May 30, 2016 - Adam's Letter - Happy French Mother's Day Mom! Anthony and the Lebras family

A happy birthday cake for Adam's companion. 

Compiegne is doing a lot better this week, folks. I find it easier to have a better attitude about this area and the days seem to go faster and faster.

I will try to make a shorter summary of this week so more people can read it. :) 

If I could describe this week in just several phrases, it'd be: 
1. One of spiritual searching
2. Repentance (we all need it right, even for little stuff) and prayer
3. Increased comfort/increased time speed
4. disagreements and working with comp. 
5. Choosing hesitantly between two ideals: saying things straight up and being nice to my comp

There you go that's kind of like the overall feel of this week. My comp is a lot better than I just made him sound, don't worry. Just yeah disagreements happen it's part of life right. I just need to put some real effort to becoming friends with him, haven't really put any real, consistent effort there yet. 

Ok now I'll give you an events break-down of the week. All those in favor please make it manifest. Ok cool we're all down here we go. 

Monday was a sweet Pday. When we did contacting after though it and it RAINED LIKE THE DICKENS. HOLY COW. Anyways. Met a cool French guy named Guillaume (ghee-yome) and he was pretty nice, really liked America. Cool dude. Plus he looked sketch when we contacted him, hood up and stuff, goes to show that you can find really nice, cool people behind the most unlikely façades. 

Tuesday, naturally, was our lovely and most edifying district meeting. :) It really is edifying it's also just a ton of fun because...well...we're eight elders...nobody can stop us :D We went to Paris like usual and had a good training done by Elder Fonua. We also got to meet with Anthony afterward, that was super cool! Remember him, met him a couple weeks ago not too far from our house, and he's a college student at the University here at Compiegne, it's called the UTC. Anyways, there you go, got to teach him the Restoration on a bench, it went well. He's now started to read a bit of the Book of Mormon and he also made another good choice later this week, but we haven't gotten to that yet...

Wednesday was boss. Kind of wasn't the greatest actually. But it turned out good, it got better towards the end there, you know, one of those days where the sun comes out at like 7 or 8. Yeah it was like that. Got to teach Elizabeth that was cool. She's a great recent convert. Got the sad news, though, that she will have to move to Noyon, a town 20 minutes away from Compiegne by train, and that would make it pretty difficult for her to attend church, so prayers on her part would be much appreciated! We're hoping she can stay with a friend here in Compiegne until she gets her papers in September. 

Wednesday night, out contacting in the border of town, we met a sick guy named CHRISTIAN. Yes in the English spelling even though he's French. Cool dude. Was really nice because he'd been smoking and drinking. We had a great conversation though. Haha. We contacted him on a bench (already the fact that it was a bench contact and it worked was a fairely large miracle) in a sort of park area on the edge of town, before you come to the forest, and he was like, "Man, you guys are cool, what organization is this?" And we got to proudly show him our badges and stuff. WAs cool, was cool. Lord provides us w/ miracles and he, I hope, will become a legit new investigator. Cool guy. Invited us for a glass (as in yeah that glass) and we were like, "Nah, better not, thanks man," haha and he was like, "Oh, ok well I'll invite you to a cafe for tea then." And I was like, "Um, ok hah...will have to explain that to you later man..." So we are supposed to see him tomorrow hopefully that works out. If he's half as nice and cool as he is under the influence, he's gotta be a pretty solid guy. :D hahahaha 

Thursday was our Francois (fron-swah) field trip day. (Haha we seem to have one with our DMP about once a week.) Cool guy and doesn't work so we're just like, "Hey Francois--want to come to Creil with us? Hah...especially because we don't have a car??" And there you go. Went to Creil, talked to Frank again, went well, gave him a triple combination, and then visited an old bishop who has gone less active because it's hard for him to get to church, he's pretty blind and stuff and lives super far away. So there you go. Hoping that we can get a member family to drive them one of these times. 

Friday we had weekly planning. That's always a nice break. Then went with Frere LeBras, a super cool French member in his 50s, to see another recent convert, Chantal! She's super cool. Incredibly straight up like wow. But really nice so it's in a good way. She's in the picture with the birthday cake. She had it made by a really nice quality boulangerie (bakery) for Elder Williams because it was his birthday two weeks ago and she hadn't known till several days after. So yeah that was fun. We talked about genealogy and French history for forever (kind of got off topic) and then I was kind of like "I'm hungry" and MAN Chantal and Frere LeBras were just chatterboxes!! You have no idea, you get two older French people together, they go for HOURS man! It's like getting Grandma B together with an old friend who also happens to be a genealogy specialist--on Grandma's ancestors. Ain't no stopping that. Haha all in good humor, of course, Grandma, I love you you know. :) But that eventually finished and it was actually quite an enjoyable experience. Enjoyed the ride to and from with Frere LeBras, he's really cool. Served his mission in New Caledonia and stayed in the same branch for two years O.O 

Saturday we had our finding in TROYES, my last area. Yeah weird I'm still in the same district weird right? Walked into their apartment and felt like I was coming home, knew the door code and everything. Was cool. Unfortunately I forgot our phone at their apartment and we promptly headed back home for our ward activity "Neighborhood Party/Meet the Mormons." Forgetting the phone was less cool. But the activity was good. Two non member people came, that was really fun, one of them was a neighbor of the church, one was just a friend of a sweet elderly sister. Haha she was so funny. Anyways, watched the first part of "Meet the Mormons" with the bishop with everyone, shared a few testimonies, and then ate together. Was pretty great. 

By the way--whenever you are presented with a missionary opportunity, please speak sincerely, but do not speak in a way that attacks or humiliates the faith or church of other people. That is really not cool. Sadly a member did that, with really good intentions, in speaking about the Catholic church, and our neighbor, who lives not far from the church, was really hurt by that, so please be sure, in missionary church activities, to bear testimony, speak the truth out, but just be kind about it and don't criticize what they believe because goodness knows they're doing the best they know how. :) It is definitely possible to be both confident and bold in the presentation of truth AND respectful of others' beliefs. You just gotta do it with love. 

Okay and then we had Sunday and ANTHONY CAME TO CHURCH SUUUUPP. That was sick. Loved it. I did I mean. We kind of had a noisy / hard sacrament meeting because the mic wasn't working... But hopefully he liked it ok too. He was definitely very attentive and respectful. He tried really hard to sing the hymns and sing them on pitch and stuff which was really cool! I was like, "I appreciate that bro." Haha he's a cool dude. Rest of Sunday, we went to the LeBras family's house for lunch (they were especially very nice because their mom/grandma was throwing a Mother's Day lunch for the family and they thought of inviting us, so kind). And then we went there, saw their super cool, super big yard (man this guy is a gardening CRAZY and he raises huge brown rabbits you would love him Hyrum and Gabe) and then joked and ate a bunch of food and just had fun. Good times. Got to know the whole family a good bit better, their two daughters are really cool, too. They're like 20s and one of them is an English teacher in junior high and the other one just finished her bachelor's. They're all like super smart people talked more about French history and Joan of Arc and I loved it. (Grandma B wasn't there supposed to be some relationship between Joan of Arc and our family or something? Like we're in her family or something like that?) I foundout that I've actually been in a good number of the towns where she was, reconquering France from the English. Cool stuff. Frere LeBras offered to take me on a tour of the route she followed, of all the towns she reconquered, if I could come back after my mission. I thought that sounded cool. Have to see if that works out. If it doesn't, it's ok. But I thought it was nice of him. 

Anyways, that's my week folks. Love you all and hope life is going well chez vous (at your homes). Take care of yourselves and God bless. Lots of blessings come to missionary service! Get ready for it! 

Love you all, family! 
You're awesome all my friends! 

Talk to ya soon. 

Sincerely,

Elder Edwards

Family Email -- 2nd week in Compiegne :) things going better

Me and Elder Williams in front of a Catholic church in Margny les
Compiegnes a town right next to Compiegne

Elder Edwards like WHOOOO

Pretty good crowd of people here. It was fun to be tere because many
people I've known in my mission, including Sister Ulrich and Elder
Branchflower from the MTC, and Sister King and Sister Brown, and Elder
Malloy have all served in St Quentin. So I'd heard a lot about this
place. Fun to finally see it.

Lot of soup huh

Hey family!!

How are you all doing? Thanks for your email Dad, love you so much Mom and Dad and everyone. Wow sounds like you guys had fun with that four day conference. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!!!! :D I love it! Cool tie too! Thanks for everything in there, the peanut butter,
everything. Already enjoyed some of the chocolate. Haha it's okay you didn't write me mom I understand you must be pretty tired. hey you can still write me before tomorrow though, if you want, I always get those because we'll be at the church for district meeting. Love you guys so much.

Ok so I will tell you a bit about my week and then I'll respond to your comments.

This week was a lot less painful and a lot more joyful than the preceding. Haha.

It's not that this is a bad place, but the first few days of
contacting in Compiegne were pretty rough, and I was like, "holy cow, nobody's talking to us, how did these guys do this" and then turns out those days, my first days, were actually some of the hardest Elder Williams has seen in three transfers of Compiegne!! Haha so that reassured me and things have been going better now. The Lord has sent
us a lot of nice people or people who are willing to talk to us for a bit, and that is really nice. It is true that in little towns like this, with about 30,000 people or so, Elder Williams says, there are many people that know us and you run into a couple jerks. But that doesn't bother me. It's just whatever. Plus most of the time the people are nice so it's ok.

Missionaries in the recent past have struggled a lot to get
member/missionary work moving much at all, so I'm hoping I can do things to make that change. I received a very encouraging email from Elder Hughes about that, saying that I can be just as close to members here as I was in Troyes. Haha I choose to believe it. I know things
can happen. It's just kind of hard because in a lot of peoples' books, if the missionaries don't make efforts to know them, and come visit them, it's just the same to them. In other words, if I don't make efforts to know them, they might not either. So it's kind of on me in
large part. And this is a pretty sluggish, slow-moving town/ward so that's what it'll take I guess. More on that later I still haven't made a true effort in that area.


Monday we had a rather chill pday. Tuesday, we had our first district meeting. We now have a couple new faces in the district; Elder Raffi and Elder Allen went home last transfer, so we now have our district as follows: Elder Kaonohi and Elder Trotter in Troyes; Elder Ethan Williams and Elder Edwards in Compiegne; Fonua and Bishop in Meaux; and Cisneros and Sutherland (they can speak four languages in between them) in Auxerre. The training Elder Fonua (the new district leader) gave was really inspiring. He talked about how we can each do better in our own villes (areas) and mentioned a quote from Sister Babin that
inspired me a lot. "If you're in Alencon (an infamously small, hard area in our mission), and there are only 23,000 people who live there, sure maybe the whole town doesn't want to hear about it, but can you at least find the 2 or 3 or 5 people who are just golden, waiting to hear the gospel?" And I really really liked that. Could feel it was true. So I've tried to pray for that and apply it a little bit and the
Lord already blessed us this week. 

We had a few rendez-vous throughout the week ; we passed out  invitations to the houses neighboring the chapel to invite them to a party this Saturday; taught Karine (I actually taught her before on an exchange here hahaha this is so weird to be here) ; taught Chantal, a recent convert since December; went to a city called Creil for the day Thursday  and taught a super cool less active guy named Franck. (Think of Franck Banks from Father and the Bride. Nah nah just kidding totally different guy haha he's super cool though) He is a really member, really loves coming to church, but is just so far away, w/out car and the only way he can come is by  train. The only member family
who could give him a ride hasn't really wanted to do it, so it's kind of hard for him. THANK YOU ALL MEMBERS WHO GIVE RIDES EVEN WHEN INCONVENIENT. it's important. 

Friday we did weekly planning, and also met a BUNCH of sick people. We met Arnaud, the French form of Arnold,
and he's a former investigator who stopped us at the side of a crosswalk. He was just smiling at us, hand stretched out, big guy from Guadalupe, so I was kind of scared he was going to attack us or mug us or something. Then just calmly shakes our hand and tells us what a great thing we are doing. Expresses from the bottom of his heart, in English, his second language, what a good thing we're doing. It was
pretty sweet. A true miracle from the Lord. This guy was just out in front of a little sketchy store in downtown, not far from the train station, and boom we have this huge miracle in meeting him. Talked for a good 20-30 minutes, went like that. I just tried to accept him and love him for who he was in that little conversation and it was such a good experience. He shared how he's been trying to work to overcome alcohol addiction, and said he'd come to church. We will recontact him to teach him this week. Also met some weird but very nice guy, Frederick, who was atheist himself but was very kind and open to talking about us, very humble guy, and that was cool. Said maybe he'd
give the card to his daughter who maybe is believing, so that was cool. Also I FINALLY got to meet the Mexican family we teach, and boy they are awesome. Ariel, the father, is an investigator since several months if not more, Monica, the wife, is a less active member, and
their little baby boy, Aron or Aronchito as they call him, haha, just barely turned a year old. So there you go. Super cool family. I love latino culture. So sweet. We talked about teaching/learning in the church and service, as Ariel has pretty much been taught everything by this point. He just struggles to come to church so he can't be baptized yet. I saw a lot of good in that family though. Such nice
people. Plus they gave us some DANG good cake. Also forgot to mention, we had a couple surprise little meal appointments on Wednesday that was awesome little tender mercy.

Sunday, yesterday, we were able to have two recent converts there, Elizabeth and Seye (Shay-yay) both Nigerian English speaking members, and TWO SWEET NEW PEOPLE, ANTONIO (a guy from Angola we contacted Saturday, he'd been contacted by us before, said he'd come and DID)
and HERVE (a cool guy from Congo who is Antonio's friend and who tagged along). Legit right? Most of the time when people say they'll come by, it means nothing. But they did! Super cool. Good moment. We're going to see Antonio Tuesday night and Saturday. Grateful for that miracle from the Lord.

You know, to put it broadly, I guess I'm really just grateful to the Lord for this chance to grow. The transfer to Compiegne hasn't been easy, but it's been all right, and it's an adjustment I needed to make sometime or another. The Lord is teaching me lots of things here. He's making me build character and helping me decide that I'll really keep
working hard to the end here. And he's helping me love my companion and my members here, even though I was very attached to the last ones I had. He's helping me see the value of door to door. We tried some of that with some pretty good kindness in return last week. He's also molding my will to His. And helping me see how my life can be better. I'm learning to stay active with good things, e.g. It's better to work hard and actively clean the apartment at 10 on pday than just walking /sitting around lazily doing a couple things. Literally you feel happier and more productive it's awesome. And He's helping me see how
I'm better than I sometimes think I am. I get incredible support from friends and family alike so I thank you guys all so much! You're awesome.

Love you guys! Hope to talk to you soon. Thanks for your dear and sweet replies to the last email, too. Helped me a lot. And mom, no worries, my heart wasn't super broken, well maybe a bit, but more just sad you know. It's okay. It'll be all right. Lord has things in store for me, I've got faith. (Note from Mom: Adam is teasing me that I didn't write to him yet, but I was writing him while he was writing me.)

PS study your scriptures every day guys! Circumstances took away quite a few days of study time from me this week, and I did not like it, neither did my spirit. I really feel the difference, it's not great. So yeah. Study those scriptures faithfully! 

May 16, 2016 - Adma's letter - First week in Compiegne, saw Pres. Uchtdorf, and Haka video!

Video of Adam doing the Haka! I couldn't stop giggling...

Adam's new companion, Elder Williams from Oklahoma.

My face and emotions when I finally finished packing all my crap into my suitcases and an extra bag. Too much stuff. Will throw lots away before transferring again. Haha everyone is surprised at how many books I have...anyone surprised family? Hah

President Babin speaking at the conference with President Uchtdorf

Pres. Uchtdorf mentioned that he'd said at conference that German was

the celestial language. He bbrought it up with French brothers before

the conference, who had a simple solution. They said, "It might be

true, Brother Uchtdorf, that everyone in the Celestial Kingdom speaks

German, that might be true. But the one who holds the door of the

Celestial kingdom--the one at the gate--he speaks French." Hahaha!!!

:D So they were all ok with that so that's now doctrinal truth i guess ;D

Hey family!! :) Gives me joy to think of you and receive your emails and voice recordings and all. :D Makes me happy, thanks! It does me so much good to hear from ya. Hope you have all had a great week. Thanks for your updates mom and dad. :)

Here is my mailing address. Who asked for it, just out of curiosity? :) Cool now you hvae it:

Les Missionnaires

Elder Adam G Edwards

3 Rue du Maréchal Fayolle

60200 COMPIEGNE

France

This week has been kind of hard. It's been good, but hard. But it's okay, that's pretty normal since this is a pretty small town and I'm really used to Troyes, which is about 3-4 times bigger than Compiegne. And I really loved my companion, Elder Kaonohi, and the people there. So I've just been kind of missing them a lot. BUT yesterday I had a tender mercy, we got to hang out with a couple other missionaries, got permission from President to do some service in nearby St. Quentin with them, and an elder, Elder Blackham, gave me some advice as to how to love little "villes," as we call areas in French missionary lingo. 

Here are some good things about Compiegne and small towns in general. It has a ward. We have a couple great, strong, fun families. There is a very chill, still, calm spirit here. People and ward members here are very kind and patient. I'm still able to see Elder Kaonohi every Tuesday, every district and zone activity, because we're still in the same district haha. Also, I get to hang out with Brother and Sister Petion, a great French couple I know from the Nogent ward, as frere Petion is a high councilor assigned to this ward. That's cool! Also, I've got to be real, the Lord is merciful to me in sending me here. I think I was growing less dependant on him and too proud in Troyes, as we were seeing a lot of success there, and I think that it's about time I get a good, solid challenge to bring me back into humility and accord with him. I felt that and some of HIs love for me this morning. It was good to feel. It felt great. And you know what, it's a good thing to love and serve my current comp ad members and ville just as much as the last ones I had, even if they're different. 

God does not ask us to change our personality, to be more like someone else, or do something before he starts loving us a ton! No, He already loves us a ton, whether or not we like it or do what He asks. So the Lord asks us to do the same with His children. I'm called on a mission to love His beloved sons and fellow missionaries as the brothers and good guys they are. I ought not expect them to change before I like them or get along with them. I will be myself; I will also expect them and accept them being themselves. It's when we stay ourselves and build momentum and DO work that things happen. Yeah. We're going to full this chapel. If not with members, then with the Spirit and with angels, and with investigators and maybe with less active members who haven't come in a long time.

I decided to accept Compiengne and love it and move on. :) Feels good. 

We have a VERY big area to cover. It is huge. Like ginormous. I don't even know how many times the Nogent ward would fit into ours. And we don't have a car. XD I HATE YOU STATESIDE MISSIONARIES. YOU ALL HAVE CARS. Nah jk. :) Haha but dang that would be nice. So anyways until further notice (like until we get a car or Elder Williams gets transferred) this is pretty much just a street contacting ville. That's like all we do. Normally we would do some door to door as well sometimes or something. In Troyes we pretty much had lessons all or much of the time. So it's a change. :D So we're going to try and get a couple cool activities done, one is already planned, before I got here, we'll be working on the deails on that, and we'll maybe try and do a music night or a Latin American activity, we have a couple members from Panama and Peru. Told them Andrea served in Bolivia, they thought it was cool. 

I try and speak to them in a little bit of Spanish, but I really just need to throw myself into Spanish immersion with them, I need a mental kick-start, or else I'm just not going to get the phrasing and vocab back. It's in there, it's in my brain, but boy it's going to take some serious stress to get it back. :) It's ok I love Spanish. 

Maybe I need to take more time to relax, just meditate, chill and think, and be happy the way I am and the way things are. No need to be sad that things have changed. :) I can love my comp the way he is, even though he's not Elder K.! His name, by the way, is Ethan Williams, he's from the Tulsa area of Oklahoma. He worked in a movie theater before his mission for several years, and he's a different guy, but he's a rock. Really chill, doesn't talk a ton, but definitely enough still to have a good time. We have to be creative to have fun here because the town is little and everything is really quiet. But I'm used to it, or close. He likes anime and is pretty well read and smart. He has been here for 4- 1/2 months already, so this is his fourth transfer here. He's kind of wondering why he's still here, as am I a bit. But as we move forward with the Lord, doing good things, getting creative with ways to find people, we can probably find a few more peopel! Already a few people to teach so that's good. 

We set some good goals here, want to find several solid people to teach, like legit people who would get baptized and stay strong members, we want two baptisms this transfer and two baptismal dates set after. So pray for us and support us with our goals everyone! We would love that. Also please send me letters and packages because this is a really quiet place haha. I love hearing from you all. 

We had a Book of Abraham fireside on Saturday. Yeah needless to say that was interesting. O.O what the heck Egyptian hieroglyphs and stuff--good thing no amis came I would have smacked someone 

Love how I can sacrfice myself in service of God. Made a big sacrifice that was hard to make last week. I don't have much to offer Him in terms of wordly stuff, or as far as anything much goes. But I do have my purity, my worthiness, my whole self, a contrite spirit before Him, and if I can keep giving that with a full heart, the Lord will provide and He will make this mission worth it and every ounce of effort will be for my good. I will keep going out and working. I will probably take it slow because I don't want to kill myself walking faster than is necessary. But I will work until my dying day, dang it. I love the Lord, and if I can keep giving it, that's enough. He will make it be enough. He will consecrate our afflictions and efforts for our good. Plus a little work never hurt me. :) I'm a lazy bum I need it anyway.

Love you guys! Man ok so that's enough about me. Loved hearing about the family this week, and about Grace's birthday, how much we all loved the Mother's Day Skype call (did an hour and a half--whoops #loveyoumom haha also I don't really care ). Cool to hear about my TWO ADORABLE NIECES TOO :D 

Happy to hear about the campout and Grace's bday dinner. HB GRACE DANG 17 WOOWWW Hey no dating her y'all. (Black Adam voice) Mm mm you don't date my lil sis y'all. :)  happy birthday Grace

Love you guys, love all of ya, family friends and such kind folk as care to read this blog. Hope it brightens your life in some way and I hope it makes you DO STUFF about your own life. Knowledge without action is absolutely pointless. And dead.  

Keep in touch, everybody! I will try and think of you all hope your lives are all precious, full, and good. Talk to you soon. 

Love you my family!

Elder Edwards

Btw Mom and Dad, you mentioned you maybe wanted to come to pick me up here after my mission. Was that still something you would want to do? Like how much did you wnat to do that? Because I could change plans if you'd really like to do it. 

Adam's New Area - His fourth area in the same stake and zone surrounding Paris, France!

Adam's new area is Compiegne, the city outlined in red at the northeast corner of the map. I'll update his address on this blog as soon as he sends me his new one. 

Week's Update -- Love you Mom -- Mothers day call -- off to Compiegne. Played a Cathedral organ!

Woohoo! Adam's dream has been to play organ in some of the beautiful, old, French cathedrals. As far as I know this is the first time he has been able to play one! Yay!!

'

Hey Mom and Dad! Love you my family!

Man well yesterday I got a real big treat, got to call you, my DEAR
BELOVED MOTHER AND FATHER (we'll just say it's for Father's Day too :)
) and that was awesome! Love you tons. Also wishing a Happy Mother's
Day to my awesome grandmas and to Malia! Whoohoo! You moms are
awesome, world wouldn't be the same without you. We got to talk story
for a while, it was super chill. Love you guys. Dang Hyrum and Gabe
are going to beat me up and Grace is getting so big!! AIght cool I'll
fill you guys in a bit on my week.

Anyways, last Monday we had the awesome chance to visit the Ganga
family (man the weeks just roll by the rhythm is so crazy fast). We
had a great time. Ate some Mormon kosher tiramisu. :D It was more
strawberry vanilla than anything else. DANG THOUGH non coffee /
alcoholic Tiramisu WHOO so good. I love it. We sang, ate, etc. Good
times.

We visited many other people this week, most for my last time, like
Bernadette, the Majokko family (the people from Guyanne), Denise the
Ivory Coast investigator (she was at church again btw), Jean Francois
a less active, Laeticia, Elisabeth and Jeannot, Frere Verrier, got to
see Jamaal one last time, still get to say goodbye to Julia tomorrow
and hopefully Diana and her family too. Man so it's cool, I really
feel like I've done a lot of good here. It's cool to feel like I've
helped the Lord change a lot of lives and bring light and happiness to
people here. Love it. Love the Lord. He's awesome. You should all be
friends with Him. He's a great guy. For reals.

That's kind of my week in a nutshell, but I'll talk about a few of the
major experiences in a bit more detail.

We had a good zone council (replacement of a full zone conference),
and that was really good. We did the haka for everybody in our zone.
:D hahaha everyone thought that was cool. Actually the goal of the
zone council was so that everyone could present their member work,
their ward's missionary finding day, and their ward party (all of
which were supposed to happen this transfer), and talk themselves up
so we could all profit and have fun together. Naturally, we won the
most colorful presentation. We even threw a couple swear words in
there just so we could win colorful presentation in two senses. Nah
just kidding. Haha. BUT it was a lot of fun. Had to leave early but
since I have been in the same stake and zone for four transfers (and
two areas in that time), I kind of know everybody pretty well, with a
few exceptions. Haha that isn't going to change either which is ok I
guess.

Denise went really well. We taught her with Sister Traore and that was
super cool. We then went over to the Traore's house to eat just
because they were nice and we still had a couple hours before our
train back from Romilly to Troyes. So we ate some good tuna salad with
them (yes I actually like tuna in certain controlled subst--
circumstances now :D) and that was really chill. We really talked and
thought for a while, me and Frere Traore, about a branch and
companionship of missionaries right there in Romilly. I called
President to pass the idea on to him. He said he'd suggest it to the
stake president. I also talked to the bishop, and he said that he'd
talk to his counselors about it ( he woudl have to suggest it to the
stake president). So hopefully that works. Traores do boss missionary
work they're studs. He pretty much contacted som eguy he didn't know
to try and get me to talk to him and I was like ... Oh.. What? Haha
hey it's ok solid passback. That was cool.

Had a big lesson with Laeticia again on repentance and stuff. Whew. We
were pretty straight up and she basically refused to change straight
up so it was sad. She was very nice and stuff, but it's sad to see
people not obey commandments. You see the sorrow, the pain, all that
it causes in the world and people around you, and you can't help but
feel sorrow for them because you know--the path they're going down, it
can bring nothing but pain. Nothing else. Nothing good can come of it.
It's a law. It has been decreed that way. Any sin in which you
indulge, it becomes that much harder to turn away from it next time
because you know what it feels like. You know how tempting it is. So
it is very important, all of you, to not give in to any sin, big or
small. There is no good down that path. It can only bring pain. You
will always pay for it dearly in the end, as far as big sins go. So
just stay clean and happy aight? #thingsyoulearninfranceandonmission
Do what's right. That's all. Easier way. We're not really sure about
Laeticia whether she's worth teaching more missionary lessons right
now because her progress is sort of screetching to a halt. Really sad.
It was like there was nothing else to be said. But it's ok. Lord will
provide. They might drop her or just go to teach spiritual thougths,
etc.

Baptism for Thyann was cancelled because his mom didn't feel like it
was super well prepared, the program and everything. That was kind of
stupid but whatever. I understnad. Haha we just got the news the day
or two before, and it was a pretty terrrible day because of a lot of
stuff, and then she asked us to let everyone know. We were like, "Are
you serious?" But whatevs, we did so and it worked out well. Still got
a good visit with their family and it was fun. Saw Jeannot for the
first time in forever.

We made some freakin BOMB.COM cookies. Holy cow. PIcture this...

Peanut butter.

Oreos.

In the middle of the cookies.

Not together, just like alone. Like peanut butter in its own cookie,
oreo in its own cookie. Yeah in the middle.

But yes. Chocolate chocolate chip cookies. That is copyrighted by the
way, all rights reserved. :D Nah jk. Ohhh yeah.

#Membersandamislovedit WHAT

I take pride in my cookies. People think I can do them well. Well I
proved them wrong. So bad. Nah I'm kidding. They were good though.
Please send any orders to MissionaryCookieMall@bomb.com.orgnet.fr and
it's like $220 a cookie so like be prepared to fork out the dough. We
had the president of France just order a couple so I mean this is
pretty high quality/snob stuff. All funds will be forwarded to the
missionary cookie fund, a (non?) profit organization.

So. Yeah. Finished up the week with the Kende's a sick member family,
they're both young RMS, like 20s and both served missions in England
and they're super cool. Great people. We speak English with them
because they like to keep their English up. They do a pretty good job,
too, frankly! Props to them. There I CALLED MY FAMILY FOR MOTHERS DAY
WHOOO that makes my LAST call home as a missionary. So yeah, pretty
crazy huh? Dang. Loved it. We takled about so much stuff. Got to see
my cute little girly nieces and MAN I get niece trunky now adays.
They're like one of the fastest ways to make me trunky by looking atpictures of them. Sooo adorable. Anyways yeah that's my week.

SHOOTS! Alrighty fam fam we're about to go PLAY AN ORGAN here at the
Cathedral of the Madeleine in Troyes so we'll see how that goes. Wish
me luck/fun! Oh yeah we're gonna kill it. Later today we will b doing
emails and then chilling with the Rochette family for Pday! chill
chill. They're going to have us over for a barbecue so that'll be
super fun.

Ok you all have a good day. Email or write me. I <3 letters and emails

Anyways. Shout out to all my friends/ people getting mission calls,
you guys all do great work ok? Represent Syracuse and Utah WHOO we're
better than all them anyway.

Ok love you guys. Have a good week. Christ's love is a great thing.
When we feel it ourselves, and the love our family and others have for
us, it is easier to transfer that love to others. I invite you all to
get a Priesthood blessing and seek the Lord's will for you in your
life. He's there, He loves you. Do what you've gotta do to repent, be
clean, and be one with the Lord again. He waits with open arms to
receive you.

Love you family! Have a good week friends and stalkers reading my blog!

Stay chill. Peace out.

Sincerely

Elder Adam Edwards
--------------------------

Thanks Dad! You'rr the best,you are the bomb.com you and Mom. Love you
and hope you're getting some good rest. Guess what? I played my first
French pipe organ today man it was such a high and a thrill!! Check
it out.