WEEK #1 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello my family and friends,

 

Elder Williams, Elder Quinn and Elder Acheson

 So just to update all of you, I am now serving in Nimes, France.  Nimes is pronounced “neem”.

Anyway, I am now in a 3-some. I am serving with Elder Quinn and Williams. They are both from Utah! Nimes is a super cool city. It was built by the Romans, and there are temples, gardens, and statues all over the place. It's pretty big, and I feel pretty happy to be here! 

 

With Elder Beck

With The Toulouse Zone

So as for the week before I was transferred. We went to Toulouse on Monday to hang out with the zone. We went to a cathedral and played Frisbee in the garden to the side. We then walked around the city and looked at shops. I spent some time with Elder Beck. He is a really cool guy. We eventually went to the church, and Elder Beck and I played the piano. He has showed me some really cool tricks.

Saying goodbye to Elder Wall

President called us, and he said that he needed us to come up to Lyon because of an emergency transfer on Tuesday morning. So we had to go back to Montauban and pack. We went and said goodbye to St. Korpal. She was really sad to see us go. I will really miss her. 

Serving in the rain in Lyon

We then took the train up to Lyon the next day. We hung with the office elders. We did receipts and some random tasks. The new day we had district meeting with the Ecully District. We then went on exchange with the Ecully Zone leaders. We visited a member, and talked about some of their friends who they wanted to invite to church. We then took the bus back to their apartment. It started to rain a lot, and we had to walk to the apartment. A lady was at the stop and asked us to help her. She needed to get to another stop, so we carried her stuff in the rain, and turns out there were no more buses. So we brought her to the apartment lobby to get out of the rain. We were able to call a taxi. We taught her the restoration and gave her a card. She was super thankful and said that she would look at the card. 

The next day we went and worked in the office. President called me and told me I would go down to Nimes the next day. So I did. I was sent alone on the train. It felt weird but pretty nice to be alone.

 

Transfer to Nimes

The elders picked me up, and we came back and ate. Then we went and contacted! 

The next day we did weekly planning, and then we walked around some more to try and talk to people. We don't have any investigators at the moment.

We have a ward, but it's the same size as a branch. We do have a nice building, and it's under construction. 

After church we had dinner with an American guy and his wife from Spain. We ate some tacos. It was great to be with an American. We learned how to memorize the Ten Commandments and the gospel of Jesus Christ with our fingers. 

We then got dropped off by the American husband back home. 

I don't really know what to say about Nimes! It's pretty and I think I'll like it! I guess you will have to read the letters that follow! 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love Elder Acheson! 

WEEK #14 IN MONTAUBAN, FRANCE

Hello family and friends!

I hope that you are having a great springtime! It's a little rainy here, but there have been some good days of sunlight! 

So we have had a pretty busy week here! We taught 6 lessons this week! Pretty good! :) So instead of going day by day, I'll just list different subjects, and you can enjoy them while you read! 

So we have our investigator Jean-Phillip. He is progressing fine, and we taught him more about the Book of Mormon. We read a chapter and we discuss it to him. We also answer his questions that he has from his studies.

We have our other Investigator Brianna. We only saw her once this week. We went to a park and we read the intro to the Book of Mormon. It's a little harder to get her started on it. We still don't know why.  That was the majority of the lesson. We try to just talk and have her be comfortable with us. She leaves France at the end of this month, so we are trying to get her hyped up to meet the missionaries in America. 

Our less active Sr. Korpal came to church on Sunday! She came for the Sacrament, then she left to go back and be with her kids. The members were super happy to see her! I don't know how long it was ago that she came to church, but we got her there! 

We have been reading with her, and we did her dishes one day. She is super funny! She likes to give us exercises to do. 

The mission moving team came to give us a new sofa and some chairs! It was fun to be with Elder Carlson again. I used to be part of the moving team.  We made them homemade Master Tacos. I still don't know how to make it exactly like the one in Lyon... I'm super upset.

We had Zone Training in Toulouse! That was a great training. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We then ate Chicago style pizza. Elder Walters the District Leader made it. 

Then we all gathered around our zone leader Elder Beck. He is a musician from New York, and he showed us some tricks on the piano. He played one of my favorite songs "I Will Possess Your Heart" By Death Cab for Cutie. He is really good!

We went to the market on Saturday, and we met Sylvia again! She's the lady that we gave a Book of Mormon to on the walking line. She really seems to like us! She said that she started to read the Book of Mormon! She said she read the first chapter, so we told her to continue and to come to church. She would be great there!

So on Sunday we walked the line. We got some good conversations and we gave out a Book of Mormon! We then went to Sr. Korpal’s to read some scriptures with her. While walking back, a lady stopped us and asked if we help people stop drinking. We said sure, and then her boyfriend came up and started talking to us pretty harsh. He probably was drunk too. But we got the lady's number, and we gave her the plan of salvation pamphlet. It was perfect.  She asked why we are here, and where we will go after! So hopefully she reads, stops drinking, and helps her boyfriend stop as well, and then they get baptized! \

We then went to the Dieute’s house to have some good sandwiches! They are a super great family. We are happy to always go over. We made some Peanut Butter cookies, and they seemed to really like them.

Well, I don't know what else to add! Frederic is going strong. We read the Book of Mormon with him a few times a week, and he gives us French classes. We try to talk to people, and try to teach when we can. 

I guess that's all for now! I love you all! Hope you have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder Race Acheson

WEEK #13 IN MONTAUBAN, FRANCE

Hello friends and family,

 I hope you all had a great conference weekend. I know that I did. We had our investigator Jean-Phillip come. He come to most of the sessions and it seems that he really liked it. We had another man named Jean-Claude who came. He has only met with the missionaries a couple times, but he does know a little about the church. He only watched a part of a session because he had to go somewhere else. He said it was interesting. So we will try and see him this week and talk to him more about conference. I love LDS General Conference for so many reasons.

 We gather together twice a year to listen to direction from a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson and the Twelve Apostles.  

My testimony of Jesus Christ grows each time I take the time to listen the conference talks.  Another special reason why I love General Conference is because I have two beautiful aunts in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  

My aunts, Bonnie Lee and Betsy Lee Bailey.  Both sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

So as for the week, here it goes.

On Monday it was Easter Monday. So no stores were open, buses didn't run, and we spent the day at a member’s house. We ate for a while and even played some football. I don't know what happened but I ended up ripping my pants. So Jeremy, the 27-year-old member that we play sports with, gave me his jeans for the day. We were with the Perez Family. 

On Tuesday we did groceries with Sr. Korpal at the same time. We then did some contacting. We then met Brianna at the church and we had a good lesson with her. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and we answered some of her questions.

Wednesday, we went took an emergency trip to the mall to H&M to get some p-day pants for me. We then taught Jean-Phillip at the church and that went well! Jean-Phillip is now in 2 Nephi of the Book of Mormon and he seems to really like. We went over the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We then called up Brianna (the American girl) and then we took a bus and went to the super market and we got some Root beer. American’s love root beer. We talked a lot during the walk, and just spent some time with her. We sat down at a bench and we answered some of her questions. We are working with her to start reading the Book of Mormon. She is really believing, and she has had lots of events to help her have faith. So now we are just working to have her study the word of the prophets. 

Thursday We went shopping again with Sr. Korpal. We love to spend time with her. We know that it helps her to have contact with active members (I hope we can be known as active members). We know that it means a lot to her.

We taught Jean-Phillip and we went over tithing and the other commandments like the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. He said that he will try to keep all the commandments, so we are pretty happy with him.

After that we went over to Frederic's house and we taught him the last lesson of integration. We taught him a little about general conference. Showed him what the Conference center looks like, and how the people give talks. 

Since we are now finished with the lessons, we will start studying with him a few times each week. We plan to read a chapter with him, and help him understand it, and then give him a new assignment. That way we can help him push through the Book of Mormon. We then went over to Sr. Korpal's. We started the Book of Mormon again. We know that will help her have the spirit with her more often. We have made lots of good progress with her! She said that she will come to church next week. So hopefully that will all go according to plan.  We then made it home and started to eat. We then got a text from the Branch President to tell us to get on Skype for the branch Council. We ran all the way to the church in the rain to get there. 

On Friday we did our weekly planning. So that took most of the morning and part of the afternoon. We then went to the Church to teach Jean-Phillip. We went over what to expect for General Conference. We went over what to expect and told him to come with a question in his head. It turned out to be a good lesson. 

We came back to the apartment because we needed to make some dessert for a dinner that evening. It also happened to be April Fools. So Sr. Korpal called us and told us that she saw us on the T.V. We were walking in the background of a news cast. We thought she was serious because we were walking in Centre Ville at the time that she said that she saw us. She then said "Poisson d'avril" (April Fools) I have to say, she got us pretty good. 

We made some calls that night, and we tried to invite people to come to Conference at the church on Saturday and Sunday. That’s how we got Jean-Claude to come. So I guess calls sometimes work! 

We then got picked up to go to the Family Dieute’s house. We had some pizza with their family and another family in the branch. The family Yonnet. It’s always fun to be at their house. We had some Cheddar pizza and it didn’t turn out too bad. They really liked the bread we brought as well for dessert. 

On Saturday we went to the church to make sure that the T.V. was going to work. Jeremy was there to show us how it worked. He then took us to a really good bakery and we got some sandwiches. It’s cool to hang with Jeremy. He is 27 but he is pretty much our age. We coached him on his dating situation and encouraged him about “eternal families.” 

We went out and contacted. I went up to a lady and very confidently said "excuse me Monsieur" (excuse me mister) on accident... I kept a straight face and then kept walking realizing what I said... The funny thing is that she stopped and said yes? But I dropped the ball on that conversation. I was too embarrassed.

While we were walking further down the street we stopped this couple and we had a really great conversation with them! We ended up giving them a Book of Mormon. We hope that they will call us!  

We then went to the church at 6 in the night to watch conference. Because of the time difference we have to watch it in the evening. 

On Sunday, we did studies in the morning. There was a marathon right outside our window. The finish line was just down the road.  Also for personal study, I read a really good talk to missionaries called the 4th Missionary. I am trying harder now to become a more engaged missionary. I only have so long left on my mission, and I know I need to improve a great deal.

 

It is finally warm enough to wear short sleeves!

We spent all day at the church watching the sessions. We had Frederic and Sr. Korpal came to for the 6:00 session. Like I said at the top of this letter, we had a potential ami come named Jean-Claude. So we will see where that goes!

Anyways, that's the week. It was pretty good! So we will see how next week turns out! I love you all, and will talk to you all soon! 

Love, Elder Race Acheson