5/26

hey everyone.. that's weird that this is my last email... ever...

 

so when I was in my second transfer.. Elder Peiper showed me a video of him riding on some pedal rail cart things and it looked soooo fun. I did that today and it was SOoOoO fun.

 

So this week we went and visited a LOT of people to go say goodbye. I cried a lot. It was super weird. It is so weird to think that I'm not going to be a missionary anymore. My favorite part of being a missionary was having people like to see me. So it's sad that's not going to happen anymore.

 

This week 4 amies came to Church!!! It was sweet. J______'s wife came FINALLY haha I had to twist her arm a little bit, but finally she came and she really like it. I dont know if I told you but she reminds me of the Parrot from Alladin.. haha

 

I'm going to SMASH Bradley on 1v1 basketball. He WON'T beat me.

 

One of the peeps we visited has seen missionaries for 15 years... and I like him a lot. We visited him to say goodbye and he said in 15 years NO ONE had ever let him know when they were leaving and it broke his heart. So I was really happy that he was happy. He said saying goodbye to someone is a little thing... but little things can be enormous to people sometimes... and  I think that's soooo true!

 

Sister Poznanski wasnt at  my last interviews with prez.. I was sad because interview with her are soooo good.

 

 I will not throw away the suit that grandpa gave me.

 

I dont know what else to say... but I'll be able to tell you later this week... soooo

 

I'll eat a Paul Bunyan burger... I havent had a burger in over a year... mcdonalds doesnt really count in my opinion.

 

 

 

5/19

Hey everybody!!! So we had a super fun week.... Even tho I got the stomach flu.  Every time I ate, I fell like I was going to puke but I never did. It got to the point that Elder Sanchez gave me a  Laxative.  That was my first encounter with those things and I hope I NEVER have to use them again. But the members took care of me pretty well. A lot of missionaries get really sick right before they go home...

 

This week every missionary's nightmare happened. Elder Sanchez broke one of our amies priceless Greek vase.  It was so bad but I couldnt not laugh! It wasn't really has fault. He sat down on the couch and touched a radio that leaned and then hit a statue of Charlie Chapman and that leaned and touched their vase and it rocked and rocked and rocked and then tipped over and BOOM! They weren't THAT mad. 

 

We saw J***** and his wife and they are soooo good. He came to church again.. she gave me médicine when I was at her how cuz she said I looked like I had a fever. When she talks she sounds like Iago from Aladdin.. haha, but I love them a bunch. He's getting baptized in Aug... his son in law is going to baptize him.

 

I dont want to defend (I'm sure he means "offend"...haha) anyone but I do NOT want to go hiking.  (I asked him if he wanted to go with the scouts on their 50 Mile hike this summer.)

 

I care about the playoffs.. well not really, but I want the Blackhawks to win.

 

Elder Sanchez and I are starting to get in super good shape. We run hills every morning now and we work out at night.

 

That's super good that the Alturas house got rented.

 

The Easter flyers didnt give us ANY fruits...:( but ca va (Scott asked him about the flyers they distributed during Easter.)

 

Josh wrote me this week.  (His college roommate, who he is going to room with again in the fall.)

 

Today we went bowling again and I got 125... way better than 34.

 

Patrick is really excited that mom told him we can go visit him in Gilroy.. haha. Like he talks about it every time I see hime (which is like everyday).

 

well here goes the last week of my mission....

5/5

First of all... INVITE EVERYONE to the airport. That's my dream.

So guess what.... we had to go to Brussels 3 times last week!!!! It was super super stressful. I don't like train rides at all and I don't like Brussels that much, but it was kinda cool to get out of Charleroi. We had interviews with prez and that was good. He likes me.. but too bad because he's almost done being mission prez and me too. He told everyone that I'm going to be married in less than a month. NOT TRUE.

We also helped finish up the Helping Hands project... we loaded all the clothes in a truck and stuff.

Elder Pieper came and visited. it was cool because he's different but also the same.  He bore his testimony in french for the first time since his mission. 

So this week I had to give my "dying" testimony. I cried before I even started. It was really hard. I wanted to impress everybody... but i don't think i did. jk.  Every single sister missionary who was there cried.

We were mostly in Brussels a lot. 

Hey so we're going to try to do skype for 7am Sunday. Does that work? 

There are some members in a our ward who knocked down a wall in their house and we were there and helped them load all the bricks into a trailer. We put them all in sacks and then lifted them over there to the trailer and it was so tiring and heavy!!!!!

I really don't know what else to say

We finally got the kids dad's information... so now we can plan the baptism.

Our ward showed Saratov Approach. cried. 

There's not really very much beef jerky over here.

We have a lot of good members and good friends here. They take care of us :)

4/29

hey!!!!!!!!! 

So Brussels was pretty good.  Nothing big happened. No shakira. I got a gaufre and we saw the little peeing dude.  All Elder S______ had to do was sign a paper and take a fingerprint. So after that we went and got lunch. I took some pictures.

This week was also "helping hands" (giant churchwide service project for Earth Day). It was SUPER fun. It wasnt like in Chico where the  whole stake is there with a big fleet of missionaries. Just the 6 missionaries from charleroi and the 2 wards of charleroi. The entire morning was a clothing drive. People have been donating their old clothes the last couple weeks and we sorted them out. It was CRAZY. Some of the stuff was pretty gross.

In the afternoon, the wards invited an orphanage to come play with our primary kids and stuff. I played soccer with a bunch of 5 to 11 year olds. I beasted them. jk. We all had a lot of fun and I passed a lot. We also played Frisbee. Then we served them a big nice meal and gave them each a big bag of candy. They were SO happy and that made me pretty happy.  I wish I would have done more big service projects before the mission.

My new companion and I get along super well. We are kind of having success. We not finding new amies but we are finding people to teach- some people who used to not progress.or people who just moved here from Switzerland and were inactive. So things are going pretty well.

I'm pretty sure our soccer team will be good next year. I'm a lot stronger than i was when i was 18, so i just gotta work on my other soccer skills, but I'm going to be a lot more aggressive and confident....that's for sure. 

So I dont know if you've seen it or not... but the church made a new video for Easter called "Because of Him" I EXHORT you to watch it. Honest, I tear up every time. and so has everyone we've shown it too.

well as you can see, it was a fun week... but not too much happened.

4/21

Well to start off, happy Easter Monday... over here they don't work on the day after Easter.. so no shopping or email places are open. I'm emailing from a members house because they were nice and told us that nothing is open.

 

My new comp is Mexican and grew up in West Valley, Utah. He's pretttty funny. He's in his 4th transfer. His name is _______ and his mom might only speak a little English.He said she'll prob understand if you try to talk to her tho. He writes her in Spanish... and I'm learning TONS of Spanish... It's cool. I like him.

 

My talk went alright... I forgot my notes at home on Sunday morning and I realized that as I was sitting down in sacrament.... bad news. The bishop asked me to address my talk to the youth to try to get them to go on missions... but I mostly just talked about Jesus.

 

The north of Belgium speaks Flemish.. Its pretty much just the same language as the Nederlands... but in the South they just speak french, but weirdly they use different words to mean different things.. like the use the word for "to know" instead of "to can" so sometimes they'll say "sorry, i don't know how to come today" and that's just weird to me.. but its funny. They also say numbers differently. To say hello you still say bonjour... or salut.

 

So we talked to the bishop and s_____ (the 9 year old we're teaching) is going to be baptized pretty soon. He does not want a big service.. he just wants to do a little thing with just the missionaries and his dad and the bishop.. because he's still a little traumatized. His dad and him have come the last 4 weeks in a row.. and his dad gave the closing prayer in sacrament and another less active lady we have been working with has been coming and she gave the opening prayer.

 

I would love to do the politics thing with Josh Cook again.

 

HUGE MIRACLE happened this week and last week I guess. well a last week a member who used to live in this ward who moved to France called and asked us to help her old parents in the yard, but we never  got ahold of them.. and a couple days later she called back and said "yo have you talked to my parents?" I'm like.. no sorry. she said that the reason that they didn't answer was cuz hes in the hospital with a hemorrhoid. but he asked for a blessing so on Friday elder Beck went and gave him a blessing. SUPEr cool dude. He's one of those guys who makes you feel like a better person just by talking to him. so so nice. and we left him with a Book of Mormon to read. He told us he was having surgery on Monday and to come back a couple days after the surgery. So on Thursday this week we went to stop by and see him. He was BEAMING. I don't think I've ever seen a smile that big. I was like "hey, how was the surgery?" He said that on Friday night.. a couple hours after the blessing they did a scan and there was NOTHING wrong. The hemorrhoid closed up. So he didn't even need surgery and on Friday morning he checked out of the hospital. boom.

 

I still find it weird that I will only go to church 5 more times in Europe... then its home.

 

How are the playoffs going?

 

ok, I'll give a talk on Jun 8.

 

is spud home? that's weird.

 

remember at my 8th grad graduation the doves? that was funny.

4/14

So, when you're feeling and following the spirit... things are GOOD!

We worked pretty hard doing those flyers this week... and still nothing, but it was a REALLY fast week.

On Monday night, G______ cut our hair (the girl from the family just reactivated...) it was a pretty good cut but she used scissors everywhere... not a real problem, but I'll probably need to get another pretty soon.

On Tuesday, we went to Namur for district meeting. Namur is a super cool city. There's a big pretty river and a huge citadel on top of a hill in the middle of town, but district meeting is pretty lame. No one in the district is that friendly or interested in talking. sooooooo district meetings are kinda a drag.

There was an old RM visiting here this week so we saw him a couple times. He was hanging out with Patrick. He made me really want to get an iphone when I get home. He was a super geek and admits it. Elder B___ and him talked about zombie movies for forever.

We visited a TON of less active members this week and 2 of the families came. It was legendary! I dont want to brag but Elder B___ and I should get a gold medal from all the stuff we've done this transfer.

A member in France called us and asked us to help her old nonmember parents in the garden... and we couldn't get ahold of them for a couple days.. and then she called us again and said "actually, you cant help them anymore cuz my dad got a hemorrhoid" so she gave us all the information to go give him a blessing. SUPER NICE old guy. I really like him. He's having surgery today and we're going to go visit him later in the week. 

On Saturday, we visited a family that met the missionaries a billion years ago. Back in the day just the mom was interested and the dad said no. When I first got here we passed by and they were super happy to listen. The dad read a book about God and it talked about the Melchezidek priesthood. It said, "if you ever meet people who hold it they will be the "happiest and most powerful people in the world". The first time we went, we blessed their home because they were fighting a lot... the second time (Saturday) we gave his wife a blessing. He FREAKED out when he noticed that we used the Melchezidek priesthood. He said back in the day, when the missionaries came, his ears and spirit  were closed... but now they're open.

The kid that we are teaching said that he wants to get baptized but he doesn't want a ceremony... he just wants it to be his dad and the missionaries and his brother and the bishop. So we'll do that for sure. His family and the other family I just talked about both came to the baptism Saturday night. The other ward had a baptism on Saturday night. They liked it.

Then on Saturday after the baptism, we went to the B______(the girl who cut our hair)'s house for a FHE. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN. I love their family so much. We laughed sooo many times. On Sunday G______ bore her testimony about coming back to church and how much we (the missionaries) helped her. It pretty much made my mission. She cried a lot... luckily, I had tissues.

I'm sad that Elder B___ is leaving. I really liked him! but im getting a new comp named Elder S______. He's going to kill me.  (That just means that he will be William's last companion...in this mission, maybe all missions, a missionary in their last transfer is a "dying" missionary.)

It's weird that I'm in my last transfer. 

What do you mean everyone is excited to have me back? Yeah, I'll give a talk on June 8th. What's the topic?

 

I'm giving a talk next week. I'm not that excited about it. It's Easter Sunday so I want it to be good... you know?

well....

4/7/14

Can you say BEST CONFERENCE EVER? I loved it so much. It was mad good! I really liked pretty much all of the Apostle's talks. I really liked elder Zwick's. I was kinda bummed that Elder Christofferson didn't say anything about us either... but the atonement of Jesus Christ is more important than a shoutout hhaha.

I'm almost a hundy percent sure that I'll stay here until the bitter end. I don't imagine prez doing something that crazy.

So of all of the families that we are teaching... guess how many of them were available to see us last week? Not even one. They were all busy all week.  It was crazy! but we still saw some people and one of the families that we reactivated had us and some other less active members over for a FHE. The daughter of that family is studying to be a haircutter, so she is going to cut our hair for us.

We had a ward family history party this week. It was pretty boring. It was a lot of people making their accounts and struggling to come up with passwords. The young men were having their mutual at the same time and they peeked their heads in and asked us to play bball with them because they were getting bored with 2 on 2. So we got to throw down on some Belge kids for a little while. It was fun. They really liked playing with us.

We haven't had a lot of time to do very much finding lately because we've had so many people to teach... but this last week was a lot of fliers and porting.

I dont think that I've grown in the last 2 years. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've lost a couple inches. The french people have beaten me down.

Its true... prez packer wasnt looking very good.

The SVU coach still hasnt contacted me... should I be worried?

I went on an exchange to Namur this week. I spent the entire day walking around and contacting.  My feet got SOOOO tired!!!!

Patrick says thank you for the little note. I had to translate for him, but he liked it.

Elder Beck and I found a ripped up soccer ball and in the mornings weve been kicking it around. Its super fun.

So I know a little while ago I said I was sick of wearing church clothes.... its worse now haha, but I'm pretty sure I can make it. I have tons of ties.. but somehow I'm sick of them alllll!

People talk about that plane alll the time here. I guess its a really big deal. I dont know because I never see any news or anything.

3/31

hey whats up?

This week was kinda slower than usual, but a lot of good things happened. We are teaching like 6 families and they are all doing pretty well. 

We are teaching a guy and his 2 sons. He has been inactive for awhile because he works on Sundays because he needs the money cuz his wife left him, but we have been becoming super tight with his sons.  His sons are 10 and 9 and super hyperactive haha, but they have came to church two weeks in a row. The 9 year old kid's baptism wasn't valid when he was 8 and then he freaked out and didn't want to get dunked again... and he hasn't wanted to. But this week at church the dad said, "Hey, do you want the missionaries to come over and talk about your baptism?" and he smiled and looked excited.

Another family we are teaching we had a way awkward moment. They have an autistic son. Its not even that big of a deal. I really like the kid. He is really really nice.Well this week, we went over to his house to invite him to the Easter egg hunt that's going on at the church. They had some friends over. We weren't even planning on staying that long.. but they told us to sit down. One of their "friends" wanted to BATTLE. He was rippin me about American public schooling and Israel and the 12 tribes and Obama and stuff. I didn't want to say anything rude.. but I finally was like "hey dude, when I lived in America, I was a teenager... I don't know ANYTHING about Israel... I went to public school, and I'm pretty smart... I don't know anything about what Obama is doing because I've lived in France for the last 2 years... and you're so drunk" and they were like... hey yeah... go away and never come back. Turns out 2 of the people who were there were actually their friends... and the random drunk dude was someone they've never seen before, but after he left we actually were able to have a really good lesson :)

We did a lot of porting this week. Well, we did that flyer thing that I told you guys about, but so far (we've done 200) and no one has said that they even read it. A couple people said they saw it and didn't read it, but most of the people were like "nope... didn't see anything"... maybe we have a mail robber in Charleroi.

This week we had an elders quorum activity... We cleaned the church. Elder B*** and I cleaned all of the windows in the whole church. It was pretty fun. The bishop and his brother looked like they were hungover.. so I asked them why they looked so bad. They played Lord of the Rings online until 330 in the morning. So the bishop kept saying super lame jokes. At one point he got a 15ft squeegee and twirled it around he head screaming "I AM DARTH MAUL!" in a funny belge accent. He is such a cool guy.

I'm super excited for General Conference. We are not going to stay up all night though. I hope that they announce a temple in Chico and I hope one of the authorities that has visited will give our mission a shout out.

We are seeing a lot of signs of spring, blossoms everywhere! and its getting pretty warm, but not at hot as Chico.

I haven't seen that many famous things in Belgium, especially not in charleroi.  There isn't anything here to see. 

I really don't know what major I'm going to go for. I remember one time grandpa telling me that the world has need of man nurses... maybe that. 

There is a kind of apple that I really like. Its called a pink lady apple. I don't know if they have those in America or not but they taste like pink lemonade.

That's really cool that I have my flight plans now. Does prez brown know yet so that he can release me? 

I got Sister Mason's letter and a couple from some friends, but besides that not too much. I think everyone forgot about me by now.

Max says that room 323 is money in the bank! so I'm excited for that.

I don't have Ivan's email address. Spud comes home in a few weeks.

3/24

heyyyyyy SUPER good week!

 

so seriously, things are really good. Well the danger level is on the regular, but that's normal, but in terms of awesome things going on... a new record.

 

We have been working with a super cool family. The dad works Sundays at a shelter for troubled youth.  So that's pretty important, but also his son is nine years old and last yeah he didn't get baptized. The water was too cold for him and he was traumatized, but since then they've moved into our ward. We had a rdv with the bishop and his 8 year old son who just got baptized and it was reallllllllly good. The 8 year old kid was sooo baller. He testified to the other kid and it was just money. Well that family came to church (late) but it was still really good.

Also, we made friends with an AWESOME family. They just starting to come back to church the first Sunday I was here and they are super cool. They moved from Mexico 10 years ago, but they've been super nice. We are having a FHE with them this week. I hope it goes well and they said they are going to make the spiciest food I've ever eaten... I don't think they've eaten Hmong food...

So prez came out with his brand new idea... its kinda hard to explain but its totally something I brought up to him a year ago. When I was in St. Omer... a member came up to me and handed me a little piece of paper that the missionaries 60 years ago (or something like that) put in his mailbox. It said, "hey, in a couple days there will be 2 missionaries knocking on your door, please listen to them. -love the mission prez" and he said it made him prepare for when the missionaries came and when they came he was ready. Now he is a sealer in the temple. He said, "show this to your mission president so you can do this".  So I did annnnd nothing happened, but this week president came out with this super inspired idea to put flyers in peoples mailboxes about Easter and then in a couple days go pass by and see if they are interested. Best idea ever huh? Now I'm really excited about it and I think he's totally doing it right. Easter is a big deal over here because they love their holidays. 

i see bees and those huge pigeons all the time. and i see a lot of huge bumblebees all over, but no one has kicked them at me for awhile. so that's really good.

Right now I'm reading in Alma. I'll be reading in Alma for awhile....

A couple other missionaries sent me stuff for my birthday.

Today Elder ***k got a haircut by an Italian guy. He looks like an Italian guy now. Later on tonight we have a FHE with some investigators and members and then we have to make a meal for our district.

OHHH! Elder Christofferson came. I don't want to complain that much, but I was kinda let down.  Most of the time was a Q&A and I thought that the missionaries asked rather bad questions. They were pretty ineffective, but then once he started talking for reals it was really good. He asked me where I'm from and he said he knows where Chico is.

 

I'm really excited to room with Jefferson.

This week we had ward conference... so there was a lot of people there. People had to stand outside... well in the foyer.

pictures!!!!!!

 William turned 21 today.  One of his friends in Belgium had him over for dinner, cake, and a present.  AND sent me photos!  I love him!!!!

his shoe "exploded"

3/17

sooo I already told everyone that today is my birthday. Tonight we are going over to our ward mission leader's house for cake and stuff. He's nice and helps us out a lot. Birthdays are way different in 4 mans and on pday instead of on Sunday. Today we went bowling. It was really pathetic how bad we were, but we all laughed and had a lot of fun.

 

I got your card this week and also the questionnaire. 

This week wasn't really that bad. A lot of people didn't show up to the appointments, but we found cool things to do and taught a lot. We're teaching several families. I'm really excited about that. All of my mission we have been trying really hard to find and teach families. So it's really cool that it's finally happening. 

At church we had 4 amis there. The ward was pumped. We also have a bunch of appointments set up with many less active and part member families so its good. The ward is trying really hard to help us. 

Last transfer there were elders and sisters in this ward, but this transfer its just us. And we have to pick up all the slack that the sisters left behind... which is a LOT!

That's is really scary whats going on in the world and also about Sister Anderson.

This week we talked to a man who wanted us to teach him how he can get to the celestial kingdom without dying.... I've never  had that thought cross my mind. He legitimately thought that our church teaches that doctrine but we only reveal it to people who are high up in the church and that its a secret we don't tell investigators. He was set on that and it did not matter what we said, he wouldn't back down, but he still wants to learn more and come to church. So we don't really know what to tell him. I told him that if we have enough faith, we can do anything... is that wrong?

We play frisbee in the mornings with the frisbee that jenifer norris gave me. It's pretty fun.

Belgium is pretty similar to France but its a lot poorer and less pretty. France people make fun of Belgium all the time, but its really not that bad. There is a lot of crime though and last night the air reeked like vomit everywhere in town. I've been having pretty bad allergies but I got some allergy medication from a pharmacy and it works fine.

We have heard the ice cream truck every night no matter where we are for 5 nights in a row. It was pretty scary because no one is going to run out and buy ice cream at 8:30 at night... right?

I like the saying that you said "if you cant dunk... use the backboard." I cant really think of a specific example of how to use it, but I'm sure there's a lot of them.

I gave our ward mission leader the website to your blog. He tries to get really involved in missionaries' lives.

If you still can, I want to  be roommates with jefferson chandler. and either of the carraige dorms if fine, but if its too late, no big deal.

I'm really excited because we're going to see elder christofferson tomorrow in Brussels. Hopefully the trains are ok. but we have to get up early because it starts at 830.

And N*****'s baptism was last week... I don't know if I told you or not.

Pictures

His favorite family on his mission

this is Elder Guymon and his newest companion

3/10

yeah.. that is my address. Jumet is a neighborhood in Charleroi. The zip code only has 4. I haven't gotten a birthday card.

The transfer was pretty good. Its kinda hard hauling around 2 heavy suitcases in the Paris metro, but we got it all done and I got here. I rode a train from Reims to Paris and then Paris to Brussels and then Brussels to Charelroi.

My new companion is super cool. He is from American Fork. When I lived in Lehi he was like less than ten minutes from me I bet. He looks a lot like Payton. Like facewise its exactly the same.

So the rumors are true about the city of Charleroi. Its not very clean or pretty. There's a lot of hobos and stuff, but i really like it. Belge people do not have the same grumpy french attitude. They are pretty nice. The tram and bus system is just as janky as last time I came up here though. Today there is a strike and there's no transport. Also sometimes the buses just dont come.

N***** got baptized so its all good. I'm happy about that. like super happy. I'll get elder E****** to email me some pictures.

Every day so far has been sunny and nice. I've broke out the short sleeves. We've already found 2 new amies and already lost 3. soooo....

The ward is pretty nice. Some of them talked to me. I think the bishop loves me already... He is a super chill guy. So he greeted us at the door and he was like "soooo elder geeeemo, you're FRENCH?" and I was like yep and then he got super excited and was like "FINALLY!" When I finally told him I'm american he threw a fit, but it was super funny and he's a good guy.

so everyone says that missionaries who serve in Charleroi get fat. I'm not about to tho. I had my first belgian waffle today. It was pretty good but it tasted kinnnda weird. The ones that we made my junior year of seminary were just as good.

so I got an email explaining release procedure. In mission terms I got my "trunky papers" They asked which airport I want to fly to. Chico right?

I'm pretty much loving the mission. I'm not going to lie and say i dont want to go home, but i really really like being out here. Its kinda hard to think that there are only 3 months left. idk how that's going to work.

I am really considering dropping either america and the enlightenment or astronomy, but we can just do that later right?

idk what I could do for work... is there anyone who need french translation in Chico? prob not, right? Does bishop chamlee need anyone for rice researchers? The only problem with working for Dean would be that its Yuba.

There's a cover story about our mission on lds.org.

3/4

sooooo I thought you'd like to know.. I just got transferred to Charleroi, Belgium. Word on the street is that it is voted the ugliest city in Europe, but pretty much every missionary who has served there LOVES it. So I'm not too unhappy. My new comp will be Elder B***. Never heard of him, but I think he's in his 3rd transfer, so that'll be my 3rd comp in a row in his 3rd transfer.

 

sooo also, I found out this week that Quasimoto and Esmerelda (the people in the Hunchback of Notre  Dame) actually lived in Reims.

sooo in other news- the other companionship had a baptism on Saturday and the guy doesn't speak french at all, so the service was in English. It was pretty funny because I translated it back into french for all of the members. An old lady said it was super funny to see french people speaking English and  an American translating it into french. Its usually the other way around.

 

so N***** is the bomb. Its a super big bummer that I'm outta here. I really wanted to have a pic at the baptism. She was super prepared to accept the gospel. We pretty much just had to answer a BILLION questions. It was good tho. She had been praying and worrying about how she was going to tell her son about getting baptized and finally she told her son and he was like, "umm ok". so that's really cool that he didn't freak out or anything because that would have been a real bummer. so that was a small but big miracle that a lot of people have been praying for.

 

There is also a guy who we started teaching again named C***. He told the missionaries to not come back because they tried to force him to get baptized. Well, we didn't know that because those missionaries didn't write ANYTHING in the area book, but we invited him to come to the baptism on Saturday (the one in english) and I'm pretty sure he liked he. He said we can come back and talk more about baptism now. boom goes the dynamite.

so I've been thinking about having 16 credit hours.. I'm starting to think that that might be a lot. Maybe even too much, because it would be hard to get an institute class now with soccer and all. 

 

so on the 18th of march, there is a special conference with Elder Christofferson (apostle) with only 3 zones. My new zone will be one of them. That's cool because the last 3 times apostles have came I didn't get to go. It was super lame.

 

That's cool about Jonathon Spector. Have you talked to him or Olivia lately?

That's cool about Bradley going brute, but he still wont beat me.

I honestly dont know about getting a job when I get home because remember when I signed up at will call right before I left and they were like ok.. we can give you a factory job baking cookies in Gridley from 1am to 6am. I dont think something crazy like that would be good, but maybe like answering the phone at Glende...

I think Melanee should name her baby Benson Farnsworth.

2/24

hey sooo to start off, I got a very interesting Valentines Day card this week from all the sister in the RS. and then also 2 missionaries. They both wrote pretty odd things. Elder Lee wrote, "You need to stop being so cool." Why?... and Elder Toutai wrote that he translated my homecoming into Hmong. ummm I'm pretty sure he's mistaken, because i haven't came home yet... odd.  (Elder Toutai probably meant to say farewell.)

 

So N***** is doing great! She super kind and she is one of those people that god had prepared to find the gospel. It is super awesome when you teach someone who actually keeps his/her commitments. So N____'s baptismal date is for the 8th of May. She changed it because her grand kids are coming.

We have been seeing this family every week for a couple weeks. They are active and have been for awhile, but they haven't been to the temple to be sealed and the bishop says they've kinda plateaued over the years. Their youngest daughter is 7 and will be baptized in a few months and their older daughter just recently started coming to church again and doesn't really remember anything. Its pretty good teaching them because we can really see how much the church and the gospel brings them together.

 

The other day I was walking in town and I looked through a window of a restaurant as I was walking and I saw a hockey game on.. As I was still walking I zoomed in on the top where it says who is playing and the score.. I saw it was USA vs CAN and by time I could look at the score or look at the game  I had walked past the window. WHAT HAPPENED! I was freaking out! I didn't want to turn around and watch... but I totally wanted to at the same time.  I didn't tho.

I was thinking about jump the shot (the game the young men played last Wednesday for scouts....where someone swings a big rope around) the other day. That's pretty lame that the bishop got toe up. 

My hand has a scar, but its all healed up now. 

We finally got in contact with the Yugoslavian family again and also we started teaching an old ami that we found in the area book and his wife. We're finding people out of the woodwork and things are developing quite nicely.

So is the class schedule is going to be a lot of classes. Its 16 hours. Does melanee think I can do it? I'm pretty nervous about having homework and having a math class. I have forgotten like all basic math. Its pretty weird that going home is starting to get real. I don't really know of anyone who I would want to be room mates with because i don't know who is going. Thank you so much though.

A couple weeks ago I got a letter from Jenifer Norris asking what Emmett should do to plan for his mission. I would tell Emmett.. and Bradley and Andrew to try to see people as children of God, that really helps you to develop Christlike attributes and also to learn to do everything that a mom does.... that really helps.

2/17

My hand is pretty good. I've been squeezing most of the infection out of it and its been healing quite nicely.

I try to answer dad's questions every time. I like the ward a lot. They seem to like us too. There is a lady in the ward who looks like she could be a manager for Dior, or Chanel and her husband always looks like a million bucks, but anyways she came up to me and was like "Elder, you are super fresh." Elder B***** gave me a Hugo Boss shirt with cuff links and I was wearing the new suit I bought. 

 

We are teaching a couple people, but its pretty slow. Pretty often people set stuff up, and then don't show up. I like my companion a lot.  On pday we usually clean. Its pretty hard to get around town fast enough to do anything. There isn't any summer school for me, so I guess I will just sit on facebook all day. Just kidding. But I want to have a lot of time to get in good shape for soccer.

 

Prez hasn't done anything that embarrassing lately, so that's good. I'm not sick. I like your letters. I think if I do go to Provo it would be a good time to take that french language test. If I take it at SVU I have to send in the test to get graded by BYU anyway. So if we're there, might as well try and do it.

Nobody really talks about the Olympics here. Soccer is still a bigger deal, but every once in a while people will have the Olympics on their TV..... and then not let us in... so I don't really know that much about the Olympics.

We almost got kidnapped again last night. We were porting and two people pulled up right next to us and said, "hey, can we ask you some quick questions?" His first question was "why do Christians eat pork?" and his second was "in the bible, it says that Jesus is not the son of God, why do Christians think he is the son of God?" I pulled out my bible and asked him where it says that and he's like "ohhh, ummmm, I don't know, hey, get in my car and I'll take you downtown and I'll buy you a pizza and we'll talk about it. I said "hey, tell you what, here's our number... go read the bible, and then text me the verse that says Jesus isn't the son of God." I will never get in another car like that ever again. Its just not worth it.

So N***** is doing GREAT! She's had so many spiritual experiences and the ward loves her. The first time we met with her, she said she was ready to be baptized, and she knew everything. We said, "ok, will you be baptized March 1st?" and she said no. and then she came up with a ton of things she had to do before she could be baptized. and we were like.. ok, no big deal. just pray and ask God" and then we met with her this Monday, after we finished the lesson and said the closing prayer she's like, "hey boys, I've been praying and praying and praying, and I didn't get an answer, but this morning, I GOT AN ANSWER!" I was so close to being like "oh, that's cool, we can talk about it next time" but then something stirred inside of me and I asked "soooo, March 1st?" annnnnd boom goes the dynamite. she accepted.

So we were filling out a baptismal calender with her and there is a really cool staircase of things to check off before you are baptized:  lessons 1-4, commandments, sanctify the sabbath, read, pray, and baptismal interview. She took a pen and marked off every box and i was like... hey, you haven't...done.. most of... those... but... whatever. She is stoked. We are seeing her this afternoon, that's why this email is so early.

Pictures!!!!

is there a Chipotle is France???

2/10/14

hey everyone!

So you know how I told you that the mission president trolls me? Well, he still does it. We had interviews this week and pretty much just when prez is there, and there are missionaries there, something happens where I look like an idiot. For example: everyone was shaking hands with prez and than he asked everyone a question... and just then my cell phone started vibrating so I yanked it out of my pocket and fumbled and dropped it and the back came off and the battery slide across the floor and prez said "voila, elder guymon... say the prayer and repent for what you did." Everyone laughed so hard...

 

and then later on prez was talking and giving a training and I was chillin and started eating so candy and he stopped talking and gave me the WEIRDEST look ever and so everyone in the whole 2 zones looked at me right when I was digging around in a bag of candy...

 

So we have been teaching this lady from I***. This week she brought us her friend to teach, but its really hard cuz he only understands Persian. Ok, well he speaks some French, but M***** has to translate for us and no offense to her, but she doesn't do a very good job, sometimes I'll say something super simple like "the bible is the writings of prophets" and then they'll have a 10 minute conversation and its bad because M****** is new to the whole christian thing too. But overall we have no clue whats going on. I told them about houssain and they wanted to know more about him but I don't remember anything besides icees, fishing, and he coached soccer.

Another one of our amis (the lady who came to church with her friend) is doing real well. She keeps coming to church and we keep seeing her. Her friends took her on a church tour and answered a lot of her questions, so we are just tryna fix a date. The only thing is she wants her son to know the gospel too.

So elder E****** made some chocolate mousse this week, but what we do that is really good is we put the mousse in our ice cube tray and then have little fudge pops. I was tryna get one out (with a dull potato peeler) and stabbed my had VERY, VERY hard. There was a lot of blood, but I'm ok. No doctor visits or anything.

 

Melanee didn't tell me its a boy, but you did last week... kinda.

didn't you JUST get called to primary?

So I have been emailing my SVU counselor and she told me that there is NOT going to be a summer II term. So I guess that settles that. I also dont really know how to register for classes. Like I know how to literally sign up on "mysvu", but idk which classes I need or how to work out my schedule or anything. what should I do?

So for working out, right now I pretty much just want to get more lean/cut and also quicker. I've been running some and I feel pretty good lung-wise.

So at interviews, I was the oldest missionary there, and I didn't know ANYONE. Well I knew SOME. It's cool that elder W**** is still in my zone.

The mission doctor told me about a cool trick were you boil water and then breathe in the steam and I pretty much was 100% healed in like 3 minutes. So don't worry about that.

Are there Kane Olympic shirsies?

Mission Conference Pictures

2/3

hey everyone, what an eventful week!

so Elder E******* and I have been doing really well. We've been visiting a lot of members and getting them pumped for missionary work. I'm really excited to see what will happen with all of that.

There is a woman who has came to church with her friends for the last 3 weeks and she finally set up a rendez-vous with us. Those members gave her a Book of Mormon over a year ago and she says she reads it all the times and also recieves the Liahona (church magazine), so I think this is going to be super good. The members are all super pumped for that. She goes to Relief Society activies and has been going for a while now. She also has a son.

So Elder Kearon came this week. We had to go to Versailles and guess what.. the trains were all sold out... so we had to wake up at 2:50!!! Our train was super early! and there are no buses that early, so we had to walk across town in the middle of the night to get to the train station. It was quite unlucky, but it was a really good conference. I felt really really stupid at one point. Whenever somebody raised their hand to say something, they would have to stand up, so that everyone could hear them. So I stood up and related missionary work to an old Nike commercial. In the commercial, Ladanian Tomlinsen (back when he was good) takes a pitch and starts running up the feild and all kinds of defenders from all different teams are all trying to tackle him and he's running and juking and breaking tackles and its really cool. I was telling the missionaries about this, and I looked out and I realized probably the majority of people 1.) didnt care about football, or 2.) didnt know anything aboout football, or 3.) were sister missionaries... so then I was like.. oh, I'm an idiot.... and there's a Seventy (the special person who came to speak at the conference) sitting right behind me... so that was pretty lame and as soon as I sat down he says, "I love rugby too" everyone laughed...

 I made the parallel that even though there are tons of things trying to tear him down, so many hard times, trials, people not showing up to church, temptations, Ray Lewis, everything.. he keeps running and trying his hardest. I invite you to go watch that commercial on youtube. I think if you type in "Nike leave nothing" you could find it pretty easily and think about the scripture 2 nephi 31:20.

I've had a lot of sore throats on my mission, much more than I ever did at home... I have another one right now.

M***** didn't come to church.  The family that drives her was sick. That was lame.

So today for lunch we went over to the oldest lady in the ward's house for lunch.. she made us peach duck. I didn't think I would miss duck when I left on my mission but when I had it, it brought back some great tasting memories. The weird thing was that it was just duck legs, I was like.. hey where's the rest of it?

We went through the area book and found some sweet people to teach! A couple of them really didnt know why the missionaries stopped coming and were super excited to see us. So thats good.

That would be pretty great to have a workout program.  Elder Smith gave me one but it's imossible because I dont have like any dumbells or anything. I've been doing TONS of pushups and they get super boring on the cold floor, but I'm not fat... I'm actually doing pretty good and then when I hit my birthday, I'm going to diet until the end. So wish me luck with that.

The girl that saw Maddy was Sister Pymm. She was in my district when I was in St Omer. That was a LONG time ago!

I think that Crosby is a super cool name for a dog. Can we get a spaniel? or a golden retriever?

So I wasnt really asking about the fafsa.  My admissios person told me that I have been readmitted for the fall. I thought I wanted to go to the summer semester... and I have to register for classes on the 19th.. how do I do that?

1/27

so i guess I'll start off by saying that my new comp, Elder E******, is super cool. He has a really good attitude and is super nice. He is pretty much just the classic missionary. He is from Orem. We get along really well so far and he likes Reims and we live with 2 other guys too and we all serve in the same ward. It's crazy, because this city is sooo big, but there are only a couple members who actually live in it.

I dont know anything about financial aide... but I got an email that said I was readmitted for fall, but I dont know what that is all about, because I wanted to go to summer school. Can you try to figure something out with Joe Bouchelle?

So I have made some great friends with some members in the ward. They invited us over on Tuesday night for a burrito fête. (fête means party) and it was SOOO good. We had so much fun. They made me eat 9 burritos, but the next day we had to go back to their house... ok back story. so I dropped our cell phone.. and it bounced off my foot and rolled into oncoming traffic and got ran over TWICE. Well 4 times because 2 wheels. and so it got dominated. I told Sister B***** about it and she let us borrow one of her extras. In France, everyone just has sim cards and luckily it was still alive. so yeah. So we gave the phone back on Wednesday and she answered the door and was like.. "elders.... I felt inspired that I should make a lot of nems tonight... sooo now I know why. COME ON IN! and we had sooo many awesome nems. Sister B***** is Taiwanese and frère B***** is french. I love them so much. They have 3 little white french dogs and I remember that whenever dad is around bunnies he turns them on their back and rubs their stomachs and they fall asleep. So I tried it once with one of their dogs and it totally works too. So that's funny.

So I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting. A member of the mission presidency was there and was talking about missionary work and he asked me to testify about how awesome it is teaching people that the members have all ready found.     IT IS SO MUCH BETTER!  but I hope the ward was motivated. Madison was given to us and brought to church every week and teaching her was a breeze. She was someone who was ready.

Our ward has A LOT of old people in it, but there are also a decent amount of families and kids. Its a pretty good mix. This ward gave us 7 meals this week! I was so grateful for that. They are pretty great. They love helping us out. A couple months ago I squatted to take a picture and ripped my pants.. BAD. and a sister in the ward sewed them for me. They take care of us really well.

The conference with the seventy is this week. I'm excited cuz I get to see Elder Smith.

I hope Bradley and Andrew wear white shirts when they pass the sacrament, because young men here do not. Its pretty different and we also do not have an organ. BUT our pianist right now is a legend! He is sooooo good. That reminds me. Do you remember the show Everwood?

I haven't really talked to or seen the mission president in a while, but i bet he will tease me. 

yeah, sorry but I dont think I want the Jeep. 

The bird in the picture was actually 5 birds and yeah they were all pigeons. I do not have a clue what happened to them.

We saw a REALLY funny but bad car crash this week. This punk floored it down a hill and was gunning super fast and so we looked at him. Then he reached over and turned on the hazards and then slammed on the brakes and locked up and then rammed the poor teenage girl in front of him who was at a red light. I have no clue why he put on his hazards.

So I'm having a really great time! and i miss you guys a lot. but like mom said.. its going by fast.

oh, also, Madison gave a talk on Sunday and it was super good and i felt the spirit big time. It was really cool to see how much faith she has and all that cuz she is really shy.

He Sent Pictures

is that a bird???????????????????

cleaning the font

the people in his district and how many transfers they have been out on their mission

baptism photo

1/20

hey! so THE BAPTISM WENT DOWN!!!! yay!!!!

And it wasn't even a crash landing. It was pretty calm and peaceful. She really liked it, but Elder M****** and I had to work pretty hard for it. We went to Chalons for a lesson at a members house. It was a pretty long train ride, but it all worked out. We also had to SCRUB the font. There was spiders and spider webs and dirt and stuff in it. It hadn't been used in like a year. so we used tons of chemicals.

At the baptism, one of the members gave a talk about the holy ghost (classic) but during his talk he pulled out a hymnbook and started singing "le saint-ésprit a temoigné" and I felt the spirit big time. The words in french are so beautiful and simple. So that night I looked up the song in english. and  its called "testimony"... it is NOT pretty or simple or even good in english. I was very mad at that. The french translators did a good job.

So the family that we found doesn't answer the phone anymore... pretty lame, but we found a different family. They are from Yugoslavia. I asked them how long the have lived in france and he said since 2:30. hmmm. he said "depuis 2 heures et demi." He meant to say "depuis 2 ans et demi." I think he was super nervous. They have never seen missionaries before. We said we were going to teach them how to do family home evening. They are down.

So I was a total moron and forgot to wear a belt to church. I looked like a goof. At least I was wearing a suit coat so you couldn't see unless you were straight on, but a few members noticed.

So Elder M****** got transferred. My new comp is Elder Scott E******. He is super young too. He will be in his 3rd transfer. I'm kinda sad to have Elder M****** leave, but whenever you get a new comp, time goes by super fast. This is my 11th comp!! I don't know if I will stay in Reims until I leave or not.

So for soldes.. I bought a suit. Its pretty decent. I like it. It was 75 euros. I dont know how much that is in us dollars tho. I already gave it to a member to hem for me.  I like the suit.  I also got a pair of pants and a shirt.  I don't know if I want to get crazy, but this would be the time to buy stuff if I did. I want to get new shoes too. Mine are worn out. I've never been good at shopping by myself.

My friend who used to serve in the mission is now at BYU-I and she met Maddy at a party. That's weird. I hope they didnt gossip about me. 

It rains so much here. That's too bad that Chico is not seeing any, but I'm glad that when I get home it'll be nice Chico hot.

1/12

So this week was very good.

We found a family. The guy's name is C**** and he has a daughter and another on the way. He has heard about Mormons before and he said he wants to know all of our secrets. So I told him I'd tell him everything. That's pretty much what missionaries are for, right? The mom is a little bit less interested but she's pretty nice.

M****** is doing great, but the baptism is still going to be an Anakin crash landing, even though we've taught her everything. She lives 45 minutes away and her parents don't want us to come over, but this week we are going to her city twice and we are going to teach her with members that live there. They are the ones who give her a ride to church. So that'll be good, but we've only taught her on Sundays before. I'm sure everything will be fine.

J****** came back to church and the goal got changed to 12. The stake president was very happy about that. He was there on Sunday.

Andrew made ONE basket? oh my.

The Paris temple is doing pretty well. Last I heard they have started construction and no news is good news, right?

That's really lame that everyone is sick and that Sam got pwned by a skunk.

Its weird. I feel like people are moving in and out of Chico 1st ward every week, but no one ever moves in or out of french wards.

Its so sad that I'm missing the Olympics! Do I still have that Canada hockey fleece thing?

I've been working out pretty hard. I really want to be in good shape. So I'm eating healthy too but its a really big bummer that we have 4 people living together and only 2 dumbells.

Sorry about the short email, but this week went by super quick and our week kinda gets broken when we have to take a whole day out in the middle of the week to go to Paris for district meeting.

A Sevety is coming to the mission in a couple weeks. That's good.

I have a savings account? I thought I gave that all to dad, but sure go ahead and move some.

1/6

That's weird that Bradley went to a dance. Did he cat daddy? bernie? jerk? dougie? stanky legg? roy?UFO? dip?  I miss dancing a LOT! I wish I would have danced at all the church dances. Not with girls though.

That is not good about the rain. It rains so much here. I think that Al Gore was kinda right in the sense that the climate is getting pretty funky nowadays. They say that usually around this time of year there's a lot of snow everywhere, but now its just really cold and rainy.

So the lady who committed to be baptized did not come to church on Sunday, which complicates things a lot. She has been to church plenty of times, but that is where we teach her. She lives in a city called C****** which is a train ride a way and its just a pain to get out there and we have to teach her with somebody because shes a girl. So coordinating it all is pretty hard. The baptismal date is still fixed for the 18th, but we're going to be coming in pretty hot. Kinda like when Anakin crash landed that huge shapeship in Episode 3. So pray for that.

The ward treats us ok, but I think we might have accidentally drove our ward mission leader insane/inactive. like.. he stormed out of church and didnt come back. We're kind of worried. He wanted the ward mission goal to be 60 for next year. There was 1 this year. Two weeks ago I asked him if he spoke english (just trying to make conversation) and he straight screamed at me about how we were called to preach the gospel in french so he has no reason to speak english to missionaries. It was pretty horrible.

So for New Years the ward had a Christmas party, but we werent invited because they were going to get too crazy. So we just sat around and then went to a park and played basketball. We were having troubles finding one because it was night and we were just running around block to block. So I asked a man if there was a court and he said, "yeah follow me". So we followed him to a court and there were no lights, but we played anyways. As soon as I took off my hoodie, it started pouring wind and rain, but we didnt stop. And then the same man came out and said HAPPY NEW YEAR and gave us a big bottle of champagne. We were like... no. but he set it on the bench and walked away. We won. We also played on the 1st.

So on the 1st, the oldest lady in the ward invited us over to eat oysters with her. Oysters are not even a little bit good. And before you eat them, you spray juice on them to see if they're still alive and then you are supposed to swallow them whole. I was not down to have living animals inside of my stomach, so I didnt test if they were alive, and then violently chewed them. I wanted them dead. She made fun of me a lot, but I killed them all and they tasted so bad! They were squirty and salty and dirty and she also made us turkey and truffles.

So this week was kind of dead because of the 2 holidays.

The big sales actually start this Wednesday, but as they go on the sales get better, but also, the supply runs out. So its pretty delicate and its all about timing.

I'm glad to hear about the backpack, but not about the hats. How do you destroy a hat?  I dont understand.

So this week we helped an investigator lady clean her house. She was wearing a RETRO Sharks shirt! I totally didnt have my camera tho, but it had Cheechoo on it!