August 26, 2013

Hey everyone,

This past week went well. We passed quite a few members in the ward this week, sang Love one another on the doorstep with a guitar, and gave them cookies and a little spiritual thought on the back of a picture of Christ. They LOVED it. It was a really simple quick way to serve and uplift a lot of members as well as get to know them better without spending a long time at a dinner appointment. We saw smiles, tears, and cameras, heard thankyous and encores and felt lots of love. I love the members in Toulouse.

So last week I talked about our ami Pernel and how cool he was. Well he is progressing really well and should be batized this week. The thing is that he is leaving Toulouse this weekend to go back to school in Nancy. So because it is cooler for everyone that his uncle baptizes him, his baptism is going to be on thursday before he heads up north. He is super cool and we are all excited that he is getting baptized this week. I'm sad that i'm going to miss it due to the fact that I am no longer in Toulouse. Yes you read that right. Yes it is still the middle of the transfer. Let me explain:

So Friday morning during studies Elder Tulley got a call from the assistants. (The office has our numbers mixed up apparently). He talks for a few seconds and then says "yeah here he is;" and passes me the phone. Wondering what this is going to be about I answer expecting to hear Elder Emal on the phone. The following conversation then took place:

Me: Hello this is Elder Swenson

President Roney: Hello Elder Swenson how are you doing?

Me (slightly confused): I'm good thanks. What can I do for you?

President: So we had a problem with a missionary going home early and you are the solution to this problem. You are going to be serving in Angouleme.

Me (slightly more confused): Uh...

President: You will be serving with Elder Crossman and you will head up to Angouleme tomorrow. Elder Asay will now be in a three some with
                Elder Tulley  and Elder Hunt. 

Me: Ok

President: Thanks. We love you. Can i talk to your companion now?

Me: yep. (hands the phone to Elder Asay)
Elder Tulley: What did Elder Emal want?

So yup. I'm now in Angouleme with Elder Crossman. It's a nice little ville with a small branch. This is the first area i've served in that doesn't have a ward. There are about 20 to 30 members at church each week which is a change comming from a big ward in Toulouse. Any way I like it up here and should work well with Elder Crossman. I'll miss Toulouse and Elder Asay and the members but I know that this is where the Lord wants me to be. I love you all!

Elder Swenson

August 19, 2013

Cher famille,

Yes things are going well as usual. We have been continuing to work hard to help everybody in toulouse. If you remember a few weeks back I talked about teaching an unexpected lesson to a members nephew. We have continued to work with him and things are going along great. Yesterday I sat by him in a particularly long and sleep inducing sacrament meeting. I noticed that he had his phone out and glanced over expecting to see him texting, only to see that he was taking notes about the talks. Even an extremely long one about being a daughter of God. What a stud! 

 

So there have been like 5 or 6 moves in and out of the ward these past few weeks. We helped with a 2 of them this week. Its sad to see some cool families move but we gained a couple of cool families as well. We visited one of the new families yesterday. They are awesome and the playing with the kids while dinner cooked reminded me of all of the family back home. I love and miss you guys! Any way because they are in a new ville they don't know many people and the kids were talking about how they weren't looking forward to starting in a new school here in a week with new teachers and kids that they don't know. We decided to share a story from Mark 5 with them. 

In the story there is a man who comes up to Christ telling Him that his daughter is sick and needs a blessing. While they are returning to the mans home, some men come and tell the man that his daughter had passed away and were giving him a hard time for wasting Christs time. Ignoring the other men Christ tells the man, "Fear not, only believe". Afterwards He goes with the man and raises his daughter from the dead. We shared this story with them and talked about how if we have faith and trust in the Lord that we have no reason to be scared of what is to come. With Christ all things are possible and He will always help us during difficult times.

In life there will always be hard times that are filled with opposition. Not only was this man stressed about the well being of his daughter but he was surrounded by the opposition and unbelief of those around him. But he didn't heed any of that. Instead he trusted in Christ and because of his faith his daughter was healed. We should follow this mans example. The next time that we are find ourselves in a frightening or stressful situation all we need to do is remember the words of the Savior. We have no reason to fear because we know that we are never alone. If we remember the fact that God is there for us and wont let anything happen to us save it be for our good, we have no reason to fear or be worried.

I love you all!

Elder Swenson

Pictures!!!!

This is a Ferris wheel from a few weeks ago

View from the Ferris wheel

Elder Asay on a bridge

Elder Asay and I

Visiting a castle in Foix for P-day

Castle in Foix

August 12, 2013

Hello family dearest,

This past week went well. I love working with Elder Asay. He is an excellent missionary and we work well together. So we started the week out by cleaning up the appartment and area book so that we could be nice and organized for the transfer. The areabook here in toulouse really needed to be cleaned up as we found progress records from 2001 which are different because they have the 6 discussions instead of the preach my gospel lessons. This made me realize how old Bryan and Dan are. Any way with that all cleaned up we have a much easier time being organized and getting work done with less actives and old amis. 

So I dont know if any of you guys did this in your missions but often we will go street boarding. This is where you set up a pannel with a question or scripture or picture and then contact around it to draw more people in and to give you a topic to talk about. Any way this week we did something like that but with a guitar. We basically use the guitar as a street board by taping a question to the guitar and then walk around playing and contacting. It works fairly well is more interesting for people to come and talk to us. Hopefully we can see some cool miracles come from this.

Now that people are getting back from vacation we are able to set up more rdvs. We had some cool lessons this week including one that we had in the back of a guys car. That was a first for me. Things are slowly starting to pick up for us here and we should see a bunch of miracles here in the upcoming weeks. I love being able to help people learn more about the gosple and seeing the impact that it has on their life.

Any way I love you all and hope you enjoy the last little bit of summer.

Elder Swenson

August 5, 2013

Hello dear family,

So new transfer, new comp, same ville, same all day train station duties. So Elder Wilson got shipped off and my new comp is Elder Asay. He's from texas ( I know that mom likes to know where my comps are from). He's an awesome elder and we should get alot of good work done this transfer. The good news is that vacation is comming to an end and so we will have an easier time fixing up rdvs. We met a bunch of cool people at the first of the transfer who ended going on vacation until august. Hopefully know we will get to see all of these cool people in the comming weeks.

So last week was good. We did plenty of service and did some good work with members. One cool thing that happened was we had planned to go see a member but when we got to his apt he wasn't there. His non member nephew was though and invited us up. He told us that his uncle was going to be late but said "You guys usually start with a prayer right? I'll say it." He then asked us about the church and we ended up teaching him about the restoration and setting up a return visit in a few days. It was a cool unexpected miracle that the Lord sent our way.

I'm excited for this new transfer and I know that we will continue seeing miracles all throughout. I love you all and hope that you are enjoying the last little bit of summer. I'm sorry that this letter is a little short and that I haven't sent pictures in a few weeks (I forgot my camera cord again). I'll do a better job next week when I have more time. Love ya,

Elder Swenson