The Moon, the Bear, and the Big Blue House

It was a good week here in Perigueux. We did everything like normal.

I notice some missionaries that burn out some weeks and send a couple sentence email to their families. I'm not going to send only a couple sentences but this will be a short one.

The funniest things that happened this week were teaching the Garcias, and district meeting. Elder MacArthur is a really good guy and he put together an awesome district meeting. As for the cup I am holding in the picture, there was a competition and I won. It basically means that I was the funniest and most knowledgeable on the life of elder Christofferson.

Our district meeting was in Angoulême and we all slept over. But, the Angoulême apt is tiny. We were packed in like sardines. That day, I went finding with elder Quinn and we had a blast. We saw a teeter totter and profited from it. I made dinner for everyone.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty normal. I got a beret from a member! Also, many members gave us chocolate for Easter.

It was a little sad because I had to say goodbye to a lot of people. Thus the subject line of my email. If you understand it, you were a nineties kid.

All in all, great week.

And, hello from Bastia. (On the island of Corsica)
Love,
Ancien sousbois

Kingdom Come

Every day of this week looks pretty lame in comparison to Tuesday.

First of all, on Monday, we flew from Bordeaux to Lyon.

Tuesday was the mission conference and we got to meet Elder Christofferson before it all started. We shook his hand! After I let go of his hand, I said, "let's get a good picture" and then turned to the camera a gave a thumbs up. Definitely not the thing to do when you meet an apostle but it was definitely congruent with my character. Anyway. We all sat down and President Brown stood up to address us.
Now rewind-
remember that goal that we had to find 187 new people that say yes to baptism? That started the 15 of February. on Friday morning, we had 55 left. So, the whole mission knelt at sunrise to pray for guidance. Then, the miracles came endlessly. The mission was amazed as we found person after person, family after family. On Sunday morning, we got a text that said there were 10 left. So, we got to work and finished the day exhausted. We didn't have the total before the conference. Ok, now back to the conference- He said some great things and then choked up a little. Then, with great humility, he announced to an apostle of God that our mission had found not only 187, but 223 people that have started their path to baptism. How incredible. I looked around to see many missionaries crying (including myself) because of the miracles we knew had taken place.

We flew back to Bordeaux and then took a train to Perigueux. By this time it is Wednesday and I am on exchange with elder Rellaford. We saw the Garcias and we were eating together. Then, all of the sudden, the little boy (he's 5) says, "what the ____" I'm not going to type the word but it definitely rhymes with buck. I quickly told the mother that that was a very bad word in English and she immediately reprimanded all of the kids. The angel daughter said he knew it from grand theft auto. The mom stood up and took away the game. By this time everyone was really excited and the house was loud. The mom said "oh I need to get that video, that always calms them down!" She proceeded to get the restoration video with Joseph smith and put it on. All of the kids immediately went silent and calmly watched the video. WHAT. It was crazy and awesome.

This week we also passed the jam lady. That old lady that gave me and Elder Berry jam. She was really happy to see us but still hates God.

Also, on Friday, elder little and I wanted to make a cake for one of the ladies that lives in the shop beneath us because she is cool and shrilled us. So, we made a cake. Long story short, it was a disaster and it tasted awful. I walked into her store hanging my head and told her I was sorry. She said, "you forgot the cake?" Because I had previously told her I was going to make one. I then went on to explain that I just totally messed it up and it was the worst cake ever. We are going to try again this week.

I would like to end this email with some lyrics:
Demons seem so small/
They're the same ones that I fought in all my nightmares/
And conquered in my dreams/
We have won/
As we watch them fall/
I begin to realize my only enemy is me/
KINGDOM COME

I like these lyrics because demons are real, but they can always be beaten when we realize at we are the only ones that can stop ourselves from doing great things. God, may your kingdom come.

Love,
ancien sousbois

 Great to see Elder Berry

The group of missionaries that came to Lyon France October 2015

 France Lyon Missionaries

 Getting better at giving myself a decent haircut

 Flying to Lyon for our mission conference with Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Hurry up, they're behind you

Ok, so,

I don't know if I have explained this already, but I'm going to explain it again anyway. So, we are putting a big focus on families right now so we contact every family that we see. When the family has a teenage girl in it, I know exactly how to get them to stop. Basically, I just make eye contact with the girl because what French girl isn't going to stop for two foreign guys who speak English? They will all stop. And their family will naturally stop with them. Anyway, on Tuesday I m contacted a family using this exact method. But, a problem that I have never encountered arose. She stopped... But her family didn't! Eventually the mom yelled back to tell her not to talk to us. And she left. Later in the day, we met a guy working in his garden. I contacted him and he told me he didn't want to answer any questions. So, I said, "that's ok. We are also here as volunteers so would you like some help with your garden?" He responded that he didn't want to answer any questions so we left. The street turned so we ended up passing by him again and he called out to us and said, "why do you ask so many questions? Do I ask you questions?" So, sassy me responded, "um, yeah you just did." He said, "oh... Yeah I guess you're right. Now, ask yourselves the necessary questions." You can imagine that by now I'm a little confused so I just stood there until he turned around. I gave him a weird look only to see that his wife was watching the whole exchange from the window. Oops.. Remember that family I was talking about earlier? Ok let's go back to them. Later in the day, we we're walking across a bridge and they passed us from behind. I said hello again, but the mom didn't see that it was us. The girl turned and said hello again, so she naturally fell a few steps behind her family. The mother looked back to see why (at this point they were about 10 feet in front of us) and then said in a hushed voice to her daughter, "hurry up, they're behind you!" Now.. You don't just let someone say something as hilarious as that without responding, so I said, "yep! We're still here!" What a good day.

Wednesday, I was walking down the street and I turned around and saw Zoe Wadge's long lost twin. I literally almost tripped over my own feet. Then, later, I was walking down another road (we do a lot of walking down roads) and I saw out of the corner of my eye a father and a teenage daughter in a car that turned to each other, laughed, and then both looked at us. So, I knew that they were talking about us. Thus, the staring contest began. I caught eyes with the daughter and we kept eye contact. I assumed that once I walked past the car, she would give up. BUT she was a warrior in this battle of stares. They started to pull off so it was getting further and further away. Just as she was almost out of sight, I thought "wow, I haven't looked where I am walking for about 10 seconds. Then BAM I walked straight  into a pole. Classic.

On Friday, we went tracting around the Garcias and basically we just met a bunch of people that sit in the dark and wait for death. It's really sad, but in small French cities, there are a lot of old people that just don't do anything. And all the young people move off to big cities. Eventually, all those little French towns are going to die.

We at a lot of cake on Saturday.

A member bought me a plastic cup because I told her that I had 6 glasses and elder Berry and I broke 5 of them.

This week, elder little recounted to me many films. I love that guy. Sometimes, he's the only thing that makes tracting endurable.

Love,
Elder Marshall Underwood

We saw some Alpacas - where am I, Peru?

Pea sized hail - it hurt

Folles

Elder StortiThis Monday started out and it was pretty exciting. So, here's the thing, elder little is pretty good at making cakes and so he was making one while I was writing a letter in the other room. Then I heard something fall and "oh no." So I waltzed into the kitchen and it seemed as if he took the cake pan full of batter and threw it at the open oven. I immediately collapsed in laughter and then grabbed the kitchen roll to help him clean it up. The cake ended up being really good even though half of it was wiped off the inside of the oven.

So March started and we taught 4 lessons to less active members in a day. We also met a lady that told us to have a lot of sex while we are young because if we don't, when we are older, we will regret it like she does. Welcome to France haha. I also received the amazing shirt that the McIleece fam sent to me. Thank you ❤️

Elder Storti - a Frenchy on the right

For the Garcia lesson, I was with Elder MacArthur who is normally in Brive. We taught them about the law of chastity and they happily agreed to get married. Then, we taught the girls. I don't think that I have ever been more stressed in my life. While teaching, they were literally wrestling on the couch and there was no way to calm them down. They were literally insane. I feel so much respect for parents that can control their children. In the end, I ended up pulling them apart and sitting between them while I asked them questions one by one. After I did that, the lesson went smoothly but oh my goodness. They were insane.

On Thursday, well, this is how I would describe Thursday: Background info, I made meringue. When I was young, I wanted to help my mom make meringue. She told me specifically to not get ANY yolk into it or else it would ruin the taste. Now fast forward. I got yolk in the mix this week. It was literally nothing so I thought it was fine... When my mom told me this, was she right? 100%. My meringue was awful. Another question: if you are too impatient to wait for your meringues to cook in the oven so that you can put in a second batch, can you try to fry them? Yes. Will it work? No. Will your kitchen smell like burnt meringue? Absolutely.

Friday we had an apartment check and the senior couple said it was the cleanest that they had ever seen. It was also one of the garcias daughters birthdays so we texted them. It made them really happy.

The weekend was not that eventful.

But, Elder Little skyped his family so it was really fun to see them - It was Mother's Day in England!

Love,
Ancien Sousbois