September in Corsica

Letter to Dad Sept 13, 2015

Dang you guys keep getting more and more busy it seems sometimes! But

it's better to be busy and have things to do that be sitting around

not doing anything, serving in one way or another is the only way to

go. Yeah maybe one day I will end up being scout leader cause I am an

Eagle Scout too haha only by a couple hours though... Barely made it!

That was over a year ago that I earned that award! Crazy... I'm glad

to hear the Utes didn't get a very unneeded loss at the beginning of

the season like they normally do, but that's too bad about Travis

Wilson! I am missing his senior season... Sorta sad. I hope he comes

back soon. I just remember that HUGE block he threw down on some ucla

guy a few years ago and it makes me laugh. All I ever hear is how good

byu is and everything, so it's refreshing to hear the real side of

things (the Utah side) haha but hey I guess they are prayin a lot, and

prayer seems to work... Testimony builder?? Haha

I'm glad to hear I'm not completely forgotten from the lacrosse world

yet! But yeah that Brighton game was the most saves I've ever had in a

game, so it was a good way to end my high school lacrosse. We actually

were closer to winning than corner canyon was that year against

Brighton, so we technically took second... Haha I'm glad Nate is

playing though, he has a great stick I'm sure. He just has to never let

it leave his hands even when he is home, at Coleman's house we would

carry sticks around everywhere and always be playing and I think that

helped me a lot. So if he can find someone to lax with all the time

that would be awesome.

This week I went on an exchange after zone training which we Skyped

into. We were just in the church in Bastia and everyone else was in

nice all together haha. It too expensive to send us over there a lot

so yeah we don't go. But I spent 4 days down in Ajaccio with elder

Brown from skyline and Elder Richmond from Texas. We had a lot of fun,

and I got to meet them better than I knew hem before which wasn't too

much. They tried to play a trick on me with a member, but I'd already

heard about them doing it before so I caught on haha and it made him

sorta mad, he was just like "who told you?!" Cause he was gonna

pretend to mug me haha but yeah I just kept laughing and yeah it

didn't work. Yeah we actually went to a tiny village and knocked on a

guy's door and he instantly invited us to sit down and partake of his

grapes he was growing and then gave us cake and water, all before he

knew why we were there haha we ended up talking and when we left we

left him with a Book of Mormon, but only after the struggle of

convincing him that he didn't need to pay us for it. So sometimes it's

really easy but other times people just shut the door before we even

say hi. So it depends. As for food we buy cheese and a sausage every

week just to experience it a little, but restaurants we don't really

eat at too often. It is too expensive and we don't have a ton of time

either.

The new things in the mission all happened this week actually! He

changed a lot of the rules with things that we can and can't do, we

can't go to the beach anymore(between may1 and oct,1), we can't talk

with other missionaries, we can't use our slang of incoming

missionaries and their trainers (we would say 'dad' for trainer and

'son' for blue) and other slang terms we can't say. And just some

other things were changed so I guess I was lucky to be able to go in

Marseille and Bastia before it changed. Idk it's starting to change a

lot and it's weird. He is a lot more strict with missionaries than

president Roney but we will see how things keep going.

Letter to mom, Sept 13, 2015

Nate and dad will have a lot of fun together, and I know the scouts

are gonna now be doing a lot of boating and water activities... Haha

ok you can give them to fanny, She might even be able to give it to

Elder Tihopu cause I should see him next week at zone conference in

Aix, but tell her she can decide cause she probably knows which one is

faster. We don't need chocolate but ranch would be good!

This week was actually stake conference, I watched in Ajaccio (where

napoleon Bonaparte is from) because I was on exchange down there with

my district leader and so we actually had 8 people there at their

house watching a stream from Toulon where the stake conference was. I

saw Frère Faudin cause he translated for the area 70 who came to speak

but I just saw him haha but I saw a proposal this week! We were in

Ajaccio and they have an amie who wants to be baptized and she needs

to get married before she can cause she lives with her boyfriend so we

were there and we asked if they had talked about it and she said no

and then she just turns and is like 'tu veux te marier avec moi?"

Hahaha which is basically saying "you wanna get married?" Just so

straight up and he didn't even hesitate and said yes haha so she is

going to get the papers and everything ready for that!

The way we find new people is just going porting, so we will go to big

buildings and just knock on doors haha but we have a bunch of Amis we

usually only do like and hour or two a day. The most exciting thing

about Bastia is that we are the more beautiful out of the two cities

with missionaries. Haha I was in Ajaccio and it wasn't as beautiful as

Bastia so that made me pretty excited. I got the most beautiful of the

most beautiful island in the world. The craziest person is one of our

amies she calls herself la chouette which means "the owl" haha and she

is like 70 and just a little off her knocker. She is really nice but

just takes things really weirdly sometimes haha and yes they love

napoleon down here but mostly in Ajaccio. And the cool fact is that

people still live in villages on the island and there are villages of

like 120 people sometimes and yeah it's just really weird. They don't

do anything with society or the French people, the Corsican people

hate French people! But they technically are French... So yeah...

Sorta weird.

Love you all

Elder Schettler

Sept 20, 2015

Right now I am about half way through my 9th transfer and as elders we

normally do about 16 transfers so I just passed the half way point.

But that lake Powell trip sounds like it was a lot of fun. That's

crazy to think Mary will be able to go to dances and everything this

year! And Nate is hopping in the goal? Haha never thought that he

would be getting in there.

Our lessons this week were pretty cool, I went to Ajaccio again this

week for another exchange so I spent the day down there, we went and

saw a guy that I contacted last time I was there and we played ping

pong with him and his sister and we had a good talk with his dad as

well. He is 23 and lives at home, his name is Jean-Lou which means

John wolf haha he is super funny. I was there with elder Richmond and

elder Frost came there with me this time. Then our other lessons his

week were pretty good, we had 15 lessons which was our goal and we met

some cool people. Peoples lives here are normal... Idk... Corsica

people are just very influenced by the people around them cause it's

an island and so yeah. My favorite part of Bastia is the food. There

is good sausage and good cheese... super Frenchy.

We played soccer like two weeks ago and that was pretty fun, we met a

couple people and got numbers and hope to be able to play with them

again, but for the most part we don't play a whole lot of sports. When

we played I was just that person who steals the goals from the cross.

Cherry picker. I got 5 or so goals haha Americans playin soccer with a

bunch of Africans..

Yeah we are usually pretty busy every week, we find stuff to fill our time with.

September 28, 2015

I actually took a sneak peak and looked up the score with Siri right

after church 😁 haha so I already knew the score but I didn't believe

it for a good while, me and Elder Landry both got a good laugh and

talk about it. He is from Georgia so we get along because he isn't a

BYU guy. But those highlights are Sooo cool! I love getting those by

the way! You can send those as often as you would like, we love

getting those down here. But yeah this week was a pretty crazy one. We

were supposed to go back to the mother land on Wednesday night so we

were going to Ajaccio to take the boat but of course as fate would

have it there was a car crash and France being France and always have

one road to get places was backed up and we got stuck in traffic for 2

hours and missed our boat. So we had to get up extra early and grab

the one the next morning. And while we were on this one we took a much

needed nap (the boat is 8 hours) and while we were doing that a member

texted us and told us that her daughter had just decided to be

baptized! So we got a new baptismal engagement this week! While we

were sleeping! Haha so that one helped build my faith. I also got to

go see all my friends that were still in aix zone and stuff this week

cause we had a big conference there! We listened to Elder Adler from

the area 70 and he spoke about being united as an equipe and as well

as with God it was a really good talk.

So for P-day this week we went a found a really big mountain and went

up it and took a bunch of cool pictures on top of there and then we

drove back down the other side and saw all these different mountain

ranges and drive by the ocean and just had a calm mice in drive. I

actually was gonna watch the blood moon thingy but I was too tired and

I wouldn't be able to make up the sleep I lost so I didn't. I wish I

did but nah.

But this week was a good one. We have a couple really cool Amis that

we started teaching and have started to get pretty serious with there

is a couple named Patrick and Nathalie who are super Corsican (they

hate 'French people') because apparently Corsicans are different...

Haha but anyway they are about 50 years old and really funny. Patrick

loves hunting and so we get along when we talk about guns and stuff

like that! Idk maybe it's just a guy thing but I love guns, he let me

hold one even though that probably isn't allowed by the rules! Haha

but we have been teaching them about the restoration and about the

plan of salvation and it has been going really well. And we also have

an ami named Matteu who is Catholic and about 24 years old, we have

been teaching him and so far he hasn't seen the differences between us

and the Catholic Church besides Joseph smith, and this past week he

came to us and told he has been reading in the Book of Mormon and had

a bunch of questions about it! It was super cool because as he reads

he is starting to realize all the differences between us. It is cool

to see his understanding grow and progress as he puts forth his own

efforts to find out more.

Anyway hope everything is well at home! I might be needing some Utah

shorts to run in soon, I wanna be decked out in Utah stuff haha there

are too many BYU people here for my liking and we need them to be a

little more quiet... Haha the best I can get out of them is 'ok Utah

is good this year' 😂🙌🏼🙌🏼 proud to be a ute fan. (Now)

Love Elder Schettler

Les missionnaires

Résidence du Parc

Avenue de la Liberation Lot-228

Bat B

20600 Bastia

Corse

France

Transfer to Bastia, Corsica

September 1, 2015: Saying goodbye to Marseille, France

Yeah it will really cool to be even more on the coast, I guess on a

good day we are able to see Italy and we will be in a trio in Bastia,

there are two cities with missionaries in them so we are only 6

missionaries considering there are two trios on the whole island! Yeah

the coast will be really cool! I have already been by the coast but

now I will be completely surrounded by water! It is the most beautiful

place in the mission according to everyone though. We have a branch of

about 20 members and my comp is branch pres. My comps are Elder Landry

(who will be the driver) and Elder Frost (who is branch Pres.) and me

senior comp haha we are taking a huge ferry that takes 10 hours there!

More boat time for me I guess ☺️⚓️🚤🚤🚢 haha but it should be very

interesting, we only Leave the island once a transfer. People in the

Marseille ward were just really nice and love the missionaries so it

was easy to get along and build friendships. And I took some peoples

emails and expect to stay in contact with them, one of those people is

Frère Faudin. He helped me a lot while I was in Marseille to become a

better missionary and gave me a good example which is the best way you

can help a missionary really is just setting an example for them. And

the experience that made my faith grow the most was the experience we

had with Philippe and when we randomly called him and he was looking

at the picture of baptism just the night before and wanted to start

taking the lessons again. 

Frère Faudin helped me a lot while I was in Marseille to become a

better missionary and set a good example.

Pointing to the wall that Elder Schettler helped dig the hole for.

Frère Faudin Family with son, Mathieu

But yeah this week we just went and said goodbye to the people that I

wanted to see before I left and all the last goodbye stuff before

Monday. But we also went out to cassis with Berthe and had a lesson

and took dinner out there by the side of the sea it was a really fun

change to the normal lessons and scenery we had at all the other

lessons. We had a cool talk about prophets and stuff, then when we

were coming back we had a total miracle. So we came back and I guess

during summer the bus time had changed but on the paper we looked at

first didn't have the summer times so we ended up missing the last bus

so we asked a guy to help us and he just like runs out and stops this

tour bus and tells him we are going to the Gare and the guy just lets

us get on with out paying! And then we realize as we took this bus it

would have taken us at least 45 minutes to walk there which would have

made us super super late.. But we get to the Gare and everyone runs

off the bus and gets on the train as the whistle blows and so we ask

the conductor who had his window open if we can just buy ticket on

board and he is like "nah don't worry about tickets, just get on" so

we got another free ride just at the last moment! And so we got on and

ended up getting home perfectly on time! Miracle huh? It was super

cool! But we also had district meeting and we talked about obedience

and about efficiency. Cause it's good to be obedient but we need to

remember that it isn't always the most efficient thing to just go

contact all day, or things like that, sometimes we need to but it's

more important to be organized and have plans on accomplishing the

things you have planned to do.

Anyway hope you liked my pictures! Love you all!

Alexandre Bourlet

Sister Gregori

Matthieu and Jimmy (the big black one)

Henri

Berthe

Frère Robinet

Michel Delens

Elder Schettler

September 7, 2015: First week in Bastia on Island of Corsica, south of France, west of Italy

(Letter to mom)

As for the changes since I have been here in Bastia are for sure the

size of the branch and the influence of the church is super super

small here. It has only been open to missionaries for a few years, it

was closed for awhile and pres. Roney decided to open it back up a

couple years ago so that's kinda cool that I have the chance to be a

missionary here. It is super beautiful here though, Marseille was all

buildings and that was the big city life, now it's all small villages

and small town people so it is an adjustment for sure. But the scenery

here is to die for. The members (the 11 that are here) are super nice

and really cool. There isn't a lot of priesthood holders here, aside

from the missionaries I think there are 2 others that come every week.

So the missionaries sorta run this place which needs to change. So we

have some work to do. My companions are Elder Frost who is from

Arizona and played soccer in high school. He has been on Corsica for 7

months already and starts his 6 month downhill this transfer so number

12. And elder Landry is actually my other companion and he started his

mission in Lyon when I was with elder crawley and we lived in the same

house... So yeah I already knew him haha he is from Georgia and played

football. So I'm stuck around a bunch of jocks haha elder Landry is in

his 7th transfer so yeah. I'm elder frost is the middle child like me

with two older sisters and a little brother and sister so that is

interesting and elder Landry... Um he is.. Idk he just really cool and

funny. We have a lot of inside jokes and laugh a bunch. Our apartment

is super big here in Bastia! We also have ac which is SUPER rare in

France. We a,so have an amazing view of the ocean cause it is not far

from the beach. But the teaching is mostly porting now. Which means we

go and port and just hope we teach some one haha and aside from that

we have some Amis that we see I guess, they are all really interesting

people some are mostly just old people that like talking to us so we

need to change that maybe a little. Get them doing more stuff but it's

all good. But just pray for the part member families in our branch

cause there are a lot and we need these husbands to start coming and

being baptized. So just in general the families of the branch need

prayers. This week was really cool though and I'm excited to work here

in Bastia.

Love you all

                  

           

Letter to dad:

The transfer was good, we took the boat and barely slept then it was straight to work the next day with a move of a member who is leaving

Corsica sadly. But yeah then we unpacked and got settled a little bit more on Corsica. The coolest thing I saw this week was probably Italy.

On a really clear day from our apartment really for in the distance you can see Italy! Haha it's crazy to know we are that close to it and

so far from France... That and all the beautiful mountains and sea views all around Corsica.

But the peach pie was always good, but if you remember I never had a chance to eat it since I was like 8 years old. We can't really determine if I thought it was good or not cause I never ate it haha would have been a $300 piece of pie... But yeah I always like playing

those fun little competitions that come from the friendly games like

that with the family. We are a family of smack talk and cheaters

(outside the box thinkers) which always is a funny mix. That kickoff

was sweet!! I LOVE football, I am so jealous you get to go and watch

it live! All I see is BYU highlights from other elders so they are

cool but.... It's byu... I can only imagine what the Utah ones are

like. And I will for sure  gonna need to see those Oregon unis and

some footage. Haha Utah state is pretty good tho it should be a good

game right?

My new comps are really cool we all were "born" in Lyon in the same

apartment and elder Landry was with elder haws when I was loving there

so we have already lived together. They are both athletes so we are

gonna play a lot of sports probably in finding people and teaching

which I will love to do, and yeah we have a car and elder Landry is

the only one who is allowed to drive cause he has a permit still, mine

is up and can't be used anymore. So I get the back seat or front seat

sometimes but I don't know how to give directions cause I'm new so

mostly back seat for me right now. And as for this being the coveted

land.... Hahaha.... Maybe a little... Or a lot. The only people that

ever come here are the people that serve here and the AP's for an

exchange one time a transfer so it's kinda like everyone knows about

it but not many get to come here. There are only 6 of us on the whole

island and there are about 20 members so not a whole lot of church

influence here. But yeah Corsica is a beautiful place for sure, they

only send certain missionaries there. So idk how I got sent here...

The church was interesting experience, we had two elders in elders

quorum iPad they are both high priests so they shouldn't have be even

been there haha but we don't separate so yeah, and one was a visitor

from Toulon actually. We taught the lessons, blessed the sacrament,

led the music, said the prayers and bore testimonies haha so we have a

little say in the church here as missionaries... But it's a new

experience. It should help me a lot I think which I am excited for! I

will give you more updates when I learn people's names and more stuff,

but it is super beautiful and will send pics I took.

Love you

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

New Address in Bastia, Corsica

Les missionnaires

Résidence du Parc

Avenue de la Liberation Lot-228

Bat B

20600 Bastia

Corse

France