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

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

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

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

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!!

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.

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!!!

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!!!