May 2011 - Perigueux

2 May 2011

The Cathedral in Perigueux, a very pretty ville..

This week has been alright with the new companion.It was interesting during one lesson with an African man, as like in english they have different accents, it's hard for me to pick up the African French accent.  So I understood nothing well, bearly enough to respond to his questions etc.  Luckily we had another black French member with us, he taught a lot of the lesson! :p

but anyway, I can communicate fine with white French people, they speaka my language!!

My little love affair this week was John 6 in the Bible,  Love it, especially the ending when a bunch of people leave, (and as we read in Mathewt 3, I believe, there was a BUNCH of people following around Jesus, heaps, not just the twelve..) So when a bunch of people left him, Jesus asked the twelve if they were going to be offended and walk away too, and I love Peters response: 

  

John 6: 66-69

'From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.  Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?  Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.  And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.'

Top Bloke.

bonne continuation,( continue well )

Re: Elder Bennallack's Mother's Day Call‏

6/05/2011

 To France

Hello,

Thank you for this opportunity to skype with our family all together for Mother's Day.  We have been studying the time zones, and if Elder Bennallack was able to call us at 9.00pm Saturday evening, it would be 1.00pm Saturday here in Denver, USA and 5.00am Sunday in Brisbane, Australia.  Is 9.00pm too late for Elder Bennallack to call?

Alternatively, if he could call 7.00am Sunday, it would be 3.00pm Sunday in Brisbane and 11.00pm Saturday here in Denver.  We are thinking this would be the more successful link up with all of us, if Elder is able to have access to the internet at this odd time.  We are open to any suggestion that accommodates him best.

My skype address is: michelle.bennallack

Thank you for your assistance and help.

Michelle Bennallack

On 5 May 2011 07:58, France Toulouse Mission <2010917@ldschurch.org> wrote:

Hello,

     Elder Bennallack is hoping that you can set up a time for a Skype call for Mother’s day.  He would like to call you Saturday evening here.  You are in the USA.  In Utah you are 8 hours behind us.  In New York you are 6 hours behind us.  He believes it will be Sunday morning in Austrialia at that time so everyone could get called.  He needs to know if this plan works for you.  He also needs your skype address.  Please answer soon.

Soeur Arlene Larson

Secrétaire

La Mission Française de Toulouse

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!! 

What a great time it was skyping with the whole family over three continents!!

10 March 2011

I talked to you all two days ago, good times!  Yesterday was zone interviews with President, and I got your package, was pumped to see ANZAC's and then this morning I was feeling chocolate, opened up the eggs to see that were  MILK AND COOKIES, BOOYAH looks like someone remembered my childhood favourite chocolate that was mistakenly taken off the shelves, twas the biggest mistake in Australian history! but none the less best surprise ever!

16 May 2011
Today I'm emailing you all from Toulouse, as my collegue (companion)here is getting 'legal' again for the next year :) We spent nearly and hour and a half in the line which took him literally 60 seconds when it was his turn, but all in all, I'm in Toulouse, haha loving it!

This week was probably the hardest and saddest yet, mostly because hardly anything's gone right.  We've had no people at church for the 3rd week straight.  Ever since Elder Smith left, it seems like all the success in Perigueux has left with him, and it's definitley harder with the new colleague.  When it comes to missionary work we do not see eye to eye on pretty much every missionary realated task.

But I'm still alive.

We have a couple good investigators, we picked up an AWESOME family this week and they should be at church this coming week, that is such a blessing. A single mother, 3 daughters 18, 16 and 10. They went to church once in Bordeaux, then moved into our area, although about 30 minutes drive into the hills, slash, in more of the country side, because all of the countryside is rolling green hills :)

We had a lesson with them on Saturday and it was sweet.  When they were at church in Bordeaux, the mum had a priesthood blessing, which worked, loving that, and so the 16 yr old asked us for a blessing when we were there.  So I gave her one of just counsel and comfort and she cried. Thank you Spirit :)

So that was the silver lining in a hard week of missionary work.

Perigueux District Pose.  Elder Larsen (DL) in front.

Also this week we found a big hole in our apartement, sent photos into the office and now we have to try and look for a new appartement.  I dont want to have to deal with that, so hopefully I get transferred before all that goes down, (in a few months) haha.  Oh, and the hole is in the floor on the bathroom!!! It happened a year ago and no one's reported it, as it was covered up and now it's kinda bad. Poor bathroom floor.

23 May 2011

Our good friend Kevin didn't come to church again which means he won't be ready for baptism this week which is sad.  But we picked up a few more Mongolians and also a Fijian and a Tongan professional rugby players as investigators :) It's like we're teaching everyone who isn't French in France haha, and they dont really speak French either!! haha

We've done alot of contacting this week, but it's interesting to see the hand of the Lord, even in the little things..

French food is still delicious and last night I was victorious in making crêpes!! yeah point Elder Bennallack! They are delicious with many things, but the French really love Nutella...so do I, but yeah I made deliciously awesome crêpes!!

This week coming looks awesome as well.  We have good things lined up, so the future in Perigueux is looking better..

30 May 2011

Every Sunday night I make crepes for the members who come to family night, and last ngiht I did savoury, ham and cheese ones, and they approved! yeah, the French tick of approval!!

In other news, this week has been a WHOLE lot better!! Last week was a killer, but this week there have been many tender mercies.  Like in the street, we've just walked random streets and bumped into people we once talked to but lost contact with, got more detailes and taught them.  Or talked to a guy, went to go teach him, found out it was a bad address but found a nice family that we are going back to teach, or even just our 'amis' that didn't want to see us, found time to see us.

Yeah Périgueux is back on track!

We're also teaching two rugby players.  We ran into a Fijian guy and his Tongan buddy came to pick him up for training while we were talking to them, got their details and now we're teaching both of them! We teach in English too which is nice. They're both pretty decent players, like Perigueux is in division 3 for the National competition, ranked number 1 on the ladder, and it's finals season. But I think the Fijian guy once played for the Fiji National Team a few years back. Anyways, I love teaching polynesians :)

Donations to the missionaries from a member Baker!!
  Gratefully received!!

The members don't really give us refferals. At the moment, we're teaching a French family (yes, we don't teach many French French! who were refferals originally from Bordeaux, but generally the members don't.  We do get a lot of refferals from current 'amis' or just random people.  We're supposed to ask everyone we talk to for "other people that they know who could profit to know that..." or something like that, so thats where most our refferals come from, which aren't many..