Elizabeth Smart is going to the France, Paris Mission

Hi everybody. Mom mentioned that Elizabeth Smart had gotten her call here which I did know about, so hopefully I'll get to serve around her. So ya I had heard that a while back and thought it was pretty cool. I was going to ask if you had heard anything about it by chance but decided to just act like it was normal since I'm sure she'll probably be wanting to be treated normally. So how did you hear about it, is it in papers or something? That seems like it would be a little annoying. But ya hopefully I'll get to know her, that would be cool.

And yes I had heard about the BYU game and have decided to do my best to not care from now on. It's not a noble thing like I'm trying to concentrate more or anything, because I certainly would have kept worrying had they not lost but for now they seem to be scared of having a good season. I guess I'll just assume things will change when I get back, not sure how, maybe I'll just walk on or something.

But anyways not much happened this week. We just started the transfer so we've been doing the start of transfer stuff like cleaning etc. We do have much more work now that I am in the other equipe so that's good. Today was Paris P-Day again and we just got done with the football game but didn't feel like doing anything else in Paris so we came back. My team won the game.

By the way, we will be having the turkey bowl game next transfer and so could you look and see if you can find any of my football gloves? If you could just find two of the same glove and send them that would work.

And as for the shoes, my size is 11 and Ecco shoes seem to stay good but I will look if I ever have time for some here and see what I can do. But I guess I need to go. Love and miss you all.

An afternoon with an Apostle

So it's monday. To answer mom's question if we ever got with the guy we were going to commit to baptism, not yet. When we call him we can never get ahold of him but every once in a while he calls us. So he called us Thursday night saying he was at the church for English class and we weren't there. He hasn't been to English class in forever and then just decided to go the night when we couldn't do it because we were in Versaille with Elder Bednar. So he said he would come to church and we had planned to teach him after and he didn't come, so we'll see what happens now.

As for Les Invalides, it is a war museum but why I said you'd just have to look it up is because it is a ton more. It has a giant cathedral inside, and military stuff happens there and I don't even know what, but it's much more than a museum because everything that it was used for when it was built still happens there. So I couldn't even begin to remember what it was all about, and also we really didn't spend any time on the normal tourist stuff and what not but rather just played on the roof and in the attics and stuff.

So it is transfer week and we found out on Saturday what is happening. I am staying here, my companion is leaving and I will be with a missionary from the other companionship here. So his companion is leaving and another missionary will come in and train a new missionary and they'll take over my companionship's stuff. So I'll still be here but I'll no longer be teaching who I was teaching and what not. I'm happy about that because the other equipe had tons of work and ours had none at all so now I should have things to do. So that's what is happening.

The only thing I can think of to report on from this week would be mission conference with Elder Bednar on Thursday, which was cool. So the entire mission came to the Versaille chapel for that. It was cool, he talked to us for a few hours. The way he did it was cool, he didn't speak to us but just took comments and questions and responded and we discussed etc. It was cool and I really liked him, he seemed very human which was cool but it's crazy how well he can answer questions people have. It was a really cool conference, hopefully that won't be too uncommon to have apostles coming for things like that, supposedly President Staheli said that we would be seeing a lot and he has all kinds of connections. We'll see I guess.

But I guess I need to wrap up here soon. First though, one of my pairs of shoes the soles are worn like to my feet and have been for a while now but my others aren't worn at all. So the thing is that I don't think this one pair will do and those other are basically done, so I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure if buying and sending new shoes would be too expensive or what but I would have no idea what shoes I could rely on here or where to get them or anything. So anyways you could tell me your thoughts on the situation. But I guess I'll wrap it up. Love and miss you all.

Les Invalides

Here's Elder Lyman's email from this past week.

Ok well I will have to really hurry now, I had just wrote most of my e-mail and the page just died for no reason.

So anyway first of all I'll translate the sentence again: "It was necessarry that an atonement be made so that we can get to the Celestial Kingdom and live with our family in the presence of our Heavenly Father forever." So pretty close. (The sentence he gave us to translate last week: "Il fallait q'une expiation soit faite afin que nous puissions arriver au Royaume Cèleste et vivre avec notre famille en la prescence de notre Pere Cèleste a jamais")

Anyways me and another elder were impatient last night and so we went to a member's house who let us see the score and stuff so I knew. So of course I freaked and am now considering coming back and catching the rest of the season, we'll see. (the score he is taking about is the score of the BYU-Oklahoma game)

But it sounds like the week was good back there, I wish I could have been there for the sealing and everything, that's all awesome.

This week was pretty good here. We went to the Louvre on p-pay which was cool and also Sacré Coeur so that was fun. Not much happened during the week except a couple member rendez-vous and the rendez-vous where we planned to commit our investigator to be baptized got dropped last minute.

We did have our district activity on Thursday which was cool. Before it we had a joint district meeting which another district that we were doing the activity with and since our activity was in Paris we did it at the Paris church. Just down the street was the grand opening of a store called House of Hoops and there was a huge line outside because Lebron was there. So during district meeting I couldn't really concentrate with him downthe street so when it got to my task (we each do like a 5 minute thought or teaching thing) I said that for my task we were pausing district meeting to go get pictures with Lebron. So we went and stood in line for like a half hour and it turned out they weren't even letting people in, but before we got there Lebron had come out for a second and threw a basketball. So we didn't get to even see, though the chinese elders did when he came out.

But then we had our actual activity which was really cool. We went to Les Invalides, which is a big famous military building thing which you'll just have to look up I guess cuz I can't explain what it is really well. So it's a fairly cool place, it is huge and Napolean's tomb is there and also lots of other tombs of famous people and stuff. But what made it cool was that a branch president from a town around here is a firefighter there and so he gave us a free tour mostly just to restricted areas and stuff. So we got to see tombs of people that generally only there family members see and the coolest probably was we got to go mess around on the roof. So we were on this huge roof with Paris all around and it was just cool. I attached a couple of pictures from the roof but I don't think you can tell how cool it is but it was cool. But it was awesome. So that was basically the highlight of the week really. Not much other than that.

Rewards of service in the Mission Field

"Through service to others, we develop a Christlike love and we experience joy. Service teaches patience and long-suffering as well as gentleness, goodness, and faith."

--Merrill J. Bateman,, "Living a Christ-Centered Life", Liahona, Dec 1999, 13

Here's Elder Lyman's email dated Aug. 31, 2009:

Ok well it's Monday again. Ok to start off Kristi's translation was very close and I'm quite impressed. The exactest translation would be:God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. Dieu-God est-is notre-our Pere-Father Celeste-Heavenly/Celestial et-and il-he nous-us aime-loves. So very close, just really missing "our".

Next one; "Il fallait q'une expiation soit faite afin que nous puissions arriver au Royaume Cèleste et vivre avec notre famille en la prescence de notre Pere Cèleste a jamais". I did that one kind of fast and left out some accents and stuff but I think it is mostly good.

I actually find it funny that mom brought up burritos in a letter as a recipe I could try because there something we do very often in the mission called a burrito fete (fete means party) which is just a mission recipe for burritos inherited from the Bordeaux Mission, though I've never really thought of them as especially healthy. Along with that, a question; do white beans exist in the states? Because that is what we use is white beans, which just seem to be normal like pinto, and the ones we use are in tomato sauce. So I am planning on doing to recipe often after the mission and I am just wondering how similar it will be to here.

We did service for a couple of less actives and their non member family members the other day and it was really cool. They were very very appreciative and, as where some of the family had been a little against missionaries and stuff before I think, they all ended up coming to the church that night for an activity (which was a burrito fete). Then yesterday the less active lady came to church for the first time in a really long time and then we ate with them last night at their house and shared a spiritual thought and sang and stuff and they seem to like us now. So that was cool. Also we had an investigator show up to church yesterday unexpectedly and he seemed to be happy and was asking about baptism and stuff so we are planning on committing him this week. So that's basically what happened this week.

Also, I had thought that we could only go into Paris on Paris P-Day, other than expo and stuff, but we asked president and he said it's close enough that we can go on P-Day. So after I wrap this up me and Elder Smiley are going to the Louvre and doing some stuff in Paris. So I was very pleased to learn I can do that on P-Day, which makes sense since it takes us less time to get to downtown Paris than it does to get to our church here. So that is what we'll be doing today and I'll probably be going in every once in a while on P-Days now that I know I can.

Pictures from the MTC

Life at the MTC

Josh and some of his Blanding friends

Thanks for sharing the bloodshot eye with us Josh!

Josh's best friend Dane Lyman

Josh & Dane

Pictures from the mission (France)

Here are a bunch of pictures that Josh sent from France

With President and Sister Staheli