Advents wreath I made out of lettuce. We sang the song and everything
Me being cold
MARTIGNY
Thanksgiving dinner
Hellllllllooooooooooooooo
It's really cold. Not like Canada cold, but really cold like -4 Celsius sometimes. NUTS.
Thanksgiving was really fun. Thursday night we didn't have any plans except we had a lesson with Anne-Charlotte, so we were out contacting until nine o'clock and then we returned to the apartement where Elder Crawley was preparing Thanksgiving dinner! Yay! His mom sent him a bunch of just-add-water gravy and stuffing and canned chicken. So that was really fun. And our neighbor, named Absalon, gave us some bread! We made friends with him because we gave him banana bread one day. Alors we had our little feast that night, and the next day we went to chez Mathias and had a real festive meal with turkey and cranberry sauce and potatoes and gravy and YAMS (which are not common here in France) and stuffing and rolls rolls rolls rolls ROLLLLLLSS. And then pie, of course. That was very fun, and they're all American, so we were speaking in English and it's as if we were in America. And then the next day this other American family from the Genève ward invited us over to play football in the morning with the rest of the Geneva English ward. So it was a good ol' classic Thanksgiving.
We're getting along awesome, and working really well together. I'd be kind of afraid if he got transferred and I stayed, because I don't know if I'm a hundred percent ready to be the guy who knows the area yet. Or the guy who leads the lessons. But I might be able to handle it. It would be super cool if we both stayed another transfer, especially because Christmas is coming up real soon, and also we're making really good progress with investigators right now.
Thermals would be real nice, yeah, but we should wait to see if I stay in Gex. Because if I move to like, I don't know, Nice or something, I'm not gonna need thermals no no no. It's still about 12 degrees C là-bas. Nuts how much the temperature changes throughout the whole mission. I'll let you know the next email, because that will be TRANSFER DAY. Nuts that's so soon already.
We all hang out on p-day, yeah, shopping and eating and chilling and sometimes sight seeing. It's fun when there's lots of us.
We have one zone conference a transfer, one zone training and transfer, and in this zone we have two district meetings a transfer, but I don't know if that's the same with all zones. But every time there is anything district or zone, the whole zone gets together afterwards and eats. And we have different zone conferences every transfer, one is with a few zones and it's just the conference, the next is just your zone and prez does interviews, and it's like that every other transfer.
I'm really getting the understanding down, but still working on really responding. I can respond like normal, but still working on getting a personality in French. Sometimes it goes really well and it's neat, and sometimes it's awkward because I just give the standard answers and that's that. But I'm starting to understand church talks and I'm participating in conversations at the dinner table and helping with lessons and starting contacts and all that, so it's going good. I'm comfortable, but there is so so so much room for improvement until I really get comfortable.
So on lundi we had dinner with this famille Jaquier, and I learned something neat neat. There's like a community of French people in Utah that the Jaquiers know. She gave me the lady's email, so if you want you could email her and talk to her and she could help you learn French or something! Tell her your son is serving in France and he knows that Jaquiers in Gex or something like that. The dad's name is Mike, but I can't remember the mom's name.
Then mardi we had an exchange with our district leader in Martigny, Suisse. Very neat, because that's about 1.5 or 2 hours away from us, and it's BEAUTIFUL. It's in a canyon, next to a lake, and the mountains just rise up right out of ground, straight up. It's awesome. The exchange was okay, but our DL hurt his back, and I was with him, so most of the day we spent in the house, making calls, organizing the area book, and making cookies to give to some membres. But something I learned from this exchange is how much I actually like contacting. You feel so much better when you are out working all day rather than if you are sitting in the house doing not much all day. So that was a nice little awakening. Praying for Elder Leit, the district leader, because his back has had him trapped in the apartement for the better part of this transfer. Whohohohohohoa.
Mercredi we took the bus down to Ferney and passed a lot of membres, shared some spiritual thoughts, and gave them cookies. And then some of them gave us referalls. Then we were supposed to have a RDV with Jean-Yves, but he wasn't there, so we knocked doors around his house. Then we scared a lady out of her mind because she looked out the window and didn't see us, and opened the door and we were there. That was hilarious, because she screamed so so so so loud. Ha. Then we ate a delicious dinner with a famille whose mother is from Madagascar, so it was very very spicy and delicious.
Then it was thanksgiving! We had district meeting in the morning, but no one in our district is American because they're all the missionnaires in Suisse, therefore all European, so nobody appreciated it. We sang the national anthem and stuff, but that was it. Then we went to pass a guy real fast who was reading a LdM we gave him, and now he's almost done! He should be finished by tomorrow he told us, and he really likes it. We were planning just to talk with him a little, but we ended up having a full lesson right there on his doorstep, prayer, commitment to keep reading, and everything. And it was very cold, I couldn't feel my toes by the end. But we're going back this week to keep talking. He's really cool. His names Florent. Then like I said, Anne-Charlotte, and little thanksgiving dinner. Anne is still progressing, but she still hasn't gotten an answer so we're praying and fasting for her, and we gave her a schedule to read 3 Néphi and we're doing it with her. prayer Prayer PRAYER.
Vendredi was our real thanksgiving. We had a cool lesson with some people we found a few weeks ago. We called em up the other day and they told us they had been waiting for our call, so we went and taught them, and they are very cool. The mom is handicapped from an accident, and very old, very very very old, lives with her kids there at the house, and it was very fun talking to her because sometimes she had good things to say and other times is was just n'importe quoi. But it was a very good lesson, and we'll be going back. Then we did some service at the mall, collecting food for the Banque Ailementaire, food bank kind of thing. That was cool, and while we were there we saw Anna, our spanish ami who has a LdM and is very cool. Then after we did a little contacting in the short time we had before THANKSGIVING DINNNNNEREEERRERRRRR. Good day, lots of love and thankfulness going around that day.
Samedi we did a lot of porte à porte, a few lessons fell through, but then we found some cool cool guys from Poland. They spoke some english but no french, so we talked very slowly in english. One of them had already seen the missionnaires and talked with them a little, but he was offended by them because they wouldn't listen to his ideas. So we talked to him, and he invited us to his church. We said okay, if you come to our church tomorrow. And he said okay. More on that later. Then that night we had some investigators and friends of membres come with us to a stake activity in Geneva, where they did like a Oscars kind of thing where every ward did their own little movie. Gex's was EASILY the best, and they also won best film. It was literally a good film, I enjoyed it genuinely. Then we met some nonmember friends and they came to church the next day! Yay!
So yesterday, alors, the Polish guys....CAME TO CHURCH. They came to sacrament meeting and heard all the testimonies. The seemed to like it somewhat, and also we have a membre who served in Poland and still remembers some Polish, so he was talking to them. Very cool. So now, Elder Beyer and I are going to Catholic Messe this Tuesday morning with them. STOKED. Then we had a lesson with one of the friends of a membre, this membre being Giada Pelucchi, and it was really cool. And we also had pizza. And then we had another very cool lesson with Jie. WHO IS AMAZING. He wasn't at church this morning, and we were kinda sad at that, but then we learned THIS. He walked around for a bout an hour in St Genis looking for our church, and he went to this Catholic one or something, and he was confused because it was all in French and we weren't there! Voila. He made a huge effort to find us, we just forgot to tell him the address and the fact that it is in Gex. So he has the desire, we just forgot to tell him.....Ha....But chances are that church he went to for a little bit is probably the same one Elder Beyer and I will be going to tomorrow....Ha. Then we did some nice porting, found a Protestant Evangelist man and taught him a little bit, we won with our Bible knowledge, how little it might be. Then more porte à porte.
And now we are here. We have some plans to go somewhere neat today, but not totally sure. Also, don't remember if I told you, but we found this cool famille across the street from our apartement who has a LdM and are pretty interested. We have them to teach tonight. And also during the week I contacted this guy named Joy from Nigeria, and he's a barber, and I'm gonna call him to cut my hair one of these days, and then preach him the GOSPEL. He was very nice, and I like his name.
Love you all so much, we're gonna work our buns off this last week of the transfer. Thanks for your prayers, I love you ALLLLLL
Love,
Elder Liechty
No comments:
Post a Comment