September 29, 2014

Hey everyone,

This past week was good. So I am staying in villefranche with Elder Walker for my last transfer. I'm still getting a hang on things here as it is a newly opened equipe as of 3 transfers so we don't really have any old amis to work with. We've just been doing alot of finding but we do have one super awesome ami who we committed to baptism this week. She is super prepared and excited for her baptism which will be nov 1 if all goes well. She is one of the most prepared amis ever. She has good connections with the members and she even plays motab quietly in the back ground of our rdvs. The only difficulty with her is that she has to look after her very old and sick mother who lives with her and because Villefranche is like 30 minutes away from Lyon, she has a hard time coming for all of church because she cant leave her mother for a long time without having someone look after her. But she came to church this week and was so excited about her baptism that she was telling everybody when it would be. Keep her in your prayers!

Any way even though we're staying together it is still transfer day and in order to help people out with trains, emails gets cut short again. sorry. love ya

Elder Swenson

September 22, 2014

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of emails the last few weeks. I actually dont have much time today either but i will do my best to fill this up somewhat with the half hour i have for emails today. First things first I am no longer in brive but am now in Lyon due to another unexpected emergency transfer. Well I'm actually in a little town just outside of lyon called Ville Franche but serving in one of the lyon wards. We have a car so we drive about a half hour to get to lyon for church on sundays. I promise it wasn't my fault but something on the other end:) President called my on friday afternoon and i was on a train all day Saturday. My new comp is elder Walker. He is in his first transfer. Real transfer calls are this week and i imagine that there wont be any changes but you never know. 

So the last Pday of every transfer President invites all of the lyon missionaries over to his house to play in the back yard and eat lunch. There are quite a few missionaries here due to there being 4 wards. It was fun getting to see everyone. We played petanque (a popular french game where you try to throw metal balls close to a small one on the ground and who ever is closest to the little ball wins). It was fun because my team beat presidents team and he never loses at anything.

This past week in Brive was good. Although actually most of it was held out side of brive. We went to lyon earlier this week to do elder ottesens legality which took up all of monday and tuesday. Wednesday we actually had time to work and met some really cool people. Thursday we had district meeting in brive and immediately after I headed to bordeaux for an exchange. We headed back to brive on friday and i recieved the call from president while i was on the train. The rest of the day we had a few rdvs and then passed a few members to say goodbye. All saturday was spent at trainstations or on trains and we got in to lyon at 10:30. We just went to the closest elder apt to the gare and slept there. We headed to church the next morning and finally sunday afternoon i made it to our apt in ville franche. The good news about brive though is even though we didnt get much time to work we met a good number of new people and were able to set up plenty of new rdvs for this week. I was sad to leave Brive but I am also excited to be in a new area for the last few weeks. Especially one in lyon which means i wont have to be on trains all the time now like i did in brive due to all the the exchanges and conferences being in different villes.

Any way my time is up so I'm gunna have to cut this short. Sorry. Have a good week! Love you

Elder Swenson

September 1, 2014

Bonjour

This past week was great. The members in the ward here continue to be awesome. We recieved 2 different calls from members telling us that they had someone that they wanted to introduce to us. The first was actually a less active member who had a friend who had some questions about the church so we went over for a dinner at the members house and were able to answer his questions and give him a book of mormon. The next member had bumped into an old classmate from highschool while she was registering at the university. They got to talking about the church and he agreed to come to church and to meet with us. Both were super big miracles that happened because the members were ready and willing to be missionaries when the opportunnity came.

Today for Pday another member took us to Rocamadour which is like the 4th most visited spot in France. It is this cool little town with a cool church and castle built into the side of a cliff. While we were there he took us to the other side of the town where there was this old retired artist guy that he knew of. He showed us around his garden which had some neat statues and art and stuff. Afterwards we got to talking with him and ended up sharing a quick message and giving him a book of mormon. the member that we were with was really touched to have been there to help us. 

Work with our amis continues to progress. There is one ami who we have taught since i first got to brive. He is really nice and always comes to church and has connections with the members and everything. He has recieved all of the lessons but we just couldn't get him to commit to a baptismal date. He has had a bit of a hard time recognizing an answer an really wants to feel ready before his baptism. At our rdv this week we ended up talking about how to recieve answers to prayers and then how the spirit speaks to us and how we can recognize it. It went super well and touched him alot. It is probably the best lesson that i have had with him. At the end we set some goals and decided that we will reteach the lessons again and have him focus on the spirit this time and not just try to take in the info. I know this is what he needs and i am sure that he will be baptized soon.

On sunday while we were porting we walked up to a house and a lady got out of her car to come talk with us. It turns out that she was going to visit the old lady who lived in the house we were about to port. While we were talking to her she said "You guys should come to my neighborhood. We never see missionaries there and i'm sure you would have success." She was super nice and said that she was catholic but open to all religions and really respected what we do. After the short conversation she gave us her address so that we could come and visit her and her family in a week. That was litterally the first time that someone had came up to us and told us to port their neighborhood. Miracles are real! love ya,

Elder Swenson