Christmas in France

December 15, 2014

That sounds like you are all getting more busy than me! this week was a slow missionary week but it was good cause we got our new companions and mine is just as weird and funny as me! haha He is in his last transfer and he is a good missionary! My companion is Elder Crawley and he is from Palmdale, California. We aren't the zone leaders so don't get the wrong idea... haha pretty sure he got demoted to me cause we aren't even district leaders or anything! But I am learning from him so that is good! We have a place to Skype and everything we just need to fix a time to do that with you and the people said we can do it whenever we wanted!  We are still looking for lasting amis who we can see more than 1 time a week last week we had 0 lecons so that was rough, but whatever! I am probably gonna be here in Lyon for a few more months so you can just send stuff to my house address and that should be fine! I hope Utah Wins! its great to hear they finally made it to a bowl!

I will try to do Skype at like 4 or 5 here so that should be in the morning for you! Love you all and I will miss you guys during this Christmas season even though it is 50 degrees here haha it doesn't feel like December at all! Tell Mary happy late birthday too!

Last picture with Elder Olsen before transfers.

Me and Elder TJ Haws. We will be living in same apartment again until next transfer.

Elder Crawley is my new companion. He is just as weird and funny as me!

Night Lights of Lyon

A little shopping for a new watch. 

December 21, 2014

This week wasn't much faster. It seems like people are less willing to talk the closer it gets to Christmas! It is weird but true! 

Here is a picture of David for ya. He sings like an angel!!

 Zone Conference and Christmas Party with David Archuleta!!

Christmas Eve at Bishop Lepore's home. What great members to take care of the missionaries!

December 29, 2014

Yeah it was really fun to see you guys! But I think you guys think that our members have us over all the time haha and it is not really like that at all. The Lamoth family got assigned to have us all over so yeah.. the only people that invite us over are the bishop and Frère Girard haha so yeah. But keep inviting the other missionaries over cause it really is so great to be able to go to members houses and just relax! We have been doing a lot of contacting and stuff lately! We have literally had 0 lessons the past 3 weeks so nothing new to report...

Clothes are really expensive here so $300 will have to last me a little while, that will get me a jacket or maybe two pairs of pants but solds is coming up so things will be on sale! It was fun to see everyone on Christmas and you all got some cool gifts! But I will just be saving all my material gifts for when I get back! Right now I'm receiving all the other gifts I need to be a better father, brother, son and all that stuff that shouldn't really seem that important to a lot of 18year old kids. But I am glad I have the opportunity to be out here and gain those experiences and live in a place like france for a few years! 

Either a 16 or 32 SD card will do! and yeah you can let Katie pick out the jacket cause she has style! Tell her that I just need it to look cool with my black pants, it can be sorta windbreaker haha. But thank you for all you do! I need thermal pants, not a top haha, my legs are always cold cause I have no hair! I will make a list of all the big things that have happened and I will send it to you next time! I am almost entering my black year haha, my full year away from home! Anyway, I am glad I got to see you and Ella looks like family already! Thanks for making her feel so welcome! I can tell she actually really likes all of you! 

Everyday sights I take for granted.

SUNSET on DEC. 29, 2014

Elder Schettler's current address:

2, rue de Longchamp

69100 Villeurbanne, France

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

La Fete des Lumiere

France is getting really busy! we are just being missionaries meeting crazy people all the time who either yell at us on the metro or just really cool people that you want to baptize on the street then they aren't interested or a whole mix of things but yeah! I will be staying in Lyon! I stayed for the Fete de Lumiere and so that was super cool! I did however find out the hard way that I will need a new coat because it is not like dry utah heat it is that new york type bone chilling cold here! It is about 1 to 6 degrees here everyday so it is starting to get pretty cold! but it never snows here! 

The Porte Des Alpes Eldres Ami Pong went with us to the Fete De Lumiere he is super awesome! haha 

I would love to hear all about your new cars when you finally decide! Just get an Audi they are super popular here in france and i really think they look classy but that is just me... Elder Olsen in Getting Tranfered to Aix en Provence to be Zone Leader and i am geting Elder Crawley today who was jsut zone leader in Montpellier so i am just a magnet for zone leaders i guess! he is in his last transfer thoèugh! THis next transfer David Archuleta is coming to our mission so that will be really cool! We are inviting everyone to come to that so if you are here you are welcome to come haha I am glad to hear everyone is doing good though! 

I went to Toulouse this past week and it was really cool to see a different part of the mission and not just Lyon! i have some pictures from it we had to go for Elder Olsen's legality or something! BTW you should try and get my Swiss legality all figured out haha cause I wanna serve in Swiss! Like see if we can become citizens of Germany or something so we are part of the EU so I can just go to Swiss! haha If you can't figure that out it's fine though. 

   Pont Neuf in Toulouse it is really famous I guess or I hear it is famous!

I am excited to see you on Christmas and Elder Haws is staying with me for Christmas and he is getting a blue! I am no longer a blue! haha Love you all and I hope you love the chocolate! It wasn't the nicest stuff but it is French so yeah! 

 More Pictures!!

    Fete de Lumiere

   Cool stuff I see everyday that I probably take for granted.

I locked us out of our apartment last week so here we are waiting for the other Elders to come home.

Elder Schettler's current address:

2, rue de Longchamp

69100 Villeurbanne, France

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

In the World but Not of It

Yeah it is already December! and I haven't even had use of Facebook,Twitter or Instagram for like 3 months and it is the weirdest feeling on earth! I see everyone using their phones all the time and I know now what it means to be in the world and not of it cause I don't really even miss it anymore! Sure, it would be fun to see what all my friends are doing and stuff but that would make things harder here! Elder Olsen and I talk about this all the time, haha... in between me singing him disney songs and stuff like that! 

But yeah it has been a pretty good week! We went to Chalon Sur Saone and spent our Thanksgiving together as a district and that was fun! But we only had 2 heures to eat and talk then we had to go out and be missionaries again because it isn't a holiday in France. We met a couple cool people when I was with Elder Perry on an exchange! Including Elder Perry, cause I didn't really know him before! But yeah, time goes fast here! I am entering my 3rd transfer which is crazy! I got to France and my roommate Elder Berry was in his third and I thought he was so old! Now I realize that it is nothing! I can maybe have a half conversation in French if they don't mumble like a lot of French people do! But yeah, we just keep contacting and trying to find more people to teach cause we haven't had any really solid progressing amis or anything. We continue to have baptisms! We have had 3 in the past 2 weeks here! None of them are for our equipe but they are for the other people here, so that is good! 

This next week I am going to Toulouse with Elder Olsen cause he has to do his legality and stuff down there so I am taking a 5 hour train ride down there. It should be fun or really boring. I'm not sure which it will be yet! It's funny how different people are here in France, just their mannerisms and stuff! There are a lot of Muslim people. They aren't really nice they just sorta yell at you on the metro, which makes me glad that I don't understand everything yet, haha! It makes for interesting stories and stuff. Anyway, it is just the life of a missionary, I guess! But yeah, we are working. Transfers are this coming week so we will see if I stay here in Lyon for Christmas or not! Have you heard about He is the Gift? If not, go look it up!

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

http://www.mormon.org/christmas

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

Diligence Brings Miracles!

Well we have taught 20 lessons again this week! We taught 9 lessons on Sunday which was awesome because all I have heard that a year ago getting twenty lessons was like something that was never, ever, ever heard of! The good missionaries were getting like 7 lessons a week and we are now starting to see that the numbers are sky rocketing and it has just been really cool to be a part of that! 

Here in this mission we focus a lot on diligence and that is how we have been able to turn around this mission. In the past it has been not a very obedient mission but President Roney has really cracked down and fixed up all the missionaries and has had them buy into the "diligence brings miracles" because when you are doing what you are supposed to, the Lord is going to give you miracles! So really the biggest Christlike attribute is diligence. I haven't been here for very long so thats about all I have really noticed so far it's only been about 8 weeks, so yeah! 

I hope you know chewing gum is against the mission rules ;) haha but yeah it is still really nice here in Lyon, but I need some sweaters and stuff cause it isn't cold enough for my big coat but it is still a little nippy outside! We had a lot of lessons on the street this week and we have made a questionnaire about Noel for the people here in France so they will stop and talk to us! I am thankful for everything that you have done for me and I would just like to share that with you! We have so much to be thankful for but we can't see it unless we step back! 

This week I went on a ton of exchanges so I wasn't with Elder Olsen a lot! I went with a kid who has been here for 2 weeks so I'm sure you can imagine what that was like for me... the big dog leading the pack, haha, it was scary! But we taught our lessons ok even though they were asking about heaven and what happens in the celestial kingdom and like when Jesus will come again and just other crazy questions, like why bad things happen! That's all people here talk about so it wasn't unusual to hear that! 

I also live with Elder Haws and so that is always interesting because he is funny and we just are bros!
We are celebrating Thanksgiving in Chalon with our District so I get to take a train one and a half hours north of Lyon!! haha :)

I miss Lake Powell and I can't even imagine having a whole week to do nothing and relax it is so different than the mission life where you are ALWAYS doing stuff! But I will just work hard now so Lake Powell will be that much more relaxing when I get back!

Elder Schettler's current address:

2, rue de Longchamp

69100 Villeurbanne, France

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

Watching New Missionaries Arrive!

This week flew by! It was the first week of the transfer and so it was sorta crazy for the office and we saw all the missionaries passing through Lyon and there is a new group of Blues so I am no longer the youngest group in the mission! haha but we didn't have any changes in our house. We only had one person leave and he is going to Swiss because he is European and we got Elder Sorenson who went to Alta and he is pretty cool! I am glad to hear my Utah Utes are putting the hurt on Stanford and seem to be doing really good! I have been on two transfers with the Zone Leaders and with the office elders this week so I haven't been with Elder Olsen a lot which is sad but the other elders are super good missionaries so it is all ok! 

Elder Erickson got run over by me during Samedi Sportif this week and I felt super bad the soccer ball just was moving so fast and he came out of nowhere! haha He says he was fine but idk.. We also did body shots where is where we box but you cant hit them in the face and of course I got hit right in the jaw by Elder Berry (he isn't very coordinated) haha but its ok cause I was whooping him. haha 

Here in France you meet SOOOO many Muslims from Algeria that is seriously the majority of people that we meet here and they are usually really nice until we start talking about prophets and then they usually start talking really fast and tell us we can't know that and that Mohammed was the last prophet and a bunch of stuff like that! haha  I just started telling people I am from Allemane because everyone just assume I am from America when I start to talk so I get a laugh out of that! haha I only know three words of German so yeah, I have to make sure they also don't speak German! 

This week we had a lot of tombez vous which means they don't show up and we only had about 8 lessons but its ok! and Bishop Lepore got me my package! I am gonna send you my SD card soon! so I am gonna save pictures for a week or two so you have some surprises! 

I am very thankful for you and everything you do! Love you all!! 

Elder Schettler's current address:

2, rue de Longchamp

69100 Villeurbanne, France

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

Week of Excellence!

This week was super super fast but it was super long at the same time! It was our Week of Excellence which means we were trying to achieve all the standards of excellence which means that we had to teach 20 lessons. If you know how many people we usually teach or have taught in the past few weeks than you know how big of a challenge that is, especially when we are a white washed brand new formed equipe in downtown France so we were just gonna try to over double our highest numbers of lessons taught in the past few weeks. By Wednesday morning we had taught 3 lessons which was pretty good and then by the end of Sunday night we had taught 21 lessons!!! 

It was so crazy cause it literally just snuck up on us! Not only did we teach that many lessons but we had 4 new people with baptismal dates and we even had to drop one guy who had set a baptismal date that wasn't progressing these past few weeks! So all said and done it was crazy! We had like 5 lessons with recent converts or less actives and we had like 45 conversations with people on the road or metro or anywhere we could! We found 5 new amis who we are teaching this week and it literally has just started to blow up this past week! 

I am staying in Lyon for the next 4 weeks because it is a short transfer so after that I might be onto another city for Christmas or something like that, but either way I am excited that I get to learn the city a little bit better and learn the ward here better because they are actually super cool here! Bishop Lepore is a good dude and I hope that you got to meet him! We did attend a Catholic Mass last night! There were probably about 350 college students there, haha, and we got there early and still barely got seats! We got invited and President said we could go if we were respectful and stuff! It was really interesting to see how other churches do things and it made me realize how people who come to our church feel! 

The thing I learned this week is in Alma 32 where he talks about how if we had seen God our punishments for sin would be way worse and I liked that because here I always hear people say they don't believe because they haven't seen God or haven't seen anything like that. I think God does that because He loves us and it is a time to walk in faith rather than by sight. 

 Elder Schettler's current address:

2, rue de Longchamp

69100 Villeurbanne, France

Email: benjamin.schettler@myldsmail.net

Mission Home address:

France Lyon Mission

Business Center

59 rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon, France

Halloween and Family History Night

 It seems like everything is working out very well at home! We are just working hard here. I shaved my legs so that was about the biggest thing that changed with my non-mission life! haha but my mission life is busy. We had a family history night where we contacted people for 3 hours outside on the street in downtown about Family History and stuff, haha. The French people are so quiet and its hilarious cause they just know I am American. 

Family History Night

We went to our bishops house on Halloween they are American so we had a good time there with them and their family! He is going to be in SLC for 10 days so it would be awesome if you could go find him! He works for Family Search and is going to be at the Joseph Smith building. His last name is Lepore and his name is Ronald or something! He is super awesome though! 

HALLOWEEN in LYON with Bishop Lepore's family!

We are doing emails late today cause we went to the President's today. We played basketball and stuff. President Roney even laced up his shoes and balled with us in church clothes and Adidas, but Elder Haws proved he deserves his scholarship... he is super good and tall!!!

Frank is in Bezier this week so we teach him over the phone. We got dropped by a girl who we taught once and we have to pass our new contacts to other elders cause they don't live in our sector but they are sorta boring I think. The new people we met are super cool they are from Kosovo and it is a father and his 13 year old son.

The Master Taco Cinqo... 

 it was tough but I did it!! I wasn't smiling so much after. 

This is elder Erickson's Companion with me 

Moms' commentary:

Elder Erickson is an office assistant to President Roney and his mom is a good friend of mine from Logan, UT. I get extra information about Ben through Zac's letters and we love to share back and forth. I wanted to share this email from Elder Erickson about Ben and his missionary friends. It gives me a deeper understanding of how my son really is doing:) He also gives some great advice for current and returning missionaries that came in a zone conference this week with Elder and Sister Kearon of the Seventy. 

Elder Erickson: 

Elder Schettler was with me today:) I really like Elder Schettler, he's super funny and is really enjoyable to be around. He's in one of the coolest apartments in the mission, with three of my favorite missionaries: Elder Olsen (his trainer), Elder Haws (yes, THE Elder Haws whose brother is dominating the NCAA and who will be doing the same thing in two years), and Elder Berry (a fellow Aggie, who's super funny and is comps with Elder Haws). He's doing great. :) My favorite Elder Schettler line (said to Elder Haws during a round of basketball in morning exercises): "Hey, do you know who is really good at basketball? Tyler Haws!" ;)

Elder Kearon:

How can we be happy and work hard and have energy ? 

It's really simple: choose to be happy, attack the day, and do your morning exercises. Excepting the cases of clinical depression and other psychological and mental problems, the Lord has given us the power to choose to be happy, and to make our lives better. He told us something that really stuck with all of us, especially to all of us that don't have much time left on our missions: the reason that returned missionaries miss their missions so much is because they stop doing the things on their missions that gave them energy and joy and happiness. They stay up late with their friends, sleep in, don't do deep daily personal study of the scriptures, don't serve others, focus on themselves, and even slip into old negative things that drag them down spiritually. Then they wonder why they miss their missions so much. But, even now, as missionaries, we don't always do the things that give us the power to be energetic and happy. So, we need to get on the ball with things like that. :) President gave us an action plan today on how we can do that: Project Morning M.A.N.G.O.'S.