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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

08/14/10

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