Life in Lyon

November 4, 2015

Yeah Bro. Dowling was in my Branch Presidency! He was a really cool guy, but I didn't talk to much in the MTC so I'm not too surprised, that, and I was Elder Huntsman's comp so he just would talk to him. haha Pres. Dowling really liked Elder Huntsman a lot, but yeah Elder Thangaraj is the man! Who by the way is doing really good down in valance! He is in Elder Haws zone and Elder Sorenson is his district leader and so he is in really good hands, they both were in Lyon with me and are both studs.

Dang I am sorry to hear that [he] is struggling though... I have seen a lot of people out here searching for direction in their life and the thing that a lot of people lack is just the desire to do things, in society we often want to do the minimum and just count it of as good. But if we want to truly succeed we will have to work hard, do the right thing, and stay humble. I am not perfect at any of these things, but they are all attributes I'm trying to learn out here on my mission so when I get back I can go on with life and not have a hitch.

But your mission plan sounds awesome! I would love to help you all with that when I get back! We never really knew any of the non members growing up. There are a few but for the most part I never knew them, and that is something I would love to change as well once I get home! Every member a missionary! That's something our branch is focusing on now. We gave everyone the goal to give out 1 Book of Mormon to a friend by thanksgiving and got them all to commit! So we should give out like 6 by the end of the month!

The hand of the Lord... He basically slapped us in the face with a miracle this week actually... It was really cool! So we were porting looking for new Amis and people to teach and we picked this new

project that we wanted to hit up (not an actual project) but we went through every door and had like maybe 1 person talk to us, and so we ring the last ladies doorbell and the dogs start barking and we are like 'great, we're dead' but she answers and talked to us for about two minutes before we realized it was the mom of our recent converts ex boyfriend who we would play sports with sometimes! She invited us back on Saturday when she didn't have work and so we came back and got to teach her a cool lesson., she was super happy about it and literally like taught herself (which was actually just the spirit) and it was super cool! She then came to our Halloween party at the Luiggi families house which is her sons ex girlfriends house haha and had a great time! She talked and ate some candy and we all had a good time. Then... She came to church with Sister Luiggi who went and picked her up! (Who by the way is allowed to come to church again because her and her husband talked things through) so they came and Céline (our ami) knew two of the other sisters already! So they welcomed her with huge smiles and got her so hyped for the gospel. Then we also had a really good testimony meeting cause it was Fast Sunday Haha but she loved it and we ate after church altogether to break our fast and she stayed and had a great time! That was seriously a super cool miracle this week! Sometimes the Lord just takes the bucket of blessings and drenched you when you ain't expecting it. Kinda like Chris all those years ago in Lake Powell... "Hey, but what do I get?" And then...

BOOM.. Rocked with blessings. Haha but that was a little bit of my week! Love you!

Elder Schettlër

November 10, 2015

Yeah a lot of things really do change during the 2 years that we spend on missions, and it will be super weird to have that day come when it is me finishing my mission and coming home, it doesn't feel like that will ever be here but it will before I expect it.

So this past week we actually weren't able to see Céline or anything which was too bad because she is really awesome, she was working and just had some stuff come up I guess so we weren't able to see her. And then the problem with coming to church this week was that she doesn't have a car and her son wouldn't get up to take her to church in his car ha it would have taken like 10 minutes... But anyway she wasn't able to come to church this week. However we were able to get Gabriel (another one of our Amis) to come to church! He showed up for the last two hours which are Priesthood and Sunday school so that was cool because we taught both classes and so we got to focus things a little

bit more towards him cause we were in charge. And I also gave a talk this past week on temporal blessings and it went well haha it was 5 minutes long because the two people (both sisters) took too long so I just read a scripture and did a short testimony haha classic French people... Just talkers... But also this week we were able to meet a couple really cool people ones named Dominique and we found her one day when we were trying to see Céline, she lives in the building right next door and she was the first door we knocked on! She opened up and just opened up right away to us, cause we asked her all about NYC floor mat. (Gotta use what you got) but she let us in and we had a really good lesson. She had a lot of worries and troubles in her life and I think we were really able to help her feel a little more at ease with her situation and help her. We had another rdv with her and we

just read some of the Book of Mormon together and talked about the restoration a little bit. She really likes it and hopefully we can find a way for her to come to church this coming week!

Aside from that we went on an exchange and we ended up walking like half a mile one night in the pitch black down a muddy road to get to this member's house to give her a cake we made her for her 4 year baptism anniversary! Haha she was super happy to see us and just kept calling us crazy but we are only 19 so it's ok, we are sorta crazy. We met with another family and had a really good Rdv as well, his name is Sousa and he lives with his "wife" but they aren't actually married. They are from Portugal and super awesome, we have been trying for some time to see them but we finally got there this week and taught them a little bit about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and invited him

to be baptized. He said yes, but once he knows it's true to which we replied 'we wouldn't want it any other way' ha and so that was that. We should be seeing them hopefully a couple times this week to teach him some more but he works ALOT so it might be sorta hard.

Anyway! That was my week or the Things of my week that were interesting!

These are all the current and old Corsica Elders that were at the Conference.

October 19, 2015

Mom's letter:

Yeah things are going well with our Amis they are still more or less interested in what we have to teach, but the thing is here in France is a a lot of bad publicity that comes out against Mormons and it

seems like everyone we talk to has seen something about polygamy or about us not having electricity or just weird stuff and so we run into those questions a lot even with people we have known for a long time! Sabrina is doing well after her baptism though! She has been to church and just got confirmed this past week! We went to the beach and played football with her today along with her little siblings and one of our other Amis and it was super fun! We had to teach everyone how to throw a football cause nobody here knows how to do it haha it's super entertaining!

We have a member here named Karin, and her husband is not a member and he is in the military and he is actually in Marseille right now working and I guess right before he left Karin gave him a Book of Mormon and this week when we went over to her house, he called her just randomly and so us being the missionaries asked him if he had read in the Book of Mormon and he said yes! And he actually really liked it, so we started talking about it and shared a couple scriptures and Karin shared her favorite scripture that is about captain Moroni and his soldiers and stuff and he was super sparked by it! He then asked us where the church in Marseille was and so I explained to him how to get there and he went! He met with the missionaries there and I guess he is gonna start meeting with them

regularly! This is a man that we NEVER thought would be interested but literally God gave him to us like a gift this week... 😳 literally insane! Tell the missionaries I say hi! Haha all the way from the

Bastia branch of 12 members 😊 haha

Love you mom

Dad's Letter:

That's cool to hear Josh Kirk is almost on his mission., it is really weird to see all the younger generation people starting to come into the mission field, cause it feels like just yesterday or a couple weeks ago I was in exactly their spot. And now I am in the little bit older group of people and getting older everyday! I just realized how long I really have been gone... Haha and I don't even have 10 months left... I have about 9 months supposedly... So time is flying by! But I really like that quote hat it is the best two years for your life, it is so true that you learn things on your mission that you wouldn't be able to learn otherwise in such a short period of time. Like a language, how to deal with your money, be away from family and just things we do everyday as missionaries that we forget about because they seem normal to us. But it's true if we are keeping the commandments we will never have those big consequences that come with making those big mistakes. They are just that net out in he water protecting us from sharks that are lurking in the farther waters.

That's super awesome for Jeremy! And yeah he is in Valance with Elder Woodward who came in with me. I don't know him too well because I have never served around him but I am sure Palani is gonna love it! His zone leader is Elder Haws and his district Leader is Elder Sorenson my two favorite people from Lyon! So Palani or Elder Thangaraj is in good hands.

That's toooo sick that Utah is number 3 I am gonna rub that in so many peoples faces... Haha jk. But really I am so stoked to hear that Utah is finally getting the year that we were all waiting for! They always have a really good defense and from the looks of the score our offense is figuring it out a little bit more than they have in the past! Yeah I love seeing those highlights on the cloud too!

So the things that are new this week are that we were in Nice for a couple days like I already told you I think last week! But we went up there to get my legality done so I would be able to stay here and then leave France with no problems so we got all that figured out and it is always a nightmare haha the French government is just funny and complicated... But yeah we came back this week ready to do do a lot of work and get everything going for the new transfer, so we got to work and we went out finding one night in a little village not to far from Bastia, sorta by murato where one of our Amis lives and went to try and find another one so that way our ami could have someone to come to church with hopefully! But no one was willing to listen to us haha I guess the jehovah witnesses went through last week and ported the whole place out! So everyone would open the door and say "oh your people passed last week and it doesn't interest me" and then just shut the door in our faces haha so after a couple hours of that we were walking back near our car and there was a guy who leans out his window so we started talking to him just friendly and he came down and actually talked to us! Wow... Haha we are gonna go back next week to teach him a little bit more but he was mostly interested in talking about America and Obama.. But we will turn the subject on him real quick once we go back next time. People on Corsica are so funny, you can change the subject in the middle of the conversation and they won't even miss a beat. They will just hop right on board and continue down the new road of conversation which you have presented them. But that was just one of the experiences we had this week that was pretty cool!

Anyway love you all!

October 24, 2015
Yeah I saw those pictures and they were super cool! The beauty of southern Utah is so different than anything here in France and to be honest I kinda miss it a lot. The beauty here is super cool though don't get me wrong but nothing like your own home land.. I would love to go be able to do all those fun things with you guys when I get back! I see you bought the whole outfit too! You are getting pretty stylish with it though so that's good news!

That's too bad about Utah, do you think they will have the chance to get back into the top 5 or is it basically over for them now that they lost? I would still love to see Utah win the PAC12 finally! Or maybe next year they will get it! But I went on each exchange this week with Elder Jesse Wade, you'll need to look him up. Haha he is going to Gonzaga on a basketball scholarship when he gets home and he is such a baller. We got along really well and had a lot of fun down in Ajaccio.

We went and saw one of their amies and then went and did some contacting then the day was over. We spent most of the day driving in between Bastia and Ajaccio cause it's like 2.5 hours. When I get back the drive to Powell will be like nothing. Haha

At least you have a lot of trips though! That right there is a blessing, especially with family! That is what I miss the most probably. Just good ole family time.

Things are going good here in Bastia more or less, we had a couple members who aren't allowed to come anymore because their family is opposing it and so we lost a couple meme beds who were coming regularly so this past week we had a couple less people than normal.

We were looking at about 9 I think, counting us. It was unusually slow this week at church. But normally we do a lot to keep things going here. We give talks and lead the music and give the prayers and give lessons and council with members. There are serval families that are struggling in the branch, all relating to people just not being on the same page or communicating with each other. That is gonna be something I am gonna have with my family, open communication haha I think you and mom have done a pretty good job of that with us kids. But yeah Karin's husband didn't make it to church this week which was too bad but I think he will be able to come next week. Church here is very particular though the French people are just very talkative so there is never a dry moment.

This week we had a lot of ups and downs, our elevator broke for a couple days and we live on the seventh floor so it was a hike up the stairs for us all week, we lost contact with a super cool family, but we found a bunch of really nice people who might be interested in taking an English class from us or we also have started teaching a Portuguese family, his name is Sosa and he is about 50 years old I think. He downloaded the gospel library app and has been reading from that! We should be seeing him this week so yeah! Things are going well!

Anyway! Love you all!

Have fun on Halloween!

Elder Schettler