June 16, 2014

Bonjour,

So sorry for not writing last week but I was traveling pretty much half the week. So because the conference was in Nice and everyone had to travel there, to save money instead of using trains we all met up and took busses. So on sunday after church we hopped on a train for about 2.5 hours and headed to bordeaux where we stayed the night. Monday morningwe woke up and headed to the church there to board the bus. We drove for about 8 or 9 hours before finnaly getting to nice. We stayed in a hotel because there are like 270 missionaries and there was no way we were going to all fit in the appartments there. Tuesday morningwe woke up and headed to a conference center and practiced a few songs before Elder Andersen got there.

The conference was amazing! President and sister Roney, Elder and sister Kearon and Elder and sister Andersen all spoke to us. They all had awesome talks and the spirit was super strong. I love Elder Andersen. It was extra cool because he served his mission here and later was mission president here as well so he has a huge love for the french missionaries. They shared stories and miracles of their experiences here and boosted everyones faith. We had a couple of musical numbers and at the end we sang a really cool version of the spirit of God. I don't think i've ever felt the spirit so strong in my life when we sang that. 

Afterwards we hopped on a bus and drove until we got to Montpellier where we stayed in another hotel. We continued on the next day and finally got back to Brive about 8:00 wednesday night. Even though it took many many long hours of travel and we weren't allowed to talk with any of the other missionaries in Nice in order to stay reverent, it was well worth it.

Things have been going great in Brive. We are working with some great amis who are doing awesome. I am loving being here. We should be having a baptism here in a few weeks and I'm sure I'll see more if I stay another transfer. Any way I love you all and wish I could have shared more but the internet place is closing early for some reason today and the guy is kicking us out now. Until next week!

Elder Swenson