February 2011 - Perigueux, France

7 February 2011

Perigueux, France

I'm in Périgueux, arrived in France and all is well. President gives us ninety minutes to email and we're allowed to email whoever we want as long as they're not in our mission; so president's really stretched the rules but now there is absolutely zero excuse for breaking them. This will be until July when the new Mission President comes in, most likely with different rules.

So its official! The Mission will be the France Lyon Mission, merging with seventy-five percent of the Switzerland Geneva Mission and the top twenty five percent of that Mission will go to Paris. The Mission President of Geneva, President Murdock I believe it is, will be the president of Lyon. So he'll be there for only a year before he finishes up, which means another president will be here for my finish. Therefore, I would have gone through two different MTC Presidents and also three different Mssion Presidents in the field, which will be interesting, but its still a cool fact.

Elder Smith (DL)

My trainer's called Elder Smith, from Utah, yes very generic ;) but I like him. He's been out six months in France, plus the nine weeks in Provo which means he must be really good if President's trusting him with the jewel that is me :)

Our flat is MINISCULE but Perigueux is very small, though the city centre is pretty and very French.

There's a branch here, it's not bad, there was thirty eight at church yesterday but normally there is about fifty. They all like that I'm Australian and not American but I still find it very, very dificult to understand them because they all talk soo fast!! But I'm getting there.  Contacting is interesting, though the hardest thing is teaching. I can teach the doctrine well, but it's hard to keep up with the conversation and understand their questions etc.

Finally, my companion is a DL (I'm not), so i get to go to Bordeaux tomorrow, as well as for a few other exchanges coming up in the next few weeks.  

16 February 2011


Cathedral in Bordeaux, with a golden Mary on the steeple

 Three times a year there are interviews with president, so yesterday we had zone conference in Bordeaux and interviews as well, so P-day was changed to today. That was my second time in Bordeaux as I was on exhanges there a few days ago with one of the ZL's, also I was able to go to Bergerac on another exchange during this week so lots of fun times had. I'm getting to see lots of this corner of the country.

Another fun little experience was, just before I arrived, my comp and his previous companion had strong impressions to visit this one town in our area.  It's of decent size and is about 40 kilometers away so when he got me while we were still in Toulouse, we scored bikes from the mission garage, for FREEEEEEEE, and then fixed them up a little and so one day this week we rode our bikes through the beautiful french countryside to go preach the good word.!

Actually it was rediculously hard!!! It's not flat like Adelaide, it's rolling hills, which sounds beautiful if one doesn't have to ride up them!!!  We thought it would take an hour, an hour and a half TOPS to get to this town, but two sore hours later, we were only half way-ish (24 Ks down and 14 to go) in a town called Tucane. So we stopped there, we tracted a little, and one man let us in, just because he thought our message was rubbish and wanted to see how on earth there could be a God when there is so much chaos and death in the world.  We shared scriptures and bore simple testimony and his attitude completely changed. Still not too much came from it... yet... but simple testimony invites the spirit and the spirit works people for good. We then rode home, collapsed and couldn't be bothered eating dinner as it was five minutes to nine pm by this time - so we just ate some cheese with a baguette..


Yes we do that a lot :) its great because french people have dinner so late. We work till 8pm and then go in and plan, and have dinner. It's great, I love it. I couldn't imagine going in at 6 for dinner then coming back out, what a pain that would be! Oh also lunches are like dinner here anyways, but yes, the moral of the story is, most nights we buy a baguette or some other french bread for one euro each normally, then eat it with assorted cheeses.  I have tried many so far and tonight we're going to try  my companions favourite. Such a hard life I have right?  ;)

Actually it is quite hard. I'm slowly starting to understand half of what people are saying, but its hard, esecially contacting - but I feel a million times better at the end of the day when I tried to talk to everyone, rather than when I use the language barrier to try and justify myself. I learnt that lesson quickly!!!

It was good at church though!! there was 48 at church including one of our investigators who we only just  met this week!!!! yay, and get this, hes already engaged (french use this for commited) for baptism on the 5th of March!! Not only this, but he brought his mother to church on Sunday and then his older brother to a lesson today. This golden investigator's name is Jonathan and hes 22 or 23 but yeah, it's really a testimony that there are people that the Lord has actually already prepared. He was serching for the real church of Christ and noticed the other Christian Churches weren't right, and then when he met us he said that he doesn't believe in coincidences.  He has kept EVERY comitment so far and more, AND has already recognised the spirit!! (which on a side note, took me FOREVER to recognise) So prepared! So that's exciting for us and this Branch.  I was actually on an exchange when my companion tracted into him, but none the less he's prepared.

22 February 2011

Our investigator Jonathan, has a baptism date!  We taught him the word of wisdom this week, and get this, HE HAD ALREADY STOPPED EVERYTHING!

He gave up coffee and alcohol because he could recognise that the spirit left when he had those, BEFORE WE TAUGHT HIM... wow, and he was a casual smoker and also decided to stop that.  He had about one cigarette every couple of weeks, which being in france is like not smoking at all, so he's the man!  We had Family Home Evening on Sunday night for the ward, we taught and did everything -

side note, everyone loves the joue de chocolat, or the chocolate game which I stole from you papa, yes I just called you papa ;) and he brought his friend and his brother along.

Truely he is tasting of the fruits of the tree of life, as in Lehi's dream and is desirable that all his close ones taste of it also.  How marvellous it is, that he can recognise this in his life, how I hope to have that same desire, because we all should..

AND this week he went to Bordeaux with some YSA's from the branch for a stake thing, loved it and yes i could go on about that experience for hours, I truely love him.  Tithing is next, so hope all goes well..