Last Transfer in Grenoble

May 2, 2016:

Sooo I talked to President on Saturday and I will be returning June 21st.. So I know you received the email for returning travel and everyone, but I am not sure when they are going to be able to purchase

my ticket or to reserve my seats with the other missionaries seeing as it should be a few weeks earlier than previewed. But now that we have the date we can move forward with planning out the surgery and plan out everything else that we will need to do over the summer to get everything situated and ready to go for the up coming school year. I would really like to live out of home, whether that be on campus in another housing or in a little house with some other roommates or whatever but I really feel like I need to move forward and get ready for life. That being said I will need a job. So if we could start looking around or asking around that would be awesome!

President Giles has probably just been very busy getting settled in but this coming week or maybe the week after I think it would be OK to contact him. His name is Jarom Giles and his wife is Isabelle. They live right across the street from the church right off of 45th behind Albertsons. So you can find out what you want to do about that or with that information.

So this past week we spent a lot of time focusing on Sihem and her progression to baptism. We had a calendar with all the lessons we needed to teach and on what days and what engagements we needed her to follow to make sure that she had made all the progression needed to be baptized. The only problem that we met this week was that she comes from a strong Muslim background and is living among a lot of people who potentially could become hostile towards her des soon to be baptized. She has accepted the fact that it is somethings she knows she needs to do and hasn't looked back! It's amazing to see her faith and trust that everything will be ok! But we were still a little uneasy with letting her just go straight to baptism so we called president to get some advice and ask him who he would like to interview her and he himself will be coming down from Lyon to give her, her baptismal interview and see the situation for himself. It's such a nice thing for him to do! I can't believe he offered to come down but he did and so tomorrow around 12 he will be interviewing her for her baptism. So everyone pray for her! And he is also going to talk to me more about the surgery and what we are going to do for that to make sure I can go home on June 21st and that my surgeries will all be taken care of.

So this week we had a funny/awkward missionary situation. So basically we didn't have anything to do until 4 or 4:30 so we called Sihem to see if we could see her and she didn't answer, so we went and were passing people and we didn't find anyone so we decided to go to the church and get some things done that we had to do for our ward list and updating it so we walked over there and got there a little late and right before one of our rdv's and as we turn the corner there is this old ami named Freddy waiting at the door.. So we let him in and there is a member there to clean the church and so he introduced himself and thought like we had a lesson set up with him, so we went with the flow and like sit down and as soon as we sit down Sihem just shows up to the door of the church! So we let her in and the member gets more confused and so we go and sit back down and then Maddelana (who we were actually waiting for) shows up and comes in and so we were all just there super awkwardly like trying to figure out what to do haha we had two Amis, a recent convert and a member all in the

church just confused as a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. We ended up teaching everyone together and then let Freddy go home, asked Sihem to go wait for us upstairs while we talked to Maddelana and then ended up teaching Sihem afterwards haha so we are pretty efficient I guess.

We also went on exchange this past week, I was with elder Kahn who is in Valance. He is from Utah and in his second transfer. We met up and went to play basketball with a member who ended up not being able to come so we balled with a couple kids who were there, and while we were playing we left our ball on the side of the court where two little girls were playing. And they grabbed our ball to play with and I didn't think anything about it. So we finish balling and walk over to our stuff to grab our ball and our bags and low and behold.... No ball... We got ripped off by some little girls!! Haha the ball wasn't very good anyway though.

We are all good for the FaceTime at 3:30 I think. And I never got the package! I think it is because on our mailbox it is written "les missionnaires" not "les elders" so they probably saw 'elder Schettler' and had no idea where it was supposed to go. Sorry I forgot to tell you that before! But yeah I will have my new and last transfer assignment by then! I will let you know all about it, I think I should probably be staying here and probably will be getting a new companion. 

Elder Schettler

May 9, 2016:

Yeah so I got my new companion yesterday and he is super sick! His name is Elder Tyndale-Biscoe. He was born in London but he has spent basically all of his life in Malaga Spain. He has actually been out for like 7 and a half months now so he isn't super old but he has a lot of stuff already figured out. We are gonna have a bunch of fun I feel like! He is super cool!

Our baptism was super cool though., I know a member has the pictures we took so once I get those I will send those as well to you! But as for now I only have super blurry ones that a member took on a different elders iPad... The older generations just can't seems to figure out how to take pictures on electronics or anything. Haha bless their hearts though for willing to do it for us. But everything went

pretty well, we had to wake up at 5 and be the the church at around 6:30 to print programs, print music sheets, make copies of papers, fill the font and just make sure everything would be ready right after church for her baptism. She came to church as normal and had a great time! Then just as soon as everything was done we started to realize (as every thing we do as missionaries something wasn't correct) the person who was supposed to be presiding had to change cause one of them is a police officer and got called in on emergency and the bishop couldn't stay so we were frantically searching for someone to replace him. We finally found the second counselor in a interview with someone like five minutes before it started and the DMP (who baptized her) had to conduct as well because the person who was supposed to conduct wasn't there either... Haha but after that things went smooth until we realized that there were more people than music sheets by a large number so Elder Warner had to rush out to print some more off and when he was gone we had to do the opening prayer without him (he was supposed to offer it) but everything with the baptism went great actually! No hitch there and when we waited we sang a compilation of songs that Sihem had picked for us to sing. We sang "I'm a Child of God", the day of my baptism and a few more. Then when she was done she

walked straight to the pulpit and started giving a testimony haha the bishop just looks at us and like shrugs and just let her finish, she gave a super good testimony though! She was so excited and you could tell she was like the happiest person ever at that moment! But afterwards we just had some cake a cookies and other little things people brought and everyone gave her the warmest welcome ever! It was a really good baptism though! Everything ended up ok haha but that's about it for this week.

Elder Schettler

May 23, 2016:

Hey everyone., sorry I didn't have time to write at all last week! We had a bunch of stuff to do! I was in Lyon to go to missionary leadership council. It was a good time, I got to see all the people who I will be going home with this coming transfer. We talked a lot about what we need to do to help our mission and ourselves reach out to obtain our former goal of 91 baptisms! It was a really fun and good experience. But the week before that was my first week with Elder Tyndale from Spain, he is super cool! He is from Malaga and he loves to have fun like I do. We get along super well!

The first week we were together we went to lunch with a kid in the ward who was preparing to go on a mission to Canada! His name is Ryan and he is super awesome, he left last week and I am not sure how he is doing yet cause I haven't heard anything but I'm sure he is going to kill it out there in Montreal! We also had a rdv with a couple new Amis named Nowella and Pamela who are both from Congo, they came to a rdv together (we only knew Nowella) and we were able to teach them with a member and we had such a good lesson and invited them both to be baptized. Nowella said yes right away and Pamela asked a little more questions and said she would think about it. We were able to see

them again during the week and she said that she would prepare herself as best as she could for baptism on the 18th June!

This past week we were able to do a bunch of stuff as well, we got to do some service for a member and we got to teach a bunch of lessons to our Amis as well as zone training! So we started the week off with a lesson with Nowella and Pamela where we taught them both a bunch of the gospel and commandments which went super well. We also got to see Nell our 16 year old aim who is getting baptized soon and taught her like almost all the commandments in one lesson which was very

difficult believe it or not haha we did it super fast and got through the lesson in under 45 minutes... With little kids and everything! Nell is super cool and understands everything very well. I am excited

for her and hope she will be able to be baptized before I leave., there are a bunch of things that will be happening the following weekends and so it might be pushed until the week after I leave. 😔

But good news from this past week is that we have started to see our amie  Marie-France again! She is like 22 and super awesome! So this is super good news for us. We are going to see her with the Baret Family this week when we teach Nell. So I guess we will be doing a double lesson thingy.  This week we also got to help someone move a washer and pulled it down two stories and dumped it at a dump and then picked up the new one and dragged it up two flights again which wouldn't have been that bad if I didn't cut my hand carrying the first washer. I had blood just like running down my finger by the time we were done. Haha I hid it from the member so he wouldn't freak out but yeah I got

rocked.  The rest of the week was sort of just normal passes and looking for less actives and new Amis. Nothing too interesting to talk about.

Happy birthday to dad and to Brittany., it looks like both of them got little trips to go do what they wanted! I am super jealous of Brittany going to Mexico on a cruise! A cruise sounds so much fun! I want to either go on a cruise or go to Newport Beach or somewhere in Cali in general. I miss the waves and just seeing the ocean and being able to go in. 🏊🏼🏊🏼

Elder Schettler

Letter to Mom- May 30, 2016:

So our Amis this week were pretty on fire! They were showing up for rdv's and keeping engagements like it was their business! I was so pleased to see our Amis who had struggles to find time to see us, end up being able to find a little bit of time and coming to us and learning about wheat we had for them that day. We also hadn't seen Sihem the week before so this week we tried to see her a few times and finish off some of our new convert lessons! She loves talking about gospel stuff and having a good time. She has really come out of her shell since we have met her, at first she was pretty soft spoken and didn't want to interrupt or be loud. And now she will just butt in and testify to others and it is the coolest/funniest thing ever! She even got up this past week to give her testimony in fast and testimony meeting! She did such a good job too, I was so proud of her! It is amazing to see her progression from week to week. And we also had our Amie Pamella show up to church, she normally shows up in normal clothes but this past week they asked what they needed to wear so I explained that normally woman wear skirts to church, but it wasn’t something that is required to come to church, but she went out of her way and got all dressed up and showed up all by herself (she normally comes with her friend, but her friend couldn't come). We also went to see Louise Eyraud who is 79 and will be getting baptized at the end of this transfer. They are super cool, all of our Amis are doing pretty well and we are excited for them all! We should be having some success at the end of this transfer and at the beginning of next transfer so let's hope that everything goes as planned and there are no speed bumps or anything that make it so things don't roll out as planned!

As for how I feel at the end of my mission, I would say that for sure my confidence has gone up, mostly in the fact that the language isn’t really a barrier anymore and the fact that it has become somewhat normal to just talk to people that you don't know and try to get to know them. There are a lot of things you learn on a mission that give you a certain confidence that you aren't really aware of either. Like most of the changes in myself have been very slow forming and ruling over these two years and it would be hard for me to pick them out, as I have been watching them grow little by little everyday. The beginning of my mission it was obviously a challenge to speak with people and to get along with people because of the language but now that I am coming to the end I have found that no matter what language you speak or how well you speak all that matters is that the people know that you care about them and you want what is best for them. They can feel your love and that will take you a long way. At the beginning of my mission I feel like I was good at telling people the words I loved them but now as it has progressed I have learned how to show people I love them. It is something that comes naturally when you serve them. I think that is something that will help me throughout my life, and something I want to continue to develop cause I'm still not perfect, or even close. But I am getting better at it, and that's all that matters right?

Elder Schettler

Letter to Dad- 

This week was a pretty good week, we did our usual things we went to see Louise Eyraud who is 79 and will be getting baptized at the end of this transfer, we went and saw our other Amies who are doing great, we had great lessons with them and were able to get a bunch of questions cleared up like what they need to wear to church they both were wondering why everyone wears skirts and all the men wear suits haha so we got to explain that to them and when they came to church they had skirts on! Haha it was so cool to see, cause the first few times they just came in like pants and stuff, which is fine, but they made the extra effort this week to look really good and it showed! We should be having some success at the end of this transfer and at the beginning of next transfer so let's hope that everything goes as planned and there are no speed bumps or anything that make it so things don't roll out as planned! I will be able to explain all of this more in depth when I see you guys in a few weeks., this coming week will probably be my last real update on what's going down out here, then the week after that will mostly just be a coming home email haha so let's make this coming week an email to remember? Ya! It has been a long time that I have been waiting for success like this and it is finally coming,mot is awesome to see what happens when people wait and keep pushing forward through the tough things and the hard times, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. It's just for some of us the tunnels are longer. 

I love and appreciate everyone you do for me! Let me know if you have any questions or anything you need to know from me before I get home. We should have a lot of stuff to do that first week I get back.. Ha so let's maybe start planning out what our priorities are and then we can attack those things first. 

Elder Schettler

June 7, 2016: 

Wow, I would just like to start this letter with my condolences to

Mathew Sneiders family and friends. I never got to know him too well,

but to have your life end early in such a manner is tragic for anyone

and for any family. I am glad that we have the knowledge that there is

a life after this life. That can bring so much comfort especially in

moment of difficulty such as that.

So to reply to your questions for this week related to my return

1. The day I get back I would love to go out to eat with you guys, go

be release preferably as soon as schedule would permit and then to end

the night we could go home and maybe play some family games or just

spend some time together... (And now that we have a hot tub, I already

told some people they could come hot tub that night) haha so I might

have some people coming over later that night for a bit to hot tub..

Haha I hope that is ok! But I really really want to hot tub. I think

the temple might be a little too time consuming and if we are going

the next day that will work for me. (We could maybe just go to the

temple grounds as the whole family?)

2. I think I answered that in number one. Haha

3. Things before surgery that I wrote down were, cell phone, boating,

shopping for clothes, a movie night, go to breakfast, I wanted to also

go on a hike, I want to go see my friends (norm, the Dunn family, Jake

Flynn etc.) but aside from those few things we should be pretty free.

I would be ok with doing maybe some day trips to place like park city

or something with the fam. I will unpack when I find time haha I

shouldn't have too much cause I just sent a box home full of books and

stuff, 7kg to be exact.

4. I always preferred the food to be right after Sacrament Meeting

back at our place, and I would love some crêpes or maybe some

Baguettes and cheese with fruit. Just good old French stuff haha those

are just some ideas, if you can think of anything else I would love to

hear them! Or croissants maybe?? Mostly stuff we could buy ready to

go.

This week was a good week though, we had a bunch of stuff that we got

done. We were able to see a bunch of our Amis and even got one of them

over to a members house to have dinner with us all! It was so much

fun. Tuesday night we had a rdv with our Amie Marie-France who is 22

years old and super awesome! She is studying pharmacy, so she is

pretty smart. The second councilor in the bishopric asked us to invite

her to his house to eat and have a little lesson so that is exactly

what we did! It went sooo well. He is the coolest guy everM his name

is Élie Baret and he is legit like a comedian. He is a gendarme which

is basically the equivalent to SWAT in America so you would hunk he is

super serious, but no. Haha we had fajitas and they were super good!

We also had lessons with Pamella and Mmd. Eyraud who are both too

cool! Pamella was sick most of the week, and so we offered to give her

a blessing and she wanted us to so we did and it was a cool experience

to be able to bless her and see her thankfulness for the blessing. She

is making good progress and we are happy with how she is doing and

everything. Then Mmd Eyraud our old lady amie, is still going strong.

Haha she comes every week and is just counting down the days till her

baptism! It is down to 12 days! She will be in the water soon enough,

she is so excited! We are going to do her baptismal interview tomorrow

so pray that everything goes well. Siham our recent convert, is doing

super well as well! She comes every week and to like almost every

activities there is to come to at the church every week. She is at

English class, family home evenings and institute every week. It is

crazy! I do t know how she does it. She is at the church more than we

are some days haha. We are in the process of helping her commence her

genealogy so she can take family names to the temple this coming

temple trip in a few months!

Grenoble is a beautiful place, my favorite thing is the mountains for

sure,mi love just looking around at the mountains and it makes me feel

like I am at home a little bit. Something I will never get over is the

beauty of mountains and the forests. I love the beach and sun, but

something about the mountains makes me feel right at home. And aside

from that I really like the city itself, it is super cool looking with

a bunch of old buildings but it is still a more modern French city

than Marseille for example. So it has the best of both worlds,

classique French style and modern art flares. Haha but my comp is such

a cool kid, this transfer he has really been teaching me the

importance of family. He loves his family more than anything else and

it is just s good example that I have to learn how a man should treat

his family. I thought I treated you guys pretty good but I can always

do better. Ha but as for things I have developed on the mission is

probably the habit of waking up early. That was not me at all before

the mission especially during summer! But now I can't sleep in even if

I try! I woke up at 5:30 this morning and I don't even know why, I

guess my body thought that I had had enough sleep for the night...

Cause I def could not go back to sleep. That and I can sort of grow a

small beard now. Haha but aside from that it is just personality

traits I feel like I have developed, but I don't even know what they

are. You'll have to wait and then tell me what you see.

Anyway, I love you guys so much! I will write you next week with my

final email and everything. Hope all is well and stays well!

Elder Schettler

June 13, 2016

So this past week seriously flew by! We had a bunch of stuff we had to

do, we had to do two exchanges before the transfer was over and we

barely squeezed them in this past week haha. Things on the mission

seem to just get busier and busier as you are here longer, I swear at

the beginning I would have never imagined how fast time would be going

and how much stuff you do at the end. It is crazy! That being said I

am trying to appreciate the moments, take in everything and as we say

in French "j'en profite" which means I'm just trying to make every

moment worth it. I was able to be in Lyon twice this week and I also

go to spend a bit in valance. It is always a good time to return to

cities where you have already been and know some of the people there.

When I go back to Lyon it is funny to see which people still remember

me even though i haven't seen them in over a year! It is such a good

time!

So this week we started it off with an exchange with the Ecully elders

so one of them could come interview our amie to be baptized. So we

decided to take advantage of the moment we had and do an exchange

cause we both had pretty busy days. So I show up in Lyon and we call

the Amis who they were going to see and only one of them confirms...

Classique.. Haha I swear this happens every exchange. It's become sort

of the norm that things never ever ever go as planned on exchanges. So

we went and saw the ami we had to see and ate lunch with him and

taught him. He is from Mexico and is getting baptized is next week!

Elder spoors is borrowing my white pants for his baptism( I won't need

those anymore...) so that is going to be awesome! And afterwards we

just went out and found some old Amis and talked to some people cause

no one else could see us. It was a good fun day though, elder spoors

is from London area so we got to talk a little about his home and what

England is like. Sounds like a pretty cool place. We might have to go

out there! Haha but now Madame Eyraud our amie is for sure getting

baptized this coming week! I will send you pictures of it! She is

super cool and counting down the days till her baptism. We are

currently at 5.

Aside from that we also had an exchange in valance this week where we

went and did a big move, so we brought all four missionaries and tried

to just get it done as fast as possible, it took us about half an hour

to get everything out of their apartment and maybe another half hour

to get everything back in the new one! Seriously one of the fastest

moves I've ever been a part of. French people normally are not up to

par with their moving skills, but this one was well organized and we

got it done in a jiffy! Such a change of pace from the four hour five

hour moves I've seen my whole mission! But we then went out to find

some people at a park (look at pics) which is probably the only cool

thing in valance to be honest.. But we just chatted with people and

stuff. I also got to see some members I knew when I was in valance for

a couple weeks and so we caught up and got to chat a bit. That was

super cool!

The highlight of the week though was stake conference in Lyon. So I

was there Saturday and Sunday for conference and it was a blast! We

got to see a bunch of missionaries and tons of members I knew in

Confluence. There is a member Frère Girard, who saw me and just came

over and gave me the biggest hug! He has since my depart, been married

and sealed in the temple! He told me that with the biggest smile ever

on his face and I could help but smile right back at him. I also got

to talk to the always awesome Leporé family! Seriously my favorite

members in all of France. Roland is the stake president now and he did

a great job, he gave a talk on examples of faith in history and how we

should do the same. His wife as well have a talk in French which was

pretty dang good considering she's American. It was all around a great

conference in Lyon.

Ok now for like my last email type stuff... I guess I should maybe

explain a little bit of what I have learned and what not during my

mission and how I have grown personally, spiritually and in all areas

of my life. I am not positive however exactly how to explain it. It

took me two years to learn and I guarantee that it is not all there

yet, but what I would like to express is my love to each and everyone

of you who have been there with my the whole way. It has meant a lot

to me to hear your support and love no matter how consistent or

profound our contact, I appreciate it. I also know that no matter what

we sacrifice for the lord he will give us back ten fold what we have

offered unto him. And I feel as though I have come to appreciate the

small things in life deeper and to be able to experience things with a

more clear vision of who I am and what role I play. I have come to

understand the gospel on a deeper more personal level and it has

become something real for me, something worth sharing with everyone.

So if you want to get to know more about the changes in my life I

would like to invite you to spend time with me, and see for yourself

what has changed. Cause frankly I have no idea, there are too many

things for me to notice.

I will tell you all about my week when I get home 😊 I am unbelievably

excited to see, hug and talk to each one of you!

As for my questions

1. What time will we be going to the temple?

2. How many times can we go boating before surgery? And can I bring friends..?

3. Any requests of things you want me to bring back?? Chocolat? Haha

4. What is the topic of my homecoming talk? 😬

Elder Schettler

March in Valence, France

Letter to Dad: March 7, 2016

Things are going well out here! Valence is a lot different from Annecy

but it still pretty good! We have had to come here and learn a whole

new bus system again  and a whole bunch of members less actives and

everything which is always an interesting thing to adjust to an area

like that and especially with a blue, it's sorta like we are white

washing and I'm training still haha but it's cool. But this week was

pretty cool, something funny that happened this week that I think you

will appreciate is that we had a member who is named cheefy come and

invite us fir food one day and wanted us to come over to the church to

eat it so us not wanting to deny a free opportunity to eat some good

food because he is a pretty good cook, accepted and showed up. We had

a nice slow cooked meat meal with vegetables and everything with this

grape juice that was very good as well. The grape juice here is super

good btw! Haha but we left not thinking much of it, cause cheefy will

feed the missionaries pretty often and it's never anything weird or

out of the ordinary. But the next day elder Wilkey goes to the

bathroom and comes out and tells us all that he was peeing green...

And like half an hour later another elder goes to the bathroom and he

had he same thing!! So we started like laughing and just thinking

about all the things we could have eaten to make us that way because

we had no idea! And I went a couple hours later and then we found out

that I was peeing green as well as elder Steadman! So like we were all

just wonder what the heck was going on.. And so we called a couple

other missionaries in Grenoble and asked them what was going on with

them. And they didn't have it and we could not figure out what on

earth did this to us! But a day later we got a random call from cheefy

and he was just busting up laughing and asked us how everything was

and if our pee was a different color! He had put some chemical in the

trap juice and used it to dye our pee green!! Hahahaha he got us sooo

good! It was a classic joke and got all us just wondering what was

going down! But all said and done Valence ain't Annecy.... Haha I miss

it.

But we only have three more weeks until transfer calls! But I talked

to president and asked him I could have three weeks early for hand

surgery before school started that would put my return right around

July 10-13 somewhere around there! He said he would seriously consider

it just because it is medical and he normally won't let anyone go home

unless it is medical so we should be finding out what his thoughts

are. That would only be a few days before I would normally be

returning anyway.

EBS

Playing a little basketball at Pres. Brown's home.

Letter to Mom March 14, 2016

I am super excited to hear about the new boat! That is going to be so

much fun! I am super jealous that you guys will have it for a couple

months before I will be able to come back and use it with all of you,

but maybe you will just have film some of it so I can feel like I am

there with you guys haha it isn't worldly at all though! I am glad

that we are able to go boating and spend time together as a family, it

is one of the things I have been able to look back on and remember all

the fun morning trips, lake Powell trips and Monday nights where we

would spend time together on the boat.

As for water, I am no longer near even a little bit of water. I guess

there is a river that runs by a city that is sorta close to valence

but not really! It's weird to think that this is one of the only times

that they haven't put me by the water. Valence isn't that big of a

city, and so I'm pretty sure that I've already seen everyone there.

There are some cool things, like a fountain and one park that is

pretty cool I guess. There isn't a whole lot to see there and there

are tons of high school kids, so like we don't have anyone to really

contact when high school is in cause they are all super young. But

whatever. The ward is pretty cool. And the Annecy Amis are doing well

we call them a few times a week so we still have contact with them and

things are going pretty well, but it's not the same as actually being

there and everything. So our friend we met in the park is from the

reunion islands and he is doing well, his name is Mustafa and we have

been seeing him like almost every day. Haha it's pretty awesome

actually.

This week we have had a bunch of stuff to do though we went on. A

bunch of exchanges and everything, it's always tiring to take a bunch

of trains but I'm learning to like it. Haha trains are pretty cool, I

stayed in valence for all the exchanges and Elder Wilkey was out in

the other cities. But we taught a couple lessons over Skype to our

Amis and they were pretty good, except for the fact that my front

camera on my new iPad isn't working so we couldn't really see them at

all haha we had to use the back camera and so yeah it was sorta odd.

But whatever it was fun to teach them and see how they were doing. So

this week we actually have a visit from Elder Christopherson so we

spent all of p day here in Lyon again we just sorta wandered around

and took pictures of stuff. It was a zone p day type of thing which

only a handful of people showed up to... But this week was pretty calm

otherwise not too much crazy stuff went down.

Love you all have a good week!

Elder Palani Thangaraj 

Letter to Dad: March 21, 2016

Sounds like the temple dedication was success! I am excited to go see

the Provo temple once I get back, it will the first time for me, I

didn't even see it under construction really. But I definitely didn't

recognize any those Jazz player except for my man Okur! Haha he's an

oldie but the other two I had no idea. I had to ask Elder Kahn here in

the apartment who is in his first transfer to explain to me who they

were and if they good or whatever. Haha I am so out of the loop I

don't even recognize the Jazz players anymore! It's crazy! It hasn't

even been that long since I have been gone and already there are a ton

of new faces! I can only imagine everything else that has changed and

I'm gonna have to get used to all over again! But the trip to Maui

sounds like it will probably be super fun! I am jealous of the sun and

beach time that you are gonna be getting! I wanna have some time to

chill on the beach and everything, but I will have my time soon enough

I'm sure. But once I get back me and Nate are gonna go exercise at the

sports mall or in our basement so he can be the best lacrosse player!

I wanna see him do super well and he's gonna have to start now if he

wants to be super good by the time he is in high school. 

But as I explained to mom this week wasn't super eventful, because I got sick

and wasn't really able tom,eave the house at all during a few days!

The coolest thing this week was our mission conference with Elder D

Todd Christopherson who came to visit and speak to our whole mission!

I got to see a bunch of old friends and listen to an apostle answer

all of our questions, even though a lot of them were pretty lame. Haha

sometimes I am not positive what is going through people's heads and

how they under stand everything but whatever, it makes for funny

stories later right?! Haha But aside from being sick this week things

are going well here, it is the last week of the transfer!! So we will

see what happens, I do t think I am wanting to stay here in balance

for much longer. It is too small and I need a change already. Haha I

only have three more transfers so I think is the next city will

probably be the last one! Hopefully that is! It's weird to think that

I might be finishing in the next place I get called to, but also

reassuring cause I don't really like moving around too much. I have

done pretty good amount of times in my cities and I'm proud of that.

But I am doing well after the Annecy attack haha I just don't like

being in communities with a lot of Arab people, or homeless people or

Eastern Europeans anymore, and buses are still odd but it's getting

better! In 5 months I won't have to ever take a bus again in my life I

don't think so it will all be good. I am not positive what has

happened we are still waiting for our lawyer to call and tell us a

little bit of what happened. I will let you know as soon as I find out

what happened to them. Love you hope you have a good week!

EBS

Letter to Mom: March 21, 2016

Sounds like you guys will be having the most fun week in a long time! One that you have earned from the sounds of it! I am super jealous it seems like you guys just keep popping around the USA for vacations haha and all my comps are always jealous of you guys! But I am also jealous you got to watch the temple dedication of the Provo temple! I have seen a bunch of pictures of it and it looks like an amazing temple. I will have to go see it with you guys once I get home! I am super excited to actually go to the temple and not just talk to people about it. That is one thing that I am missing out here. It is strange to be not allowed to go to the temple during these two years, but I will appreciate it more once I get back. But as for the boat you could ask the Giles family that just moved back to America this week haha they were the family in Annecy, and I know they love boating! 

This week started really eventful and ended pretty eventful but in between it didn't really get to busy. I was sick with the flu and it quickly turned into super bad intestinal stuff and had bad diarrhea and what not for a few days. We went to Lyon on Monday and spent p day out there just sorta looking around and having a good time with the other missionaries that we could find. And that night we stayed with Elder Huntsman and Elder Haws and that was super fun! They are two of my favorites. We were there because he next day we had a mission conference with Elder D Todd Christopherson who came to speak to our mission. It was a super cool experience to have an apostle come and speak to us, he did a question and answer thingy and frankly a lot of dumb questions were asked. Haha but whatever. Sometimes people just don't put things full circle in their heads before they come out and it is so obvious hahaha but they have good intentions so you can't blame them too much for trying! But that night we went back to valence and that is when I started to be sorta sick and I went to bed the second we got home. I slept from 6-6:30 the next morning! Straight 12 hours of sleep! It was AWESOME 😏 first time I've ever had so much sleep! But the next day I just stayed home cause I was really sick and spent a lot of time in bed just like reading and sleeping. And the next day I tried to stay in bed as long as I could cause I was still sick but we had a rdv with our dmp so I got up and we went to eat at his house and have a meeting, I tried to not eat too much but he is Tongan so like avoiding eating at his house is like avoiding fire as a fireman. Tongans and food just coexist and compliment each other. He is super cool, he is professional rugby player and HUGE! He invited us to his game this coming Saturday so I will send you videos and pictures from that! But we directly went to another mangez-vous with a recent convert and ate again!! Now the last thing you wanna do when you have stomach issues is eat, but as a missionary sometimes you just gotta bite the bit and go for it so I ate again! The next day was super rough and I couldn't even move probably from the event of the preceding day and so I spent another day in bed, but another elder in our apartment was also sick so we stayed together and Elder Wilkey and Elder Steadman went out and worked for both of our sectors which was cool of them. Then Saturday I was feeling better and we got invited to go play basketball with seta who is another professional rugby player in our ward and his rugby friends at the church so we showed up and played ball with them for a couple hours, they loved it! They are all super good athletes, but basketball is not their sport... Haha we had to explain that you have to dribble the ball and can't just run with it and like taught some of them how to shoot. But they are solid muscles so they could just run through us small white boys. (They were all islanders) 

But as for Mustafa, he is doing well Elder Wilkey taught him on exchange this week and he is making good progress! The other investigators I haven't really seen or talked to this past week, we did one skype with our ami George and he has been keeping the word of wisdom which is super sick!! I'm stoked to hear he is doing so well even without us there to be on him. I was looking at Nate's scar pictures and his scar looks relatively small. Is there a reason it is not half way up his arm like mine is? Haha mine is like 6 inches and I wanna know if my second one will be like Nate's or if it will be another 6 inch scar. 

EBS

New Year 2016!!

January 4, 2016

This past week was really interesting I'm sure you received my email that I already sent to dad that was very short haha sorry about that being so short but I didn't have anytime to write so yeah it has to be short. I am not getting transferred but Elder Sebra got moved all the way across the mission to mont de Marsan! So in place of him I will be getting a brand new blue. He will be coming in a week late for some reason though so for this week I am going to be going I between the two sectors of Annecy and Saleve. We will be splitting up the work and I am in a trio with Elder Duncan from Springville and Elder Lapointe from Vegas, it doesn't count that they are my comps... Cause I can't

have a Utah comp! I am worried that I am gonna get a Utah comp and break my streak! I haven't had one companion from Utah yet on my mission and I am not looking to ruin that record just yet..  Haha but we will see what blue I get.

But this past week was sort of like a favorites week where we go see all of our favorite members and everyone just in case we get transferred so we went and saw a couple families and got to share messages with them which was really cool! We had a lot of fun doing that. Then this week we didn't have a lot of time to go talk to people.. It's been like two weeks since I've had a real good day of

just talking to people and I'm starting to miss it, mostly cause I feel like I am not as good anymore as I was two weeks ago. Haha it's just like a sport, the more you do it the better and more fun it gets but

the longer you let it go the more you gotta get back in your rhythm so that was the low light of the week really. Nothing bad happened, oh besides the fact that we popped our tire.... Haha Elder Sebra tried to pass a car in front of us and idk why he didn't slow down to attempt this need for speed type of move but he didn't and hit the curb with our tire and it just exploded... So I got to get out and change the tire in the pitch black of night and freezing cold. Haha we got it fixed and replaced but that's ok. Oh and we loose the car because the sisters now have a permit and can drive again so they got to take the car back. So it's back to buses for me. And I also found out I have a hole in my shoe. It's right in the sole, so when I walk I am like walking on the actual ground haha my feet are usually pretty wet now that it's rainy season. But I will look at some new shoes.

I got the recording at it was very interesting! You'll have to let me know how everything goes with Nate! But I do t haves ton of time today I used all of it writing is one. Love you all and I am excited for Lake Powell! Make sure it is the best planned trip ever! Haha oh and can you send me more go pro things? Of like surfing and stuff? Just ask Brittany to do it. She should know. Or maybe of waterskiing.   

EBS

January 11, 2016

So first things first this week was weird cause everything seemed to break on me or maybe I just realized that everything is wearing down. My watch is broken, my shoes have a couple holes in the soles now and some pairs of pants are on their last threads but still wearable haha the mission life is a crazy life I guess. But I will try and find some deals so I don't just blow through the money that I have in the account. So thanks for keeping that up to date. But my comp is delayed a week because of the holiday season I think that everything got changed around so he is coming in this week rather

than the normal week he was supposed to. But I went to St Julien this week and we did a lot of contacting and St Julien is like as close as you can get to Swiss without being inside, we would walk and contact until the border then turn around and walk back. It was pretty cool but not very pretty.

The other elders are pretty cool I was with Elder Lapointe from Las Vegas and Elder Duncan from Springville Utah, but he doesn't count as my real companion which means I have never ever had a comp from Utah yet! And it's been almost a year and a half.... Let's s see if we can keep this streak going! But we worked really hard this past week and got three engages or people who committed to baptism and two of them were 16 year old girls and one of their fathers. They are all super cool and I'm jealous that they aren't my Amis in Annecy but I know that the elders here are taking good care of them and they will progress well. But aside from that we got to Annecy for about a day and had lessons with Alexis and an ami named Harvey both of which are super cool, and came to church I guess (I wasn't there though, cause I was in Saleve ward) but it was really good news! Anyway we don't have tons of time sorry for the short email!

EBS

January 13, 2016,

Dear Parents,

Elder Wilkey has been assigned a wonderful trainer/companion, Elder Schettler  They are serving Annecy, France.  Their address is:

Les Missionnaires
Elder Schettler

24 Blvd du Fier

74000 Annecy

France

Please address all mail or packages in this format.  See the attachments for a picture of  Elder Wilkey with his Trainer/Companion.

We are grateful to have your wonderful son in our mission!
With Warmest Regards
Sister Sweeney, Mission Secretary
France Lyon Mission

 January 13, 2016,

To Mom:

So first things first this week was weird cause everything seemed to break on me or maybe I just realized that everything is wearing down. My watch is broken, my shoes have a couple holes in the soles now and some pairs of pants are on their last threads but still wearable haha the mission life is a crazy life I guess. But I will try and find some deals so I don't just blow through the money that I have in the account. So thanks for keeping that up to date.

But my comp is delayed a week because of the holiday season I think that everything got changed around so he is coming in this week rather than the normal week he was supposed to. But I went to St Julien this week and we did a lot of contacting and St Julien is like as close as you can get to Swiss without being inside, we would walk and contact until the border then turn around and walk back. It was pretty cool but not very pretty.

The other elders are pretty cool I was with elder Lapointe from Las Vegas and elder Duncan from Springville Utah, but he doesn't count as my real companion which means I have never ever had a comp from Utah yet! And it's been almost a year and a half.... Let's s see if we can keep this streak going! But twe worked really hard this past week and got three engages or people who committed to baptism and two of them were 16 year old girls and one of their fathers. They are all super cool and I'm jealous that they aren't my Amis in Annecy but I know that the elders here are taking good care of them and they will progress well. But aside from that we got to Annecy for about a day and had lessons with Alexis and an ami named Harvey both of which are super cool, and came to church I guess (I wasn't there though, cause I was in Saleve ward) but it was really good news! Anyway we don't have tons of time sorry for the short email!

To Dad:

Just a side note, man to man I went and bought a new suit and it is that sort of grey and black hounds tooth pattern and it looks really good, it is a slim suit cause that's how all suits are here. And I think when we come back you'll have to look into getting one. I will take pics and send them later tonight cause I don't have it with me right this second. But thanks for putting money on my card so I could buy it! I went with a little bit cheaper one as to not break the bank.

Yeah I have had a lot of fun with the Saleve elders this past week we worked pretty hard and actually engaged three people to baptism and they all said yes so they went from having no engages to have three in one week! It was a big time play by the whole group! But we would contact from this city named St. Julien until the Swiss border and then turn around and do it again basically all day when we weren't teaching other people so I had the chance to talk to a bunch of weirdos and interesting people. Haha but I am excited to see who I train and how he is! This past week was fun cause we all speak French and understand more or less how to be missionaries, but teaching a new kid all the ropes and everything is gonna be another experience I am ready to take on. I had a little bit of that with elder Sebra but it will probably be more so with this new kid. I think I have come up with some jokes but I haven't confirmed anything! If you have any ideas you guys need to get those to me soon! I would love to get him with some pranks! But this week will be another busy week cause I will be in Lyon for half of it and then we have to go to Geneva for another part of it. So maybe next week we will have some time in Annecy? Haha oh and we don't have the car anymore cause it went to the sisters...

Gotta learn how to use the Annecy bus system now I guess.. Wish me luck!

EBS

January 18, 2016

To Mom:

Yeah keep up to date with Nate and everything that is going down with him and his hand it will be very helpful to me in the coming months to help me plan and prepare for the coming years of my life. I hope I have Mary a good story but if that doesn't work let me know and I will find a different one in my head that has a bunch of random stories to share.

So Elder Wilkey is really nice and really tall! Haha he is from England from a city named Bournesmouth or something like that., he sounds like James Bond when he talks and I'm trying to have the same accent when I get home! He is doing good for only being here a week! He has like no fear or anything so that in and of itself is awesome! I'd like to think I am the same way but I don't think I am, so maybe he will help me with that! His French is that of a blue... He can spit out a couple phrases here and there but when it comes to expression of his ideas it can be difficult to get what he wants to say across. It totally reminds me of when I was a blue! Haha I didnt understand people and people wouldn't understand what I said and it was sometimes pretty frustrating but he is handling everything very well! I took him contacting a couple times and he did very well, he would start the

conversation and then once he couldn't do anymore I would take over and fill in the rest of what needed to be said! It was a fun experience! His birthday was also this week and so I took him to

dinner and we had a piñata at zone training that I called in as a special order from Elder Fisk in Geneva and so we had a good time doing that and then after that it was basically a normal day! But this week has just been figuring out how to take the buses here and getting to and from places because it's all new to me! But I am getting it very well, this isn't nearly as bad as Marseille or Lyon so I think in another week I'll have it memorized and down to a science haha

I set an appointment with the eye people for next week so I can get the right prescription for my glasses and I asked how much it would be and he said probably around 30 for the test, and about 80 for each lens... So I might need a little more money on the card so that I will be able to read the road signs again haha 😊 sorry! But yeah... and I got new shoes on soldes that are very cool and very dry compared to my old pair! Thanks for the money for those! I love you all, have a good week!

EBS

Sounds like you had a busy week with everything from mates hand to a shooting in the neighborhood! Never thought I would see the day when Holladay would be run down gangtown with a shooting. I hope the best for the families of everyone involved. But they had to do the full transfer on Nate then? That is a big surgery! We will all have the same scars haha we could make our own little gang or something. But you'll have to keep me updated on how he is doing with it and everything, I know what he's going through and it ain't the most fun thing.

Yeah I was super stoked to hear about the U! It wasn't like a super big surprise to get into the university but the business scholars was a little bit of a surprise and a relieving one for sure! Now I can just relax and work knowing all will be ready for me to attack once I get home! I think I am going to really enjoy it as well! Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to have that type of education. Something I have really grown to appreciate on my mission is all the means that we have as a family and the comforts we often take for granted. So thank you for working hard and being a good example.

But this week I was actually in Lyon for a couple of days getting ready to pick up my blue! His name is Elder Wilkey from the south of England! So we speak the same language... Sorta. Haha he is about 6'3 and likes playing soccer (like most British people) but it has officially been 12 transfers without one single companion from Utah! Haha Elder Wilkey (rhythms with milky) is a super nice guy and like to work so it's really fun to be with him, we are gonna get a lot of good things done here in Annecy I can feel it! His birthday was this week and he turned 20! So I took him out to dinner and we went with an ami, it was a super fun time and he got to practice his French a little bit with our ami who was just bombarding him with questions. Haha it was like a ww2 missed attack with no seize fire, he did pretty well! His French is that of a blue but we are working on it everyday so hopefully by the time I am through with him or his 12 weeks of blueness are up he will be ready to train a blue! That's the goal. 

So lately we have been meeting with Yohannes and Alexis the most often and a couple other Amis that we see about once a week and everyone is progressing well, sometimes Alexis doesn't always understand or really retain everything we teach so that slows down the process sometimes, but other than that they are doing well! We are still on the look for more Amis though, we can never have too many! We went contacting to find some people and elder Wilkey killed it! He had no fear at all and it was so awesome! Haha I loved it, we had a good time even though it was snowing and I have a hole in my shoe. (But I just got a new pair) he is up and ready to do whatever the missionary life will bring him.

Just gotta work a little on the French...

EBS

 January 25, 2016

To Mom:

Sounds like those long January weeks are getting the best of everyone

back home! And a little flu bug is spreading as well? That's not good

with Katie's baby coming up, everyone is gonna have to let Katie hold

the baby cause you are all sick! Haha but that is crazy that it is

getting down to crunch time sorta speak with Katie and the baby! I

remember when you guys told me about it and that seems like it wasn't

even that long ago.... But I guess it was like 6 months ago. But I'm

glad Brough likes Nate for trying haha just tell Nate not to try too

hard, we don't want him messing up his hand even worse. Then he will

never find a girlfriend! But that's cool you will be going back to

Pierre! Pass him the Bonjour on my part! Haha I hopefully will be able

to have him when I get back as well that way I can speak French to

him! That would be super funny, just everyone in the office would be

surprised I think. Maybe he will help Nate with his French homework as

well?

So our week was really good we met with Yohannes and had a really good

talk and taught a powerful lesson with him! We talked about eternal

families and presented him the temple that isn't too far in Swiss and

invited him to prepare himself to go there with his family once his

wife comes over to France. And he accepted! He said the first week his

wife is here he is going to bring her to the church and meet us! I

hope she can come soon! But he has very limited contact with his wife.

They can only send very short texts because Eritrea is a dictatorship

and he described it as 'they are trying to imitate North Korea' so

that's how shut down everything is. Even email or phone calls don't

work without being shut down. But he wants to wait for his wife to be

baptized with him as well as his other children so we will see how

long that takes to get them over. We have planned and prayed for March

5th. But eElder Wilkey is awesome! He invited someone to be baptized

this week his name is George he is from Nigeria and he has a family as

well! It's him and his wife and he has a baby boy. He invited him to

be baptized (cause we practiced that morning) and he nailed it haha it

was super awesome!.... It was in English... But still! So we have

hopefully another family lined up for March 5th! But we spent about

two days in Geneva one for finding day which I explained to dad, and

the other was for district meeting and a a worldwide missionary

training thing. It was cool! I learned a lot of the importance of

working through members and the role that they can play in lasting

converts to the church, so we tried to get a bunch of referrals this

week! We haven't gotten any yet, but hopefully soon they will start

coming!

EBS

February 1, 2016

To Mom:

This week was a pretty what we could call a tombez-vous week where as not many people showed up to planned rdv's that we had so it wasn't really all that eventful, it was sorta a pain sometimes when you have to plan a whole day to go do service for a member and get train tickets and plan out everything and they call you the night before and tell you that his wife just helped him do it instead that night so we didn't need to come anymore.. Like that was a classic. So that day what we did rather than spend our time helping him we got to go out and contact all day. Haha and we talked to some very interesting people that is for sure. Idk why Thursday was this way but it just seemed like the day everyone was trying to make us upset, so it started with our whole day being cancelled the night before and then literally everyone we talked to was like so anti religion, they were also all old and so it was not like they were saying it respectfully from young person to young person but rather they felt the need to sit me down, and tell me why I'm young and don't know anything. So that was quiet a day of stuff. I don't like disrespectful people at all.

But the funniest thing this week I think is when we were at a members house (the one thing that held this week) we were talking and they were asking Elder Wilkey how tall he was and Elder Wilkey, bless his heart, was trying to figure out how to say how tall he was in French and also using the metric system and the members were do the inverse trying to figure it out in feet and he got a little mixed up and he told them like 600 meters hahaha and everyone just looks and just started dying. But sorry I don't have a lot of time to reply to everyone, we were out trying to visit someone (who cancelled once we got there, it's half an hour on train) so we went and visited someone else. But yeah now we don't have a ton of time, but tell everyone I love them. And is week is the official 6 month left mark. It's actually tomorrow.... Weird....

EBS

February 8, 2016

To Mom:

So this week as you could probably see from dads email was pretty busy and I didn't have a ton of time to work in Annecy I only had really Friday and Saturday to do everything I needed to and so it was a little difficult to stay in touch with my Amis but the other elders were able to go see them and from what I was able to see and what they told me everything is going well. But we have an ami Patswa who is moving out of his house soon and so we might be able to help him with that this coming week, he isn't moving under the happiest of circumstances so that is sad, but I am super excited to try and help him. We haven't had too many discussions about the church in depth yet

and we just started this past week to get really into with him and he has a lot of questions and concerns about somethings (drinking wine is one) haha classic in France. This week we got a new investigator named Mimi she is from Nigeria and is friends with some of our other Amis from Nigeria and so it is perfect! She is about 27 and has a baby, she doesn't speak very much French at all so we are teaching her in English but hopefully she will learn French in the coming months and

hopefully we will be able to set a baptismal date for her soon. We had 6 Amis come to church this week! That is counting only our Amis, not the sisters as well. So we had a bunch come and it was super awesome cause the stake president came to visit and he was able to talk to some of our Amis. Our Stake President is super cool, he works for Rolex and has like 8 kids. His name is president Coppel (not sure if that's spelled right) but the highlight of this week was for sure the chance that I had to be in other people's sectors and working with new people, I love seeing new places and meeting new people and going on exchanges gives that chance to go around and see a little bit of places other than Annecy. You can get more details about my week from dads email I sent him a pretty long one, sorry for not writing back super well last week. We were in Geneva for p day today and I ran into a window that was open and cut my back I will send you a picture haha I

was to focused on the hockey we were playing....

EBS

To Dad:

So this week was pretty busy starting with our day on Monday, we didn't really take a p day cause we had to go to an outer city to see someone and once we go there he to,d us not to come over (again, he did that last week too) so we just called up a part member family and were able to go see them and  share a message with them, afterwards they offered to take us back to Annecy and so they put us in a car and took us all the way back, it was a cool experience to go see their family it has been a long time since I've been over there. But they were doing very well. Then on Tuesday we went to zone conference in annemasse and I got to see elder haws and we listened to elder brown speak and give us some council on how to work better with our Swiss side of things seeing as people (Americans) will now be able to go serve in Swiss as before they weren't due to legality issues! So people will be able to go and serve ther which hasn't been done in a really long time. But that night I went on exchange in Geneva with Elder Fisk who is in his last transfer so he is now in the last week of his mission. We spent all day Wednesday helping the Geneva Spanish elders move into their new apartment little need to say that the exchange was pretty low key and not a whole lot of real missionary stuff out there. But we got back Wednesday night and en thursday morning I was on exchange in the saleve sector where I started this transfer while waiting for my companion to get here and we did a lot of contacting haha like all day actually, and it was super cold and raining sorta. But it was a good time, I was with elder Duncan from springville Utah. We got to go see some members and when we got there to share a message we found out the sisters had been there the night before and had given them the exact message we were going to give them using the family proclamation. So we had to quickly change plans and go another route. But when I got back to our sector I found out that we had a new ami, we had already seen her but they were able to teach her and now we are going to start teaching her, her name is Mimi and she is a friend of one of our other Amis named George who is getting baptized soon. And this week we had like 6 Amis that came to church and 4 of them speak English so I was translating for all of them at the same time which got complicated cause we didn't have like headphone things, but next week it should be a little bit easier cause they will get the head phone things. But this week was pretty busy on my side of things.

EBS

 February 14, 2016

So this past week was a pretty busy week, we had a bunch of stuff

planned and had to take a trip out to Annemasse for district meeting

which is on the last week of the transfer for some reason... I would

think they could plan it better but... Whatever. But this week was

sorta just like any other week you have on the mission, rainy,

cancelled lessons, and contacting haha nothing really changed this

week for us. We went around and contacted in the rain like all day one

day cause we had nothing to do, and Elder Wilkey didn't appose it so

we did that haha blues are funny in the sense that you can get them to

contact in the rain all day and they won't care at all. But this week

we met a referral that we had from a member in Swiss, his name is

Nicolas and we met him on Tuesday night at the church during our

branch council meeting haha (cause he was leaving to America for work

and then vacation for two weeks so he had to see us that day) so we

skipped our council and just told our dmp what we needed and went and

taught Nicolas, he is super awesome! He was married to a woman from

holladay actually! She wasn't super active in the church but now he is

dating a member and wants to learn a little bit more about us so we

are going to start seeing him in a few weeks when he is back from

vacation. He has a few kids as well, so we are gonna try and see if we

can teach them as a family... Cause the gospel is for families. But

our engagés for right now are sort of hard to see, they have had a lot

of legality stuff they have had to do this week and it has been

raining (so they don't go outside, even to come to the church or

anything) but hopefully this coming week things will start to become a

little more sunny and they will have less things occupying their

attention. We have a few member baptisms this week, there are two

children that are being baptized this Saturday so that will be super

fun to go and watch! And we also recieved calls for the transfer and

me and elder Wilkey will be staying in Annecy together! I get to

finish training my blue! And sister tibbits who got here when I got to

Annecy is training again! She has now had three companions here two of

them are first transfer blues and the other was a third transfer...

Always young missionaries here in Annecy... But anyway I am excited

because we have a lot of cool Amis and things are going well here.

Hopefully we will find even more people to teach as well. Yohannes is

doing well, he is just waiting for his wife before he gets baptized,

and then George and faith are doing well but were busy last week. And

we have a bunch of other people as well, but we need more.

EBS

February 22, 2016

To Dad: 

That is so crazy that Nate is getting so tall! He is almost my height! But I will still be able to take him when I get back! That is for sure, I have been practicing on all my comps. But I am also glad to hear that he will be playing football again and basketball! That kinda makes me wonder what I would have been able to do with sports if my hands were better, maybe I would have been a basketball kid or something.

But this week we had a bunch of lessons at the beginning of the week then things slowed down by the end! We had a couple people cancel lessons like normal but none were as lame as Alexis who cancelled twice on us, two days in a row! I was sort of annoyed and told him couldn't do that haha I probably could have said it a bit nicer but he has been throwing a wrench in our plans the past few days so we might take a slight break from him and try to see him in a coming week or so. But aside from that we were able to see our ami George who should be getting baptized in the next few weeks as well! We taught him a bunch of lessons and he is taking in everything very well and this week we are going to teach him all the word of wisdom and some other things so let's hope he doesn't get to stressed over those things! But as for other things, we had a baptism of a couple members children so we went to Annemasse and got to watch those being preformed and we rode up with the Giles family! They are moving back to Utah in three weeks I think and he doesn't have a job or anything set up quiet yet, but they were telling me that they felt like it was time to go and that they just are trusting in the Lord. They are seriously the coolest family! You'll have to meet them when they get back! They have a son Nate's age as well that love sports! But aside from that we just did normal missionary stuff, we met a couple people that we are going to help do a family night, that are actually from China! They are super cool, and we got a referral from another ami so hopefully we get a few new Amis this week! Pray for us!

Anyway love you!! Talk to you later! 

EBS