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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

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



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.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Stake Conference/Scheduled baptisms

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.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Happy Birthday Elder Lyman




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.




Tuesday, November 3, 2009

No Hot Water & Paris P-day



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.


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

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



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.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

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




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.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Elizabeth Smart is going to the France, Paris Mission



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




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










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


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


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

Monday, September 14, 2009

An afternoon with an Apostle



So it's monday. To answer mom's question if we ever got with the guy we were going to commit to baptism, not yet. When we call him we can never get ahold of him but every once in a while he calls us. So he called us Thursday night saying he was at the church for English class and we weren't there. He hasn't been to English class in forever and then just decided to go the night when we couldn't do it because we were in Versaille with Elder Bednar. So he said he would come to church and we had planned to teach him after and he didn't come, so we'll see what happens now.
As for Les Invalides, it is a war museum but why I said you'd just have to look it up is because it is a ton more. It has a giant cathedral inside, and military stuff happens there and I don't even know what, but it's much more than a museum because everything that it was used for when it was built still happens there. So I couldn't even begin to remember what it was all about, and also we really didn't spend any time on the normal tourist stuff and what not but rather just played on the roof and in the attics and stuff.
So it is transfer week and we found out on Saturday what is happening. I am staying here, my companion is leaving and I will be with a missionary from the other companionship here. So his companion is leaving and another missionary will come in and train a new missionary and they'll take over my companionship's stuff. So I'll still be here but I'll no longer be teaching who I was teaching and what not. I'm happy about that because the other equipe had tons of work and ours had none at all so now I should have things to do. So that's what is happening.
The only thing I can think of to report on from this week would be mission conference with Elder Bednar on Thursday, which was cool. So the entire mission came to the Versaille chapel for that. It was cool, he talked to us for a few hours. The way he did it was cool, he didn't speak to us but just took comments and questions and responded and we discussed etc. It was cool and I really liked him, he seemed very human which was cool but it's crazy how well he can answer questions people have. It was a really cool conference, hopefully that won't be too uncommon to have apostles coming for things like that, supposedly President Staheli said that we would be seeing a lot and he has all kinds of connections. We'll see I guess.
But I guess I need to wrap up here soon. First though, one of my pairs of shoes the soles are worn like to my feet and have been for a while now but my others aren't worn at all. So the thing is that I don't think this one pair will do and those other are basically done, so I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure if buying and sending new shoes would be too expensive or what but I would have no idea what shoes I could rely on here or where to get them or anything. So anyways you could tell me your thoughts on the situation. But I guess I'll wrap it up. Love and miss you all.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Les Invalides


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

Ok well I will have to really hurry now, I had just wrote most of my e-mail and the page just died for no reason.
So anyway first of all I'll translate the sentence again: "It was necessarry that an atonement be made so that we can get to the Celestial Kingdom and live with our family in the presence of our Heavenly Father forever." So pretty close. (The sentence he gave us to translate last week: "Il fallait q'une expiation soit faite afin que nous puissions arriver au Royaume Cèleste et vivre avec notre famille en la prescence de notre Pere Cèleste a jamais")
Anyways me and another elder were impatient last night and so we went to a member's house who let us see the score and stuff so I knew. So of course I freaked and am now considering coming back and catching the rest of the season, we'll see. (the score he is taking about is the score of the BYU-Oklahoma game)
But it sounds like the week was good back there, I wish I could have been there for the sealing and everything, that's all awesome.
This week was pretty good here. We went to the Louvre on p-pay which was cool and also Sacré Coeur so that was fun. Not much happened during the week except a couple member rendez-vous and the rendez-vous where we planned to commit our investigator to be baptized got dropped last minute.
We did have our district activity on Thursday which was cool. Before it we had a joint district meeting which another district that we were doing the activity with and since our activity was in Paris we did it at the Paris church. Just down the street was the grand opening of a store called House of Hoops and there was a huge line outside because Lebron was there. So during district meeting I couldn't really concentrate with him downthe street so when it got to my task (we each do like a 5 minute thought or teaching thing) I said that for my task we were pausing district meeting to go get pictures with Lebron. So we went and stood in line for like a half hour and it turned out they weren't even letting people in, but before we got there Lebron had come out for a second and threw a basketball. So we didn't get to even see, though the chinese elders did when he came out.
But then we had our actual activity which was really cool. We went to Les Invalides, which is a big famous military building thing which you'll just have to look up I guess cuz I can't explain what it is really well. So it's a fairly cool place, it is huge and Napolean's tomb is there and also lots of other tombs of famous people and stuff. But what made it cool was that a branch president from a town around here is a firefighter there and so he gave us a free tour mostly just to restricted areas and stuff. So we got to see tombs of people that generally only there family members see and the coolest probably was we got to go mess around on the roof. So we were on this huge roof with Paris all around and it was just cool. I attached a couple of pictures from the roof but I don't think you can tell how cool it is but it was cool. But it was awesome. So that was basically the highlight of the week really. Not much other than that.



Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Rewards of service in the Mission Field

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

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


Here's Elder Lyman's email dated Aug. 31, 2009:
Ok well it's Monday again. Ok to start off Kristi's translation was very close and I'm quite impressed. The exactest translation would be:God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. Dieu-God est-is notre-our Pere-Father Celeste-Heavenly/Celestial et-and il-he nous-us aime-loves. So very close, just really missing "our".

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


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

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

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

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Pictures from the MTC

Life at the MTC








Josh and some of his Blanding friends



Thanks for sharing the bloodshot eye with us Josh!





Josh's best friend Dane Lyman





Josh & Dane

Pictures from the mission (France)

Here are a bunch of pictures that Josh sent from France
With President and Sister Staheli