Bonjour!

So I lied the other week... This will definitely be the shortest email
I've send... Sorry!

We had a few dinner appointments with members.. One of which was just
with Seta, the Fijian. His wife and kids are in the states for the
moment, so we just chilled with him for the evening. He made us dinner
and we watched 17 miracles. And then a less active and one of their
friends show up! It turned out to be a really good night. And plus the
dinner was great!

I was in Grenoble for two days for exchanges, and that went really well.

We also had zone conference, and that was great. There were four zones
total, so it was almost half of our mission. It was very focused on
receiving personal revelation for ourselves and how we can better
ourselves to help our Amis get to the waters of baptism.

We were also able to see Aurelie yesterday are church and that went
really well. She met some members and we were able to teach her with
one. So it went really well!

But the mission is going well. We receive transfer calls next week so
we'll see what happens. I'll most likely leave this area. But ive
really enjoyed the last 5.5 months out in this area. It's a wonderful
ward and the work is moving forward!

I love you all, have a great weak!

Delbert is going to Corsica on vacation next week, so might not see
him if I leave. I love Delbert

Temples, Tongans, and Teaching

Bonjour

I can't remember much of what happened this week.. But some cool

things did happen!

LA SEMAINE

Last Monday we went and hiked to this castle in valence. It was pretty

sick. We also got to go to dinner with the bishop and his family last

night. They have a very humble family! On the way home (it's like a 40

minute drive) the bishop was talking to me a lot about his family and

his conversion story. It was a pretty cool story! He and his family

are the only members in their family. They've faced a lot of

opposition being members, but because they've been faithful they have

been strengthened so much!

We got dropped by one of our Amis this weeks.. We passed by and he

said he no longer wants to learn and wants to be a Rastafarian. So

that was interesting.. Haha but on our way back to our apartment, we

saw a guy that looked way familiar.. We realized we had eaten Easter

dinner with him! He's a less active guy, about 18 years old, who's

mother passed away last year. We were able to get his number, and

we're gonna play some ball with him soon. We've actually been trying

to get in some contact with him since I've been here; we were able to

see him again and get his number, so that was sweet! He's a really

cool dude.

PRINCE SUCCESS

Our man Prince Success was able to go to the temple for the first time

this week! He was baptized in July last year, and we've been trying to

get him there. We were finally able to get him to the temple with some

members! We had a meeting with him on Wednesday, two days before going

to the temple. When he showed up, he brought a friend!! Haha it was

crazy. His friend is a super nice dude name Richard. He's about 20

years old. I forgot where he's from, but it's somewhere in Africa.

We're going to start teaching him now!

Prince successfully went to the temple. He did 24 baptisms, 2 of which

included his father (King Eguakun John) and his brother (Prince

Francis Eguakun). His mother (yes, Queen Esther Uwangue) was baptized

by one of the young women. We saw him the day after and he was super

happy. He said it was one of the best days he's had. He felt the

spirit very strongly. We're actually going to try to see him every day

for a few minutes to help prepare him for the Melchizedek Priesthood.

It's going to take some time to help him understand, but it will be

good for us to see him every day.

LA REUNION DE DISTRICT

We had district meeting this week.. It was my first one.. Yay!! It was

all about getting investigators to church and stuff. It went really

well. We started if off with this original game I created called "Get

Your Amis to Church!" Okay it's not actually original.. Haha it's just

the basketball game lightning, speed, bump, or whatever people call it

these days.

For lunch I arranged for us to have ribs and rootbeer! Chiffy (the

member that loves missionaries) made it for us. It was super good!!

D'AUTRES CHOSES

We balled on Saturday with this guy who is a potential and like 10

Africans. It was way fun and we were able to meet a lot of people!

We're going to try to play with them next week again, and we hope to

get some numbers!

At church, there were four less actives and one nonmember. It was

actually a really good day at church! We had our investigators class

in English. In the room, we had two American missionaries, 3 French

members (one less active), 3 Tongans (two less actives), and 2 Fijians

(one nonmember). It was very good! Our Tongan DMP taught the lesson.

He is sooooo good with missionary work!

Well that's about all... Have a great week everyone!

Delbert Likes Orangina

Hello everyone!

This is going to be the shortest email I've sent.. Je m'en excuse

Pday got cut a little short; we're going to the bishops house to have

dinner with his family. It will be really great cause we never get to

see them! They live pretty far away, so it's difficult to have us come

visit them.

We were able to see some good stuff this week. I went on exchange

twice, once in Lyon once in valence. They were super effective. While

I was in Lyon, elder Kahn and the other guy engaged a new person to

baptism. It's this guy that we picked up a while ago, but he finally

decided he wants to be baptized, so that was way cool.

We also pulled some weeds for three hours this week.

We also got a new investigator named Franck, and he's wayyyyyyyy sick!

We're seeing him again this Saturday. Pray for us:)

The work has really been moving faster! Well it's been moving fast for our mission.  I talk to some missionaries in like Mexico and the Philippines, and they're teaching like 40 lessons a week. 

It's an accomplishment in our mission to even 

teach 20 lessons, but this week only 2 teams actually did that. Haha so it's 

a very different mission. the ward is going well. 

I had this funny idea this last week with Elder Kahn: for my final week in Valence (I'm almost positive I'll be transferred. 

Transfers are on May 9th), I want to get 7 mangezvous (dinner appointments) 

during the week. So one a day -  I think that'd be pretty cool! We're also trying

 to get a baptism on May 7th. We're really hoping to get it, but the hard thing 

is that people won't come to church... So that's pretty frustrating! 

But it is warming up! But then in cools down.. 

Haha the weather is very on and off. But today is pretty nice. 

Sorry, I don't have time to give details of anything, but for now,

here's a picture of Delbert drinking his Orangina during sacrament meeting.

Delbert is my favorite.

Ballin' and BBQ with the Boys

Good Day all the world!

LA SEMAINE

(I take notes on my iPad in my free time on trains to recall stuff

that has happened, so I just kind of copied and pasted this section.

So I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense to you)

So We've been trying to make sure we stay safe down here. The other

day, we were riding the bus to go pass someone. We weren't sure where

the stop was, but we went a little too far from  the one we wanted. On

the bus, this French woman started talking to me in English. She

asked, "are you a student?" And I said no and explained who we were.

She then told me straight up to get off the bus; it was headed into a

sketchy part of ville that I'm not familiar with. We got off and

walked the opposite direction to where we needed to be.

If that wasn't a prompting, I don't know what is! It's obvious that

God is watching out for us. Especially the missionaries that were

injured two weeks ago.

We had a cool miracle this last week..

Four weeks ago, elder Kahn and I were in centreville and this guy

called us over. We started talking to him, his name is Andrew, and we

find out he was baptized 5 years ago, and has since been less active.

We befriended him and SPARCed him up. At the end of our conversation,

we tried to fix a rdv or get his number but he didn't have a phone and

wasn't willing to set a rendezvous (appointment). And unfortunately we

walked away with no way of contacting him again. In the conversation

we had with him, he had mentioned his wife, who's name is Joan.

Rewind 4 months: in my first week in Valence, elder Thangaraj and I

met a woman named Joan. She was very nice and we got her number, but

we were never able to set a rendezvous with her..

Yesterday, we were sitting there making some calls, and the thought of

Andrew, the less active guy, came to my head. I also remembered the

woman we met 4 months ago. I didn't think it could be possible... In

my mind I was like "No way.. It couldn't be" So I thought I might as

well give it a try. I decided to call Joan's number and ask for

Andrew, and it turns out that Joan is his wife! We were able to find

him again. The super cool thing is that his 13 year old daughter was

also baptized, and his wife isn't a member. So we're going to try to

work with them. He hasn't seen the new, beautiful chapel in valence,

so we're going to show him the new one and try to get him back to

church! It's crazy how one simple thing from 4 months ago has played

an important role for right now.

A few more amazing things have happened as well!

Waiting in some random park for a rdv

A few weeks ago, this guy walked into church just to see what it was.

He couldn't stay for long, but we got his number. We were able to meet

up with him and give him a tour of the chapel.  He brought his wife

and two young boys. We showed them the chapel and they really enjoyed

it. He and his wife are from Madagascar.

While Elder Kahn and I were cleaning the apartment the other day, he

found a Book of Mormon in Malagasy. We were stoked because that's his

native language! It was the only one that we had.

We had brought this book to our rendezvous with him. After the chapel

tour, we explained the restoration and he was very receptive. When we

told him that we would like to give him the Book of Mormon in French,

he was super happy! When we told him we have one in Malagasy, he was

like "c'est vrai? Ça existe?!" He was way happy about that as well. He

said that will be good for his wife because her French isn't as good.

At the end of our rendezvous, he asked if he could buy a bible from us

because he doesn't have one at his home. We told him that we will find

one for him in French for the next time we see each other and that it

will be free. He was again pretty happy about that. After they had

left the chapel, Elder Kahn and I decided to look in the cabinets of

the clerks office for a bible so we wouldn't need to order one from

the office. We open up on of the cabinets, and sitting there at the

front is a bible in French, another Book of Mormon in Malagasy, AND a

bible in Malagasy!

We were shocked and couldn't believe it.. that was downright a miracle!

One of the transfer goals that our equipe set was to find and teach a

family... We might have found our family! :)

D'AUTRES CHOSES

Conference was way sick. We were able to watch Saturday afternoon,

priesthood session, and Sunday morning. We're going to try to watch

some talks that we missed this week.

We've been spending quite  a bit of time with "the boys." The rugby

boys haha we went to a rugby this last week and got to sit with some

of them and their families; we had a barbecue on Saturday with a bunch

of rugby guys. It was way sick. We made a bunch of friends, some of

them are actually less active members, and we're gonna try to do some

kind of activity at the church, like volleyball or basketball. One of

these days we might even play touch rugby with them. They're all super

nice dudes!

Also our former mission president, President Roney was made and area

seventy. We all could see that coming!

Well that's all for this week. It was a good one for the books. Let's

just pray that it can make it to my journal. (Sorry mom 😉)