WEEK #11 NIMES, FRANCE

Hello everyone! 

Elder Acheson excited to be with his new companion, Elder Little!

So it's really becoming summer now. It's always hot and we are getting really sweaty and tan. So first week of the transfer is over. I've been showing everything Elder Little and seems like he's picking up. 

I had a pants emergency this week.  Bless my mom for ordering some new pants from Amazon.co.uk.  I was able to get the new pants in four days.

In my new pants!  Thanks Mom.

On Tuesday we taught our ami Carlos. He's the really busy tourist guide. We didn't have that much time to teach him, so we went over the restoration again. We only really talked about that for a few mins because he wanted to tell us about his work. 

Besides that we went with Fr. Chapeau and we gave the sacrament to another member who couldn't come to church last week and we gave her the sacrament. It was nice to escape the heat. After that we went to Darty, a electrical appliance store to get another fan, because it's getting really hot at night and we are having a hard time sleeping.

The next day we arranged the storage for the Chapeau's. We worked with their less active daughter who's about forty. We took stuff out and placed it around differently. After that we shared a spiritual thought about doing service for others. We are going to try and see if we can invite the less active daughter's daughter to some activities with the young adults. 

Later that day we contacted and I introduced Elder Little to Guy, Jack, and Frederic, our amis on the bench. Then we talked to the guys who play Pitonque. I played a round while Elder Little talked to everyone. After that we continued contacting. We did some calls and got 3 lessons planned.  

The day after we had all 3 lessons fall through. So it was a day filled with contacting. We managed to see Carlos for 5 mins near the Gare. He was going to Monaco for the weekend and so he had to leave soon. 

At the end of the day we went to the church to a meeting with the bishop and his counselors. Elder Little had the chance to introduce himself and we talked about the things that we are doing with mission work.  

On Friday we talked with a guy I met the other week named Christophe. We tried to talk about the Book of Mormon and the restoration and he kept going on about all his problems with religion and was trying to debate rather than discuss. 

We contacted for the rest of the day and then ended the day at the church with Agnes. We taught her with another member, Sr. Rouzaud, who was there early to prepare for Self-Reliance class. We went over the Plan of Salvation in more detail and it was nice to have the member there to explain in more depth. Agnes took it really well. 

On Saturday, while contacting, Elder Little started feeling some pain in his chest and so we took some breaks while contacting. We contacted some people, and for a few hours the pain didn't stop. So we called the nurse and she suggested that we go to the hospital. So we took a bus to the hospital and got it checked out. After some hours of waiting and some tests, the doctor suggested that it was most likely stress or maybe it was heat related. So we are going to try and take it easier for a bit. Emmanuel Prunin was kind enough to to take us home. We got home at 11 PM. 

Sunday was a great day at church. We had 60 people show up. There were lots of people who were on vacation from the north. Ricard came and his 14 year old son came after Sunday school. During Sunday school we taught Martine, the mom of a kind of recent convert. We taught the Plan of Salvation and then we gave Martine a baptismal date. We found that the 6th of August would be good for her. She said yes! So now we now we have two people who want to get baptized. This exciting news since this ward has not had a baptism for a year.

It was Fr. Bells last Sunday so there was a ward meal together. A lot of the members brought food and we all ate together and it was really great. 

After church we went home and did some weekly planning and studies. Since the ward lunch went on for a while we finished the day with weekly planning. 

So that's the summary for the week. The smaller things that I left out is that it's hard to sleep at night now because it's so hot, even with fans blowing on you all the time. I'm starting to tan now, and that's not too bad!  We are pretty excited because the work here with some people is progressing. We only really get to see our Amis during church, so that's hard, but we are trying to see if we can see them more this week.

Well I love you all, and hope that you have a good week!

-Love, Elder Acheson

WEEK #10 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello everyone! 

Saying Goodbye to Elder Williams

So the transfer is over, and we got the call that there is going to be a change. Elder Williams after being here for 6 months is going to Valance with Elder Connell, and I am receiving Elder Little from my birth ville Perigieux! Elder Little is going into his 6th transfer I believe. I know him a little because I have seen him around the mission. I know he comes from England near the temple and is a redhead. So this is going to be a cool change! 

Saying Hello to Elder Little

As for the week, it goes as such. We taught our Engage Anges the gospel of Jesus Christ Monday night and re-fixed her date for baptism for the 20th of July.. It's been the first time we could see her for 2 weeks. 

The next day while contacting we came across one of the guys that we talk to often named Alan. He took us to a market and showed us around all the food. He was showing us all the things that we should try. He is super surprised that we don't drink wine. We try to explain why and a little about the Word of Wisdom, but he just is still surprised. He's a really funny guy. He was nice enough to buy us a little meat thing that was really good! He said that we could say that we had the region specialty. 

After going to the market with Alan we contacted and both Elder Williams and I contacted two people at the same time and we both talked to them for a good amount of time. I got a number from the guy I talked to and he said that we was interested a little about learning more about the church. His name is Christophe and he knows a little about Mormons but not too much. So we will try and see if we can talk with him.

Later that day Frere. Chapeau took us to visit a 98 year old member who is in a resting home. This member can't hear so we had to write everything down on a piece of paper. We served him the sacrament and I put a scripture in front of him to read when we left. He was a really nice man. This man was a distinct president back in the day, and was responsible for the Nice Chapel getting built. So this guy was a pretty important. I'm glad that we were able to help bring the spirit for a while. 

After that we went to the church and taught Anges. We went over the Apostasy and read scriptures together. We want her to know that there really was an apostasy and that the restored church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She does believe it and we are progressing with her. 

The next day we went to Montpelier for district meeting. We went over things we can do to teach with more power. It was a great meeting. We always talked on how to improve as missionaries and we shared ideas and it was good:)

After we got to Nimes, we went and visited with Gautier, Emanuel, and Melissa, the younger people in the ward and we all had some snacks. We shared a spiritual thought on searching for people to bring back into the church. We asked them to pray for people to bring back, and think of ways to help them. They said that they would:)

While contacting we came across Javier the Latino guy we taught a few weeks ago. We talked about sports and then we talked a little about the Book of Mormon. I invited him to read Alma 32 and start studying by himself at his home. He jogs often so we might go jog with him sometime! 

On Thursday, we talked with our friends on the bench. Jack, Frederic, and Guy. I mostly talked with Frederic about the Book of Mormon and things that we do as missionaries. He is really impressed at the things that we do. He said that he could never work all day and be rejected and try to find people. I gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to start reading, and to write down questions that he has.  

On Friday we got transfer calls and then we went to the market for a minute before we had a lesson at 11:00. Alan was there and so he showed us around a little more. He is like a personal tour guide.  The man that we taught didn't show up, so we went back home. We cleaned the apartment for a minuet. We then went to visit a member named Fr. Santerre. He is a really nice guy who is super active in sports and outdoor stuff. We talked about some of the ways he is doing missionary work. He has already talked to a lot of people about the church. We encouraged him to continue and not to give up. That's what the spirit of missionary work should be here. To continue and not give up on searching for people. 

After Fr. Santerre we speed walked to the church so we could teach Ricard. We taught him about Joseph smith and read 2 Nephi 3 where Joseph in Egypt prophecies about Joseph Smith. We are trying to help Ricard have a stronger testimony on Joseph Smith, because we will soon start going into the Word of Wisdom. Ricard asked us if we could help him on Saturday with a move. I believe it's is ex-wife/ girlfriend? But she's moving to valance, the same place where Elder Williams is going next.

Saturday: We went with fr. Bell and helped move Ricards ex-wife. We carried things downstairs and put it into a moving truck. It was great to spend some time with Ricard.  Ricards ex-wife is an English teacher, so we got to practice our English with her. We taught her some vocab on items in the home that we were moving, and we told her a little about what we do as missionaries. At the end of the move, we ate pizza and the ex-wife said that it would be cool if Elder Williams and his next companion in Valence would want to come tell her students about their mission and trip in France! So hopefully that turns into a teaching situation. 

After the move, we went home and I made pizza dough for a pizza party later that night with the younger members of the ward. While letting it rise, we went over to go see some of our friends that we talk to a lot. Elder Williams wanted to play one of our friends in chess. So while they played, I played Pitonque with some of the other people. I did pretty well again, and my team won. Mostly because the lady I was playing with could hit any ball she wanted to. I pulled my weight though, so I'm happy. After we finished we took pictures together. We have been taking lots of pictures of the people we talk with, because they have become our friends. We haven't been able to talk too much about the gospel because most of them are not believe, don't practice and are not interested. So we are being their friends so that in the future, when they see other missionaries, they will already know the character and have a better idea of who they really are. 

Later that night we took the pizza dough and a sauce I made and we went over to a members home. We had Gautier and his fiancé Stephanie, Emanuel Prunin, Melissa, and another young women named Gopalie. I brought my guitar and Gautier brought his and we played for a minute together. I had to then help make pizzas, and I'm proud to say that they turned out! Everyone seemed to like it:) We did the spiritual thought and we followed up on the list of people that we want to work with to bring people back in activity. They gave us some names of people that they will try to work with, and we all prayed to find ways to help them. 

On Sunday we got to the church, and one of the members that we prayed showed up for church! So we all all pretty excited. It was Elder Williams last Sunday so he have his testimony, and we took pictures with everyone after church. 

Gopalie, the young women who came to the pizza night the night before brought her mom. Gopalie was baptized 2 years ago, and her mom isn't a member. So we taught with Emanuel Prunin the restoration. We went over Joseph smith, and watched the 20 minute video that shows the story of Joseph smith. The mom, Martinee, is really quiet and shy. She knows a little about the church, and we told her to ask her daughter if she had any questions. She said that she will try to read the Book of Mormon some more and come the next week. Next week we will try to give her a baptismal date:)

After church we went home and ate lunch, and then began weekly planning. Elder Williams packed while I wrote down the things that Elder Little and I will do next week. 

After weekly planning, we went and passed Margaret, the Scottish lady who owns the old missionary apartment. Elder Williams and I took a picture with her.  We talked for a little with her, and then we had to go to the Bells. 

We had dinner with the bells, Gautier, and Stephanie. We had S'mores after and we took pictures. Fr. Bell and his family are moving to Utah next month and its going to be sad because I love the Bell family. I don't know if it's the fact that he's American and his wife is super nice, or if they are just super cool, but they are one of my favorite families. 

After saying goodbye we went home and Elder Williams finished packing. 

So yeah that's the end of the week! Now I'm in montpeillier right now waiting for my new comp! By the time I send this I will probably be with him... 

We now we are at McDonald's doing emails! 

I love you all, and hope you have a good week!

Love, Elder Race Acheson

WEEK #9 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello everyone!

 It's really starting to get hot here. Today it's a little more cloudy so it should be better today. So, this last week started out pretty slow. It didn't really get fast until Sunday... Yeah, it was one of those weeks. It ended up on a great note though! So to start off, on Monday we went to the Antiques Market and we were looking around and I saw a old English Bible. It was printed in 1836. I asked the owner how much it was and he asked if I was a "Student". He pointed to my missionary plaque and said that I could have it for free! It was very kind of him to give it to me. I decided that I will read the Luke 2 Christmas story every year for Christmas out of this bible with my future family for Christmas. (Sorry for the random detail). 

We finished Monday by visiting a member who comes to church frequently but not all the time due to work. He gave us a name of a less active that we want to try and pass. After seeing him we went and got a sandwich with him for dinner.  

On Tuesday while contacting I gave a Book of Mormon to a lady who didn't want to talk to me at first. She was really nice and told us to keep up the good work. While walking, some drunk guys on a bench called us over. I decided that I love talking to drunk people. We sat down with them and I became friends with two of the guys. I gave them a Book of Mormon and one of the guys said that he will start reading it. We sat for a little bit and talked about the restoration. Since they were wasted, I don't really know how much would stay, but they were really nice, and since then we have passed them a few times and they remember us. 

On Wednesday we were walking past a snack shack, and a lady that Elder Williams contacted a few days ago invited us to sit down and have some water. So we sat and talked for a bit. She is Swiss and doesn't seem too interested to learn more about the gospel, but it's one person that wants to talk with us, so we took up the offer to talk to someone. 

We continued on our path and saw some friends that we made the week before. There are all these people who play Pitonque. It's France's version of bowling. Throw a small ball and roll your balls as close as you can to it. 

I played with one the guys and it got pretty competitive. I made some good throws and got close and almost won. I lost 9-13. The guy I played with was pretty impressed. So was I because I haven't played that much.

After spending some time talking to the people and becoming friends we left to go try and talk to more people. We find that there are lots of people who are nice to us, but they never seem to let us get to the gospel. So we are trying to be friends and be good examples and set up the future missionaries that talk to them. 

We walked more and came across our 3 friends that always are on a bench the same time every evening. Jack, a really cool old guy who makes his own canes. He's atheist. Guy, a French man who speaks really good English because he worked for Boeing and Microsoft in Seattle for a few years. He knows Mormons and believes in science. Then there is Frederic who is the youngest of the guys, he's about 40 and loves to hear the funny stories we have as missionaries. He was surprised when we said that we don't watch tv or listen to the radio, and even that we don't go on dates. It's funny because we are now good friends with them. If we ever need to take a break from contacting we go over to them and talk with them. 

On Thursday we had 3 lessons planned but they all fell through. So we decided to spend some time contacting. I played Pitonque again with our old friends, and still lost. One cool thing that happened was when we were contacting and I saw an old contact so I went up to him because we had a hard time trying to call him. I scheduled a RDV with him for the next day (didn't show up). It was cool to see him again, and he seems interested, but he is just sketchy and doesn't show up. At the end of the day we had a great conversation with a hippy nature obsessed French lady. She was nice to listen but was more interested in nature and all those things. Nice lady, and we gave her our card.  

On Friday we tried to pass an ancient ami. We got in contact with her father and he gave us her number. Since we had a little time before the bus came, we tried to contact people in the small town. There was no one, so we went back and took the bus back. When we came back we contacted until we came to Jack, Guy, and Frederic. We talked for a few minutes and then had to head back home. 

On Saturday we went to the church to play basketball, and Fr. Bell was the only one that showed up. So we played around for a little and talked. He gave some advice on things to do to help the ward, and to make Missionary work more effective..

We went and contacted and I gave a gospel of Jesus Christ brochure to a guy on a bench. He was a little out of it, but he started reading it though, and that was good. He didn't want to give his phone number. We passed an old ami and walked across town to knock on the door, the lady who answered said that the person we were looking for is not there anymore. So we walked to the Gare and took a bus to go pass a potential. We got to the outer ville and we knocked on the door. The potentials husband answered and told us to come back another time. He wasn't interested to listen. So we ran and caught the soonest bus out of the town to try and get some last contacting in for the day. 

Sunday was the fast day of the week:) We had some visitors at church. A French guy who served his mission in Arizona. The church really makes the world small. After talking for a minute I found out that he was my Cousin Mitch's old companion. The church really makes the world a small place! 

There was an American family visiting from Utah and I sat behind them and translated. There was a girl that wanted to give her testimony so I translated for her when she gave her testimony. It's really hard to translate into English. There are some members who have big speech slurs and hard accents, so it's hard to understand, and then on top of that, in French you say the same thing 5 times before they get the real meaning out. So it was a good language practice! 

Ricard, our Ami,  came to church. He usually does a really good job coming by himself. He read a little in the Book of Mormon and we had Emmanuel Prunin teach with us. We read 1 Nephi 8, which talks about the Tree of Life. We connected it to our lives here and what we need to do to reach the fruit that is on the tree. Emmanuel was pretty bold today about the Book of Mormon and that was great because I think Ricard took it well. We haven't had the chance to see him this past week, so it's been hard to help him progress. He was our first lesson for 2 weeks. We haven't really been able to teach at all these last couple weeks. Because of the strikes with the trains it's been hard to see one of our Amis, and then the other 2 are always busy. We find people usually everyday but no one responds to our calls and it is kind of disappointing.

Anyways, after church we did studies and weekly planning. We were invited to come over to the Bells for dinner so we went and started contacting before we went over to their house. While walking "Elder" Sullivan Quinn came running up and surprised us. He was with his family and we got to meet them all. We walked around town a little with the them and took pictures and some videos of us all together. It was weird because the "Trio" was back. It was so great to see Sullivan again and his family. Sadly we had to run to the bells after because we were late. 

We ate BBQ and was with Gautier and Stephanie again. We all ate and talked about the Bells moving to Utah. We told them what it was like to be members over there and how many stakes and wards there were. It was funny to see their eyes when we told them that in a small city there were more Stakes then there were in all of France. 

Well, that's the week for us! We plan to have some lessons this week so that should help it go by faster! It's also the last week of the transfer, so we will find out what happens this Friday! 

I love you all and hope that you have a good week! 

-Love, Elder Race Acheson

WEEK #8 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello Family and Friends,

I have it a big mark in my mission. I have officially reached the 6 months until I return... It feels weird. Anyways, the last week here in Nimes was a little difficult yet productive.  Elder Williams and I didn't have the chance to teach any of our Amis. They were either out of town or weren't available. So we made some goals and contacted hard for the most part of the week! It's starting to really get hot, so there's a lot of sweat and I'm not starting to get a good tan line. 

Due to all the contacting we have done, I will just put the things that I found worthy of mentioning:)

So, Monday... After emails we were contacting and we saw a guy with a BYU Shirt walk by! We went up and asked him if he was a member and he said yeah and that he was on study Abroad with BYU. He said that there were lots of students in town that day, and so after we left him we started looking around. We saw a family that was waving at us, and it was one of the teachers. He said that there were lots of students around the corner. So we waved at them to come over and we talked with them. There was a good amount. About 20 students! They asked a lot of questions about the mission and it was fun to talk to Americans again.

They were hungry and asked us where they could find good food. We lead them to our favorite taco Kebab. We took lead and some of the students were talking to me when a drunk homeless guy came up to try and cause some trouble. I went up ahead and got him out of the way because none of the students spoke French. When I brought him to the side, he put his arm around me and kissed my cheek. 

We got to the taco place and I translated the orders for everyone, and two of the guys were super nice and bought our meals for Elder Williams and me.

We all ate together near the Roman temple and we all took a picture. I'll make sure to attach that.

On Tuesday we met with one of the sisters in the ward. Sr. Rouzaud. She is one of the stronger members and we talked about what we could do to improve the ward. She has already talked to her friends to find people to teach, so we went onto talking about things we could do better. She said that she was starting a Self-Reliance class and we were invited. That way we can spend more time with the members. We said that we would go.

On Wednesday we met with a few members. We met with Fr. Diemahave, who lives in Centre Ville and we went over some of the things he could do to help the ward. There is a frequent problem here in Nimes and that's all the members are older, and they have already tried to share the Gospel with everyone they know. It's kind of hard to work with this situation but we really need to grow the ward.

We met with another member who is sort of less active and has a hard time finding work. His name is Axel and we talked about his conversion. He seems like he's doing fine. He talked about how the mission president back in the day came to the chapel and interviewed him, he talked about the missionaries that found and baptized him, and it was great to hear his story. 

He really wants to help the ward grow and that's great. He said that he wanted to help us teach people and do things. So we will take people up on that offer. 

After that we went over to the old apartment in Nimes. The Landlady is from Scotland and we had a good time talking with her. She has known the missionaries for a while but isn't interested. She's really nice though. I got to see the old apartment and I am really happy that we are in the new one...

We talked with her 35-year-old son who lives with her, and we got to talking about snowboarding and skiing. 

On Thursday we went and saw a less active member who wants us to teach his friends. So we talked about what we were going to teach. We are excited because he has given us 2 of his friends and he is excited as well to teach them. We planned to go over to their house the next day.

After seeing Fr. Robert, the less active member, we went over to Fr. Prunin's. We walked with him to go pass a less active member, but she didn't answer, so we came back to his apartment and we shared our message that we are sharing with the ward. Emmanuel, Fr. Prunin's son has brought his membership records back to Nimes, so now he is a member in our ward. That's great because we need another strong member to be present and push the work forward. All 4 of us talked about things we could do to push the work. We had Interviews with President Brown the next day, so I was getting ideas for questions to ask him. 

On Friday morning we went to the church to skype President. I had a great interview. He is happy with progress I'm making, and we talked about the situation of the ward. Over all it was a really good interview. 

It was really hot in the afternoon and while contacting we really felt it. We went over to teach the friends of Robert, Fatima and Nicolas. They are the people that we helped move a few weeks back. Fr. Bell came with us and we taught the Restoration. They seemed open to learn more. Fatima is really open and accepted a Book of Mormon. Nicolas seems more scientific, and not really all about religion, so we will work on that.

Fatima said that she wants to come to church and we told her to come the next week, because there was going to be a conference in Montpellier. 

After some hours of contacting we went to the church to attend the self-reliance class.  There were a few members there, and we shared stories on being self-reliant. 

On Saturday we contacted and passed pass backs all day. We eventually met up with Fr. Axel and we went to a birthday party of a 10-year-old son of a less active. The mom only speaks Spanish, so it makes It hard for her to come to church. While walking there it started to rain pretty hard. It was strange because it was burning hot in the afternoon. 

We got to the birthday party and we thought it was going to be a small celebration dinner, but it turns out there were all the friends of the son, and they were running around. So we awkwardly sat and tried to speak to the mom in broken Spanish/French.  

 

Elder Acheson's creation!

On Sunday we went to Montpellier to watch the Inter-region conference. All the stakes in Europe watched a broadcast. It was good.

We came back to Nimes and we did our planning and then went contacting. We could only contact for 5 minutes because we were going to dinner at the Bells. We contacted this Brazilian lady who was walking with her 2 kids. She said that she was interested in learning about the family and how she could be with them for Eternity! So we got her number and she said that she doesn't work, so she's free! So we will try to go to a park of something next week and teach her. 

At FHE with the Bells, we were there with Gautier and Stephanie. They are couple in the ward. They are dating and turns out, Gautier proposed during the dinner! It was the first time I have seen a proposal in person. It was kind of cool, but I'm glad for them. The ward needs more babies.

Fr. Bell is really good at piano, and he played Phantom of the Opera and I sat next to him and sang with him. I tried to sing Christine's parts which are really high. I couldn't do it... I just couldn't. 

Well, there's a bunch of the random things we did this week. It was productive and hot. I appreciate how hard working my companion Elder Williams is! Hopefully this week we can teach our Amis. I will keep you all up to date with what happens next week!

I love you all, and hope you enjoy the start of summer! 

-Love, Elder Race Acheson

WEEK #7 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Dear Family and Friends,

Hey everyone! So I don't have too much time to write a long letter, but I'll include all the things that are interesting:) so we have been continuing to try and find more people to teach. There is a nationwide protest that's going on from May 31st to June 11th... So some mission conferences have been canceled and we won't have district meeting, and no exchanges. Weeee!:/ But President Brown has made the goal to have the mission find 1000 new Amis during the Strike.

So besides contacting a lot and passing people, we have an ancient ami that wants to be baptized! Her name is Anges and she is really cool! Her sister is a member in Montpellier and we have already taught her the first 3 lessons. She wants a review. We have set her baptism date for the 18th of June. So hopefully that gets the ward excited! 

Ricard came to church again yesterday, and we taught him more about the Book of Mormon. He read the first chapter and now we are going to try and study more out of it. Hopefully he can have a spiritual experience and get a testimony.  He also helped us out with moving a member. Two other members came and we went to an outer ville to move boxes into the truck. We didn't have the chance to share a missionary message, but it was great to have Ricard integrate with some of the members. We have talked with some of the members and we are going to try and have some evenings and hang out together and get Ricard in better relationships with the members. Hopefully that helps. 

We taught our ami Carlos again. We went over the plan of salvation. We gave him the Book of Mormon and he said that we will start reading it. The problem with him is that he is super busy. He said that he was going to Dubai for a business trip for a week or two. So we will see if he's back this week. Margo, the 18-year-old girl that we taught last Sunday, was in London all week, so we will see if she's open this week. 

One cool miracle was we were leaving a store and a guy stopped us and asked if he could talk. He took us to his apartment and we taught him the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. His name is Javier and he's from Mexico. He speaks English and French. So we switched between French and English to teach him. He isn't super practicing at the moment, but hopefully we can teach him again. We will call him this week. 

We had a great district meeting about 3 things we can improve in to be more successful. Faith, change, and hard work/accountability. It was great because we learned more about what we can do to become more dedicated. 

It's been a hard week due to the hot weather and increase amount of tourists. There are days where no one stops and talks. We did manage to get a few good conversations with people. We are trying to hand out more lesson pamphlets and Books of Mormon.

We have tried to visit more members, and we had a good meeting with a member named Frere Zogo. He's a musician and he showed us his music that he made. He sang church hymns in French with an African twist. 

For the past few weeks we have tried to play basketball on Saturdays and then try and teach people. We had the chance to play this last Saturday. Speaking of basketball, we were at the church waiting to teach Anges, and there were two guys on the church court and they were playing. We had some time, so we played them. We were still in our white shirts and pants, but we did pretty well against them! I figure that you're not a true missionary until you play basketball at least once in your tracking clothes. 

Those are some of the major highlights of the week. On the more spiritual side, the work here is starting to move. We didn't have the chance to teach all our Amis this week because they were out and about and not in Nimes, but hopefully this week it changes. We do have more people on our list of potentials. So we are excited for that! 

Well, that is kind of the load down of things going on worth mentioning. Have a great week guys! 

Love, Elder Race Acheson 

WEEK #6 IN NIMES, FRANCE

Hello everyone! 

So this week has been a great one! Lots of things happened and it went by fast! So just to make it simple I will start on Monday. 

The zone leaders had to go up to Lyon for a leadership meeting, so they gave us the keys to the apartment and when we finished up the day in Montpelier, we stayed the night alone in their apartment. It was cool to be in Montpelier for the weekend, we saw lots of cool places while we contacted. I want to server there someday!

We had to wake up early the next day so we could make our train to Nimes. When we got into town we had enough time to do some studies. After our studies we went and did our groceries. 

We contacted most of the day, and then we got a call from the Zone Leaders. They asked us if we could go to the Gare to meet up with Elder Stalh who was coming in from Avignon alone. They wanted us to stay with him until the other Montpelier Elders passed through Nimes. So we sat around for a while due to Strikes with the trains. 

The next day was a miracle day! While contacting, I saw a guy on a bench, so I went up to him and asked him the Questionaire we always do. Then I sat down next to him and asked him about his family and what he did. His name was Eustache, and he's from Africa.  We taught him a little about the restoration, and then gave him a Book of Mormon to read. I got his number and he said that we could talk the next day. 

We went to go pass a pass back, and we couldn't find it, so we passed a member that was in the area. When we came in, we found out that the members son was there as well. He used to be in the ward, and he helped us with the Less Active List. He circled a lot of people he knew that would be good to work with. He then asked us what we were doing the rest of the day. He said that he could take us to an outer ville to pass a few less actives. We said that would be great! So he started getting ready. While waiting, the father showed us his church book collection. He had a 2nd Edition French Book of Mormon from 1910. It was really cool to hold a old copy of the book we always try to give out to everyone.

We went to the outer ville, and we went to a small French village and tried to pass one less active. She wasn't interested at all, so we went back to the car. There was another less active just a bit father away, so we passed them. It was an old ward buddy of Emmanuel ( the guy driving us). The member husband wasn't home, so we talked to the non member wife. She had 3 kids and we talked for a bit, and she said that the husband was coming home in a few mins, so we stayed and gave a spiritual thought on the Temple. We testified of it and told her how much it would bless her family. 

She has some issues with religion at the moment, so she said that she needs some time. The husband finally arrived and we all talked for a few mins. The two friends caught up on life, and then we had to leave. By this time it was pretty late. 

On the next day we contacted most of the time. We had a few rendezvous that we had, but 2 of them fell through. We did manage to teach Ricard about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We only did the first half, and then we read the introduction of the Book of Mormon. It's really important that he starts reading. He told us that he's not searching for a different church, but he is happy to learn more. We need him to have a personal spiritual experience with the Book of Mormon to really progress now. 

The next day we went to Montpellier for Zone Training. We had really good training on how to be more consecrated and what we could do to increase our productivity. We all told why came on a mission, and then why we have stayed in the mission.

We made goals on how to find more people to teach, and made plans to be more obedient. I'm really glad that we had this training, because those are the areas that I am working the most in. 

After Zone Training on the train back to Nimes, I talked to a guy who was sitting across from me. We ended up talking about the Restoration and then we gave him a Book Of Mormon. He said maybe in two weeks he would be free, so we will text him in a few days. 

We went straight to the park when we got off the train. We scheduled a Rendez-vous the day before and it was almost time for it! So we met with our potential ami Carlos. We went to the Gardens and we sat down and talked with him. Carlos is from Portugal, and has met with the missionaries a few years back.  We went over the restoration and just about what he knows already. He wants another Book of Mormon, and said that we wants to meet again. He speaks a little English and likes to talk REALLY FAST. 

On Saturday we went with Fr. Bell to go help move a lady into a new apartment. Her name is Fatima and we walked about 25 mins to go to her house. We rang the door bell and no answer, we heard voices on the other side of a wall. I boosted my head over it, and saw a lady working in her garden. I asked her if she was Fatima and she said yes, and then she asked why I was putting my head over the wall. I said we were here to help you move. She said she wasn't moving, and asked me if this is how I always get my rendez-vous. I asked her to see if we could talk at the door. Turns out she was the wrong Fatima. We went to a wrong address. We have a few different Fatimas in our records.

So we walked all across town again, and made it to the right house. We helped move stuff and put it into a van. The man who was helping us put stuff in a wrong way, so there was no space. Fr. Bell, Elder Williams and I took everything out again and we redid the van. At the end we managed to put everything in and did the move in one trip. 

We walked across town again to meet Fatima and her friends at the new apartment. We took everything out and then we placed it in the apartment. It was already pretty late in the afternoon so we said that we had to go, but we will try and pass by to say hello and talk with them. 

After showers and studies we went out and contacted. We got into a long conversation with a drunk guy and he turned out to be pretty interesting. He talked about finding things out for yourself and mediation. He took Elder Williams arm and started to do weird movements and touching his fingers. He took a Book of Mormon and said that he wants to talk again. 

We went after that to the Bell family's house for dinner. While walking we heard a loud noise behind and I got really scared. Turned out to be a lady with a blow horn for a birthday celebration. It was actually pretty funny, but I still was shaking from the shock. They were nice and I gave a high five to the lady with the birthday.

We made it to the Bells and Diego the son had a friend over, so we taught the family about faith in Christ. We read 2 Nephi 31 with the family and told the friend why we were missionaries. The friend seemed to like the lesson. He's 14, so we can't really do much. Diego said he will try to talk to him.

We had church the next day, and Ricard came! During sacrament meeting we sang Called to Server and Ricard joined all the men while singing it. We then taught him after sacrament the Gospel of Jesus Christ in detail. We talked about authority and the Priesthood. Ricard still has questions on that, but we told him that he needs to read the Book of Mormon to really progress. 

After church we had to go straight to the park to meet up with a girl I contacted a week ago. Her name was Margo and she brought her friend. We talked to them and briefly went over what we believe and why we are here in France. They both are 18 and don't have really any religious background, so it was good to explain simply what we believe. We gave Margo a Book of Mormon and we invited them to come to church next week. They are going to London for a trip with their school this week, so we can't see them this week but on the weekend. 

After the lesson, we did our weekly planning and we went over to the Bells for dinner for Family home Evening. We had to go quick because it was raining really hard and we had to run home. 

So it turned out one a great week! We found a few good potentials that we will try and work with. We have made a mission plan for the ward to help improve the spirit of mission work. So we will try to see all the members and help get referrals from them so we can teach their friends. It was a great to have Zone Training too because I am trying to be more diligent and hard working. So I'm glad we had a great week, because we found a few people to have potential with. So, that's the things going on this week! It should be getting hotter here soon...

Well I love you all, and hope that you have a good week! The work is starting to move here in Nimes!

-Love, Elder Race Acheson