn't really notice it until the end of the week, we have had so many miracles this past week that just sort of happen and then we cruised by them an moved on to the next one. The first one is that one of our Amis basically engaged herself to baptism and has decided to be baptized next Saturday! She has really come out of her she'll since we have started talking abut baptism and has been making some huge, big time efforts to be ready on May 7th for her baptism. She was a practicing Muslim before, but now she feels like Jesus Christ is the way for her and that it is bringing her more than her prior religion. She is sooo cool! Her name is Sihem and the ward has fallen in love with her, and she has fallen in love with the ward as well! She keeps all the commandments without having to be asked twice and has just been sprinting towards the baptismal font ever since. We have a few more Amis who should be getting baptized but one is set on the 18 June, and that is set in stone. She is 72 years old and super funny. She calls us her grandkids haha so I guess I have another grandma now...? But she is seriously such a sweet lady. She loves rugby and football (soccer) and she could talk to anyone about it for hours on end. But we should be going to see our other ami who is getting baptized soon, to fix the actual date. So if all works out as it is right now and I finish my mission here (which I hope I do) I will have baptized more people here than the rest of my mission combined. So let's hope I can stay!!

As for the companion... It's going ok.. Like there are more elders here in Grenoble so I try and spend as much time with them as possible. Haha they are pretty cool people and so when we are all together we have a pretty good time. We slept at their house like 5 times last week. They have a huge apartment that is right by the church so whenever we are going to be late instead of going home we just go tot their house and sleep there so we aren't late. I don't think my companion really likes sleepovers that much, but idk it is one of the only things keeping me as sane as I am so I justify it a bit I guess. The zone leaders and district leader are all aware of what he is like and so they feel and understand me haha sorta helps that I have basically served with all of them... But they have my back and do what they can to help the situation. The other day he almost cried cause one of the other elders told him that Han Solo dies in the new Star Wars. Idk how to comfort someone like that yet.. Maybe it's something I need to learn how to do. But yeah it's a little straining sometimes.

That's super funny about David's sister though! Ha I get to see him more often than before now that he is AP and comes to all of our zone conferences and so we get to catch up and talk every now and then but it's good to know I am not quiet forgotten back home! Ha my emails sometimes are pretty empty. But yeah there was my week! It was good and everything is going well! I will see you guys soon though so I can explain everything a little bit better on Mother's Day! Love you!