June 27, 2016 - Adam's Letter

Adam's new companion, Elder Libby. 

Elder Williams with our ward mission leader, Francois.

Hey Mom! 

I looked at all the pictures and listened to the recording.
Thanks! Liked it. Hope you're having fun at the gym. Haha how you
spell check your emails while running on the treadmill I will never
know but you do a really good job at it!!

This week has been kind of hard, been fighting off loneliness and
stuff. It's hard to feel like you're doing a lot of good in towns like
this. It requires a very big picture viewpoint to keep your head and
stay happy and motivated. Like REALLY big picture, bigger than i've
ever had to have for any of my other towns.

We still did see some really big miracles this week though. We
contacted a referral named Valerie who apparently has already been
contacted by missionaries in the past, she is from Guadalupe and her
family there is partly members. They're strong members, baptized since
ten years, I think she said. We gave her the Book of Mormon as she
requested, she was super interested, she most of all wants to know how
to restart a relationship with God, because she was Catholic and
active in her belief as a child, and now she's kind of gotten away
from that, she explained, so she was really curious about how to get
back on a good relationship with God. So we talked about the Book of
Mormon and repentance that first rendez-vous, that went well.

Other miracle: the last night me and Elder Williams were together, we
went to contact another online referral whose name is Mackey, he's
super legit lives in a distant town and he was very open and accepting
of our message. Gotta love believing African people (he's from the
Congo). Love it. Love it.

We also were able to visit Karine with our ward mission leader,
Francois (yes that was him in the last photo with Elder WIlliams) and
that went ok. We definitely noticed a lack of motivation to act on her
part but hopefully that gets better soon. if not, we're going to let
her go for a while.

You were right in your voice letter that I've been really blessed by
the Lord. Can't deny that. Also can't say I'm saddened right now at
the thought of coming home. It's pretty hard here so it doesn't sound
that bad :) haha. It's not always you know it's just the days or long
hours when all you do is sit inside, or just walking around. It's
brutal you need a heck of a mind to deal with it. It's all a mental
battle. So lonely. So alone and quiet and there's times when you want
to talk to your companion but--you just don't know what to say. There
are really good moments, but they're rare. So you've gotta keep your
head in the long interims, that's the real hard part, you know?

Hope you have a good day mom! :) don't worry I'm fine. Just--yeah.
Tired. And alone. But it's ok. My comp is really good, happy and
talkative so he's a really good guy to be with right now. I just
honestly hope I don't stay much longer in this area after he goes.
Since I'll only have two transfers after he finishes, it is fairly
likely I'll finish here unless they take us both out when he finishes.

So apparently you're going to have lunch with Elder LIbby's mom? We
were cracking up this week talking about how our moms probably spend a
couple hours a day on the mission facebook page, talking about their
sons and trying to meet up for lunch :) hahaha!! We love you too don't
worry. Even if it's funny how much you moms do that :D

So theres my week love you guys! Have a great day.

Talk to ya soon mom! Sorry I talked about so much negative stuff--hope
you didn't get sad at all. :) love ya talk to ya soon

Adam Letter on June 20, 2016. Beginning Transfer 14 -- Williams transferred, Libby coming -- 2 Major finding days.

Me in Coulommiers on Friday

Bread and cheese guys (this transfer's Pday tradition)

Me and Fonua brotha :)

My dear parents, family, and friends, 

Hello! I'm happy to write to you and tell you about my week. Some pretty big things happened this week, including: my 13th transfer is over, Elder Williams is getting transferred out of Compiegne, and Elder Libby, who is from Kaysville, and who only has 6 weeks left, is going to come to finish or "die" here! Also we had some real cool contacting experiences and some dope finding days. 

You know the plot. Now it's time for the whole story. 

Monday. PDay. Pretty sure I had a good day. Whole 7 days ago though, it's like the inverse coefficient in the laws of magnets or of gravity--this is for you Kog--the farther in the rearview the day is, the less I care about it. Nah just kidding. It was a good day. Contacted a cool referral from a city called Soissons which is also in our area (yeah it's just huge). We'll be visiting him Tuesday. (If you're wondering why all the referrals don't worry I am too I really like it though I guess the Lord is preparing people here :) )

Tuesday. We had our correlation meeting with our ward mission leader, Francois. He's not retired, he's only like 27, but he's looking for a job, he doesn't work yet, so it's kind of nice he has a lot of time to work with us. And here in France people get money from the government even when they don't work so he's not in any trouble. He's a real cool guy. Really peaceful and funny. Loves soccer which is cool. The Euro Cup is going on right now, the last one in 2012 Spain won and this one well they're hoping France can take it. Anyways, had that meeting with Francois and then cleaned the apartment a bit because we had apartment inspection that night. We passed with flying colors, apparently, although I don't know if they inspected as deeply as they could have--hey it's ok though! Haha max they can make me stay here is 6 months! < classic missionary/apartment attitude  But anyways, that was fun to see Elder and Sister Sillito from the office (it's always senior couples who inspect in our mission) and they gave us some banana bread and installed some nice fancy little beeping toys by our room. Those beeping toys happen to sense smoke and carbon monoxide. So yeah we're now safe. 

Wednesday we had some nice full studies, took some cookies to Ariel and Monica's family, just dropped them off (brownie points man people in France looove American cookies they can't do them as well as we can because they always skimp on butter and sugar ha). Then we contacted some. Which also means we talked some, just us two, because you know, contacting means you talk some with your comp as well in the lull moments, between people or when you're on a deserted road. We then taught Stephane, the real legit guy we were introduced to last Sunday, for the first time at his house. His story: his mother is a member since 30+ years, and she is pretty sick so her husband takes care of her. When he was a child, up to teenage years, he came to church and participated fairly often and his little brother was baptized, but he never was. 

Come his earlier teenage years, he stops going to church and goes less active. Hadn't been to church since then, or at least not for a real long time. But now, lately, has been feeling the need to come back closer to God. A LOT of the teachings of the Church, actually, have stuck with him. He's very honest and up-front about things. He hesitates to commit to a certainty for baptism right now, but he wants to. He wants to come back to church and be a more faithful member. It's really cool because he actually has already considered himself Mormon for a very long time, even though he wasn't baptized. So there you go. Really cool to be there and he made us some really good food too. Seeing him and hearing the way he talked reminded me about Thibeault in Charleroi. And I said to myself and to Elder Williams, "I've only EVER seen one guy, one other investigator, that prepared before in my life." It is remarkable. The Lord is great. I'm so lucky to have him take contact with us now, his American friend I think may have made him come to Stake Conference, because they were there together last Sunday. Anyways he's been seeing missionaries walk on the street of Margny, a neighboring town, for years, and he said often to himself, "man, I've got to go see them, I've got to go talk to them soon," but he was always too busy. So you can imagine what a magnificent blessing that is for me. Please pray for him guys! As of right now he's awesome. He's in the USA for three weeks with his American friend, who was a missionary here in Compiegne when Stephane was 11, 30+ years ago, and it is so cool to see what great friends they are, what great love they have for each other, two good bros. We also met a cool African guy named Sylvain and taught him a lesson on the road and talked with him a bit, taught him a lesson. That's my new investigator guys. So proud of him. That was sweet. Also received another online referral. That was our Wednesday. 

Thursday we had a slower day, all right though. We were going to go to Soissons but that was delayed until tomorrow. So we pretty much had some good studies, contacted, and made some cookies for district meeting once we'd gotten home for the night. Good day, even if slow. 

Friday we left the apartment about 8 to catch the train to Paris. We had a good finding day in Meaux with the other six elders of our district. I went out with Elder Fonua. We actually went to the second biggest town in their area, called Coulommiers, it was the first time Elder Fonua had been there, and we got to contact some cool, really nice people there, some even SUPER PREPARED people, met one lady whose father died recently, we were able to talk with her for a while and she was just SO nice! So kind. Mayber in her 50s. ALso got to meet and talk with a couple other really cool people who stopped and talked to us for a bit. It was nice because the missionaries in Meaux live really far from Coulommiers, so many of the people there stopped to listen to us, and we had a much better good contact per try rate than most towns where missionaries live and work daily. It was cool. Went back home to sleep and prepare again for Paris, this time Paris itself, the next day. 

Saturday we embarked on a special mission. A HUGE zone finding day, with every single missionary in our zone (that's a lot--probably like 20 or 22) all in the east side of Paris. Again it is always really fun when I have We had three blocks of time--the morning, I went out and contacted with Elder Fogg, who was also born in the Charleroi 1 ward (only guy born there since me :) ) and we were able to talk about Michel and Thibeault and that was really good. We contacted some cool people, got one or two really good lessons. Then we had lunch, then we went out to Place de la Republique or Republic Plaza, a really big square in Paris, where the artsy fartsy missionaries side walk chalked the Plan of Salvation, and where the less womanly men like myself went out and contacted like beasts. :D nah I'm kidding. We did get a REAL good new ami and lesson though, me and Elder Asato, the newer missionary in Reims. Just finished training actually. Really cool African guy who was really interested in the Book of Mormon. Can I just say--people who will kindly stop and sincerely listen on the street--nothing better. Nothing at all. Then we came back after about 40 minutes because well we wanted to stand and talk to people who had gathered around the big sidewalk chalk, that sounded easier right, plus there had been a really aggressive guy who was swearing at the missionaries before, and I wanted to make sure everyone was ok. We came back everyone was fine. (Paris I guess.) haha it was pretty chill for the most part, couple of people were mean/didn't want to hear from us, which whatever, but most of the people were really nice and cool. Got to talk to a really cool guy from New York City. He was really chill, liked him a lot. Explained the PoS drawing to him. Also got to meet a really nice, kind Iranian man who was here in Paris to work and get papers until he could send for his family to come too. He said it's really dangerous in his country now, and he was just so kind. So happy to speak English with someone. It touched me, you know, how barriers and walls you think would be there just weren't in that moment. It made me realize how people can really get past those barriers and see the kind, human people there are behind them. Anyways, finished off by doing a split at Place des Fetes, still in Paris on the metro 11 line, with my old ward mission leader of Nogent XAVIER yeaaahhhhh STUD he was super cool. Haha he really pushed himself to talk to people and we got to do 3 contacts or so together--real cool. Liked it a lot. Wasted like 45 minutes talking to a lady who in the end didn't even take a card XD. Haha not wasted though because she got a good vision of the church, never know where that could go. Said she'd look for us on the Internet which can be good if she goes to the source. So there you go. Ended the day with a sweet French contest, testing prepositions, verbs, and scripture mastery in French and our companionship tied for first. :D OH YEAH that's what happens when you get a 13 and 14th transfer team together :D it was fun. Of course the Lord gives us the gift of learning the language. 

Sunday we went to church, no investigators came, but it was still really good. We both spoke, I spoke on the Priesthood and its sacred power, and how to be worthy of it, and I also played piano, and we also translated for Sheye, our Nigerian brother, so we were busy haha. Needless to say Elder Williams did most of the translating. We then visited Chantal last night with Francois. And that is our week. 

I love you all! I know that the Gospel is true. It was so cool to feel the Spirit testify of the words I said at sacrament meeting yesterday. I know that, on a mission, or in any challenging calling in life, when we throw ourselves into it every day, not with an attitude of "when will this be over," but rather "wow cool--let's do some good with this time" the Lord sanctifies that work and makes it cleanse our hearts. Feels a lot better, too ,FYI. I know, through personal experience, that the Lord can do a heck of a lot more through a willing, obedient, motivated missionary than he can through someone who just doesn't want to be there. So love where you are, my family and friends!! I do. :) Love you all so much, have a good week! 

Hey guess what just 3 transfers left O.O

Btw as you all like to have transfer information on my comp: 

(I'm staying in Compiegne and my new comp's info is as follows:)

Elder Tanner Libby

From Kaysville, Utah

He'll be in his 16th transfer 

I've met him a couple times before, he's a really sweet character and apparently is pretty funny too. He just did 6 months in Namur, Belgium, he's really sad to be leaving, so we'll make this last transfer for him really special. Ie I'll fatten him with cookies :D

Also I've really grown to love and appreciate Elder Williams so much more just this past day or two, this past week. I realized how much sincere love the guy has for me as his comp, it was cool. We had good times here in Compiegne. My goal for this upcoming transfer is to continue working hard, to eliminate more extra time, for example, longer breaks, etc. and to keep throwing myself into the pattern of every day, every week, every transfer. It'll be over, I think, before I know it at this point. 

Love you guys. 

Sincerely

Elder Edwards

June 13, 2016 - Starting Week 6 in Compiegne

This is the big cathedral in Noyon. Pretty cool huh?

Hey family and friends! I'm doing well and I hope you all are having a
fantastic June.

We heard about the shooting in Florida, so sad. Please keep those
people in your prayers. God bless America and the people and land I
love.

This week we had a lot of fun. Lots of good things happened. Also a
few hard moments. But nothing a bit of grit and a Spirit-driven
missionary can't handle, right? :) Christian, our investigator we met
a couple weeks ago, dropped us; haha I'm almost wondering if he was
drunk when he answered...? Anyways made fun of us when we called him
and then hung up hahaha. We were just like "okay.." HAha. So we're
apparently not going to be teaching him anymore. BUT Anthony is still
a boss. Dropped us for a while, until the end of the school year, but
hopefully will be able to pick it back up once that happens. :) really
nice kid, good dude, just like 19 or 20 so it'd be really cool to see
him start investgating seriously with regular appointments and stuff.
Real good guy.

Well, let's take it from the top, shall we?

Monday was pretty chill. Francois, our ward mission leader, drove us
to the store like he usually does (such a boss), because we live kind
of far away from big shopping stores. And I got to send Dr. Kerr, the
head of the organ department at BYU-I, a video of me playing the
organ! So that was really sweet.

Tuesday, we had like three appointments fall through. Hhaha at the end
of that day I was just kind of like, "Today just was terrible." But
hey experience right? DC 121 it'll all be for our good. So yeah. Also
had district meeting, that was pretty cool. Liked that. Decded there
to work on diligence and patience for the week. After district meeting
we were just chilling in the Paris chapel because our train was at
like 5:30 PM (thanks strikes love you a bunch) and district meeting
finished not too long after 12, so we were just chilling there, then a
few of our missionaries said they wanted to go out contacting. And I
was like, "Nah..." But then after a while I was persuaded. So me and
Elder Fonua, my district leader, went out contacting in the heart of
Paris. (Met like a solid two or three American members/families so you
should have gotten a couple pictures sent to you Mom and Dad) and man
it was fun. Talked to several really cool, realy nice people, even
found one former investigator, and one LEGIT LADY who was in her
forties or fifties, really really cool, and she was interested, stayed
and talked to us for a solid ten or fifteen minutes (that's really
good in any big town, don't care where you are), and there you go!
Took her address AND phone number (that's pretty rare) and passed her
to the Paris LIlas missionaries whose area it was. It was a really
good experience. Also got to talk to a couple pretty sick American
people who weren' tmembers. REally cool. I learned a big lesson--when
a loss of motivation is felt, I should respond with MOTIVATING
ACTIONS, not just give in. It is actually in ACTING that we find
motivation and energy, not sitting around. Real good life lesson I
feel like I'm maturing and growing up every day. We also got to go
over to the bishop's house, that was super sick, loved that. Made us
some good food and their family is very numerous. Gotta count the good
moments, you know? Looking back that was a quality day. :)

[Mom comment: This next paragraph is every missionary's dream!] 

Wednesday we had a bit of contacting and went on a Francois Field Trip
(#ilovecars) and went wwayyyyy west in our area (we have a BIG area if
I didn't say that already) to a big town called BEAUVAIS. Pronounced
"BO-vay." Cool place. Really pretty and green and even pretty decent
sized. Even bigger than Compiegne. We were there to do some referral
hunting. In the last couple weeks we'd received like three referrals
from Church headquarters (usually meaning these people either found
the church online or went to a visitor's center) who lived in
Beauvais. So we went to go cash in on some serious spiritual
preparation. :D We came. We saw. We taught (-quered? What) PRETTY SICK
chance to teach a bunch of Haitian and African people, all neighbors
or family, in this one lesson, in this one house. So get this. Meet
Orvlyne "Orve-leen". African woman. Really believing and Christian.
Puts her name and info online to get a missionary visit. RDVs for the
last while haven't worked out because either we or her had to cancel
every time (they've been trying to see her since before I got here).
But guess what? We finally get there, we thought she wasn't home, we
were about to turn our backs to the door, and then we hear something
inside. What is it? Well it's Orvlyne of course. She proceeds to
invite us in, offers us drinks, and proceeds to call SEVERAL friends
and neighbors, saying, "hey, how are you doing? Are you home? I've got
the missionaries over right now, do you want to come over?" Hahaha :D
It was the most classic believing African sort of "party" lesson ever,
if I may. We started the lesson with her, Restoration of course, and a
few people come to her back door. It's her neighbors, a mom and
daughter. Orvlyne's son was then brought down from upstairs
(interrupted his nap sorry bro :D) We're now teaching four people.
Then another group comes, her sister this time. Maybe her daughter?
So we end up, visiting one single referral, teaching FIVE Christian
people around a dinner table about the Restoration of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. We finished with our testimonies and telling them that
if they read the Book of Mormon, they would know for themselves that
it is true. I felt kind of shaken up during the lesson because of the
apparent doubts of one of the people present, but then I was also very
hopeful for the neighbor and her daughter. Very believing, open
people, the daughter especially was excited to receive and read the
Book of Mormon. We're going to try and go back and see them in the
next week or two. I know that things can seem awkward sometimes, but
they don't need to be. Nicest people in the world. Loved it. Great
experience.

Thursday we were able to visit with our investigator Emmanuel, who is
a really nice guy in his 40s, and we talked about a lot of n'importe
quoi (whatever/everything) BUT we actually got to share a significant
part of the REstoration with him, which was a success because normally
you can't get a word in edgewise with that guy. So that was cool.
CHallenged him to keep reading the Book of Mormon, he's in Mosiah or
so, and we also decided to stop teaching him for a while, as he
believes there cannot be one true church, and he's kind of got a weird
mix of many religions in his belief system. So it's kind of hard to
teach him. You know what though, maybe second thought I shouldn't let
that stop us. He's still an important son of God. Maybe we oughtta
give him another chance. Any thoughts anyone?

-Later that day, we were pleased to go by Noyon "Nwai-ohn" and visit
Elizabeth, the recent convert lady from Nigeria, for the first time in
her new home. She just moved because assocations giving her money told
her the place in Compiegne was too expensive and that she had to move
there. So we got to go see her and contacted one or two people there
too. Got to talk to a really young-looking couple with their little
baby boy, they were really nice, and I think a little weirded out, but
we took their phone number and hopefully we can see them again. Then
spent 40 minutes that night waiting with Francois for a less active
sister to pick us up so we could teach her at her home, but to no
avail. She never showed. So we just had a good ol' time hanging out
with Francois and talking about whatever. Haha. I love hanging out
with Francois.

Friday was a pretty hard day, probably the hardest of the week. Three
out of four rendez-vous (apointments) fell through. In the early
afternoon, we went to a city in our area called "Creil," south towards
Paris, and we were supposed to have two quick appointments with less
active members there, and both of them fell through. Haha. But a
member driving by saw us and said, "Hey elders! Where are you from?"
And we're like, "Compiegne!" Was really cool because it's not every
day you get a member drive by you, especially not in a town that's far
from the city where your church is. So still had a couple cool
moments. Also got to help a lady in a car with directions. Got a great
rendez-vous about the Priesthood with Seye (pronounced "Shay - yay")
our other more recent convert from Nigeria, and that was to prepare
him to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, which is pretty cool! We
were pretty happy to do that. I was impressed by Elder William's
knowledge of the Priesthood, too, that was cool to see. Also went to
go and see Chantal, our French recent convert, she's doing really
good, it seems, I worry for her a little bit sometimes, but you know,
I think she's doing all right. Really doing well on the outside
anyway. And she doesn't hide her feelings (French people say it like
it is man) haha. So she's doing well. We visited her with her home
teacher, Frere Judas, who also was kind enough to be our chauffeur to
her house and back, and we talked about missionary work and also a
bunch of other questions she had. Pretty cool. And get this SHE MADE
US CREPES ohhhhhh yeaahhhh wahahat now And then it did came to passeth
that we did eat a great many of them. And now behold, I, Elder
Edwards, said unto my companion, "Behold, I  will go and eat the
crepes as she hath commanded." And we did partake of the fruit of the
crepes of life. And we beheld that its fruit was sweet, beyond all
goodness that we had ever before chewed. And we did not finish for a
long time. And on the seventh hour we rested and said, "it is good."
Sorry if that was too far---I mean I guess you use the scriptures for
humor on your  mission so plesae know that is with no disrespect for
the prophets or for the Lord or for scriptures. :D


Saturday we just had a bunch of cool stuff happen in our Auxerre
finding day. Got to talk to a really cool chef guy on the way there,
he gave me some good cooking tips (heaven knows I need them), and we
pretty much just had to eat and contact for like 20 minutes and then
go, it was said but we would have gotten home kind of late if we'd
taken a later train. So there you go. Got to hang out with members
from Auxerre. Shout out to Elder Wells man, people still remember you
there.
Sunday was a jolly old saint Nicol-- Sunday day. Got to go to Torcy
for a great big stake conference. Was pretty cool. Got a ride with
Virgil and Karen, a great member couple who have been married for a
short while. Virgil is French, and Karen is from Panama. Cool people.
Got to chill with a lot of my Nogent buds, including "Peach," or Frere
Doumbia, the Letuaire family, and Xavier my old ward mission leader
all from Nogent. and missionary buds (I know like everyone in the
stake now I swear) and it was a good time. Even got to hang out in the
Torcy chapel afterward while Virgil and Karen were getting their
interview to be sealed in the temple!! (Got to even eat members' food
and had a jolly old time joking with other missionaries waiting there
too stories galore) So there you go guys. That's my Sunday. ALso got
to go to Karen and Virgil's house afterward, that's the kind of
saintly people they are, just invited us after the meetings even
though they were both already super tired. Virgil is a professional
cook and he has to work Sundays so he has been really tired and worn
out lately, really good hard working Dad, just like you dad, and out
of the goodness of his heart, went to work on a little meal and
dessert for us right away when we got to their home. Was so great. We
joked a lot and it was fun. Got to help Virgil practice his English
(30 percent of members like oding that with us here in France--the
rest prefer to help us speak French which is fine, we need it). And of
course got to hear them speak Spanish. Virgil speaks legit Spanish.

Monday is PDAY. Right up there with Christmas. Tomorrow is flag day.
God bless America!!!!!!!! And remember everyone thank your blessed
father and your Heavenly Father this week and this Sunday, father's
day is coming up.

Love you all, family! MIss you and you too, my friends! Love thinking
sometimes about good memories and good times with all of you, also all
my good leaders, mentors, teachers, all they taught me. So much joy so
much fun. Also motivates me to stay strong and stay a good strong
missionary. I think it's impossible for any missionary to mess up big
time as long as he keeps the Lord and those people in his memory, the
people who worked to hard to prepare him for his mission. So thanks to
all of you. Can't wait to make some great memories with all of you
once again once I get back! I'm going to go CRAZY on temple visits.
Can't wait. :D It's going fast. All you can do is make the most of it.

Alma 34 do not forget to make the most of this precious, short time
that God has given us. If you don't use it, it'll pass you by guys.
Don't ever forget how important it is to repent and stay on the right
track.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Edwards

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Mom! Love you tons. THank you so much for your kind and thoughtful
voice recordings. I'm pretty impressed you could do that while you
were working out! Nice! I will definitely think about studying Nephi
and doing things like letters to God, I wrote those down as goals for
this week, as well as gratitude journaling. I know that's a habit the
Lord really wants me to work on.

Thanks for all your faith! It inspires me. Love you so much mom.

So cool to hear about the class you taught and the big one you're
going to teach! Good luck with all the preparations.

Also I forgot to tell you and Dad that we had a really cool experience
yesterady. A French man, who is a non member, was introduced to me by
a member of the ward. We came to find out he lives in our ward
boundaries, not far from Compiegne, in a town called La Croix St Ouen.
He was really excited to meet with us-an American member friend is
staying with him this week, apparently this guy has known the Church
for a while and has gone to church before in America, as he travels
there often, but has never come here in France. So we are really
excited to teach him this week, prayers for Stephane would be really
appreciated!

You should put Gabe on the Elevation waiting list. The first time I
went, lots of people who at first were put on the list got to go in
the end, because a lot of people didn't end up going, so you should
definitely do that. I hope they have fun! That's such a cool fun
experience for them.

Thanks for telling me about your awesome temple experience and date.
Please tell me about  the spiritual experience you had sometime. By
the way, do you know of any books or files that have ancestor
conversion or mission stories on them? I'd really like to get one or
two of those if you have a moment. I know you're really busy but
that'd be really nice, maybe Grandpa Budge who served for 9 years or
something.

Congrats to Grace for Sim week! And have fun Hyrum and Gabe with
Grandma! Love you lots mom hope you have a good week. Bye!

June 6, 2016 - Adam's Letter

Hey guys! So this week went pretty well. Life has been good.

We had a fairly busy week and I spent a fair amount of time growing
spiritually (sometimes that happens against our will haha) and being
outside of my area. So it was kind of fun.

The highlight experiences were our zone conference (whew I don't have
too many left now), our exchange with Elder Fonua in Meaux (way east
in the Paris area so basically southeast of us), and our Finding Day,
the first one I've hosted in Compiegne. Zone conference was great, we
were uplifted and taught a lot of really good things, for example how
to use the Book of Mormon in street contacting and teaching, also how
to involve ward and stake leaders in missionary work, and how to plan
effectively on the transfer level. There you go! So those are the main
events, this week was good for the most part, still kind of hard, but
no complaints. It's just when you have days that are long and you
don't have any appointments, you know? That's what makes it hard, in
part. But thankfully we were able to visit quite a few people this
week, so that was good! Lots of spiritual growth, lot of joy, I have
really enjoyed getting the inspiring emails from you all, and Brother
Hughes has uplifted me quite a bit his last couple emails, even more
than usual, so it's been great.

All right, now let's go through a few more of the day by day events, shall we?

Monday, we did emails and shopped and did a bit of contacting.

Tuesday, like I said, a pretty empty day as far as appointments go,
just walked around and contacted. ALSO had a great ray of
sunshine--DMP meeting with Francois!! Oh man I love that guy. So cool.
So tranquil. Doesn't let anything bother me and he's definitely got a
good idea of what missionary is, he's definitely one of the better
DMPs I've had out here.

Wednesday was a SWEET zone conference. Got to see a bunch of my
missionary friends. Obviously, there are those I see on a weekly
basis, like Elder Kaonohi, the people in my district, but I don't see
most people in my zone very often. So it's always cool to see them.
Got to give some advice to a newer elder named Elder Asato, he's a
really cool guy and reminded me quite a bit of Kogan actually. Very
logical guy, needs really concrete actions, it was cool. You could
kind of see, he had some of that "new missionary" haze and
he seemed
pretty down so I hope I helped him feel happier a little bit. Also got
to see other people I know, like I know everybody in the zone, I've
been here for seven months so yeah. :D haha I talked with President
for a second while we were eating pizza for lunch, and I was like,
"Yeah, you know it's cool, I've been here so long I know everyone!" It
really is kind of cool. I feel like I'd kind of be out of my element
if I got transferred out now. If I end up finishing here, I'll have
done a solid year in one zone so we'll just have to see how it plays
out huh?

Thursday, we finished our exchange, I got to contact around Disneyland
Paris [Mom comment -- that's pretty cool!!] and also a big mall not too far from there called "Val d'Europe" 
and it's pretty dang big. Like it has its own train stop. O.O It was
fun. Also had a good Ward Council, got to chill with all the peeps
from the ward, like Brother and Sister LeBras, Bishop Joly, Francois
Joly (DMP or ward mission leader), and Momma Joly, and Brother and
Sister Judas. Solid members. Things run a bit slower and a bit
differently here than what I've been used to in the recent past, but
it's still good. Right now, I'm just cranking out a solid vision I can
have for our ward and area so I can just take the plow and PUSH. We're
the workhorses, we will push. And we will not give up. The missionary
work of a ward depends enormously on the missionaries and whether they
have a vision, whether they have the Spirit, whether they work hard,
,etc. There must be a well-tuned communication between missionaries
and members, and between the spirit as well. No failure must stop us
from charging or from doing our work. So, living up to this, I have my
work to do this week.

Friday, we did some stuff. ? Can't remember

Saturday we had a our SWEET finding day. Only seven people were
involved; we announced it last-minute to our members Sunday (whoops
our mistake) and so only three could make it out; also there have been
a lot of train worker strikes in France, like for a long time, several
weeks, so trains made it so four of our crew of eight missionaries
couldn't make it out, so us and Meaux trucked it and we had some
really good experiences with our members. Frere Francois, of course,
and Frere Judah (brother of my bishop in Nogent--who would have
thought!! I know like their whole family now haha), and Frere
Requillard. We had four great contacts with Frere Requillard, me and
him in the morning, (boy that guy's a beast!!!), street contacting in
a little town called Lacroix St. Ouen, gave a really kind lady a Book
of Mormon, prayed with her, then had some more really good experiences
going door to door in the afternoon with Frere Judah and Elder Fonua.
Talked to one lady for like 30 minutes at least! Literally! Maybe an
hour! Frere Judah taught me a lot. It was insane how ready he was just
to get right back into it, he served his mission like 7 or 8 years
ago, and he just jumped in, starting the first door, I was like,
"Dang, all right, go for it man!" Literally talked forever. About
anything. He told us that whenever anybody says no, you should at
least try again, like ask a second, unrelated question, such as, "Hey,
I've never seen a dog like that before, what breed is he?" Or "Wow,
your shirt says 'Boulanger,' do you like making bread?" So yeah. Haha
the second door was this weird looking dude who was just like, "No,
I'm not interested in your stuff" :D hahaha it cracks me up sometimes.
Anyway, long story short, got to go contacting a bit with Elder Fonua
after a few more doors (with Frere Judah for two hours or so). It was
a big motivation booster, because me and Fonua talked about getting
more fire for missionary work, and Compiegne has snuffed out a lot of
mine. But I can get it back, will take working out more seriously,
will try and lose some of this face and belly fat, get back into the
swing of things. Sometimes I forget to really try and talk to as many
people as possible, and have joy doing it, and testify, and that's
something I ought to continually remember. Every day, a missionary
should have a sense of joy about what he's doing.

Sunday was a good ol' day, no amis at church but still good. It was
actually the Western European Area Conference, so that was really
cool. Got to watch it in English with a few other members. Also got to
visit Ariel and Monica, the Mexican part member family, went by with
one of the Relief Society sisters who speaks both English and Spanish
so that was good. We're hoping to get lots of member friends set up
for them.

Today, we're just chillin at the church, I'm just loving my family and
my friends. Hope you guys are all doing great. :) I learn so much
every day. Lord is helping me understand how important it is to become
a man, to learn how to do everything necessary to become independent
and stand on my own two feet as much as it is possible, and I like it.
The Lord is really helping me grow up.

We have the most fun and are the happiest when we are ourselves, but
focused on serving others.

Love you guys!

Have a great week.

Looooooveee you family!

Elder Edwards