Wednesday, July 6, 2016

WEEK #12 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hey everyone! 


As always it's starting to get really hot... I'm getting more tan, if that's even possible? It's the 4th of July here and no one cares.. you all will have to celebrate for me! Anyways, I'll get to the good stuff!

On Monday for P-day we went to a music store, and I played some on some of the nice pianos. We then went the church to do our emails and we just relaxed. After that we went to the Bell family to have dinner with them. It was a pretty tranquil P-day.  

We had a cool experience while contacting the next day. Elder Little was contacting on the other side of the street and he talked to a guy for a while, so I came over and the man, named Victor, invited us to come over to his apartment to teach him. He's a really cool guy from New Caledonia. We taught him about the Restoration and he was happy to hear more about the gospel. He said that we could come another time and that he would read the Book of Mormon. I hope we can teach him regularly.

After some more contacting we went over to the Bishop's house for dinner. It's been a while since I have been there. We talked about the work that we are doing, and we gave them a spiritual thought on how to search for the better things of the world. The Bishop has two kids on a mission right now and they both come home in August. So that's exciting to have two RM's back in the ward.

On Wednesday we were contacting and we came across our friends who play Petanque. While Elder Little played, I talked to Jackie about religion. He's pretty closed on the idea, but we talked. He is believing, but he doesn't see how there was an apostasy. That's something interesting I found is that when people talk about Religion, it's more of a historic and culture importance. There is no thought of a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Because of that its sometimes hard to talk about differences, because then it turns in to talking about historic and cultural differences. 

At the end of the day we went to Stephanie's apartment and we played some games and at some cake with some of the members. We tried to invite our Amis to the activity but no one was available. 

We had Zone Training in Montpelier but there were lots of Delays with the trains. I think a train hit a truck on the track between here and Montpelier. So the Rodez elders came and picked us up in their car.

For zone training we talked about how we wanted to spread the missionary spirit to the members. So we made some goals and talked about what we want to do to help the wards do the Inter-regional plan that the church has made. That is to have every member find an ancestor, have everyone become self-reliant, and then to bring a friend to an activity. 

President Brown showed up randomly during lunch. He was stopping by for a minute because he was on his way to go farther south. It was great to see him! 

We made it back to Nimes after the training and we went contacting. We came across lots of Atheists that night. While we were walking by a Cathedral, there were lots of drunk guys who called us over. We ended up talking about the restoration and then we gave them 2 book of Mormons. They said that they would look at it, but since they were so drunk I don't think they will remember our conversation. We will see in a few days if they remember us;)

So for Friday we started doing our weekly planning and then we went to the church to meet up with some members. The Jones family. They are a British couple that are in Nimes for a few months on vacation. So they took us to a Chinese buffet and it was really good. The husband served in Marseilles when he was a missionary back in the day and we was able to give us really good advice on things that we could do to improve the ward. He said that we should focus on less actives. So after we ate, we went back home and finished our weekly planning, and then we took a look at some less actives that we could maybe start working with. The problem is that there are so many less actives that live far away, may have died because of age, or they are just not interested. I really wish we had a car to drive around and visit people. 

Later that night we went to the church to have self-reliance class. After we went with Gautier to go get a taco. I really like Gautier. He's a really good friend to missionaries and he's fun to be around. 

On Saturday we had to go get fans. We have had a really hard time sleeping at night because it's boiling at nighttime. So we exchanged a fan we had and got 2 new super power fans. They are super nice! Since we got them I have slept well:) It stinks that there is no air conditioning in France...

We contacted after getting fans and we had some good conversations. I talked to a guy about the Plan of Salvation for 10 mins on the street. I gave him the pamphlet and he said that he would call if he had questions. So I hope he calls soon. 

We went over to Melissa's apartment. She invited us to come on eat with the Bells. She was having the Bells over for one last time before Fr. Bell left to Utah. We brought some cake that we made. It's always fun to be with members and eat together.

On Sunday Martine came again to church. So we taught her more in depth the Plan of Salvation. We went over all the points and she seems to be progressing! She's really timid, so we have to ask her a lot if she has any questions. We usually can get her talking if we ask a lot of questions. She said that we can come over Saturday to teach her more, so we are excited for that. It seems like we have a decently busy week this week. We have some Rendezvous planned with some members and then we have a lesson or two. 

After church we had a small ward council where we talked about the work we want to do with less actives. Then after that, Elder Little and I spent some time doing some family history. I looked at the pictures of my Grandparents and started reading some of the things about them. I decided to do a batch of indexing. Our Mission president wants us to start doing some family history every Sunday, so I'm pretty excited about that. 

We then went with Fr. Bell to deliver a desk to a member. We then went over to the Bells to spend some time with them, because this was the last night that Fr. Bell would be in France. Melissa, her mom, Gautier, and Stephanie all came over and we had some Mexican tacos all together. I really am going to miss Fr. Bell. I am excited to see him back in Utah, and hope that I can spend some time with the Bell family. 

That's the week in a nutshell. Our ami Agnes was not able to see us this week, so we are going to talk to her this week to figure out what we can do to see her more. The work here is still hard, but I am trying to stay positive and work hard. I love you all, and hope that you have a great week! And a shout out to everyone that love
Chacos!

-Love Elder Race Acheson! 

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