Week #75 - Avignon

No pictures, I hate not getting pictures!

Mooommm!!

First of all, thanks for alll the emails and all the family history stuff, it rules.  Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks.

I haven't read over all of it, I just saved it all on my USB drive so I can print it off at the church later, but it's probably pretty good.  I especially liked the memories you sent about your grandparents, and actually, if you could send some of your favorite stories n memories from the rest, that would rule, that way I have ALL OF IT.  I want to know EVERYTHING

Thanks again.

So, I thought I said it but probably not, my comp's name is Elder Steadman, from Sandy, Utah.  And we ARE getting along!  Yay!

So we have two elders who stayed in the apartment, me and Elder Lindsey (this is his 5th transfer in Avignon, which is A LOT), and the new ones are Elder Steadman and Elder Olivier, from Tahiti.  ooooooooh

Elder Steadman started getting a scratchy throat, but we did all in our power to make that stop, and it never got bad, so we're good.  And I'm all better!  About by wednesday or thursday I was feeling "better".  The only lasting thing is my ear, but I think that that's starting to go away, too.

Funny story I forgot to share from last week:

We were on the train going home from Lyon, and this homeless man was asking people for cigarettes, and as usual he came up to us, too, and asked us, and we didn't smoke.  But we were the only ones being relatively nice to him, so he started hanging around us.  He was talking and joking and then things got weird, and when we thought he'd left suddenly he was behind us and touching our ears n stuff.  That was weeeeeiiiird but we took it like men.  Then he pulled out a cigarette and started smoking right there on the train, which is against the rules!  So we just kinda sat there, I probably would've tried to say something, but my throat was hurting soooooo bad and I barely had a voice, that I just gave up.  And Elder Steadman had no clue what was going on, so it was fun.  Then at some point he got up, took my scarf, and left.  I figured he'd come back to give back the scarf before we got off, but he never did.  Probably for the better, because I never want to see that scarf again.  Anyway, so he walked off with my scarf, and I like to think that this is where I got the ear infection :) Fun times, Elder Steadman's first day in Avignon.

Anyway, so that was last week, and here's this week, kinda lame, so  you'd better buckle up for a long one.

The day after I emailed you, we're at mercredi now, we had zone training in Aix-en-Provence, and I was able to endure it even in my diseased state, and it was really cool.  They presented Project Elijah and things got nuts.  Then for some reason the tickets they bought us to go home were weird and took forever, when it normally only takes 45 minutes, but so that was about the end of the day right there.

The next day was interesting, too.  We had an exchange with the Zone Leaders, I was with Elder Olsen, my main man, and we had lots o' fun.  We had a rdv in the morning, very interesting.  This ancient ami had called us saying he had a friend who wanted to meet us and show us something, and I thought she was gonna try to sell us something, so I was like "alright" and we planned a way to flip it into a teaching situation.  Turns out she actually wanted to recruit us to work with her at this job that's kinda like NuSkin, and so she gave us the whole business presentation, and it was funny, cuz the whole time we knew we were gonna have to tell her no.  But to start things off, we found out where she was from, an island not far from Madagascar called Cumoros, pronounced kinda like Cummorah, and the capital is MORONI which is nuts.  I learned that from another elder whose mom is from one of those islands, too, so I sparked the world out of this woman with that story and then linked it into the restoration.  Cool.  Then at the end after telling her we couldn't work for her, she had us try a couple of colognes, and then we told her we had something to share, too, with her whole family, about the family (it's Project Elijah that we were gonna share, P.S.), and she said yeah come on back another time.  So we're gonna do that.

Anyway, after that, we were supposed to have another rdv, but the lady didn't show up (bummer), and then we were actually stressed because we had too many rdvs for the day, it was gonna be really hard to get to all of them.  But when we went to the first one, the other one cancelled, and then we had plenty of time, and it was nice.  We Project Elijah'd a member, and the experience was awesome.  He loved talking about his dad and ancestors, and the Spirit there was amazing.  He said he has some pals in other cities in France he thinks would be interested, but we didn't get any numbers or nuthin', so we're gonna try again :)

I cannot for the life of me remember what happened on vendredi, 'cept that in the evening we had english class, and it was really really fun.  We did some questionnaire, talked to some nice people, but that was about the whole day, so kinda stinky.  Oh yeah, called a bunch of people, too, and fixed some rdvs for next week, so already next week is looking better than this last one!

The next day was a little better, had a killer weekly planning session, got to see Etienne finally, had a cool rdv with him, talking about his family, too.  Met this real cool lady on the bus, too, that had a Border Collie, and that sparked the crud out of me, and yeah.

Then came dimanche, we had church, it was real good.  Jean-Personne came again, still lovin' it.  We forgot to bring food to eat after church (cuz it's forever away from the apartment, and it just takes too long to got back to eat), so we scavanged what we could find in the church and called it good.  We found some old noodles and ravioli, and made that, it was okay, kinda flavorless cuz all we had was salt, and then we also made a sugar-flour-oil-salt-nutella mixture and cooked them like pancakes and that was okay, but I actually think I was more tired after eating that than before :) So afterwards we went to pass some less actives, one wasn't home, and the other was but she said we should probably not bother with really passing her...but she said that she had starting coming back because of this Elder named Elder Baldwin, whom I know cuz he was my Zone Leader for some time, and so I sparked her with that knowledge, and I don't think she's compleeeetttely closed off on coming back, so we'll see.

and then today we helped this less active member move some things out of his garage because he is selling it, and he needed it to be empty.  He said if we found anything that we liked we could keep it, and I found some things that I like, so I kept them.  A bunch of old dusty stuff and this sweet shirt that looks like the stars part on the American Flag.  Yeah yeah yeah.  That was fun.  And tonight all the missionariesn are going to the Farinas to have a good time, so that looks like the day!  Wow.  This week is already better :)

If I have one say about housing it's that I would prefer somewhere like Elms or the Convent or Compound or whatever that other place was, Colony or whatnot.

also these are Prez Roney's words when I asked him about it:

I can not endorse you until all of your stuff is turned in. Then it pops up on an endorsement page for me. I will do it quickly. Your name does not come up yet. Tell your mom to get her homework done :)
Got it.
We love you!
President Roney

So, get your homework done!  But yeah, that's what he said, so, uh, yeah.  Let me know how that all goes.  I told him you stress out a lot near deadlines, so, don't get stressed out.  Anyway.

I love you a lot a lot a lot.

LOVE

Elder Max Liechty

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