May 27, 2014

Bonjour à tout,

As you might have assumed based on this late email i got transfered out of Vitrolles. I am now serving in Brive with Elder Martinez. He is a great Elder and it is the first time since the mtc that I have served with a spanish comp. After leaving the appartment at 6:00 I was lucky enough to spend all monday on or waiting for trains before finally getting in at 7:00 that evening. Gotta love transfer day.

Brive is a nice little ville in the compagne. It was actually a branch at the beginning of my mission but was recently made a ward. There are 2 sets of elders here and Elder Kiser is actually in Brive as well as Elder Hunt who was in my apt in Toulouse so it is cool to see them again.

As much as I was happy to leave behind all of the trials that we dealt with in vitrolles it was still hard to leave behind all the people there. It is crazy how fast you become attatched to the ward and amis in an area even if you're only there for 1 transfer. Seeing as how I am now in my 8th ville, I have these connections and memories with people all over the south of France. 

Living the life of a missionary constantly helping the Lord in His work really opens your eyes and helps you realize why it is He does this work. I have met all kinds of people in all sorts of circumstances and even though they are all imperfect and have faults and do stupid things you can't help but love them and have the desire to help and sevre them. Changing villes and having to leave behind friends and loved ones  also helps us to understand how great a blessing it would be to be able to see them again after this life. 

That is what the gospel is all about. It alows us to return and live together as a heavenly family in the presence of God and not only that but to learn and grow so that we can iron out all of those kinks that keep us from being a happy unified family. It allows each member of this family to recieve more blessings and happiness than we can even comprehend at the moment. It's no wonder that this is Gods work and His Glory. Serving this mission has opened my eyes and allowed me to see others for who they really are (my brothers and sisters) and who they can become (perfect as is our Savior). It is important for all of us to understand the whys of the gospel and of this life. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why God does what He does?

Recently in a sunday school lesson we learned that we shouldn't just try to get through our trials but that we should try to learn from them. Obviously if God saw fit to give us these trials there was a reason behind it. The same goes for every aspect of life. We should ask ourselves, Am I just trying to get through each day? Am I going through the motions? Or am I trying to learn from and get something out of each moment in life?

As we stop and think about why we are here and why we are doing what we are doing, we will have more of a purpose and direction in life. Our lives will be more rewarding and we will be happier. Before you just continue going through the day to day, stop and ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing and what you can learn and gain from it.

I love this gospel and all of the answers that it brings to me in my life. I love and am grateful for my Heavenly Father who has allowed me to live this life and has provided me with the way to make the most of it. I love that I will be able to return to live with our big loving family after this life. I love you all!

Elder Swenson

May 19, 2014

Bonjour,

So we definately need our car back. It is very difficult working here without it. I am hoping that we should have it by next week but i doubt it because it is likely the last thing on their mind at the moment with transfers coming up and having to prepare for Elder Andersens visit to the mission in a few weeks. We'll just have to continue struggling down here until we get that back. 

So yesterday we had to go to Aix for church due to the construction going on at the vitrolles chappel. We just held our meetings after the Aix ward in the afternoon. It was a change going to church at 2:00 instead of the usual 9:00 time. If all goes well though we should be able to attend church in our own building this week. 

We saw the Akobé family this week and things are going well. The wife and daughters are alot more receptive than the dad though. He just seems stuck in his ways and doesn't really want to change. He is actually going out of town for a few weeks and so we are just going to be teaching the wife and kids. Hopefully they will really be able to feel the spirit and progress well these next few weeks without any interference from the father.

Transfer calls are this week. I honestly have no clue as to what will happen. Any thing is a possibility at this point. I'll let you know next week. I love you all,

Elder Swenson

May 13, 2014

Salut tout le monde,

 

It was great talking with you on skype! As you can tell from this late email our attempt to brake into our under-construction church yesterday to do our emails failed. We got library cards though so now we can do them here. However the library like a lot of things here is closed on monday because I am serving in a country filled with lazy people. So next week we might be doing emails on tuesday as well. Anyway so this past week we got in a bit of an accident(not our fault) so we are now without a car for about 2 weeks. The car honestly isn't super beat up and is still perfectly drivable but the office doesn't want us driving it till we can fix it just to be safe. This is bad news because litterally the work here just got a million times harder. We do have bikes... but those are broken. The bus system here is horrible and as i have explained in the past Vitrolles itself is a tiny ghetto ville with little to no people to contact. We are trying to do our best though and hopefully we will be able to figure out how to work the most effectively with what we have. Gotta love them trials!

 

Work with our amis has been moving along. Work with the family akobé is moving pretty slow. They love us and we still see them weekly but unfourtunately they also love the catholic church and aren't super motivated to change. It'll come though. Please keep them in your prayers for us. Other than that we have a few new amis in the ville Martigues. Unfourtunately getting out there now takes and hour and costs 8 euros... Hopefully we will be able to work things out to be able to see all of them and get them progressing. We have schelduled to go and do service at the Lavie familys this week and hopefully we'll be able to talk with the son about fixing a baptismal date.

 

This past week we had a few activities with the ward including a big picnick where we got to teach french people how to play baseball. It was fun and we had quite a few less actives and amis who came. It was a great opportunity to grow closer with all of the awesome ward members. I also got to do an exchange in Marseille this past week and it was a blast being able to work out there again. The mission has flown by and it feels like i was just serving in marseille. It's crazy to think that I am now in my 7th ville. I love the mission and even though it is filled with all sorts of trials and difficulties it is definately worth it. I love you all,

 

Elder Swenson

May 5, 2014

Bonjour tout le monde,

Another fine week here in Vitrolles. Today we headed down to Marseille to go on a hike for a district p day. It was great being able to relax and relive the memories from my bleu days. We were also in marseille on saturday to attend a baptism there and i got to see and catch up with a lot of the members there. It is crazy to think how fast time has gone by. 

I also got to spend a day in Aix for an exchange. I haven't worked in aix since my first transfer. I really like it there. It isn't to big but there are a lot of cool people because it is a college town. It was nice being able to have people to contact for a change from Vitrolles.

As far as the work in Vitrolles goes we have been working with a partial member family and our hopes are pretty high that we will see the son baptized here pretty soon. He already knows basically everything and comes to church nearly every week. We talked with him this sunday about fixing a day and he said that he would pray for one.

This week we have a ward activity and we should have quite a few amis coming. We contacted this 16 year old kid a while back and taught him on the street. It turns out that he goes to the same school as one of the members in the ward and so she has been a big help in working with him. we lost contact with him for about a week or so and so we figured that he wasn't interested any more but then it turns out that he just lost his phone and when he got a new one he got back in contact with the member who invited him to come to the activity. Hopefully we will be able to start teaching him again. We are lucky to have such great member missionaries here.

Any way i hope all is going well back home. I'm looking forward to skype home next week. Talk to you then! Love ya,

Elder Swenson