WEEK #12 IN MONT DE MARSAN, FRNACE

Hello everyone I hope you had a great week! And just so you all know I
am staying in the Mont with Elder Douglas!

Now to catch you all up. On Monday we did all of our
emails, we did groceries and we packed our clothes for district
meeting the next day. Nothing too special really happens on Mondays...

We then took a train that evening to the city of Bayonne. We met up with the
elders in the city of Pau and slept in the apartment of the Bayonne elders. It was
really fun to be with all of the elders in the district.

Tuesday, I got my haircut early that morning by Elder Smith, and then
we all took a bus and met up with the sisters of Pau and we went to
the church and had district meeting.

It was a cool district meeting. We talked about the challenges in our own sectors and
we all talked about how to fix them and improve our areas.

Once we finished the district meeting we walked across the street to
a pizza restaurant and we bought some pizzas that we ordered the day
before.  We ate those for lunch and we drink the Kool-Aid that my mom
sent me!

After all of that we then went back to the gare to take a train back home.

On Wednesday we did service with our investigator Jean Louis. We
brought Paul the father of Ukrainian family in the branch, and we all
worked on Jean Louis's son’s farm!

We pulled weeds out of the ground and we worked in the same patch that
Elder Fritz and I worked on last transfer. It was cool to see all the
growth that happened since the time we were last there!

After service, we took a ride back to Jean Louis's house and we
had a really good lunch!

It was really good to have Paul with us. It’s fun to have him get to
know our investigators and learn to speak French with them.

After giving service we came back home and we got cleaned up and we did
our studies that we missed that morning.

Thursday we then took a train to Pau. We then took a bus and we met
up with the elders at their apartment. Once we got there we set
all of our stuff down and we planned what we were going to do for the
exchange. I was with Elder Smith and Elder Douglas was with Elder
Carlson. Elder Smith and I went to an American restaurant with some
members. Not too bad for an exchange! We were with a lady who went to
BYU for college and is a translator for the church in French, so she
speaks perfect English, but we spoke French for lunch. The restaurant
we ate at was a really cool restaurant,.

I had a big burger and Elder Smith got some barbecue ribs.

We then took a picture with Elvis.

After lunch we went back to the apartment and then we went and taught
a recent convert’s girlfriend. We taught this man's girlfriend about
the Book of Mormon and why it is important to read it with the Bible. It
was cool to do a basic lesson again about the Book of Mormon, I
haven't done that for a bit and it was a good teaching experience for
me!

The lady said that she will continue to read the Book of Mormon and
she will pray for a confirmation of its truthfulness.

After that we then went into centreville and we did some pass backs,
and saw some cool historical structures in the city and then we had to
go back to the apartment to meet up with the other elders to head to
their Amis house. We met up with the sisters also and we had dinner
with their Tahitian investigator we met up with the sisters also and
we had dinner with their Ami. We had some real Tahitian food that
night, we had cooked bananas, fish, raw tuna, and other Tahitian food.

After the dinner we then walked home and we all slept on the floor.

Friday, we got our transfer calls from President Brown. Elder Douglas
and I are going to stay in Mont de Marsan for the next six weeks! He
is the first companion that I will stay two transfers with, and this
is the first city that I will stay for three!

On Friday we pretty much try to make her way home on the train, and
then we went home and tried to get some studies done and other things
we needed to do.

Saturday, it was really hot! And we spent all of the morning doing
service pulling weeds for one of our elderly members of the branch.
After we did that we then went to the church and we
cleaned the church. So it was a morning full of service! After that we
went home and did some studies. After studies we did weekly planning
and then we went over to our friends the Longies and talk to him about
the Bible and French! It's fun to show the Bible videos and explain
them very simply.

After our lesson we started to learn how to speak some Arabic and they
showed us a cookbook written all In Arabic. It's a very hard language
I don't think I can learn it.

Sunday, we walked in the humidity to the church and we had a big
meeting with the relief society and priesthood body. Then Elder
Douglas and I taught Jean Louis and Dominique about prayer, we taught
them on what we should pray for and how we should do it. They took it
very well and he prayed for us at the end the lesson!

We had the sacrament after that and then we started walking home. When
other Douglas and I were walking home a lady stopped us and she asked
a man in a car next to her to talk to us, and this man asked us if we
would be interested to come see a new church that was starting in Mont
de Marsan. We decided that it was fair for us to come check out this
new church because we invite others to check out our church all the
time!

So we got in his car and we went to centerville and we went into this
old church that they were using for the day, and it was kind of like a
Southern Christian church rock band get up. We were probably the only
people who looked like they came from France, most of the people came
from Africa. We sat down and they started playing a drum set and an
electronic keyboard and they had a couple ladies upfront start singing
and they started singing songs about Jesus and then they switched to
Jehovah and then they switched to just these random repetition songs.
Then a man came up and he started preaching about peace and started
saying that he was a prophet. During one of the songs he went around
and started blessing people and people started yelling hallelujah and
amens and a lot!! We had to stand up a lot because everyone else was standing up and it was really hot in the church, and we had not had any through the entire day, we were
thirsty, the music was really loud, and there was just a really weird
feeling in the whole room. So we didn't really feel that good.

When the church meeting ended we talked to a few of the members of the
church, and the man who claimed he was a prophet shook our hands. And then we went and talked to the man that brought us in his car and he invited us to come again we said that we might come, and we invited him to talk with us more about our church!

After that we walked home in the blistering heat, we came home and I
took a cold shower cause I was super sweaty, and then I had a huge
headache so I took some medicine and I had to lie down because I just
felt sick. I think it was just a mixture of not eating all day and
being in heat and being in a really weird situation at that church.

That's pretty much it for this whole week!  The week ended on a really
weird note, but it was a cool experience that I can share with
people!

I'm excited to start this new transfer with Elder Douglas and
I know that it's gonna pass by very quick, it feels like we started
this transfer just last week!

I love you all! And I want to congratulate my brother Chase for
starting college today! I love you all and I hope you have a great
week!

Love Elder Acheson!