See you all in a WEEK!

So this week was a crazy week overall. we got a lot of things done so i was happy in the end. 

Tuesday i had an exchange with our district leader, Elder Nelson. He is a stud from tremonton haha. it's so nice talking about all the good old boys that i used to play baseball with and of course just laughing about the silly things that go on in tremonton. we rep the northern part of utah in the mission so hardly anyone understands what our lives are like but we understand each other perfectly. he was the first person i'd heard my whole mission use the word gripe. this reminded me of my mom because she's straight from tremonton herself. it was a fun exchange where we did a lot of walking and a lot of contacting with no success. we taught our ami francois and his son that same evening only to find out that they're going to africa for one month. bummer. too bad i don't have another 6 months here so i could see them a few more times. this guy is legit he has already read halfway through 2nd nephi. he is super interested and i think he's starting to actually believe in god. the book of mormon has that effect on people that's for sure. 

Wednesday was the second to last district meeting for me so i wasn't super sad. i told everyone i was saving that for this week when i'll have my last one. once that was finished we went off and found some less actives which led us to houses that didn't exist and all that good stuff. it wasn't really anything out of the ordinary. overall this week we found 4 less actives though. we were super pumped because that's the new vision of the mission. we are going for reactivating less actives and keeping the recent converts. it's a process bringing people back to church but it's worth it. 

we kind of glided to saturday with some contacting and scattered lessons to people in the road. saturday was a crazy day where we were able to see 4 people. we went less active hunting yet again and came up with 2. it was a nice haul and we got to walk along the river la somme the whole way with people fishing. i almost thought about asking them to try but it looked just as boring as it did before. sorry dad 2 years couldn't make me want to fish in any way. after we saw the less actives it was time to teach blessing once again. we went with fonja who is in the running for favorite member of all time. watch out buff frère caby. when we got to blessing's she was asleep because she though we weren't going to come because of the rain. haha africans are the very best. we taught her and she was just awesome even if she was half asleep.

sunday was a great day as well. i gave a talk about the word of wisdom and everyone seemed to love it. i don't think anyone has ever told anybody that their talked sucked so who really knows if it was good or not. blessing came to church and everything was peachy.

this is the last time i will be blogging as a missionary so i just wanted to thank everyone who has supported me and all that. the mission is the greatest thing ever and i've learned so much. i've grown more than i could have ever hoped and i'm so grateful that the lord has given me this opportunity. i'm going to miss france more than anything as well as all the amazing people. i think i may have to just come back and live here.  life is so good as a missionary and i hope it will be this good back in the real world. thanks mom and dad for being such a good example as well as president and sister poznanski who are now my second pair of parents. i figure it would be could to have some parents in europe just in case i do ever live here. i love you all and see you soon!

14 Days!!

woah woah woah 14 days till paris p-day with the boys. this can't even be true. where did the time go i feel like i need 6 more months here in france. looks like i'll have to come live here to get the full effect. maybe a french wife? that would be the dream of every single missionary in our mission haha! I'll have to give you a nice update from the week Tuesday was my birthday so i got some nice calls from some of my missionary bros. Other than that it was a super weird day. We had to go shopping because everything was closed and we couldn't do it on our p-day. these french people just look for every single opportunity to take work off. i like it. haha just kidding work is what makes the world go round. After our shopping we had the chance to help with an after funeral service at the church. You were right if you thought that there was nothing i'd rather do on my birthday than go to an after funeral get together. it was super awkward because we were told to just supervise and not to talk to anyone about the gospel. that left us all pretty much without anything to do. we are gospel preaching machines so we didn't know what to do. i was able to get in with the kids with some nice pop culture references and then we talked about rap music and i did some advertising for my american rappers préféré. it was a good time that's for sure. I slayed them all with my references to a french rapper named fouiny when i said quoi de neuf fouiny baby. i was the mission le plus stylée they'd ever seen. man i love french it's so funny. After the funeral we treated ourselves to some pizza because it was mardi fou. dominos has this thing where pizza on tuesdays in like 8 euros which is a horrible deal in the states but a really good one here in france. that's what we did on my birthday. we were able to teach some nice people this week. blessing is super hard to get a hold of so i think my chance to see a baptism before i leave has gone. we have a couple cool people that are fairly interested so weston will have a nice time after i leave. we were teaching our ami christain when a couple we ported into came and started talking to us. it was funny because it was the second time we'd just run into them. they are always super busy so we can't really fix anything with them but we seem to just be seeing them all over the place. basically we were just teaching the wife's atheist husband and he was giving us all the same questions and answers that every single person in france gives us so i just took a book or mormon marked alma 32 and told him to read and apply the things inside and all would be well. easy as that right? it was funny because he one of the few that admitted it was his pride that kept him from believing. you've got to admire his honesty. they were cool and that was a super cool night. i wish i could just have nice converstations like that more often it was just so soothing and nice to just talk about scriptures and testimonies and not try to convert anyone haha. it was a feel good night that's for sure Our week 2 district meeting was cool because it was the last big meeting i'd have on my mission. our zone conference is a week after i leave and i decided that staying the amiens and working will have a more lasting effect than going to paris for one day and going to a zone conference. i gave my dying testimony and it was the weirdest thing i've ever done. my thoughts were a little jumbled but i hope that people liked it haha. i also got to see elder bananier who had to leave to take care of his mother who lives in paris. it was nice to see him and i hope that his mother can do better before august because that's his deadline. he's such a great guy. this week was pretty normal but i'll try and write the blog entry to end all blog entries next week for the grand finale! So i was just sitting and i was very intent on my e mails and i noticed out of the corner of my eye that a little girl was looking at my screen so i turned to look at her and it turned out it was blessing's kid! Blessing hasn't been answering her phone and it's been so hard to get a hold of her so i was super surprised and i just said, Melissa? when she realized it was me she screamed and ran to find her mom. We looked up front and saw blessing and her son. Her son pointed at us and said, "hey look it's the missionaries!!" Blessing was super occupied with what she was doing so she didn't even notice her daughter and son pulling on her shirt saying it's the missionaries it's the missionaries. we just got finished talking to her and she said that she was in paris figuring things out for her legality and that she wanted to come to church on sunday but she tried to call and our phone didn't work. even if she doesn't get baptized while i'm here that's such a great thing to see and it just proves that the lord will continue to bless us. we will see her on saturday haha! how great!!

Woah! What an amazing week!

what a week! 

This week was so crazy and things don't seem like they'll be cooling down at all. We had tons of lessons and we have been working our butts off out here in Amiens. the week started with some heart breaking news from octavien who told us that he was going on vacation for 1 month and a half. it was super sad to hear but hopefully the missionaries will be able to pick him back up when he gets back.

 

On thursday i was picked to go to paris with another elder who lives with us. he had his passport stolen so it was up to me to go with him and try to direct him around paris. i don't know why they chose me because i've never served there and i don't know how to get around at all. we were able to get him set to get a new passport. the bad thing was that it took so long so we had a few hours in paris. we weren't too far from the arc de triomphe so we headed over there and met 2 member families which was funny.

 

saturday was a great day. we had a lesson with blessing and we brought with us fanja who is a killer member. she is so legit and so nice. she brought blessing to church 2 weeks ago and was totally testifying and sharing all the experiences she has had in the church. so we went there and we taught her and her family about the plan of salvation. she loved it so much and she was just so into the lesson. before we had talked tentively about setting a date but it wasn't anything serious. we hadn't even thought of a date! after the lesson she was just expressing how  much she loved the church and the restoration. i felt like it was the right time so i just asked her to be baptized on the 19th of july. luckily the 19th of july is a saturday. she just started laughing and buried her hands in her face it was really weird. fonja elder weston and i just looked at each other it was kind of awkward. fonja asked what was wrong and she just said she wasn't clean enough to be ready to be baptized so we pulled out the scripture in moroni 8:25-26 and she totally understood that she didn't need to be perfect to be baptized. so she accepted the date and it was such a cool lesson. 

 

The mission is so awesome and i'm so sad to be reaching the end. i'm trying my best to make it last though!

Goodbye Poznanski's

this was a sad sad week for everyone in the france paris mission. all the zones had the chance to have their farewell conferences with the poznanskis. they are legends and have done so much for this mission. i can't even thank them for all the advice they've given me and for all the great things they taught me. if i were to make a list of all the times they've helped me it would take up a whole blog page. it was a sad day and a real tear jerker for sure, but thanks to facebook they aren't gone forever. there's one benefit of social networking. 

 

Other than the zone conferences we had a bit of a rough week. it seems that all of our amis are gone somewhere or were just busy this week. we met one guy named octavien and we have really high hopes for him. he's 18 and from rwanda. He's could be some priesthood to help the branch and also a perspective missionary. that's the only one i'm mission from my list so i'm putting lots of eggs in the octavien basket. i guess i should explain "my list". i have a list of types of people i want to baptize. for example, i wanted to baptize a french man and woman and also a guy from congo so i've done those 3. i wanted to baptize a muslim as well which was done. now i just have baptize a future missionary left. so there's my list. Blessing was busy this past week which was sad but we will get her this week and it will be ok.

 

It was a pretty slow week as far as the work was concerned but this week will pick up that's for sure. 

 

it was a good week this week that's for sure. we had a surprise visit from the elders in bourge so i had the chance to talk with elder johnson and have a little high school reunion. it was great. haha. i had a long exchange with an elder named elder lehman. i've nicknamed him the lemur, like the little monkey. he is a nice dude from granstville. there was a strike for trains so we were forced to stay together for longer than we should have. we taught some really good lessons together and found a lot of people so it was all good.

 

Blessing is really progressing and she made some big steps this week. we were able to have our super awesome member named fanja take her to church. fonja totally deserves a cake so we're going to bake one for her this week. So thanks to fonja she came to church and she loved it. she was talking to us the in the hall and told us she realizes that it's a big engagement to be a member and that she needs to pray really hard for the strength to be able to do all that is asked of her. she needs to learn french first but she speaks italien so it will all turn out ok. everyone is smooth in that sense.

 

there's always got to be some type of opposition so this week it was hearing about the death of my grandmother. to lose my last 2 grandparents in 5 months was very hard but i kept working and we found 2 new people to teach after i heard the news. So it's just another proof that if you keep working you will always be blessed. i'm just glad they left me such a good example and raised some good kids as well. 

 

this week i felt like i got a lot closer to the members because we had a great linger longer. they actually called it a linger longer in french and it sounded funny with the accents and everything. i was able to really get close to all of them i felt. sometimes it's hard to break into those really tight friendships but it was all good and the goal was accomplished. i feel like your last ward or branch will always be one that you cherish. hopefully i can stay in contact with all of them! all is well here in amiens and we will be wishing the poznanski's off with their final zone conference this week. it's crazy but i guess that's how fast 2 years goes. 

 

 

Icing on the Cake

This week was a crazy one here in France. We went to Paris for our week 2 district meeting and I had the dream to finally go to the top of the eiffel tower. at the start it looked like we were definitely going to be able to go. then some stuff happened and i didn't get to go and let's just say i was soooo sad. i think it's just not in the cards for me. 

 

We started working as soon as we got back from paris and went to do some porting in a small bat. the 2nd door we knocked there was an african lady who let us pray with her and she was SOOOOOO pregnant! we talked with her and her man and they told us that she was actually supposed to have the baby that day but the doctors decided to wait. they think it was a sign from God. I'm not going to aruge with that.

 

Thursday we had a mangez vous planned with the senior couple in our area. we decided we would go contacting on the way there. we had been contacting and we were going to be late for the rdv with them so we decided to speed up a little. my comp saw a family and wanted to contact them just as soon as i saw a lady with 3 little kids. i told him no way! we are totally contacting that lady. luckily we chose the right family out of the 2. the lady we chose to contact is named blessing from nigeria. she'd been living in italy for 14 years before she decided to come to france. she said that all the time she was in italy her sister told her she needed to find our church and she never could. she ran into a lot of témoigne jehavoh but she didn't ever find the missionaries. she was very very happy to find us. we set up a rdv for the next day. We went and taught her very quickly because the bus was going to come and it was the last bus of the night. if we had missed that bus we would have had to hitchhike like me and elder barr did. so we taught her in 10 mintues and in the 10 minutes she'd agreed to be baptized and was so happy to have the book of mormon. we walked to the bus stop and the bus was a little late so she pulled out her phone and called her sister. i talked to her sister for a little bit and her sister told me that i needed to baptize her. she said she'd talked to blessing on wednesday night(we met her on thursday) and after that she prayed that she'd meet the missionaries. i don't think it's just chance. it's super funny that her name is blessing as well. how fitting!

 

i returned to lille this week and it was sooo nice. i got to see karim and we talked for a little while. his situation is difficult and he is doing everything he can to get to church and continue to be a good member. sitting in the chapelle i was so nostalgic. it just made me think of all the good moments i had in lille and also everywhere on my mission. it was like a weird type of flash back. i thought of elder thomas and i baptizing ludovic, teaching with phillip canty and emmanuel while i was with elder foley in tour, i thought of chantel and all the changes she made in her life, i thought of the time where i got to see ludovic receive the mechisedek preisthood as well as fabrice and una, then i thought of all the good examples in lille and all the people we helped together. it was a weird feeling. maybe it's the feeling i'll get once i step back onto the baseball field or something. we'll see! overall i've been so blessed as a missionary it's incredible

 

We made a cake this week for a nigerian recent convert in our branch. she made us think at first that she hated the cake but she really loved it. being with elder barr has turned me into a not so bad chef. man i miss elder barr soooo much! luckily we only have to be away from one another for a few more weeks. this sunday was just some icing on the cake if you will! 

All is well that ends well!

well this was a very slow week.

 

it seemed that early in the week every single one of our amis were in paris. they were just all gone. we thought that vacation was over but i guess it wasn't haha. 

 

while i was on an exchange with a missionary from Arras we were walking on this street and found a thug life basketball player named thomas. he was pretty legit and had a tattoo that said, "2pac" on his neck. oh la vache! we taught him a little on a bench and prayed with him. he said he wants to re find his faith but the whole while i was thinking he just wanted to play basketball because that's how the whole convo started. i was totally nice when he invited me to a street basketball game the next day. we are going to play basketball today so i hope he's there to ball with us. 

 

thursday arnaud told us that he was leaning toward budhism as his religion so that was just a punch in the stomach. he agreed to recieve all the lessons so we are hoping that something will change between now and then. 

 

friday we made the trip out to versailles to see our 70's. it was crazy because they were like an hour late so we just sat and socialized and all that which was good. the fact that they were so late left them with only like an hour to talk and there were 6 people who needed to talk. i was surprised at how much they could fit in in one hour. i felt super good after. it was a nice little spiritual booster. 

 

Saturday we got to go to lille to do a little stake activity. Sadly enough i didn't get to see my buff dmp. he is not yet a high priest so i was a little sad about that. it's been a while since i've seen someone as buff as that. we did a thing where we went out and found less actives and i got to go with the bishop of Arras who is a super cool guy and he caught me up on all the b ball news. there was a super bad wreck so we missed our train and it was the last train of the night. we slept in lille which wasn't the best and because of that we had to take an early train and i didn't have my razor so i went to church with a nice beard. at the end of church a sweet thing happened. a cool guy 22 year old guy came to church. elder barr and i talked with him and he told us that he bought a book of mormon on amazon and has been reading it and loving it so much. we fixed a rdv with him and all was well. it was the only way that the week could have ended well and you know what they say, all is well that ends well! this week looks like it will be a good one and hopefully elder barr and i will be able to stay together for another transfer. 

I just LOVE my mission

Another week down. We worked a lot with Arnaud this week to get him back on track to be baptized. he came to church yesterday so that was a good step for him. saturday we spent some time making a cake for a little nigérian girl's birthday. Elder barr pretty much did everything. elder smith made the icing. the branch loved the cake so much and it was all gone instantly. how lucky i am to have someone who can cook. That was one of the highlights of the week along with skyping to the parents for the last time. it was weird that this is the last time i'll see my parents till i get home. man that's just weird. it's weird to realize we are so close. i love my mission so much and i'm so sad for it to be over. i guess i had to have real life hit me sometime. but what will real life be without a boulangerie on every corner. that's not life at all!

 

Otherwise we had some really good stuff happen to us this week. We found a new ami from congo whose name is patience. she has already invited us over for some foufou next week and we are both soo soo excited. We also got super blessed with some african food this week and you could say that elder barr and i were more than pleased. i feel like since i got with elder barr we've just been eating so well. I guess that's what happens when you're with the famous elder barr. he really is so famous. I also had the chance to talk with his family and now i totally understand where the one and only elder barr came from because i saw 4 of them over skype. haha i love it so much. What a talented family. 

 

This week is looking pretty good. we have a chance to go and see some 70's friday in paris and i'm pumped. things are looking almost too good for the next 3 months. well i think if elder barr stays things will be looking almost too good. we'll all cross our fingers for that one. 

elder oliverson

Elder Barr!

I've got 2 blog entries for this week The first is a spotlight for my beloved companion elder barr! Elder Barr is a 21 year old piano playing superstar from rural Kamas. He liked to spend his time doing math, reading, and of course playing piano. University of Utah is where he calls home for the moment. We first met in the MTC where we both nearly went crazy. Luckily we had one another and he helped me through it as I did for him. We now have the chance to serve alongside one another during the real deal. Something you probably didn't know about Elder Barr is that he's an avid sleep talker and loves to cook. He's a man of many hats and there are so many things that I can take from him. What a great guy.

3 Months to Go!

This is the update of the week.

 

Well this week we had our final interiews with president poz and it was super sad. I'm glad that i could've been a missionary with him. he taught me a lot and was a super good example for all of us.

 

after the interviews we had a lesson with arnould and things were all good for the most part. his parents expressed that they weren't really sure why we were teaching their son and it was a little discouraging to see the opposition from the family but arnould is 21 and he told us that he's made his decision and that nothing is going to change. Overall things will probably go a little slower now but that's ok we don't want to rush anyone. He didn't come to church this week but we are seeing him on tuesday. i was freaking out because he didn't come and all that but barr kept his cool so that made things better

 

We found a cool new ami named yrana this week. she's from cape verde. she's super nice and super open to the gospel. she feels bad because she's been away from the gospel for so long and she wants to find her way back. we can totally help her with that! She also has a daughter who is 9 years old and hasn't been baptized. Looks like we need to bring a family to the restored gospel of jesus christ! she's awesome

 

We hit our 3 month mark and i felt a lot of bittersweetness (not sure if that's a word). I'm happy to almost be back as a real person but i'm going to miss the mission so so much. this is just the greatest thing in the world. of course i don't say that everyday but in the end i know it's true. no other thing could have taught me so much and given me so much. i'll never be the same because of it and it's ok with me. i love the mission and i'm glad i get to spend it with a stud like elder barr. hopefully we spend the next 3 months together because that would be ideal. 

Loving life and loving Elder Barr

Well after these 2 weeks with elder barr there are a few high points that i'd like to hit on.

 

the first was the fact that we found a super awesome guy named Arnould. We were contacting on our second day together and we decided to take this path that lined a river which runs through amiens. we  had faced a lot of hard rejections but we kept going and we met Arnould. He told us he believed in God and all that. We took a seat and taught him a quick lesson. It's all been good since then. We've taught him and he's been reading and now he's got a baptismal date for the 17th of may. it's super cool to see that we could find someone just the second day of the transfer and just my second day in amiens and he's already engaged to be baptized. He reads the book of mormon all the time and he loves to meet with us. it's also incredible to see the change in him just over 2 weeks. it's so crazy. i can tell the gospel is really changing his life. 

 

This week we had a fun experience where we were porting in a neighborhood and a man pulled up to us and told us we weren't in a good neighborhood. we asked him where to go and he said he'd take us. we got into his audi and he told us all about how he thought what we were doing was great and that he'd love to show us a neighborhood where people would be more open. He took us to the neighborhood and ended up getting his number for a future lesson. it was a cool blessing.

 

It's good to be with another missionary my same age for the end of my mission. i'm hoping to be with elder barr till i die. dying just means to finish the mission. today he lost his bus pass and we have to walk everywhere. this isn't the best on me because i have 4 blisters but i guess being with elder barr makes it better right? we sure hope so. tomorrow i have my last interview with President and Sister Poznanski because they're leaving before interviews will come around again. it will be a very weird experience but i'm so ready

Conference, Role Models, and Pork Salads make for a very good week!

conference was awesome! this week i was blown away by conference and so much of it totally hit me hard. it was good to see all the sessions we were able to and i'm itching to see the rest. 

 

tuesday was definitely a highlight. we went and ate nothing else but cafe rio with one of my favorite french families. yes it is the family of our buff dmp and his wife. she made some yummy pork salads and i felt like i was in heaven. we took one of the people we recently baptized and he was a little scared but warmed up to the idea at the end. it was a super awesome time

 

we did a lot of finding this week because a good chunk of our amis were taking their exams and doing all that school stuff. that's the bittersweetness of teaching young people. this next week we'll be able to see all the young families as well as the new family we found sunday. 

 

President Eyring gave a talk about role models. He talked about how he had all the great role models when he was a youngster and i totally see how that applies to me. obviously there are role models that come from home but there are also many that come from france. in this ward there are a number of returned missionaries who do an excellent job in showing us what we should be like as a returned missionary. i would name some but i already talk about our buff dmp enough! after the saturday afternoon session, which we watched sunday after priesthood session, we had an odd amount of time and instead of going back home to eat we both felt we should go do a pass back. we took our bus while the others went home to eat. it turned out good because out pass back was there and they let us in. but it wasn't only the family. there were 2 other families with them. they were so happy to see us and accepted a prayer. they let us know that their doors were always open to us and we set up another rdv. it was cool to see how far our extra little effort actually went. basically that was the whole week. 

Notre paroisse est rempli des machines

so the start of the week we had a FHE scheduled with a super stylish member named manu. We picked up our ami Adil and he began to express to us that it was not possible to be baptized this saturday. His son was still having the gastro and he just couldn't make it. we told him that he still had 6 days till saturday and that everything would be ok. The stylish member was a little bit late to his own FHE... but once he got there we had a nice object lesson with him and he really testified to Adil about the importance of getting the gift of the holy ghost ASAP. He really helped Adil realize it and we ate some really yummy pizza at his house as well. What a machine!

 

The week went on and i did an exchange with a new missionary. we had a lesson with a sweet family we are teaching. A family like this is rare in france, they are both on their early 20's and they have a child. We needed a real machine for our lesson so who did we take? Our super fit basketball playing DMP. Let's just say it was a slam dunk. The young missionary told me after that it was the best lesson he'd ever had on his mission. We taught the restoration and were able to answer all the questions she had. it was super spiritual and just a good all around lesson. What a machine! the same day we got the news that Adil and his daughter were prolonging the baptism till next week so we were a little down.

 

The day after we had another meeting with Michael Jordan Jr. (Our DMP) and we expressed that Adil and Ashna said they needed to wait to be baptized. Not on his watch. He called our assistant DMP and had him talk to Adil and Ashna. our assistant DMP served on their island for one year during his mission so he know how to handle them. The next day we found out that they were getting baptized on saturday. Jacques (Assistant DMP) called them and just explained the importance of not waiting and doing it ASAP. they understood. What a machine!

 

The baptism went well and we didn't even have to plan anything. There was a good crowd there and the talks were just great. It was a nice way to end the week. We had a super good baptism thanks to all the ward members and we hardly had to lift a finger. What machines! 

 

This week is going to be a busy week. all the time we are even in Lille is going to be spent teaching and most the time we'll just be outside of Lille. Oh well i guess that's the work of the Lord!

Le Gastro

This was a crazy week! we had a short p-day on monday because we were teaching one of our cool new amis named jack. we drove all the way from lille to brussels and then parked the car for the night. we decided we'd go see grand place and we ran into the poznanski's. woops. they totally understood that we were just finishing our p-day because we were teaching

 

Tuesday was such a great day and i learned so much. Elder christofferson came and spoke to us and he was such a good guy. He left the floor open to questions and took the time to respond to each one of them. you can just tell he has dedicated his life to the gospel and he is such a good example to me. I don't know how anyone could deny that he is an apostle of the lord. I'm so glad that i came on my mission so that i could have experiences like this where i can be in a setting to learn from some of the lord's most elect servants

 

Fast forward to saturday. We had planned 3 baptisms on saturday and we got a call in the morning to know that the son of one of the girl's getting baptized had the gastro. The only thing was that her dad was one of our amis gettting baptized. they both had to go to hospital and so it was a solo baptism for karim. I don't have a lot of time so this is all i'll write

Je Suis Une Machine

So this week i found out the key to missionary work. I need to be a machine. now we talk about how we shouldn't be robots or just get into a rhythm but being a machine is totally different. we have the new motto for missionaries in our ward of being machines. we want to be missionaries who are always asking members to work with them and always calling them. even if we have to call them 30 times we will do it. this was inspired by our assistant dmp. who is equally as studly as our dmp. we are so hooked up in the ward.

 

this week karim made some huge steps toward his baptism and we are so pumped. all things really started rolling when we took him to the bishop's house, who is equally as studly as our dmp and assistant dmp (he is also the assistant dmp's brother), the bishop told him what he needed to do and ever since there has been a new spirit about karim. he is so happy and is just loving all that is church. we taught him the law of chastity this week and he accepted it without a problem. he already had all the same principles so it was a breeze. Adil is another person we found along with his daughter. we have been teaching them a while and they are both on the road to be baptized. we passed teh daughter to the sisters and they ran with it. we are planning a large baptism this saturday and i'm so pumped. 

 

tomorrow is the big day where we get to see the one and only D Todd Christofferson in brussels. i'm so excited to hear from my 3rd apostle since i've been in the field. luckily the ward has turned me into a machine so i can be ready to receive the good word from Christofferson. after that the week is looking packed with super awesome lessons. we have the chance to be with both of our dmps, the dmp and the assistant, so i'm excited to become a real machine like they were on their missions. what good examples. this week is looking promising so i'm super pumped

je vous aime tous

je suis une machine

elder oliverson

 

What a "magical" week!!

Well i have some extra time so i get to write a little bit today. This week had the looks of being a week full of struggles but it turned out to be super good. 

Tuesday is when the magic started happening. we were porting in the rain during the evening and we decided to go to a place we'd never gone before. we took a bus and ended up at this stop. we'd thought we'd picked bad but actually it was quite the opposite. We picked some houses that seemed to be nice and the second house a young lady answered. i thought she was like 15 years old and asked where her parents were. she told us that it was her and her conjoint's home (I don't know if conjoint is a word in english) she said she was super believing and let us in to pray with her and her conjoint. we prayed with them and they told us a little bit about their baby that they just had 6 months ago. Tonight we have another rendez vous with them so we are super excited. we even get to go with our studly dmp so that's super cool too. the next house we knocked and got let in by another lady. she has a son who's 2 years old named eli. she'd seen some reporting on our church and was interested. we gave her a bom and told her we'd be back. we came back this friday and we had a really great lesson with her and a member named pierre. he invited her to church and she said that she would maybe come if she had nothing else going on. 

Wednesday we had a fun day where we went into belgium to teach a 9 year old that has yet to be baptized. He is super cool and such a nice little kid and it's so fun to teach him. We had a cdp but it wasn't really because nobody was there, not even our stud of a dmp. but it was ok because he was at the temple so i'll forgive him. 

the week went on and i got to go on a rather long exchange with a french elder named elder perez. it was super cool and we did lots of good work together. we saw our boy karim and he is still a little scared about being baptized. we'll work with him though. This sunday we had 2 of the families we teach come to church as well as karim. and remember the lady that said maybe? she was totally there! it was so funny because we were late because we had to go pick up one of our amis and the transportation is slower on sunday. I walked in and pierre caught my attention and pointed at mary. it was super cool to see her come. she is also a branhamist so that was a feat in and of itself. 

I found out today that i will be staying the V D'dascq with one of my boys Elder Wilson. i totally remember when i was his district leader in long ago and we joked about being zone leaders together. well now it's totally happening. how cool is that? i'm so happy i get to stay with this great ward and with all the cool missionaries that serve in the Lille area. The mission is growing so fast and i'm nearing an end so i need to like use all that i have even though i'm so stinking tired. woo hoo!

Assoiffée for the Gospel

Eventful week in the north of France! Our ami karim is doing really well and he's really starting to progress. He told us this week that he is 100 percent ready for baptism and he doesn't care about anything else. Last night we had a super cool lesson with him where he expressed his concern that his family will reject him. He comes from a very strict muslim culture and he knows that once his family hears about this he will no longer be accepted back home. It was super sad to hear that but he said that there was no way that he could deny that Jesus is the son of God and that Joseph Smith was his prophet. It was very powerful i wish you could have all been there!

The week really started on Thursday. We were looking for a home where we could do an FHE and our buff dmp came to the rescue once again. What a stud. We had planned to take Karim but he bailed at the last minute so we were really scrambling to find someone. We called the wife of our DMP and she called one of the families we teach that lives close to them. It was perfect. We hadn't had contact with this family for a while because of some things that were going on and Soeur Caby (that's our buff dmp's wife) called them just at the time where they were really waiting for the gospel. it was so cool. Adil told us that he was "assoiffée" for the gospel which means like REALLY REALLY thirsty! it was so cool to see someone longing for the gospel like that. We had a wonderful lesson, but how could we not when we were at the Caby house? it's impossible. Afterwards Soeur Caby treated us to some taco soup and cornbread with honey butter!!!! it was just like home. sooooo goood! we ate that all up. She said that she was going to make me cafe rio before i leave. I think i can say that's the nicest thing anyone has ever offered me! sooo good! 

Friday was eventful. We had our zone conference which made me start missing the poznanski's already. they are seriously so great. sister poznanski gave a training and i thought it was just directed at me. i really will always count them as my parents. i find that i have lots of parents but they are certainly my french ones. they are just so great. the members made us the best couscous that i've ever eaten in my life so you could say i was in heaven. this is the best ward in the history of the world and that's a fact. i love them so much.  The stake conference meeting on saturday was on the theme of missionary work and i got to see the spiritual buffness of my DMP because he was called to speak. He spoke about his conversion (he's a convert of 4 years) and about how it was all the good influences that made him take the step. it was so cool to hear. I can say that i'd work my entire mission to find one person as converted as he is. luckily i've found multiple. God has blessed me way too much. He gave a talk that really put missionary work in perspective. He is a super good example of what returned missionaries should be. Did you know that he was also a district leader? Man what a stud. Hopefully i can be just like him. I could go on all day but i won't

The search finally came to an end after a year and a half. I found the membré family! They were all at my house the day of my farewell and we all talked together. I've been asking everyone about them for a year and a half and saturday and sunday i had a chance to see them and talk to them. they are so super cool and i can't wait till jules come to the states again.  good times. well that was my week

They call me cowboy!

this is going to be short because i haven't got much time. this week was a little weird because i spent a few days stuck in calais. the sncf decided to go on strike so we were stuck without trains and it was a wild go. it was fun to work with the district leader for 3 days and he is french so my french got a good training. i loved it.

here in lille we had a really great week and we're seeing some of our amis progress really really well. one of the coolest stories of the week comes from a member named pascal. he teaches a few classes and in one of them he said something and one of his students was very touched. he then got his facebook and his number and they started to exchange some beliefs and things. he copied and pasted a scripture from the book or mormon (alma 32:27 to be exact) and the student loved it. he agreed to meet with us and yesterday we had a wonderful lesson at pascal's home. it is so cool to see all the different ways that the gospel can be shared. i also love the desire that this member had to share the gospel. what a great example.

saturday was the american party at the ward and it was so funny. i still can't get my bishop to believe that i'm not a cowboy. he simply drove through logan and he thinks i'm a cowboy. oh la la. i guess when you have a large cal ranch right off main street things seem that way don't they. it was a good night and members brought some of their friends. we met a lot of new people and have a lot of potential amis coming around from that. all i can say is that the ward of v-dascq knows how to do missionary work.

yee haw

elder oliverson

Through everything, I am still loving it here!

These week was definitely one of the weirdest weeks i've ever had on my mission so i'll have to take it daily hitting all the high points

Monday- we had planned an FHE at the home of our DMP (ward mission leader) and we were both so stoked because him and his wife are the power couple. He was an AP in Australia for 8 months and has just recently returned from his mission. She was also an STL in England and has also just recently returned. We couldn't think of a better place to have an FHE with our amis adil and ashna. We went in there and had the best crêpes ever with some yummy soup as well. After the tasty part was over we got to the nitty gritty and we taught about faith and prophets. My comp and i had decided to do faith and we'd left prophets to our dmp and his wife. OF course they nailed it! I can't tell how grateful i am to have such super awesome ward members as the ward members here in V-Dascq. I'm especially grateful for my super smart, super cool, super ripped dmp. what a stud!

We'll skip to wednesday. We woke up early with 10 people in our apt to try and catch our train to paris so we could make it on time to the conference with Elder Kearon. We ended up being a little late but that was alright, they only had to wait an extra 15 minutes to take the picture.. woops! After all that Elder Kearon addressed up and it was awesome. He touched on so many key points that i felt i needed to hear at this time in my mission. my 5 month mark is creeping up and i totally needed all the counsel he gave me. what an inspired guy. It was awesome to see how he kept us all laughing and kept things light while also making things super spiritual and great for all of us. it was awsome to see everyone that i hadn't seen for a while as well. i feel like this conference will really give the mission the boost it needs. 

Here comes thursday. Well thursday was a bit of a weird day. we went about the day as normal and in the evening we were porting and i received a strange call. as soon as i saw the number i knew it was from the US and more particularly from good old cache valley. i answered and my mother said hello elder oliverson it's your mom. weird. She then proceeded to tell me that my grandfather had passed away. It was really hard for me to take at first, especially now that both my grandfathers are dead and they were both such big examples for me. Grandpa O had always been there to encourage me with my sports and always let me know when he'd seen me in the paper. He always had some good advice and i cherished the sundays we spent with good ole glen and francine. His health had been slowly failing but i still held on to the promise that he made when i saw them for the last time before i got set apart. He told me that he would wait for me to come home before he passed. After the call ended and i had that thought in my mind we had a choice as to whether we finish the last 20 minutes of porting or just call it a night. i told elder jones that i didn't want to go back. we did a few more doors and my voice was a little shaky. i felt stupid but we kept going. we finished one side of the street and i said that i just wanted to do one more door. we did the first door on the next side of the street and a guy rejected us so we decided to walk back to the metro. on our way down the street i just wanted to knock on one more and we did and a lady answered. i decided i wanted to approach this one and straight away she recognized us. she let us in and we taught her a little bit about prayer and prayed with her. she is the mother of one young girl and had a husband who had to work graveyard. she said she was very interested in our message and she gave us the times we could come back. it was amazing to see how the lord blessed us when we kept working. 

Friday was a good day but i was still a little bit down from the bad news. we had a special conference with Elder Kearon and all the zone leaders and STLs. it was really cool to see us take special points that had really struck us from wednesday and see how we can make the new vision mission out of those. we had an excellent conversation and the spirit was really strong. when we got back to lille we decided to go porting again. we found a new road in a place called croix and hit that up. we knocked all night and the last door a lady let us in. she had taken the lessons over 20 years ago and she really likes us. She also had children who were less than interested but that's ok.

That's what happened this week. we see that the lord blesses our efforts and it's sweet. I love my mission and i love lille more than any place, it's a close race between brussels, st die, and tours ;) haha

Another great week here in Lille..

adil is his name and he just engaged himself to be baptized. we were a little down in the dumps because our muslim friend is having second thoughts about being baptized. We taught adil, who is from maurice by the way, and he was really into the lesson. it helped having one of our super members jacques duez with us. oddly enough, jacques served his mission on the same island where adil is from. we found ourselves there saturday eating some maurician food with them. We started teaching the lesson and when it got to joseph smith we had planned to have jacques share it and he started to talk when adil cut him off and told him that he already knew the story. he then recited us the whole restoration and it was so awesome. He told us that he was ready to be baptized so we gave him a date for the 8th which might have to be changed due to our american night for the ward. i'm staying in lille which is good news so all is well

Miracles in Lille

the lord works miracles does he not? this transfer hasn't been the easiest here in lille. we've been working and trying so hard to get things back up. well this week was a week where i know that we did our max to accelerate the work. 

this week we found a man from jabooty (spelling) named karim who is from a muslim background. we found him and taught him a couple times this week. at first we really didn't know why he was meeting with us. halfway through the first lesson he asked how he could be baptized. we told him how and he expressed his desire. i pulled out the calendar on the phone and we all decided to pray between 2 dates, the 25th of january and the 8th of february. obviously we then taught him to pray. when we saw him the next time he told us that he had prayed about the 2 dates and he said that when he got done praying he didn't really know how to explain what he felt. i had prayed the night before and had a really overwhelming feeling that the 8th was the day for him. we talked to him a little and he expressed that he really liked the 8th as a date. so we fixed the 8th and called it good. we were in the library teaching and he made us go outside because he was afraid of crying in front of people. no worries they were tears of joy. it was so nice to see him just take that decision. we know that it's going to be a slow process seeing as to how he's muslim and needs to understand a lot of different things but we understand that he is an elect child of god as well! 

the blessings didn't stop. one day we received a call from an unknown number. it turned out to be a member from the other ward. she told us of one of her friends who had just moved from the maurician islands which are right by madagascar. we set up a rdv with them and things happened where i was on a split with a really young missionary. we taught one of the best lessons i've ever taught and the spirit was so strong. in the end i did what i always do and i talked of baptism. i told him that that is why we were there and that we knew it would help him. we asked him and his daughter if they were willing to read the book of mormon and ask if it was true and if they found their answer be baptized. he said yes without hesitating. the only problem is that he is studying with the jehovah's witnesses. now it's time to take my knowledge of the bible and use it to help out our ami. everything is top notch here in lille and i'm about to go get me some nice clothes on soldes. i need them because the ward keeps making fun of me for all my clothes being so big. i guess i'm officially an old missionary