The MacDonalds visit France

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!!

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

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,

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!

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

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

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