Playing football by the Eiffel Tower

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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

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.