Here are links to more of Elder Connualt's pictures. These are from the last two weeks. Hopefully now that Trent has been transferred he will send us pictures himself!
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
June 24, 2013
Hello again dear family,
So as usual I have a new companion this transfer and am in a new ville. This transfer I am in Toulouse and am serving with Elder Wilson. I know Elder Wilson really well because he was in Marseille with me the first 2 transfers and am really excited to be serving with him. Also Elder Tulley will be training a bleu and they will be staying in the same appartment with us. Also here are 3 other elders (Wolfenstein, Ashton, and Truman) that have been in my districts in the past. Basically Toulouse is the new Marseille. We're excited. This is going to be a great transfer.
Last week was a great week as well with alot accomplished. We visited quite a few members and as a result of our commitments to invite members we had 11 amis at church on sunday. We found and taught some cool new people as well and Elder Wheat should have a good amount of rdvs with his new comp (he is staying there and elder Connault got transfered to gap). We also finally got all of the stuff set up in the new appartment that we had to set up for the sisters who are coming to St Etienne this transfer.
Yesterday was awesome. We had the baptisimal service of the kids after church. It was really spiritual and even resulted in some spirit induced tears of some of the non members who were there. We had a good time saying goodbye to all of the members and had a really good sunday.
Any way as usual on transfer days i dont have alot of time today because i spent 6 hours on the train today. I will write more and send photos next week.
Love ya,
Elder Swenson
Monday, June 17, 2013
June 17, 2013
Bonjour ma famille,
Another good week. Earlier in the week we had our conference with Elder Richards and it was really good. He talked about teaching doctrine simply and working through members. We set some lofty goals as a mission for next month and will all be working hard to accomplish them. It was fun getting to see all of the missionaries at the conference. We had 5 for 8 of my mtc group there so that was cool. Also i got to see all of the swiss missionaries finally.
This is the last week of the transfer and it has gone by super fast just like all of the others. I will find out where i am going this friday. All sorts of patterns will be broken if i stay here with the same comps and stay in the same ville for more than 2 transfers. We'll see.
As far as the ward news goes here we had a home comming of a sister who had been serving in rome. She is still in missionary mode and asked us for a big stack of pass along cards as soon as we met her. Next week if all goes well should be the baptism of the 3 kids we've been working with. It's awesome to see how excited everyone is that they are finally getting baptised.
This past week we had some good FHEs with members. We shared 1 Ne 8:11-12 which talkes about Lehi tasting the fruit and wanting to share it with his family. We asked about their experiences of "tasting the fruit" and invited them to share it with others. I love being able to help members share the gospel with their friends. It was so awesome getting to hear all sorts of gospel miracles and conversion stories. This gospel is so great that when we talk about all of the good things it has brought us we are filled with the spirit and desire to share it with others. Think often about all of the many blessings that this gospel has brought you and i promise you that you will be filled with such a spirit of happiness that you will want to go out and share it with everyone. I love you all.
Elder Swenson
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Pictures, Courtesy of Elder Connault
In case the links don't work, or you just want to see some of the pictures now, here are Cort's (Elder Swenson's nephew) favorites.
Monday, June 10, 2013
June 10, 2013
Hey everybody,
So this past week was good. Especially since it was sunny for the majority of the week. We had some cool rdvs this week. We contcted a university student and we went to the campus to teach her. We were in this little courtyard area so it was pretty peaceful. She also invited a couple of her friends and we got to teach a nice lesson to some pretty open people. Also this week we had another rdv with a really nice couple. We met them porting and it turns out that they had met with elders before like 10 years ago. They are super nice and we were able to give them a new book of mormon because they had lost their old copy.
This week was stake conference. This was the first time that they were going to try to transmit it to the other chappels so that we could just watch it on a screen. But of course the wifi at the church is horrible so it didn't work perfectly. The wifi didn't reach to well in the chappel so we all ended up moving chairs into they foyer so that the signal would be stronger. By the time we did that we had missed like the first 15 minutes. It worked well until the last 10 minutes then it cut out again. But the middle talks were good.
Tomorrow we have a general athority visiting the mission so we have a big conference. There will be three of them in different parts of the mission so that all of the missionaries dont have to travel too far. so that means that i will get to see a third of the missionaries which will be cool. I think all of the swiss elders are coming to our conference so i will get to see all of them who i don't often get to see because americans cant get swiss legality so it's pretty much like they're in a different mission.
I'm now adjusted to having 2 companions. It helped having the extra set of hands because we did quite a bit of service this week. Other than that there isn't anything to facinating that i have to say. I love you all and hope all is going well,
Elder Swenson
Monday, June 3, 2013
June 3, 2013
Hey everyone,
So this week we got an unexpected surprise. Last week we got this text from the assistants that said, should we call saint etienne about the new elder? We sent back a ? in reply to their accidental text. Anyway long story short we now have a third elder in our equipe. His name is Elder Conault. He is french and he is waiting on a visa so that he can go serve in madagascar. He hasn't even been to the mtc yet. But he is awesome and will be serving here for about 9 weeks. Since he doesn't speak a ton of english, he will be a big help with my french because we don't speak a lot of english now.
So I had my first question about kolob in a rdv this week. I just thought that that was interesting.
So we have been trying to work a lot through members and this week with the help of a new french elder in the ward we set up a good amount of rdvs with members and their friends. This upcoming week should be a good one. This past week we have been putting alot of focus on endearing the members. We wrote little personal notes with a scripture refference on the back and put them in the members mailboxes. They all enjoyed it and it's true that we can easily brighten someones day by just doing little things for them.
So when we walk back to our appartment at night we pass by this bar/nightclub thing. The other night as we were walking home there was a group of people outside waiting for it to open. When we walked past we were met with a chant of "Hey mormons come join us! hey mormons come join us!" It made me laugh. Every day in this world we are bombarded with temptations and this was just a funny example of that. We should learn from their example and invite everyone we see by saying "Hey world come join us!" This gospel is happiness and everyone who isn't a part of it is missing out on all of the joy and blessings. We should all be missionaries and invite those that we see to come join us. Just like Lehi and the tree of life, after we have tasted the fruit the next thing we want to do is invite others to come and partake.
I love you all
Elder Swenson
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