LA MISSION D'ELDER LYMAN

Elder Lyman returns after serving a faithful 2 year mission in France

2011-03-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Everyone was so excited to welcome Uncle Josh home from his mission!!!

The wait seemed long

but, he finally came!!!

There were hugs and smiles all around

It is so good to have our Elder Josh home.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Well done, thou good and faithful son.

You have seen the field is white, You have shared the Gospel light,

You have earned the Savior's gentle praise, well done.

Elder Lyman is training Elder Shumway--aka 'Pud'

2011-01-01T06:44:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day we talked to Elder Josh on a G-Mail video chat. We not only got to talk to him, we got to see him. He looked so good and so happy!! He had gone to Paris a few days earlier to pick up his new companion who he was training and when he got to the Mission Home he found out this new companion was Elder Shumway (Pud) from Blanding. What a neat opportunity for the two of them to serve together the last 6 weeks of Josh's mission! (and yes, I said 6 weeks! Josh will conclude his mission and he will be released on Feb. 3rd)!!!!!!

Elder Lyman is getting transferred and getting a new companion

2010-11-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody. Well first of all I guess I better let ya know I'm being transferred this week. I'm going to Rennes, which is over in Bretagne. Rennes is one of the cities in the mission that everybody seems to love so it should be good. My new companion is Tahitian and his name is Elder Tehaai. I don't know him yet and don't even know how that is pronounced. My new address is 7, rue Bertrand Robidou (new line) 35000 Rennes France.

Anyways as for things here from the week, they were pretty good. It was really a quality rather than quantity week. The stats don't look great because we didn't teach a ton but we had some good stuff happen. We finally taught a guy we met a while ago who we had thought might not be as interested as we'd hoped, but he turned out to be awesome. We had been having a hard time getting ahold of him and I thought he was ignoring our calls but it turned out his phone was not working, like it actually wasn't for a change but now he has a new one. When we set the rendez-vous up with him I thought there was gonna be a decent chance he wouldn't come, but he came and he was so excited he was 10 minutes early, which doesn't happen really. He loved everything and was super excited to come to church on Sunday. He came, like 15 minutes early, and loved testimony meeting. Tonight we are seeing him at our ward mission leader's house. Our other ami, Jean-Marie who is awesome, came to church too. He had told us he had a friend visiting him from Africa this week and that he was probably going to bring him too. It turned out that his friend is actually a member and he and we didn't have any idea. He has been a member for 30 years but lives in a country in Africa where there isn't the church so he pretty much only goes to church when he visits here. He seems pretty strong though. Anyways Jean-Marie really loved church too and we'll be seeing him tomorrow. Then last night I called a guy who we've been wanting to teach but haven't really been able to yet and who we haven't seen at all in a long time to see if I could see him before I left. He was super sad that I'm leaving, as he has been with all the missionaries he's known, and said to come over. So he visited him real quick but couldn't really teach or stay but should be seeing him tomorrow or sometime before I leave. So I'm kind of sad to leave right now because a lot of good stuff should be happening but I guess I don't have a choice. Anyways I guess I better wrap up. Anyways I love and miss you all.

New Companion, conference in Brussels

2010-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

09/13/10

Hey everybody. So this week was kind of crazy. Mostly just I got a new missionary and so that is a very different experience. So far it's going good though. His name is Elder Wozniak and he is from Riverside Cali. Him and a couple other missionaries didn't get VISA's in time so they served in the states for a few weeks. He was in Louisiana in the Baton Rouge mission. I guess that adds a new element to adjusting when ya get out here. Coming from the MTC you don't really have any idea what to expect but they come with an idea and then find out it is not the same here. I think it is probably pretty difficult to come here and expect things to just run like they do there but they just don't. Hopefully my companion won't have too hard a time.

Tuesday we went to Brussels for the conference thing with Elder Ballard, which was cool. He was there as well as Elder Caussé and Elder Rasband. They all talked and it was really good. I just love hearing from apostles, there is definitely something different about them. He can just tell us how to do things better without making us feel guilty for not doing them better now and things like that just better than anyone I've heard. So that was all really cool.

New area----New companion

2010-10-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

08/23/10

.......as for things here, they're going well so far. My companion's name is Elder Anderson and he is from one of the Jordans, South or West or something. But ya, everything's going good so far. We've definitely been more busy since I got here than I have been in like 8 months. There have just been things to do since I showed up it seems like. I left Cherbourg at about 10:45ish on Wednesday morning and had a couple hours in Paris waiting for my train here and then got here around 5:00ish. When I got here we went straight to the church and I did a baptismal interview for an ami of the Lille elders who got baptized on Saturday. After that we had our meeting with the ward mission leader, who is a young guy who got back from his mission a little while before I got out but served in Paris. It's cool because he served in Cherbourg and I him by name and stuff and taught people he'd taught and stuff. Then Thursday morning we went to a less-active member family's house to do service and they actually live across the Belgium border, so I got to go to Belgium for the first time, though it was still just like a continuation of Lille suburb.

Elder Josh's Grandpa passed away

2010-10-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

08/17/10

Hi everybody. So I'm sorry and happy to hear about grandpa. It will be hard to not see him anymore but since he hasn't been him for a while I guess it's better. Don't worry about me at all, I'm fine. If anything I feel like I should feel worse but I think I was ready for it and I'm sure he is much happier. I think is somebody can feel at ease about passing over to the other side, it's grandpa. I hope everything is going good back there with funeral preparations and everything. Tell everyone who comes (and has an idea of who I am) hi for me. I wish I could be there for that but I'm ok with being here. As for grandpa memories, of course riding in the LUV to the field and climbing on hay. For some reason I remember a few years ago when he was eating at our house on Sunday he passed some kind of vegetables and asked if I wanted some to which I obviously said no and that I just wanted meat, and he said, "well shame on you!" and then sang me the 2nd verse of "In Our Lovely Deseret". I didn't know that was a hymn till I got out here. I remember biscuits and gravy on Christmas morning and the story of Christmas at the family party. I remember frogger on his old computer. I remember hundreds of gallons of punch and tons of Dum Dums. I remember "Life's short, eat dessert first." And of course I remember him always being a perfect example in just about every way. So that's what first comes to mind. I hope all goes well this week.

08/23/10

Hi all. Well it sounds like everything went really well last week, I really wish I could have been there. I love the idea of using the truck instead of a hearse, and I'm sure grandpa does too. It would have been awesome to be able to see everybody and everything but I guess it's better that I was here. It's so awesome that grandpa is with grandma and everybody else that he hasn't seen for so long. I can't even imagine what it would be like right now if we didn't know what we know.

Transfer to Villeneuve D'Ascq

2010-10-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

08/14/10

Getting transfered to a place called Villeneuve D'Ascq, which is a suburb of Lille.

The MacDonalds visit France

2010-10-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

08/05/10

Anyways, this week was ok. I guess you know the craziest part of the week which was seeing some McDonalds stroll into the chapel on Sunday. I was sitting at the sacrament table to bless and suddenly I saw them walk in back. For some reason I expected a surprised look from them like they had just been staying in Cherbourg for some reason and then came to church having no idea I would be there, but they just acted like it was really normal. It was not normal for me however. I was so confused. It was cool though, Courtney even got up and bore her testimony (introduced herself in French then bore it in English) and it was just crazy seeing people who I know. Home and the real world usually don't seem very real so that kind of thing is really weird. If you talk to them tell them thanks again for me for stoppin' by and bringin' the jerky, and thank you for the jerky. So that was weird, and just fast and then they were gone, it didn't seem like I'd really seen people from home.

Elder Lyman's friend is going to the France, Paris mission!!

2010-10-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

07/27/10

Hi everyone. So first of all, I knew it! I knew Pud was coming here, I've been feeling it for a while now. I didn't really want to say anything because I didn't wanna jinx it, but I knew he would be coming here. I have mentioned to companions that I was waiting to hear about him coming here. Wow, tell him I'll be waiting for him. I don't know if I could ever call him Elder Shumway however, but we'll see.

I just noticed the background of the computer I'm on is Monument Valley, that's kind of cool. love and miss everyone.

New Companion

2010-10-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

07/07/10

I guess the news from here is we got the transfer e-mail on Saturday and as expected I'm staying and Elder Lee is leaving. My new companion is named Elder Cutler and I haven't met him yet. I'll be taking Elder Lee to the gare right after we're done e-mailing then going back in a few hours to pick up Elder Cutler. So I'm here for at least another six weeks,

2010-10-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

06/30/10

Monday for p-day we went to Mont St Michel. We took a train down to where the other missionaries in our district are and they have a car so we drove from there. It was awesome still, and again really weird to feel this deja vu almost exactly 2 years after going there last time. Everything was so familier looking, it was weird. I could remember being in all those places with Kyle. I saw blocked off, restricted areas where me and Kyle may gone last time and it was just a weird feeling being back there, just like everywhere else I go where we went. So that was cool.

Zone Conference, Activities, Caen & cows!

2010-10-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a portion of Elder Lyman's email from June 15th

So as for this week, it was ok. It was still slow but we were out of Cherbourg a lot so that actually is kind of good from time to time. We had zone conference Thursday in Paris and had to stay Wednesday night in Caen to get there on time. Zone conference was good as always. We found out we'll be changing things up a lot and won't have zone conference each transfer anymore but once every three months. Interviews with President will be the same. That probably doesn't mean much to you but it'll change things. Anyways that night we ended up having to stay in Caen again after zone conference before coming back the next day. Then Saturday morning we went to Caen again for an activity with our zone. It was a finding activity where the whole zone did exchanges with members and did various finding things like contacting, knocking doors and other things that you wouldn't know what they were. It was cool having a normal member as a companion, and I got paired up with a guy that I had met before and is way cool. Anyways after that and some other meetings and stuff in Caen we went home. Our train had problems on the way back and it took like an hour and a half longer than it should have, much of that time was just sitting in the train in the middle of nowhere looking at cows. Then Sunday morning we again went to Caen because it was district conference. The conference was a broadcast from Salt Lake and Elder Bednar, President Packer and others spoke, it was good. So we were gone like 3 entire days this week.

Mother's Day brought a special treat

2010-05-19T13:08:00.001-07:00

What could be better than a phone call from your missionary? A video chat!!!

We had an extra special Mother's day call from Elder Josh.

We also got to have a video chat and see him plus talk to him.

He looked and sounded awesome!

A visit to the Normandy Beaches and Zone conference

2010-05-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a part of Elder Lyman's email from last week:

So yesterday P-Day was pretty cool, the missionary couple here has a car and had told us that if we wanted to visit something to let them know and they would probably take us so we decided to go to the D-Day Beaches and cemetery. It was really cool obviously. I think I maybe appreciated it more this time than last time. I guess one of the last times the McMullins, the couple here, went they met the deputy director of the place and so they asked a worker if he was there right when we got there and he came out and talked to us for a while. He's actually now been promoted to director. It was cool he was a nice guy and asked us if we wanted to help them take down the flags later if we were there, which is something the missionaries have done a couple times since the McMullins met him. So that was cool, when they were taking down the flags me and my comp folded one of them, kind of took me back to scouting days. Probably not a whole lot of people can say they took down the flags at the D-Day cemetary. So that was cool. Also while we were walking through the museum part the director came and found us and said, "who was your last prophet?" So we said President Hinckley of course, then he pulled out a paper he had printed off with the name Stanford Hinckley and the information for where his grave was located, in a cemetary in Paris, and he told us it was President Hinckley's brother. He told us how President Hinckley used to come every year to visit his brother until he was 94 and told them it would be his last time probably. So that was pretty cool that that guy went and looked that up for us and stuff, he was a cool guy and thought it was really good what we're doing. I guess the other thing worth mentioning from the past week would have to be the big zone conference in Paris with Elder Teixeira. I'll spare you all the details of how ridiculous it was getting there and back because of trains strikes and things but it was definitely ridiculous and included us speeding in a car to get to a train in Le Mans and seriously parking and sprinting to the train and diving on. I am still blown away that we caught that train and we really probably shouldn't have. But I'm glad we did because the conference was really good. I decided I'm a big Elder Teixeira fan. For one his English blows me away, it is crazy how good it is. And more than that he is just awesome. He just talked to us for a few hours and gave us training and stuff and it was just cool. I think he did a good job of motivating the mission.

Elder Teixeira

Elder Lyman is being transferred to Cherbourg

2010-04-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

Here's part of Elder Lyman's email from this week:

Hey everybody. So I guess the news for this week is transfers. We got the e-mail on Saturday and I'm leaving and going to a city called Cherbourg which is in Normandie. My companion is Elder Lee who was in the apartment with me in Nogent for a couple transfers and is probably my best friend in the mission. We've been talking about serving together since Nogent and we were actually talking on the phone a couple days before the transfer e-mail and he said that I would be coming up there, then he called Saturday morning before I had seen the e-mail and said I really was but I thought he was lying. It turned out the be true which is awesome. It's a small city on the coast with a small branch but I'm excited. We'll be able to go to the D-Day Beaches and Mont St Michel on p-days. It will take me about 8 hours total to get up there on Wednesday, with a 2 hour layover in Paris included. It'll be a good change I think, even though the work situation is pretty comparable to here I think. I'm gonna miss the ward here more than I think I anticipated, it was kind of sad saying goodbyes yesterday at church. They were all pretty surprised that I was already leaving because it was shorter than normal. Tomorrow night I'll be eating at the bishop's house before I leave which I'm excited for, they're Spanish and make really good stuff.

The missionaries need our help!!

2010-03-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

From Elder Lyman's email:

One thing that is becoming very clear to me right now is that church leaders are right and we, as missionaries, shouldn't be the finders but the members should be sharing and finding so we can teach. I've always known that was ideal but have never worried too much about it because it is just not something that we see very much and I thought the chances weren't great that I would see much of that. In the past I guess it was ok because we had other stuff going on but now I really have the feeling that the work will go no where here until that is happening.

When we just find somebody it is very easy for them to feel the spirit while we're there and have a desire to change, but then between that and the next time we see them it's even easier to forget that and to think of how much easier it would be to just ignore us and not give us any of their time. I can't even believe how much I've seen that this transfer. So things aren't really moving here at all but I do feel a little good that I think that might help members get going here.

The members are great here and I love them, and they're certainly not different than any other members but it's just that here we have nothing else for the time being as where we got by elsewhere.

A French sentence to translate

2010-03-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the sentence that Elder Lyman gave us to translate this week and the translation we came up with:

Dieu a appelé un prophète de nouveau pour que nous sachions comment retourner vivre avec lui

"God called a prophet again so we know how to return to live with him"

French sentence for this week

2010-03-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. Since you asked for more French here ya go; "Les adolescents se fatiguent et se lassent, Et les jeunes hommes chancellent; Mais ceux qui se confient en l'Eternel renouvellent leur force. Ils prennent le vol comme les aigles, Ils courent, et ne se lassent point, Ils marchent, et ne se fatiguent point."

This is what we came up with as the translation:

Teenagers get tired and weary, and young men stumble, but those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They take flight like eagles, They run and not be weary, They walk and not faint.

New Companion

2010-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Elder Lyman got a new companion and is still "exiled" in Limoges

This is from his email dated 3/1/10

We got the transfer e-mail Saturday and I'm staying exiled in Limoges, as expected. Quickly, I learned this week that Limoges comes from the verb Limoger which actually means to exile. Anyways my companion is leaving and I am getting Elder Schwind, who if you remember was with me in the MTC and then lived with me in Angers for 3 months. If you remember I was super excited when he was going to be living with me in Angers because me and Dane were both good friends with him in the MTC. Well we're still friends and have actually joked a lot about being companions one day so it's cool.

Pictures from the baptism

2010-02-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

We got pictures from this week of Cedric's baptism. They were so fun to see!!

Train Strikes in France....just a part of life.

2010-02-11T05:18:00.000-08:00

Elder Lyman's email told about the adventures of the week:

Tuesday we had district meeting, for which we go to Poitiers, our district is us, La Rochelle, and Poitiers and Poitiers is the easiest for us all I guess. So we are here in the middle of nowhere far from everything so it takes a long time to get places and we have to get up way early for trains because there aren't a ton. So we woke up at like 5 and took a train a couple hours to Poitiers. It was our district meeting with the zone leaders and we did exchanges with them afterwards. So me and one of them came back to Limoges after district meeting. Generally exchanges are like 24 hours but since we're in France where they strike almost daily we got stuck here because of a train strike and they were a full couple of days, which was weird. Then we went to Poitiers Thursday to switch back, and again woke up at like 5. The travel took up more than half of that day.

Then yesterday we had interviews in Tours, so we again woke up at like 5 for a train. Then that train was cancelled and we took another one 8 minutes later, 8 minutes that made us just miss the connection we had to make to get to Tours. So we were stuck in the gare where we had to connect for an hour and a half or so after another train we needed to take got cancelled. We finally got a train to Tours and got there luckily right as things started, which we didn't think we'd be able to do. So that was our whole day yesterday and why we didn't have p-day.

A little more about Elder Lyman's transfer

2010-01-27T10:10:00.001-08:00

Here's a map that shows Limoges where Elder Lyman has just been transferred. If you will notice just below Limoges is a town named Grenoble. This is where Josh's best friend Dane (another "Elder Lyman") was just transferred. He is serving in the Switzerland, Geneva mission. How crazy is that that they would be that close to each other!!!

Old Peopleish all around

2010-01-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. So I am here in Limoges and have been since Wednesday. It is definitely not Nogent but I think I'll adjust. It's good too, just in different ways. I guess this is too teach me I was just way too comfortable in Nogent, or maybe I underappreciated it. Nogent is one of the biggest, best functioning wards in the mission, and probably in France. It felt probably about as close to a ward back home as I could get here and just had tons of young adults.

That is not the case here. There are about 40 active members in the ward, and they're mostly old people it seems. In fact this just seems to be an old peopleish city to me. In Nogent whenever we taught with members it was almost always fairly recent RM's, but here we've taught a couple lessons with members and they were in their 70's or 80's both times, not to offend those in the family who are knocking on their 70's or 80's. It seems like about 80 percent of the doors we've knocked so far have been old people. That said, so far I love the old people we've taught with, they're definitely awesome old people. But it will definitely take some getting used to.

Limoges is pronounced Lee-moe-(second "g" in garage). As for any information about it, it is very famous for its porcelaine (I don't know how it's spelled in English, but if that's wrong, the stuff plates and toilets and things are made of). But anyways, I can't really think of other things to say for now. I guess I'll end it. Love and miss you all.

Being Transferred

2010-01-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

Elder Lyman's email this week said: Hi everyone. So I guess the news from this week is transfers. I am getting transferred to a city called Limoges. It's way down south, the southest in the mission.

Christmas morning call from France

2010-01-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

On Christmas morning the telephone call came from Elder Lyman in France.

The phone was passed around to his siblings, his nieces and nephews, his grandpa and his mom and dad. Everyone was so excited to talk to Elder Josh. He was happy and sounded great!!

A Baptism in France/Singing---a Concert!!!

2009-12-22T04:21:00.000-08:00

Yes Cedric's baptism happened Saturday, everything went well. I think he felt good about things. I did the baptizing which was fairly interesting, Cedric is like 6'4" probably and fairly large, and I'm not not 6'4". The water could have stood to be deeper if possible, but couldn't be. I kind of had to push him under, to the point that his feet kind of slipped out from under him, but the job got done. He wasn't confirmed yesterday because he tried and tried and couldn't get somebody to work for him, so it'll be next Sunday done by Elder Perdue, my companion. I'll forward the little e-mail the AP's send out each week with an attachment about a good story from the week or whatever, this week it was about Cedric.

It snowed Thursday and Friday then I think Saturday and Sunday as well. It's just a few inches but buses have been shut down and things have been a mess for a while. It has been crazy because we rely totally on public transport obviously and just at the same time as the storms and buses being shut down the RER (trains we take everywhere) is on strike. So things have been difficult and interesting this week. And it was a crazy week to have all of that happen because of a Christmas missionary concert. All the missionaries in the Paris area have been practicing for a concert, which was Saturday and Sunday nights, for the last month and a half or so. It is kind of a big thing and was kind of crazy. It was in Nogent on Saturday night and Versailles yesterday. With the strike all the missionaries having to get around was interesting but things worked out. We got home way late both nights. Versailles is clear the other side of Paris and we live on the A line of the RER which is the one on strike so that's why we had to get a ride all the way home last night, with mission home elders. But the concerts were pretty cool, some lady named Sister Anderson directs us and puts it together and stuff and she does a good job. After the concerts people just like us, it's mostly members there that liked us before, but they just kind of love us after the concerts. They mentioned maybe putting the video of it on youtube so I'll let you know if they do so.

Stake Conference/Scheduled baptisms

2009-11-28T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hey. This week's French; "Oui, je sais que je ne suis rien; pour ce qui est do ma force, je suis faible; c'est pourquoi je ne me vanterai pas de moi-meme, mais je me vanterai de mon Dieu, car, avec sa force, je peux tout faire; oui, voici, nous avons accompli, dans ce pays, beaucoup de grands miracles pour lesquels nous louerons son nom a jamais." (last weeks French was: "Et oh quelle joie, et quelle lumière merveilleuse je vis! Oui, mon ame était remplie d'une joie aussi extreme que l'avait été ma souffrance." Translation: And oh what joy and what marvelous light I saw! Yes, my soul was filled with joy as extreme as was my pain)

Monday we went into Paris for a while and just took pictures just to take pictures, pretty much just of the Eiffel Tower. So we just kind of loitered about there for the afternoon. We've been going to institute in Paris Tuesday and Thursday nights lately because we have Cedric to take. So that's pretty cool to see all the young adults from the area and stuff. It's been good to have Cedric who goes to basically anything he can.

Yesterday was Stake Conference, which was kind of weird. It was pretty far away from here, we had to go into Paris then take an RER pretty far south. Anyways it was just in some business conference type center place and didn't feel like a church meeting. We were on bleacher seats and there was a stage in front with spotlights and stuff, like places like that. The stage had the choir people sitting in back and then there was a stand/microphone and by that a long table with a white tablecloth where all the speakers and people were sitting. It was lightly decorated with flowery things and they each have a bottled water, like some business conference or something. It was weird.

But Cedric came and really liked it, which was good. He has been thinking about it and has decided he would probably rather push forward his baptism while me and Elder Evans are still here. He's been thinking maybe December 19, which will be like week 2 of next transfer. I hope I'm still here. He's doing great, he reads everything, comes to everything and loves pretty much everything. Also Jeff, the other équipe's ami, is being baptized this Sunday, which is awesome.

Happy Birthday Elder Lyman

2009-11-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

Hey all. French for the week; "S'il vous arrive d'avoir le sentiment de ne pas pouvoir prier, c'est précisement le moment ou vous devez le faire, en exercant votre foi." And last weeks (Et oh quelle joie, et quelle lumière merveilleuse je vis! Oui, mon ame était remplie d'une joie aussi extreme que l'avait été ma souffrance) was Alma 36:20. So anyways, thanks everybody for your happy birthday e-mails and everything. And I did recieve the package, thanks very much. I was not thinking of the fact that my birthday was coming up at all, I had totally forgotten, not because I'm good and focused but probably just because birthdays aren't the same anymore. I think I would really have completely forgotten but the other elders I live with remembered better than me. This morning there were some sheets of paper hanging up in the closet and I had no idea what they were cuz I didn't have my contacts or glasses, but I looked closer and they spelled out "Happy Birthday". And one of the other elders made pancakes, I guess for my birthday, so I'm well taken care of.

Things are still going pretty good right now. Cedric is doing great and still planning on February. He is solid and always reliable and we see him a couple times a week at least. He goes to everything that he can; institute, FHE, church etc. He's doing great. And the other equipe's ami, who I had taught a little and we were going to commit my first transfer here etc., anyway he told them yesterday that he wanted to fix his date for sooner and is now scheduled for November 28. So that was really cool. Other than that we have stuff but need to be able to find times when we and our amis/less-actives are available at the same time. But things are going good. . Love and miss everybody.

No Hot Water & Paris P-day

2009-11-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

Hey all. Ok so if e-mails are saying they won't send to me that's because my mailbox is just about full. I really don't know what to do, I'm a pack-rat (don't know if you knew that) and don't want to delete e-mails.

Quickly to try to answer questions, I haven't been to any of the places that Kay asked about.

I have done a whole ton of stuff, just the normal stuff. I don'tremember how long ago it was so I don't remember if I mentioned it or not but recently we went to Chateau de Versailles for a district activity, which was cool.

It snows here sometimes, like last winter, but I guess not every winter, so it could.

Right now it is getting cold and our hot water is out. It wasn't working too great so we called a guy and he came and checked it out and said he'd be back to fix it when he could but something he did while just looking at it made it not work at all. So since friday we have had only freezing cold water, so we can't do dishes, shower, do laundry etc. There should be somebody coming this Friday, but I am convinced we will be long dead by then. It's ridiculous.

The reason I didn't e-mail till today is because yesterday was again Paris P-Day. So we played football and it was good as usual, I am super sore as always but extra because it was wet and slippery and slipping around made things be pulled in weird ways and my muscles just hurt. We didn't do anything else in Paris except shower at the Chinese elders apartment (where there is hot water) and eat because we had a rendez-vous after.

But it was actually a great rendez-vous, one of the best I've ever had. It was with the guy that I think I mentioned who was from a wrong number and he is golden. I don't want to even jinx things, but he is incredible. I feel a little overwhelmed that such an investigator is in my hands. He quit drinking coffee a few days ago without us asking just because he said he couldn't know unless he tried. And he was very addicted. And he was planning on becoming a Catholic priest but says now he thinks he believes this and said it's hard to just suddenly feel like he's maybe been in the wrong place his whole life. He is a miracle so far and things look great with him. We'll see him Sunday at church, then for a rendez-vous and then he's coming to the YSA FHE with us. So so far things are looking great with him.

Other than that there is a lot of good stuff as well. We seem to be doing a decent amount of good right now. Hopefully things will keep up.

Getting a new companion/Teaching a lot of people!!!

2009-10-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Elder Lyman's email this week:

P-Day again. So as for last week's French, it was Alma 7:11 if you want to check it. (Elder Lyman sends a French sentence each week for us to try and translate. Last week's sentence was: "Et il ira, subissant des souffrances, et des afflictions, et des tentations de toute espèce; et cela, afin que s'accomplisse la parole qui dit qu'il prendra sur lui les souffrances et les maladies de son peuple."

For this week; "Or voici le commandement: Repentez-vous, toutes lest extrémités de la terre, et venez à moi, et soyez baptisées en mon nom, afin d'etre sanctifiées par la réception du Saint-Esprit, afin de vous tenir sans tache devant moi au dernier jour."

We got the transfer e-mail on Saturday and I'm staying here. I'll be getting a new companion, his name is Elder Evans and I don't know him at all, he's pretty under-the-radar in the mission. He'll come Wednesday.

As for this week, it went pretty well and there were some pretty cool things that happened. The other day we taught a couple less-active/pretty much active now people and a few of their family members. They're doing really good and stuff and have just made crazy progress since I got here. Then their family has been taught some but hasn't been super interested, though they like us and are really nice to us. Anyways a sister was there and she had a broken rib and was in lots of pain and was very miserable so they asked if we could give a blessing, so we did after the lesson. She was greatful and all. Then yesterday her sister, the member, told me at church that she got way better after the blessing and was up and about and had been trying to call us to thank us and had starting reading the Book of Mormon on her own. Also the mom, who is very nice but just didn't have any desire to come to church and was just not really interested at all, she saw the difference and was amazed and I guess she has been reading as well. So that's cool.

Also, the guy who was baptized last transfer gave us the number of his friend/maybe brother-in-law a while back and we finally got a rendez-vous with him. We taught with the recent convert and it went really good and the guy seems really solid. Also other missionaries in the area called a wrong number but told the guy about who we were anyway and he said he'd see us. It ended up he lives in our area so we set up a rendez-vous and he is awesome and very solid. We taught him again last night then went to the YSA FHE and he really seemed to like everything and we're seeing him Tuesday.

So that's some of the good stuff that happened. I need to wrap up soon cuz we need to go do some stuff but that was pretty much the week. Things are going pretty well. Love and miss you all.

General Conference & a baptism all in the same weekend!!

2009-10-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. Yes I got to watch conference, everything except for the Sunday afternoon session because here it ends at midnight. So Saturday night we went to the church for the Saturday morning session, then spent all day Sunday there.

Sunday at 11 was the priesthood session, 2 was Saturday afternoon, 4:30 we had a baptism, then 6 was Sunday morning. So I won't get to hear Sunday afternoon but I'll be able to read the talks in French when we get "Le Liahona". It was all good, obviously.

I'm not sure what I'd say my favorite parts were. President Monson's talk about service was good, obviously. I liked how he said something like a life not spent serving others is without purpose. That's something difficult that I hope I can improve a lot on in the next 16 months, overcoming the natural man who feels to be happy you need to worry about your own wants and needs. Sometimes it's really difficult to see how real happiness comes from forgetting yourself but watching somebody like President Monson, whose entire life is serving others, you can't really doubt it. I also liked the talks about hardships and hard work, like President Uchtdorf's and I believe Elder Clayton's. Everything about hardships being experiences to grow and things for which we'll be grateful later when we have the full perspective I think definitely can apply to a mission. Also Elder Clayton talked about how work is a constant burdon and blessing, and that is something I need to learn. Some days I feel like I'll really be able to be happy after these 2 years are over and I can just relax, which I know isn't actually true. Life is never going to get easy and I'll be happy when I really learn to work. We just need to find joy in the journey. I hope somebody around me will be able to get the talks on their iPod or something so I can relisten to them and hoepfully be able to listen to the Sunday afternoon session. With a full day of conference and being at the church sometimes it was hard to concentrate and stuff, and the English room just had the speakers of a tv and it was pretty quiet, so it would be good to go through again.

Also as I mentioned we had a baptism between sessions so that was cool. I mentioned the guy last week, he's awesome and was definitely prepared and ready to be found by the missionaries. One cool thing about the baptism is that a priest in the ward was going to do it but he couldn't so it actually was done by a guy who was baptized last transfer. We weren't sure about doing that but he did great and knew what he was doing. It was really cool.

Elizabeth Smart is going to the France, Paris Mission

2009-09-23T14:23:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-09-02T23:54:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-09-02T22:32:00.001-07:00

Here are a bunch of pictures that Josh sent from France

With President and Sister Staheli

Playing football by the Eiffel Tower

2009-08-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Aug. 11th, 2009

Well it's Tuesday again. I wasn't able to e-mail yesterday because it was Paris P-Day for the Paris-Villes, which you can probably figure out just means we get to go into Paris for one P-Day. It was my first Paris P-Day and it was fun. First thing we did was met at some field and played a big football game with a bunch of the elders from the Paris area. That went for a couple hours and was really fun, it was cool playing a football game in the middle of Paris with the Eiffel Tower off to one side and other famous things all around. Also it was kind of funny to have every tourist and every anybody walk by stop and watch a bunch of americans playing american football.

So we played till 1:30 or so then some of us walked over to the Paris Chinese elders' appartment to change and shower. And by the way I decided I want to get really good at my French so I can maybe get switched to a Chinese elder, I'm not sure why, I just like the downtown Parisness and their tiny little appartment and stuff. One of the Chinese elders mentioned that he is the only missionary in the world to sleep closest to the Eiffel Tower, which is kind of cool.

So after showering we went and ate kebabs and then just went to the Eiffel Tower to just take pictures and stuff. We pretty much just stayed there the whole time then had to leave a little earlier than we'd have liked because we had a rendez-vous but it was good too. So that was the highlight of the week.

Other than that I've just been getting moved and settled in, which is a pain but I'm well planted now. I'm still not super comfortable here and it just feels really different, like another mission. Paris P-Day was weird cuz I didn't know a ton of people there as where on the other side of the mission I pretty much knew everybody because of zone conferences and stuff. But it's cool to just meet a whole new group and stuff.

Anyways about my companion; he is from Oregon, he's been out for about 11 months or so and ya I don't know what else. We have different personalities but we get along fine.

But anyways it's cool to hear about calls and weddings and stuff, keep me updated on those things which would interest me.

First Transfer

2009-08-05T03:49:00.001-07:00

Here's Elder Lyman's email. He is being transferred to Nogent.

P-day again. So I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not but Wednesday is the end of the transfer. It seems like I would have mentioned it since that has been a rather large part of my and the other missionaries I live with's thoughts but I don't remember saying anything about it. Anyways this one was the first real exciting transfer for me since the other ones I was pretty sure I was staying here. This one I was almost positive I was leaving, and I am. I'm going to Nogent, which is a Paris ville. So it is just on the outskirts of Paris I guess would be the way to explain it. I guess I'll be going in to Paris fairly often for different things. For one I guess we go in each Saturday for something called expo. I'm not sure exactly what I do but I guess they give tours of the church in Paris for the public and I think we just go contact and try to get people to come. So that's pretty cool and different from where I am now, the church in downtown Paris is just like a few minutes walk from Notre Dame and stuff. That won't be my ward's chapel but I'll still be there each week.

It will all be quite different I'm sure. I'll be going from little Angers with buses that I'm very familiar with to Paris and the metro and just a much more city-like place. My new companion is named Elder Carlsen but other than that I don't know him, I think I met him once my first transfer at zone conference. So basically right now everything is just a mystery to me, I pretty much have no idea what to expect. I think the Nogent ward is pretty big so that is cool. I talked to Elder Carlsen very briefly last night and he said about half the ward speaks English, so it might be fairly similar to the ward here. So you know what is going on right now with me, the next couple days will be filled with packing and laundry doing probably.

Angers is going back down to just 2 missionaries, so my companion will be staying and will be training and they'll be the only companionship. I'll be living in another 4 man appartement but I don't know the other 2 missionaries either, but one is from Zurick Switzerland. So anyways other than that I don't know.

As far as my week, notable things would be zone activity and a ward activity we did Saturday. Friday we went to Nantes for our zone activity, which was a luau at the church. It was fun we just barbecued, wore layuh layuhs (can't spell it but that is the sound) and played sports and stuff. Then Saturday night we did an activity we had put together with the ward, it was on the Plan of Salvation. We had them in the chapel and simulated a plane ride then a plane crash. Then dressed in white as angels we told them they were dead and took them through different rooms which represented the spirit world, judgement and kingdoms and what not. There was a member volunteer in each room who explained the kingdom or whatever they were in. At the end they ended up in the chapel which was the celestial kingdom and there were a few short speakers. Then we asked who wasn't there (celestial kingdom) who they wished was. So it was supposed to encourage member missionary participation and stuff. It was a good activity even though a very large number of members couldn't be there because it is vacation right now so everyone was gone. But the ward here is awesome and I am definitely gonna miss them. I will definitely come back to church here when I visit after.

6 month mark, A new nephew

2009-07-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here's Elder Lyman's most recent email: "Monday again. Well that's definitely cool news about whatever his name is, hopefully I'll find out next week. I'm glad it sounds like everything is going good and all, congrats Jeremy and Heather and Livvy and Cohen. I can't wait to get pictures. Also congrats to the triathloners, that doesn't sound very fun.

Jeremy's and Heather's new baby McCoy

The "Triathloners"

As far as what my days are like, that depends on the day. Monday is p-day and then FHE, Wednesday night is english class, and Saturday morning we play soccer and have an activity at the church in the evening. Those are the only fixed things and other than that it just depends.

These last couple transfers we've been doing quite a bit of work and things with members, quite a bit more so than first transfer, so we have service and member rendez-vous and stuff quite often. We also contact and sometimes try to pass by investigators' and less-actives' houses. We also teach a recent convert quite often, generally a few times a week. So it just depends.

As far as who we are teaching, we have people but we are really having trouble getting a hold of people right now. We teach a less-active member and his non-member wife, he is an African guy from the Congo and she is French. We have a guy who we haven't taught for quite a while but with whom we are still in contact who is an African college student who is Muslim. We are now teaching a lady who is a friend of our recent convert that he brought to a rendez-vous one day, she's just a French lady. Then we have a Chinese guy and girl who just showed up to church one day, I think I've talked about that. And that's kind of it for now.

We had a kind of crazy thing happen yesterday with the Chinese guy and girl. For a few weeks we've been calling him and trying to set something up with them again but he hasn't answered and finally the other day we got a text from him that said he needs to think for a while about whether or not they want to keep seeing us. So that was just kind of that for now, and then yesterday we were walking home from our recent convert's house and we passed a man on the road who walked up and stopped us and started talking to us. He then suddenly went and open his door and pointed for us to come in and sit down, so we did. So we sat in his house and talked to him for like 45 minutes and he was kind of crazy and at some point he talked about how he rented a room out up stairs and how he had people from all over stay there and how at the time he had a Chinese guy and girl there. We asked what their names were and he told us and they were their full, long Chinese names but each had what sounded like the names by which our investigators went in the middle. So we kind of wondered and then they came down stairs and we could see them through a stained glass door and it looked like them. So we walked over and sure enough it was them and they were pretty shocked. They asked us how we knew where they lived and we said we said we didn't but their landlord had just invited us in. So that was all that really happened and we still don't know if we'll start teaching them again but it was pretty crazy and at least now we know where they live so they can't really hide. It was just pretty crazy that in a city with about 150,00 people and thousands of homes we just stumbled into theirs. So that was kind of crazy and took up some e-mail space.

But anyways other than that we didn't do a ton. We did have a really cool activity with the ward Saturday night which I don't really have time to talk about, but it was cool. Also tomorrow we have our interviews with president and it is also my 6 month mark, so that's that. Love you and miss you all."

Feeling good about the French language

2009-07-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Here's Elder Lyman's email which arrived Monday, July 20th, 2009!

"Monday again. To Answer questions: I'm feeling fine about my French, it's not great but it's not a real source of stress or anything usually, but some days are better than others. We haven't been able to contact our Chinese amis for a while but I think we will soon and will continue teaching them. Right now we are teaching them, a referal from a recent convert, a less-active guy and his girlfriend and trying to get ahold of other amis.

It has been really hot around here, it was really bad a couple weeks ago for a while but it's gotten better recently, but yes the humidity is what makes bad and I'm not sure how hot it has been exactly.

We've done a tiny bit of teaching this week but mostly have had a lot of trouble getting ahold of people. We did have zone conference which was cool because Elder Caussè, a seventy, was here. He is, I believe, the first French general authority. So he did the zone conference and he is really cool. He did all the training and stuff and it was really hot and everyone was tired, so to keep us from sleeping and being bored he switched back and forth from English to French. I was really impressed with him and it was really cool to meet him.

Elder Gerald Causse'

Yesterday after church we ate at a member's house and that was really cool. The family is kind of one of the big names in the church in France and they are really cool. I'm just waiting to hear some day Franck Poznanski announced as a new general authority. He is also President Staheli's counselor so you need to be on your best behavior around him. It was really cool though as it generally is there. Those were pretty much the noteworthy things that happened this week.

Anyways as usual I need to get going to FHE.

Love and miss everybody.

Celebrating the 4th of July in France

2009-07-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

Here is part of Elder Lyman's email:

Well monday again. It sounds like it was a fairly eventful week there, it wasn't especially eventful here. It was a little difficult to realize that the 4th was happening there and I was missing it. We didn't do a whole lot to celebrate, though we did wake up first thing and listen to the national anthem sung by Jericho Road and waved around little American flags, which were provided by my Scottish companion, and that night we made hamburgers.

We did have somebody we hadn't even met just walk in to church this week, which makes 2 weeks in a row. A lady came who I believe was catholic but was too far away from a catholic church or something so she just brought her 2 kids to see what our church was. A member came and got us out of sunday school to tell us she was out there so we just went with here and her kids to primary and I think she really seemed to like it, then we went to sacrament meeting and I believe she seemed happy with that too. She wasn't way big on the idea of giving us her number and being taught just yet but she has ours and I think she might come again next week. And the week before we just had a chinese guy and girl come who had just heard about the church from a friend who we have taught before and we are now teaching them so that is cool. Then yesterday we went to another member family's house for lunch. They live rather far and since we don't have a car we had to just have them drive us and when we do that we are just kind of at their mercy as far as when we come back so we were there for about seven hours. They are a rather crazy family and it's always interesting with them so it was quite a day. This time they spent they whole day planning a wedding for a son and an adopted daughter, that's one wedding, not one for each of them. But it was really fun, though their lasagna made us all a little sick today. But there isn't really a ton else going on here. love you and miss you all.

Please send ideas of healthy meals!!!

2009-06-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Ok well it's monday again. This weekis the start of the new transfer and Iam staying in Angers with my same companion. Last tuesday at interviews with president I got a pretty good idea that I'd be staying but found out for sure on saturday when transfer e-mails came out. So I have six weeks left here and I would bet I'm out after that. I was happy to be staying here, the ward is awesome and me and my companion have gotten along great.

Thank you very much for the package. I got it at interviews & everything in it was greatly anticipated. So not a ton happened this week that I can think of. We had our interviews with president like I said, those were good. We did some service a couple days. Friday I did some gardening and Saturday a bunch of digging and shoveling stuff. Then yesterday after church we went to a member family's house for a barbecue, which was very good, though I was scared because the first time I ate there it was kind of crazy. That made us six for six for meals with members on Sundays for that transfer, which is pretty impressive.

So as far as the assignment to send simple, healthy recipes, the emphasis is probably more on healthy than simple, though they do probably need to be relatively simple. The thing is just that I don't know where to really start or what to even buy when I shop. As of now I get whole wheat pasta for one, lettuce for salads though I don't make them too often because I don't know of any healthy dressings that I like here, I also get tuna and a couple other things but I really don't know what I'm doing. Even with the pasta, it's whole wheat which is good but I don't really know what to put on it that is healthy. I use pesto sometimes because I heard that wasn't bad, I don't know about red sauce as far as healthiness but I could probably swing making that. Basically I just have no idea what I'm doing. But ya that is an assignment, to find healthy things that would be doable.

By the way I got Kristi, Marilyn, and Stacy's e-mails, but I didn't see them till today and I believe they were sent last week. So thank you very much for those, they were much appreciated. But I better cut thisoffquick, love and miss you all.

Eating mushrooms & other "gross stuff"!/Loving Angers

2009-06-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

I believe in a letter I got recently somebody mentioned something about me having two meals in a row with members or something and asked if we do that often. That is actually one thing that we have been doing a lot of. Last week we had 4 meals or something with members, and we have more lined up and stuff. We've been having a ton lately, mostly because working with members is about all we've been doing lately. We haven't really had other appointments for a while. But this is a really good ward and I think we can pretty much set stuff up with members as we please it seems. I don't think most places, if any other places, will be this good as far as members and what not but as for now the members are awesome. I kind of don't want to leave Angers, and am kind of maybe even a little dissappointed that I started here, just because few other places will be close to this good as far as members etc. I'm sure other places will be great but I think Angers is really kind of special. So anyways, ya as for right now meals at members' houses are very common. They weren't nearly as common last transfer but now we are just scheduling more things with members and can just about have as much set up as we want i think.

By the way you'd be proud, because of all our eating places I think I'm maybe getting to where I can eat more gross things. The other day we went to a member family's house and they made a sort of pie thing with just chicken and mushrooms, so the mushrooms weren't really get-aroundable. So I just told myself I was going to have to eat the whole thing, and I did. Maybe not a big step for most people, but I can think of no other time in my life that I have eaten actual mushrooms. I have also eaten numerous other things I would have never eaten before and I kind of hope I will just start to be more tolerant of gross stuff.

Oh another meal we had was yesterday a family from my companion's ward in Scotland was here and they took us out to a chinese place. So that wasn't going along with the gross stuff necessarilly, but that was just a little interesting and kind of cool to have people he knew come.

Sushi for dinner???

2009-05-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

Here's Elder Lyman's email:

Ok, so it's Monday again. First of all, yes I know the Hitotos. They live here and are in the ward. I couldn't remember Frere Hitoto's first name, but he is a black doctor and his wife is white, and they have 3ish kids. I haven't talked to them a ton but they are really nice, cool people. She actually taught Sunday school yesterday. I guess I'll have to talk to them next Sunday. As far as talking about my companion more, I don't know what to tell you. I'll need specific questions probably. Yes, he has an accent & yes he is different than Elder Wagner. His name is Elder Snee. He is my only companion now because my other, temporary companion's companion got here. It's Elder Schwind as I told you, who me and Dane were pretty good friends with in the MTC, so that's cool. It's also cool to have someone newer than me. I kind of feel like a normal veteran missionary, but not really. The French and everything is going fairly well though. I think I see improvement. Yesterday we ate at a member's house and a bit to my surprise I just kind of talked and joked around with the family and the kids the whole time, so that was cool and I felt pretty good about it. They live like 45 minutes from Angers so that means we stay there for quite a while, so I was worried that after a few hours I might get burned out but it was good for the most part. But whenever that kind of thing happens I generally end up being brought down to earth soon after, and tonight we are eating at another member's house, so we'll see how that goes. Also I think he might be making us sushi, so I'm a bit worried. but it should be fine. If worst comes to worst, this member speaks English so I'll just tell him I’m going to vomit if I end up being disgusted by the sushi.

In other news, I finally got a letter from Dane so that was cool. You probably know I guess, but he is in a little city in France called Chalon (I believe that's correct). It doesn't look to be way far from here so letters will go pretty fast I think and that will be cool. He sounds like he's doing good. But anyways I don't have a whole lot else to say but I love and miss you all, Elder Lyman

The couple that Elder Lyman talks about named Hitoto, are a couple that Jed’s brother Gordon and his wife Kay have met. They have been friends with them for a few years. Here is a picture that Kay sent to us in an email after she found out they are in Josh’s ward. It is a small world.

Elder Lyman gets a new companion & has an unschedule train ride across France!!!

2009-05-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

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

So I'm about 5 days into my second transfer. As I told you last week I have a new companion, who is Scottish. What I probably didn't tell you is that I now have two new companions, because I didn't know I would. As I believe I told you Angers switched back to four missionaries and the other missionary who was coming was training a new missionary. It is by the way the one I had mentioned, who me and Dane had kind of been friends with in the MTC, but he wasn't on the plane with Dane coming over. In fact he is still in America, or maybe in a plane right now. I guess he was sick or injured or something and so he didn't get released from the MTC, so he probably will come sometime this week, we're not sure when. So, he is supposed-to-be companion to me and also my companion for now, which is pretty different. Adding one more person makes things a lot weirder, but it's fine for now. So far things are going fine this transfer with the new companions, though it's quite a change and will be hard to get used to. One experience you may be interested in hearing is what happened on Wednesday when I took Elder Wagner to the train station to send him off. I took him and we found his train and so I was helping him get his stuff on it, but what i didn't know was you're not allowed to get on the train and help them without a ticket. so anyways i was on the train helping him and suddenly I heard the door close behind me, which wasn't good. I said what do I do and we were kind of panicking and we got the attention of a train worker guy. Elder Wagner told him I needed to get off and I didn't have a ticket and he needed to open etc. and he just said, what? We can't open the doors now, there's nothing I can do. And sure enough the train started moving a few seconds later, headed for Paris, with me on it. So the worker guy said he would go talk to his colleagues or whatever and a few minutes later a couple of workers came and said (in english), so you are having a problem? So we explained what happened and they just kind of huddled for a second then said, ok generally you are not allowed to get on the train without a ticket, which didn't do me a ton of good at the time, but they said, what you can do is get off at Le Mans (the next stop, luckily only about 40 or so minutes away, and not all the way to Paris) and go with the worker guy (who we had originally talked to) and he is getting on the train there back to Angers and he'll explain that you don't need a ticket etc. So they were really nice and I did just that and it worked out fine. But I was late getting to the station in Angers to pick up my new companion so I had to have a member go wait for him and explain what was happening. It was interesting, but it was fine, in fact for some reason the guy told me to sit down in a first class seat when we got on the train back, so that was kind of cool, though not much better. So that was pretty much my experience of the week. Other than that not much has happened, except maybe ping-pong and pancakes. Ping-pong and pancakes is an activity that I guess the missionaries in quite a few places do here. They just invite investigators and members Saturday nights to come play ping-pong (the churches here have ping-pong tables rather than gyms and basketball courts I guess) and make and eat pancakes. We hadn't really done it here yet except one time with like 3 people, but the new missionaries wanted to get it going. So on Friday we told a few people at the church (seminary and institute people) we'd be doing it, so we thought a few people might show up but not many, since it was the next night. But it turned out that like 20 members and a few investigators came and it was really cool, so that was awesome. It was actually ping-pong, volleyball and pancakes, because we found out there are volleyball nets to set up in the parking lot. It was cool and hopefully we'll get people to come each week. Things are going good right now, the language might be coming a little bit and I’m feeling pretty good about things. They say every transfer is faster than the last, which will be pretty crazy if it's true. Sometimes 16 transfers seems like quite a bit, but when I look at how fast my first one went it doesn't seem like very long. I only have a few minutes so I guess I'll wrap it up. I love you all and miss everybody.

Mother's Day call!!!

2009-05-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

Calling from here.....................................................to here, is not that easy!!!!

There are two different times in the year that parents are able to speak to their missionary on the phone. Mother's Day is one of those days. Elder Lyman had given us his phone number to call him. We had purchased international phone cards and looked up the country codes. We felt prepared. We were suppose to call at 8:00 AM our time. We started dialing at 8:00 and the call would not go through. When 45 minutes had gone by with about 45 tries and no success, we were panicked (we knew he was sitting there waiting for our call):( I called Lyle Nielson (Josh's French teacher from high school) to see if we could figure out what we were doing wrong. He was out of town but his wife Leslie said she would try to get hold of him. She called back and said she hadn't gotten hold of him but she found some notes on their computer about calling France. With the information she gave us we finally got through:)

We had a good, long talk with him. He is doing good. It was such a great Mother's Day present to be able to talk to him!!!

Elder Lyman describes his "feeling like Job" day/ week.

2009-05-07T07:12:00.001-07:00

So you said to tell about my week etc. This week was a pretty crazy, different week actually. I believe I mentioned last week the kind of day we had had Monday, but I don't think I elaborated at all. Anyways we had a rendez-vous that day with an investigator who lives like 45 minutes from Angers so we needed the car which another town of missionaries had taken from us, so we woke up at about 5 and took a train at 6 something to Cholet (where the car now is) and got the car. Then we drove back from Cholet to Angers and didn't really know how to get to the place where our investigator was, so we just started driving on some freeway and called a member who tried to help us, and it turned out the way we had gone was not good, so quite a ways out we turned around and drove back to Angers, and it was already after our scheduled rendez-vous time, so anyways the member gave us directions and we started back and drove a long ways and finally got there way late, but we had our rendez-vous. It actually went pretty well and it was with someone we hadn't taught before and she is now a very promising investigator so that was a good part of the day, but maybe the only one. So at this point with all the getting lost and so on it was already a frustrating day but we drove back to Angers and decided to go shopping for the week before going home. So we went shopping and got a lot of good stuff and had more stuff probably than we had ever gotten before. So all that getting stuff took quite a while (mind you i hadn't eaten at all that day and it was now like 3) so we took it all up to the checkout and neither of our cards would work. So we tried the ATM, nothing, ATM over at Mcdonalds, nothing, and realized it was the end of the month and we don't get more money till the first of the month. So we didn't have enough on our cards but there should have been at least some but we couldn't get anything at the ATM, so we just had to leave our cart there and go home to no food at all. That was pretty much that day. then the next day was interviews (where president Staheli comes and has an interview with everybody and we have a little training from the APs, everybody being all the missionaries in our area come in) and just after that I left with one of our zone leaders (Elder Mendenhall) for Nantes (which is about 45 minutes away) for exchanges. so I was there for a day and didn't do a ton but we did set a baptismal date. I returned on Wednesday and then went back to Nantes the next day for our zone activity, which was soccer. After we were done activitying me and one of the elders from Cholet (Elder Long) came back to Angers for more exchanges. I was on exchanges for Thursday night and Friday and we didn't accomplish much. Then other than that it was a normal week but for the most part not way normal. You asked how many people we teach generally, probably about 1 every couple days . What i eat is pretty much pasta, cereal, omeletts, crepes, pigs in a blanket. not real exciting, I haven't loved the food for the most part so far. I dread eating at members' houses. The cheese is disgusting and smells like dead animals and there are just quite a few questionable things. We have a ward here and there are about 100 members I think. We live in an apartment, it's normal. You'll see pictures if I get around to sending my card. There's my week etc. Thanks for Dane's address. Love you all and miss you all.

Feeling like Job

2009-04-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Here's part of Elder Lyman's email from this week:

Ok, well hopefully this will work this week, but how the day is going so far, probably not. Me and my companion feel kind of like Job today. But anyways I'll try to again address some things you had questions about last week and now this week as well. First, I guess don't send letters to my Angers address, they say just to send them to the mission home, and

definitely packages to the mission home. And before I forget, could you send me Dane's Switzerland address. I have gotten some letters now, the ones you sent before I left finally came and then shortly after that a few others, thanks for them. In one there were a couple pictures of castles, on says "Chateau Dangers" (which i assume is trying to say "Chateau D'Angers", which is the castle here, but I don't recognize that part but it is probably just a few i don't recognize or something. Then the other picture said something towers, and it is definitely a picture of the castle here. Anyways ya it is here, we walk around it very often and contact around it quite a bit and it isn't very far from our apartment. You said Mr. Nielson said it is beautiful here and last week when I responded to that I said the city is cool but I'm always inside it so I haven't really seen any of the countryside yet, but because of how our day went today I feel like I have now seen about all of France and maybe a few other countries, which was the one bright spot and if I have time I'll tell you more about the day.

But yes I can now tell you that it is a very beautiful area. Today we had a train ride and it was really cool, a lot of it was along the Loire River which was really cool. so ya it's pretty cool and today kind of made me wish i was just out in the campagne (countryside), it's really cool. But the city is cool too. It's France and it's old and there are castles and big cathedrals and things. by the way you asked how to say the name of Angers as did Mr. Nielson in an e-mail I just got from him. It is kind of like "on" and then "jay" but the "j" sound isn't like josh it is like a j mixed

with a "sh" sound, or something it seems like it would be easier to explain but you can probably get it. Also you asked me to tell more about my companion. I don't know really what else to say. His name is Elder Wagner. He is from American Fork and he is a marine. I don't know what else to tell you, we get along well etc. I guess maybe if you want to know things you'll have to ask more specific questions. Also you asked how I got here to Angers from Paris. Just a train. And you asked how I get around... mostly by bus and walking. Our car got stolen a few days after I got here, not actually stolen but given to other missionaries in another city. So we take the bus every day, and since it doesn't take you right where you need to go or you miss it or so on, we walk a lot. You asked what I do in a day. That varies obviously from day to day. We contact sometimes, we have rendezous with investigators, we ride the bus for an hour to a rendezvous which falls through quite often. Sorry I guess I'm not going to have as much time as I was thinking so I may miss a few things but i'll try to wrap up here. Things I need you to send are: more addresses, just other friends who I may not have etc., and also a kind of weird request, lyrics to songs, like disney movie songs and stuff, don't ask, but some specific ones and I will come up with other ones as time goes on I'm sure, like Goofy Movie, Mulan, Alladin, Hercules and just other ones like that.

Tell Kristi and Mr. Nielson thanks for their e-mails, I thought maybe I'd have time to answer Kristi's but I need to do something else. anyways tell them thanks. and I love you all and miss you all.

Finally, a picture from France!!

2009-04-26T05:54:00.001-07:00

We finally got the picture that was taken of Elder Lyman with President and Sister Staheli when he arrived in France 3 1/2 weeks ago. He's smiling and looks happy!!

In a letter that we received from him this week he said he is doing well but is still struggling with the language. We had to chuckle at the part of his letter that said: I'll make a list of things that could be sent if possible: anti-perspirant (maybe lots) & homemade jerky (even if it's just a roast from the store)."

First Email from France!

2009-04-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

We got an email from Elder Lyman!! It was the first communication we had since he left for France 1 week ago. He is doing great! Here is part of his email: "I'm here--'here' is Angers which is in the Loire Valley. My companion/trainer is Elder Wagner. He's really cool, I like him a lot and so far things are going good. He's a marine and he's from American Fork. We did get to watch conference except for the afternoon session since it was 10:00 PM here. It was good and it was good going to the church to watch it and talking to some members. This ward has some really awesome members."

Angers is about 180 miles southwest of Paris

(the email continues) "The first night we had a rendezvous at a member's house with an investigator. It was a dinner rendezvous with some food I just couldn't eat, a lot of that had to do with the fact that I had no appetite for a few days and also some of it was just gross, like froi gras or goose or duck liver or whatever.

So far the language is quite frustrating but every once in a while I can understand a little bit and it's cool but mostly really frustrating."

Elder Lyman goes to France

2009-03-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

Elder Lyman (Josh) flew to Paris yesterday. We can't wait to hear from him!!

Elder Lyman flies to France in 1 Week!!!!

2009-03-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

Elder Lyman (Josh) is flying to France in 1 week. He is scheduled to leave next Monday, March 30th. He is excited but scared!! Hopefully we will have pictures to post in the near future. His mission address is: Elder Joshua A. Lyman

France Paris Mission

23, Rue du Onze Novembre

78110 Le Vesinet

France

Josh's best friend enters the MTC

2009-03-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

Josh's best friend Dane Lyman arrived at the MTC last Wednesday. Here is what Josh wrote in his e-mail: "Dane got here Wednesday and since he is in my zone I see him a lot. At lunch on Wednesday, since I figured he'd be coming in at about the same time I did, Matt and I sat at the end of the table by the window and held the curtain open looking for him. After a few minutes, sure enough, Matt yelled that he saw him, so we got up and pushed people out of the way and ran out of the cafeteria. We stood there for a second before he saw us but he did and he came running over. His whole family was with him so that was cool, but they had to rush them away to the meeting. It is cool having him here." A side note: Dane is going to the Switzerland, Geneva mission. His mission is mostly in France. It borders Josh's mission:)

Elder Lyman's schedule

2009-03-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

In Elder Lyman's (Josh's) e-mail this week he told us about his schedule at the MTC. It is pretty intense!!

"I'll try to tell you about my days a little bit. Keep in mind each day is different and in a different order but for the most part I have the same things just at different times. Tuesday nights we have a devotional and Sundays are obviously a whole new story, but here is an example: 6:30 (or 6:30ish): wake up, 7:00: go to the classroom for some personal time sorta, I generally read the Book of Mormon,

7:30: breakfast, 8:00: class (sometimes until noon, sometimes we have personal and/or companion and/or french study in there too), 12:00: lunch, 12:45: class, (again sometimes study time is scattered throughout this time), 5:00: dinner, 5:45: class (again sometimes just class, sometimes study), 8:10: gym (gym is different each day, sometimes it is right after lunch, sometimes right after dinner, sometimes in the morning and stuff, 9:00 or right after gym: planning, 9:00 back to room, 10:15: quiet time, 10:30: lights out. Now like I said, there is a couple of things that change and days are all a little different, but most stuff happens every day. Like on Tuesdays we do service in the morning, we just go to another residence building and clean toilets and stuff.

But that is how my days are, a LOT of hours in a classroom and keep in mind every one of those hours is in the same classroom, we only have one!!

On Wednesdays we teach "fake" investigators. We taught the first lesson for two weeks and then the second for two weeks and now we teach the first lesson in French for two weeks.............

Thanks everyone for letters and stuff!"

E-mail day

2009-02-20T17:33:00.001-08:00

A short part of Elder Lyman's e-mail today: "On Tuesdays we have big devotionals and the speaker this week was Elder Ballard. That was really cool. You don't know who it's going to be until its close to starting. Tuesday I think everybody knew it would be one of the 12. There were a few security guys standing around and rumors were going around about who it would be. Like I said, it was Elder Ballard. It's really cool because everybody stands up when he walks in, so in the middle of a hymn, 2000 missionaries stand up immediately. He gave a really awesome talk. He mostly talked about missionaries having a positive attitude and how that is the most important thing."

If it's Friday it must be e-mail day!!

2009-02-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a small portion of Elder Lyman's e-mail that we received today:

"We've been teaching the first lesson so far, now we're switching to the second lesson for 2 weeks, then we teach the 1st in French for 2 weeks and then the 2nd in French. I am not a fan of teaching, I'm not comfortable doing it. I'm liking the French part. I'm excited to get it down good, hopefully that happens within the next five or six months. All the older missionaries, or I guess not older but ones who have been here longer, leave on Monday. I'm kinda bummed about that cuz I really like them and that will make our zone much smaller and so I'll be more likely to have to do stuff in Sacrament mtg. etc. We have to write a short talk in French each week for Sacrament mtg. and when we get there and the branch president starts the meeting we find out who has to speak.

Sometimes I'm really overwhelmed and just can't imagine being a missionary and other times I get kind of excited................"

Love you all

To San Francisco and back in one day.

2009-02-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

The trip to San Francisco did happen. A few of Elder Lyman's words about the experience:

"Yesterday was really crazy. I flew to San Francisco and back. I had to wake up at 4 so the whole day is kind of a blur. We got up, went to the travel office at 5, then drove to the airport, flew out at 8:30, flew to SF and took a shuttle to the French Consulate. We went in and just kinda sat for a long time, then got called up one by one and gave them our visa applications and then we had to sit for quite a bit longer before they called us up to get our visas. After we got them we called our driver again who took us back to SF airport. At the airport we ran into an elder on his way home from the Philippines, 2 elders and a sister also from the Philippines and then one Elder who was on his way home form Thailand to get surgery on his shoulder, after serving just 7 months. It was pretty cool to be a missionary out in the real world, not that I did any missionarying."

Elder Lyman is flying to San Francisco today!!!

2009-02-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

Josh/Elder Lyman will be flying to San Francisco today, Thursday, Feb. 5th, to go to the French Consulate to get his visa. Crazy!!!!!!! I guess the good thing is that his visa has come through so fast!!!

Josh begins his missionary service

2009-01-30T06:09:00.001-08:00

Josh began his mission on Wednesday, Jan. 28th as he entered the MTC in Provo. He will be there for almost 9 weeks before he leaves for France. We look forward to pictures, letters, etc. as he serves his mission.

The best two years

2009-01-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

This blog was created to keep track of Josh Lyman as he serves for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-saints in the Paris France mission. Check back for updates on Elder Lyman, pictures (hopefully) and if we're lucky a letter or two from him.