WEEK #16 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello family and friends!

 

Elder Acheson with wonderful Soeur Brown, President Brown's wife. She is loved by all the missionaries.

 I can't believe that it's already week 6 of the transfer and that blows my mind. As for this week it has been good! We had an exchange, zone conference, and lots of cleaning and service. 

All of Monday we did service for the Bell Family. We helped pack things and throw away things away at the dump. We moved things in the car and we and dropped them off with Emmanuel Prunin to some other members. We ate lunch and then went to do emails. 

At the end of Monday, we had Family Home Evening where we went to the big park in Nimes with some of the members and we played around. We hiked up a hill to eat near the big tower. It was great to spend time together as friends. Fr. Prunin, Martine, Goplai, Jeremie Daurgance, Emmanuel, Kim, and us were all there. We gave the spiritual thought on Abinidi and what he did, and we all talked about how Abinidi never saw the influence he had on others.  Abinidi was burned to death, yet his righteous message rang true to Alma and through Alma many others joined the true church.  Martine gave some great input and asked great questions.

We went up the tower and got some nice pictures. Muse the band was in town and doing a concert so we could see that going down across town. Afterwards we came down from the tower, we messed around on the grass next to the tower. Emmanuel Prunin and I started messing around and doing workouts. 

Martine started talking to a random family that was from Swiss, and we as a group started talking to them as well! We walked down the hill together and Martine gave them one of our cards for the church. While walking down, I talked to her and asked how she felt when she talked about the gospel with them? She said that she felt good and happy. I explained to her that, "that was the spirit touching you and you felt the spirit and joy that comes with missionary work!". 

When we said goodbye to our friends, and Emmanuel, Jeremie, and I took some funny pictures together. 

On Tuesday we had to shop for food because we were busy all Monday morning. But in the afternoon, Kim came with us and we did some contacting with her. She really helped! It was great to have someone that was fluent in the language come because we got a few complex conversations, and she was there to have our back. 

After contacting we went to the church to have Ward Council. We talked about our investigators and explained their progress to the council. It was pretty productive! 

The Elders from Rodez came to the church. Elders Steinbock and Kahn. They were going to stay the night with us so we could all go to Aix-en-Provence together the next day for Zone Conference. We went and got some food and took it to the big park and ate together. 

On Wednesday we drove over to Aix-en-Provence for zone conference. It was great to see Presidentand Soeur  Brown again. We talked about ways that we could help members use the plan that the region leaders have given us. We then went over ways that all of us could use the plan in our own ways. We have an hour each Sunday to work on the plan, and they said that for the self-reliance part, you can look at things you're going to do for college because future education falls into the category of Self Reliance.

On Thursday we had an exchange in Montpeillier. I was with Elder Stalh, and we went contacting in Centreville.  We contacted some English speaking tourists and we talked with them for a minute about what they knew about Mormons. One of the girls has seen the play "the Book of Mormon", so we were able to correct some of the thing that she has heard of. We continued contacting after, and we took a bus to go teach an investigator. His name is Avrahm. He's from Romania and he loves to talk. He really loves his family so we were able to talk about that. He's really a believer of God and wants to find a church that he can bring his family to. He said that he likes to talk with us and that it makes him feel good. He reads and progresses, the only thing now is his wife. She's not too interested, so when she's ready the whole family will progress fast. 

After teaching Avrahm, we took a tram to go visit a member’s house. It was right on the edge of a red zone. (An area where it's really dangerous for us to go into), so the member came in his car and picked us up. We ate with them and have a spiritual message on blessings given to us. The family loved to talk, and so we left pretty late, and made it home half an hour late... I really like the members in Montpeillier. Who knows, maybe I'll get transferred there! 

The next day we spent the morning cleaning the apartment. The whole mission was told to spend a few hours and clean their apartment. We then helped Fr. Chapu move some things into his apartment. We went right after that and helped another member move things to another apartment. We placed everything on his little trailer and it seemed a little sketchy... We got to the other apartment and had to unload everything and place it in the basement of the building. So it was a day full of service.

On Saturday we cleaned the church in the morning with the Bishop and his wife. Fr. Prunin showed up later, so it was just us few cleaning the church. Elder Little and I focused more on the sacrament room. We vacuumed and mopped the floor, then rearranged the chairs. 

When we got back home we ate and tried to clean just a little more of the apartment. Then we had to go help out another member, Sr. Aggrazzarian, whose husbands in the hospital. We had to take some of the stuff in her apartment down to the basement to throw it away. It reminded me of being in the moving equipe. I got super sweaty and was cramped into the elevator a few times. 

After that service we went over to see Fr. Prunin and I got some of the photos he took on Monday at the Tower. Then we did a 15 min Rendezvous with him. We talked about the Plan and asked him what he is doing to achieve the plan. 

Since we had to rush we invited him to make some goals. Then we had to go catch the bus. We ended up missing the bus and waited for the next one. While waiting, there were some nice people there to talk to at the bus stop. They were French natives with Arabic descent, and they were interested in talking with us. We had a good conversation with them and we told them what we did as missionaries and they were glad that they got some info straightened out. 

After that we took the bus home.

On Sunday there was another American family that was visiting from Utah. I also gave a talk that day. I talked more about the Inter-region plan. I shared some personal experiences with it, and I think it went well. It was the first time I gave a talk for a while. I was happy that I could talk pretty naturally and it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to b

e. It was nice that I had written down lots of the stuff I wanted to say. 

After sacrament we taught Martine and Gopali the word of wisdom with the Chapus. We had a really good lesson and the members were able to testify of the importance of the word of wisdom. Martine has already been following the word of wisdom for a while, so it was really easy for her to accept it. 

We told her that one of us might move next week because of transfers. She said that she doesn't want us to leave. She's so sweet and caring! 

After church we spent some time on the computers figuring out college stuff. That was fun. I was looking at the business programs at BYU and my mind was going crazy at all the possibilities. 

After we came back home and did some weekly planning. We then went over to Stephanie's apartment to have an evening with Gautier, Kim, and an old missionary who was visiting from Italy. He served here 5 years ago, and it's probably dating Kim. We had some French salad, and really good cheese melts on toast. 

We then talked about the Inter-region plan again, and we had each member talk about a specific thing they are doing to help the plan function. 

We had a great time with them all and we all took pictures, because Kim was leaving and going somewhere else. 

We had to leave after that as well.

So, it was a busy week here in Nimes. We were out of town for 2 whole days pretty much and then we did lots of cleaning and service. Next week is going to be somewhat busy as well! We have already planned some things to do with the members. 

I don't know what's going to happened transfers wise. I have been here for a while now, and a change would be nice, and would re-energize me, but at the same time, Martine is probably going to be baptized next transfer, and I have some good friends here. So it's bittersweet both ways. Well, I'm glad I'm not the one that makes the choice. 

Well, that's the week! I love you all, and hope that you have a great week, and enjoy the heat for me!

Love, Elder Race Acheson