Hey family! Love you a bunch! Hope you are all doing well!
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the great emails. I enjoyed them both thoroughly. Mom, thank you for sending the pictures, I loved them! Thanks, Dad, for the great 2nd email you sent last week, too, I really enjoyed the answers you gave in it. Mom, It was fun to see the picture of Cedar and Kaytie? With you. I can remember Kaylie MIchaelis or something like that from my classes in Williamsburg but honestly don't remember much more than that. That's fun she remembers me though!
Anyways! That was so fun to hear about your guys' week! Seems like you're doing well, Dad. I'm glad you had an ejoyable visit with Sister Hawes and a good lesson with the deacon's quorum! Haha wow I still remember that room very well. Good luck with the upcoming week. Good luck with your seminar, too, Mom! Jennifer Illum--was she the one who was about Malia's age? She played soccer with her a little bit and stuff?
I bet it was SO enjoyable to have the little Ziester and Briester over for 9 hours! Haha. Bet you loved that. Wow and Malia's third is due on the 9 January! That's so much fun!
Elder Burgoyne is doing well! Haha the super bleu, I liked how you called him that. He is still working super hard on French, he's having fun, too. It's like everything, I often overthink things and become stressed for no reason, but he's pretty low stress, and he often makes me laugh, so it's hard for either of us to stay irritated for long! We have pretty good humor and pretty good moods most of the time. It's fun.
Man, that made me so happy to hear you had seen Stephen Walker! That's so cool! Tell him hi for me if you see him again. I miss him too and I think about him fairly often.
Mom, you talked some about the people we teach and stuff. Thanks for feeling love for them! :) to answer your question about translating, yes, we do often translate a little bit in sacrament meeting. It depends. Seye, pronounced "SHAY-yay," a convert brother from NIgeria, speaks Yorouba and English but not perfect French yet, so he asks us if he doesn't understand a line or a scripture. We often find the English scriptures that correspond on our iPads and read it out loud to him while they read the French one out loud, because it's easier for him to understand. There have also been times when we've translated the whole time. For my first while here, we translated at least two hours the whole time every Sunday for Seye and for Elizabeth, who also speaks English. We've moved back on Seye, and Elizabeth moved farther away so she can't often make it now. So yeah we do often translate. On that particular Sunday a couple weeks ago, I also translated for a talk given by Sister Bourgeois--she gave it in English and I translated it in French.
Haha, don't worry. :) You will all get some attention. I might be pretty scattered and crying but I'll try and give you guys all the attention you need. Haha don't get too gushy on me okay Mom? Haha don't cry too much. I don't want a lot of crying attention, you know what I mean? But I mean I guess you might not be able to control that much, just try I guess haha. It'll be a good moment either way. Haha hey and I saw That, how we can go to any restaurant that I want after...hey that oughtta be cool!! :) Hm. Well we're definitely not going to Lakaye, don't know if any little brothers or sisters were hopeing for that but I want something more American when I get back, I miss that stuff. Elder Burgoyne gave me a couple good ideas, I was thinking maybe Costa Vida, Melting Pot or Cheesecake Factory, Pizza hut or maybe some sort of buffet. I know some of those might sound super normal and American but I miss that stuff :D haha were you thinking like a nicer place? Does that sound good?. That's kind of what I'm thinking right now.
Thanks for sharing all those cool spiritual experiences and insights, Mom! I like that, yeah. That's really good stuff. I totally agree with what you said about being happy we chose the better part. We totally need to do that.
Mom, if I remember right, it depended on the class but deadlines were more often due Friday night, some Saturday night, and maybe a few Sunday night or Monday morning. As a practical matter, I believe most of them were still due Friday or Saturday, so I don't think that's changed much at Williamsburg.
Hey, I have a random question for you guys--I have had a lot of companions or just missionaries in my district who talk about all the blessings their families get from them serving a mission. And I always like to think my service blesses you guys, but you haven't mentioned it much. So, has that blessed you guys at all? I sure hope so!! If so in what ways?
Okay well I better start telling you about my week. My week was really good! Experienced even more happiness than before, a more positive attitude, and my thoughts were less self-centered. That's always something good to improve on. There was a good thought shared today that rang true to me. It was on the weekly missionary newspaper email we get in our mission. It was by C.S. Lewis. It said, "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." So I thought that was really true. Loved that. Anyways there you go. Also experienced some pretty big disappointment yesterday, on SUnday, when a less-active family and three investigators were supposed to show up to church, and then...none of them did. Fail. Haha. Oh well, it's part of life and we'll keep working with them, or at least the ones who take it seriously.
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the great emails. I enjoyed them both thoroughly. Mom, thank you for sending the pictures, I loved them! Thanks, Dad, for the great 2nd email you sent last week, too, I really enjoyed the answers you gave in it. Mom, It was fun to see the picture of Cedar and Kaytie? With you. I can remember Kaylie MIchaelis or something like that from my classes in Williamsburg but honestly don't remember much more than that. That's fun she remembers me though!
Anyways! That was so fun to hear about your guys' week! Seems like you're doing well, Dad. I'm glad you had an ejoyable visit with Sister Hawes and a good lesson with the deacon's quorum! Haha wow I still remember that room very well. Good luck with the upcoming week. Good luck with your seminar, too, Mom! Jennifer Illum--was she the one who was about Malia's age? She played soccer with her a little bit and stuff?
I bet it was SO enjoyable to have the little Ziester and Briester over for 9 hours! Haha. Bet you loved that. Wow and Malia's third is due on the 9 January! That's so much fun!
Elder Burgoyne is doing well! Haha the super bleu, I liked how you called him that. He is still working super hard on French, he's having fun, too. It's like everything, I often overthink things and become stressed for no reason, but he's pretty low stress, and he often makes me laugh, so it's hard for either of us to stay irritated for long! We have pretty good humor and pretty good moods most of the time. It's fun.
Man, that made me so happy to hear you had seen Stephen Walker! That's so cool! Tell him hi for me if you see him again. I miss him too and I think about him fairly often.
Mom, you talked some about the people we teach and stuff. Thanks for feeling love for them! :) to answer your question about translating, yes, we do often translate a little bit in sacrament meeting. It depends. Seye, pronounced "SHAY-yay," a convert brother from NIgeria, speaks Yorouba and English but not perfect French yet, so he asks us if he doesn't understand a line or a scripture. We often find the English scriptures that correspond on our iPads and read it out loud to him while they read the French one out loud, because it's easier for him to understand. There have also been times when we've translated the whole time. For my first while here, we translated at least two hours the whole time every Sunday for Seye and for Elizabeth, who also speaks English. We've moved back on Seye, and Elizabeth moved farther away so she can't often make it now. So yeah we do often translate. On that particular Sunday a couple weeks ago, I also translated for a talk given by Sister Bourgeois--she gave it in English and I translated it in French.
Haha, don't worry. :) You will all get some attention. I might be pretty scattered and crying but I'll try and give you guys all the attention you need. Haha don't get too gushy on me okay Mom? Haha don't cry too much. I don't want a lot of crying attention, you know what I mean? But I mean I guess you might not be able to control that much, just try I guess haha. It'll be a good moment either way. Haha hey and I saw That, how we can go to any restaurant that I want after...hey that oughtta be cool!! :) Hm. Well we're definitely not going to Lakaye, don't know if any little brothers or sisters were hopeing for that but I want something more American when I get back, I miss that stuff. Elder Burgoyne gave me a couple good ideas, I was thinking maybe Costa Vida, Melting Pot or Cheesecake Factory, Pizza hut or maybe some sort of buffet. I know some of those might sound super normal and American but I miss that stuff :D haha were you thinking like a nicer place? Does that sound good?. That's kind of what I'm thinking right now.
Thanks for sharing all those cool spiritual experiences and insights, Mom! I like that, yeah. That's really good stuff. I totally agree with what you said about being happy we chose the better part. We totally need to do that.
Mom, if I remember right, it depended on the class but deadlines were more often due Friday night, some Saturday night, and maybe a few Sunday night or Monday morning. As a practical matter, I believe most of them were still due Friday or Saturday, so I don't think that's changed much at Williamsburg.
Hey, I have a random question for you guys--I have had a lot of companions or just missionaries in my district who talk about all the blessings their families get from them serving a mission. And I always like to think my service blesses you guys, but you haven't mentioned it much. So, has that blessed you guys at all? I sure hope so!! If so in what ways?
Okay well I better start telling you about my week. My week was really good! Experienced even more happiness than before, a more positive attitude, and my thoughts were less self-centered. That's always something good to improve on. There was a good thought shared today that rang true to me. It was on the weekly missionary newspaper email we get in our mission. It was by C.S. Lewis. It said, "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." So I thought that was really true. Loved that. Anyways there you go. Also experienced some pretty big disappointment yesterday, on SUnday, when a less-active family and three investigators were supposed to show up to church, and then...none of them did. Fail. Haha. Oh well, it's part of life and we'll keep working with them, or at least the ones who take it seriously.
As far as events go...we taught Chantal last Monday night with Frere Judas, that went really well. We shared a little thought on prayer, that kind of thing. Tuesday, we drove waaayyy the heck out to Meru, a decent-sized town that is nonetheless rather small, that is way in the southwest corner of our area. We finally contacted our last referral that had been waiting. We gave her a Book of MOrmon, she let us in even though she hadn't been expecting us, and we had a great discussion on the REstoration a little bit and most of all about the Book of Mormon, why it's important, its important doctrines, how it changed our lives for the better. It's a great book people. READ IT. Ok off the soap box. :D she declined to receive further lessons, but we're going to call her in a couple months to see how the reading is going, and heck you never know, she said she'd call if she had questions, and that book converts, so I wouldn't be surprised if she'd had a couple spiritual experiences by then if she reads it seriously.
Later that night, haha, Francois' parents were on vacation, so he invited us over to his house. Hahaha. He basically bought pizza for us and we ate pizza and looked at his mission photos and videos for like two hours :D hahahaha!! It was great. So chill. It was nice because we don't often get such nice breaks like that with members.
The day after, we were lucky little joylders (elders filled with joy). We were on the train to Paris at 8 AM, and we had a great spiritual,, motivating zone conference, with trainings given by President and Sister Babin,, the Assistants, and the Zone Leaders. We enjoyed all of them. We also enjoyed a pie eating contest that showed the importance of communication. Me and Elder Burgoyne participated but he had a pre=determined handicap that I didn't know about--he wasn't supposed to eat any of the pie :D hahaha. Here's the video.
Enjoyed that conference so much though, beyond the pie eating and laughs. You often feel such a nice spiritual and motivational high afterwards and you wish it would just last forever. Haha oh well. Nothing to do but to keep trucking. That night and the day after, Thursday, we were on exchange with Elder Trotter and elder Oldham in Troyes. That was good. Oh wow--shoot--we now only have zone conferences every other transfer so I just realized that I've now seen my last one. O.O whoa.....
Hey dad, what would your advice be on helping a missionary in the district who is less-motivated to get outside to find and do missionary work? I remember you said you worked with missionaries like that. I'm not saying I'm a poster child or obedience or motivation or anything, either. I just really wanted your advice on that, we have a guy in our district we could help out. He's only a transfer behind me, so he's almost done, too--we want to help him finish strong, could you help us out?
Friday, we took a little trip out to Soissons, east in our area, with Francois, and we arrived 15 minutes late for the rendez-vous, and sadly, she'd left. Doh. Told by someone else nearby that she'd just left to go shopping. That was a bummer. Oh well. Punctuality counts people. Did a couple less-active passbacks, that went well. That was fun because I knew a french R.M. Who served in Soissons when that was still a separate branch. So it's fun to see a few of the streets he saw. WHOO shout-out to Frere Darguence in Nogent!!
Saturday, we did service for Frere Bourgeois, left a spiritual thought with them from a couple verses in Mosiah, and that was cool because a Chinese student living in their house, and Frere Bourgeois' non-member dad, were present for the lesson. Sunday we had a great time at church. The rest of the weekend was basically spent weekly planning. Took a long time this time but we took time to plan out our week well and make a lot of calls, which needed to be done, so that was okay. We're hoping to be nice and busy this week with appointments and that sort of thing.
We've been watching the videos in "Hastening the Work of Salvation" under "missionary" in Gospel Library, and BOY is that stuff just awesome! That's so motivating. We could almost run on that stuff for hours haha. We're really wanting to get the ward council and ward pumped up for missionary work, we're realizing how much more we need to involve them, so we're praying and studying for an inspired, firey vision of how to get the ward on track with good, organized missionary work. We want to help them meet more often as a ward council. Dad, when you were a bishop, what made you want to meet weekly as a ward council? In this ward, they just say they don't need to because there would be nothing to talk about. Also, what helped them be productive for you? Maybe we could nicely share a couple suggestions.
Okay well just know I love you mom and dad and fmaily! Love you all family and friends! You're great supporters, thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.
I'm praying for spiritual or other gifts that could help me in life, you know, like be a force for good in other peoples' lives. E.g. Gift of learning Spanish, gift of giving honest, straight-forward communication and correction, the gift of mental focus on the right things, that kind of thing. Can't go wrong asking for good gifts to help other people.
Also, I'm doing a little fast this week. Not from food. Haha that would sound kind of alarming. No, it's more like keeping my thoughts more on service and on others, you know, helping Elder Burgoyne have fun and work hard and such. Wish me luck! Hope that goes well. We're all doing that in the district, Elder Oldham had the good idea to do that.
Hey Mom--question--were you able to send protein powder in the package? Haha if not...could you give me some money to buy some? Haha I really want some for a birthday present so yeha, that'd be nice if you could.
Also, I'm working on becoming a better cook. On days when we don't have a rendez-vous at night time, we come in at 7 or 7:30 and I cook Elder Burgoyne dinner, while he does language study. Haha I'm supposed to language study after too...probably should start doing that. Anyways we succeeded pretty well in mkaing a quiche from scratch together today! That was fun! Yayy! Mom can you please send me the blueberry pancake recipe so I can do that for my birthday Pleeeasse? :) love you and you automatically win 8 hugs in doing so... Payable in a couple months naturally :D
Love you so much guys! Loved seeing Zia and Brielle in their Hawaiian dresses! Haha you guys must have had a blast I'm happy. Hope to talk to you soon okay? Feel free to tell me any questions you have!
Love
Elder Edwards
