WEEK #4 IN MONTAUBAN, FRANCE

Dearest family and Friends! 

We had a wacky week! It's been full of trains...

On Monday we had our normal p-day. At the end of the day we went to the Gare and took a train to Tarbes. It's a small ville farther south. We were going to have Zone Conference in Bayonne in Tuesday. So in order to have time to get there, we came down the day before.

Elder Pesnell and I had a great talk on the way down. And once we got to Tarbes, we got a kebab with all the elders there. We were with the Rodez Elders and Tarbes Elders. We went to their "loft". The have a second level in their apartment! We since there were lots of people, some of us slept on the floor. 

On Tuesday, I didn't get much sleep, and we had to wake up at 5:00 AM to get ready and catch our train. We got to the Gare, and found out that there was a train strike. So all the trains to Bayonne were canceled... So we took a train back to Montauban. We got into town at 4:00PM 

We went and read the Book of Mormon with our less active member, Sr. Korpel. 

Then we went home. 

On Wednesday, we our only real day of work. We went contacting on the nice long trail. There was no one:/ so we went and printed off our tickets for the next day. Since we didn't have the chance to go to zone conference, we were going up on Thursday to have conference on Friday in Lyon. 

After we printed out the tickets, we went and scheduled an appointment with a real estate place to find a new apartment. Our current apartment is being sold.

Then we went and taught Frederic. We taught him about the importance of the sacrament. Frederic has improved a great deal since I came to Montauban! He has started to follow the word of wisdom, and seems like he's reading more in the Book of Mormon! So before his baptism, we wanted to make sure he understood the importance of the sacrament. 

So we went over the scriptures that talked about the sacrament, and even showed the bible video of Christ and the last supper. Frederic seemed to really like it.

On Thursday, we had our weekly meeting with Frere Caplin. We talked about the mission work, and we updated him on everything we were working on. 

Once we finished that, we had to hurry to the Gare to catch our train to Toulouse.
We got into Toulouse and then joined the other missionaries going up to Lyon.

We made it into Lyon and we went straight to Master Tacos, my favorite place. This week we are buying a lot of ingredients to make master tacos at our apartment.

After dinner, all of us went back to the office elder's apartment. We then talked together for a good long while. We all slept on the train, so we had a lot of energy.

On Friday, we all took the metro to the Ecully chapel, and we started zone conference.

The subject of the conference was to talk about the Apostasy and the Restoration.
It was a really great learning experience on how to teach. We need to focus on showing the need of a restoration by describing the effects of the apostasy.

So hopefully that will easier to teach people here!

After conference, we all ate pizza. There probably was a pizza for each person. The. After lunch we all took the metro and bus to the ancient ruins of Lyon. We went to the amphitheater, and we had the missionaries returning home give their testimonies.

President Brown then talked about how the place we were sitting in was older than Christ. 

After that we all came down and stood In a circle and sang our mission song "Les Angels". 

After that elder Pesnell and I booked it to the church to grab our stuff and make it to the Gare to catch our train back to Montauban. 

Saturday: we did our samedi sportif. We played basketball and soccer with some members and random people who were playing. I am starting to get better at soccer! I might even want to play it after my mission...

After we showered and got ready, we went and taught Frederic. We read a talk by President Monson, and talked about how the temple was an important part of the gospel. Frederic seemed excited to go! 

After Frederic, we did some studies, and then went to the church to play ping pong with Sr. Korpel  and her kids.

We had church on Sunday, and we had a good lesson of self reliance. So we all talked about ways we can become self reliant, and help others become self reliant.

After church, we then went to Sr. Korpel's house and ate lunch with her and her kids. We then played Uno. After some time of playing, we went out of the apartment and sat on the staircase to read the Book of Mormon. We read with Sr. Korpel's daughter Rachel. We talked about the importance of applying the teachings. Rachel is only home on the weekends, so we can't see her too often. 

After reading and talking, We went home and finished studies, and weekly planning.


In all reality, we had two full days of work in Montauban. We managed to do some good work on those same days! The rest was trains, and conferences.

This is now the 5th week of the transfer! Time has flown by fast! Elder Pesnell is super cool! And we get a long great.