November 4, 2013

Bonjour,

So this past week was fun. We headed up to Lyon on tuesday to meet up with the bleus. All of the trainers had dinner and talked and such until the evening. The next morning we headed to the office to have a meeting about training and after lunch we headed to the church where we finnaly got to meet our comps. There were around 25 missionaries coming in this transfer so the chapel was pretty full. Of all of the new missionaries less than half were american which was pretty cool. There were missionaries from france, england, spain, brasil, germany, denmark, and finland. Anyway so they all went up one by one and read their calls to see where they were serving and who their trainer would be. We went through about 75% of them before someone finnaly read that his trainer would be Elder Swenson.

My new comp is Elder Pedersen. He is Danish. He is really cool and so far it has been really good working with him. His french is alot better than mine was when i got in. It always helps distinguish your companionship in big wards when your companion isn't the same old american elder that members are used to seeing. Unless your comp is Native american like Elder Tulley that is. We should be able to sneak ahead of the other elders and just behind the sisters in the dinner appointment department :)

So this past friday we saw a pretty cool little miracle. In studies that morning i was reading over my patriarchal blessing. There was a particular line that stood out to me that morning that said, If you strengthen your faith you will find that all things are possible. I repeated this phrase in my head throughout the day as we worked. When the evening came we had some free time that we had planned to go contacting in the park. The night before we had set the goal to either get a number or fix a rdv during this time. As we walked towards the park I remembered this goal as well as the line from the blessing. I said a prayer in which I asked for us to reach our goal, full of faith knowing that the only thing that could keep us from getting a number was God's will. I said amen. We then got a number from the first person that we contacted and set up a rdv for the next day. Miracle.

The rdv with him went well. We taught him how to pray and helped him say his first ever prayer. When we were explaining prayer he was like, "you mean you can just say what ever? And you can ask for blessings for you and your family? and that works? And its just like a conversation? Well that's easy!" It was really touching to be able to teach someone such a simple principle like that and litterally see the light go into them. It is just a big reminder of how blessed we really are to be in this church with a knowlege of the gosple. Prayer really is such a blessing and i can testify that i know from experience that it really does work. Sometimes we forget how true that fact really is. I love you all and wish you the best!

Elder Swenson

October 28, 2013

Hey everyone,

Due to transfer day this will be short. So first things first I'm staying in montpellier. Elder pielstick is actually now part of a musical group of four elders that will be touring the mission. (Yeah i'm not really sure what this means either, i'll let you know later.) I'm going to be training a bleu so i'm not sure what his name is yet because I pick him up in Lyon on wednesday. It should be a good transfer though so i'm excted.

Today I was one of the gare elders because montpellier is in the middle of the mission there are a lot of missionaries coming through and switching trains and such. This means I spent the morning running through the gare with all of the bags to help people catch trains. Sisters have so much stuff. There was a huge burst where we had to help about 20 missionaries switch trains in under 30 minutes. Crazy. The joy of being in a big city on transfer day.

Yesterday we had stake conference in Toulouse. This was cool because i got to go back and see all of the members that i never got to say goodbye to back when i was emergency transfered to Angouleme. They reorganized the stake presidency so it was pretty much all testimonies by them and thier wives. The new stake president looks exactly like Will Ferril byt the way. There were a couple members of the 70 there and they gave some good talks. Because there werent any trains to get us to toulouse in time on sunday morning a ton of us slept over saturday night. There were 13 elders in the appartment i stayed in. I slept on the floor in the kitchen with only a blanket and no pillow. Good times. Any way i love you all and promise to send pictures next week. I wish you all the best!

Avec amour,

Elder Swenson

October 21, 2013

Hey all,

So this past week was pretty good. We have a couple of cool new amis that we taught this week. Hopefully we can continue to see them and they can start progressing. We've been having a bit of trouble finding some solid amis here. Because of this we have been doing quite a bit of finding.

Earlier this week we were porting and we talked with this guy at the door for a good little bit. Anyway he had this really cool mustache so at the end of the contact I said excuse me I just wanted to let you know that you have a really cool mustache and i couldnt leave without telling you. It kind of caught him off gaurd. I think he was expecting me to try to continue the contact so when i said this he busted up laughing. It is always great to compliment people and help make them feel better so ive decided that if they arent receptive to the gospel then at least i can try to make them feel better somehow.

Also this week because of all of the contacting I had this cool conversation with a young guy for about a half hour. After testifying and sharing the book of mormon with him i couldn't help but smile. I was just filled with genuine happiness and couldn't feel bad the rest of the evening. I know that this message and this work is true. And that living it and sharing it bring us true joy. I love you all and invite you to look for ways that you can share this joy with others. If you do this you wont be able to keep yourself from smiling. Love ya,

Elder Swenson

October 14, 2013

Hello everyone,

So this past week was a little slower. We had quite a few appointments fall through and i also had a bit of a stomache bug. The good news is that it is a new week and I am feeling better. At the beginning of the week we had a conference in Aix. This is right by Marseille and we switched trains in the Marseille station with a little time inbetween so i got to go out and look at the city for a few minutes. It seems like just yesterday that i was just starting my mission and walking around those streets. Crazy how time flies. The conference was good and gave us all a spiritual boost.

On Wednesday we visited a few members and got them excited to do missionary work. We shared good spiritual messages and got them thinking about how they could invite their non member friends to come into contact with the church. We helped one couple who wanted to use their facebook to do that. By the way Dad wanted to know if we can use that yet and the answer is no. I don't think that our mission will get to use facebook until like the end of my mission if that. It is mostly in the states from what i have heard. Who knows. 

We also went to visit a less active lady in the ward. She told us to come by at a certain time and then wasn't there. We called and she told us she would be there in about an hour and a half so we went and ported around the neighborhood and came back. She still wasn't there but her non member daughter said we could come in and wait. Well she still never showed up so we asked the daughter if we could share a message with her. It went well and i feel like she was touched. We expected to have a less active visit but it turned out that we taught a lesson instead. It reminded me of back in Toulouse when we started teaching Pernel. Who knows what will happen here. All i know is that the best amis come through members. Speaking of that, i recently heard that the family that I started teaching back in St Etienne finally got baptized! It is awesome to hear good news like that. I know that they will be a super addition to the ward there.

Well i love you all and hope that you are staying happy, healthy, and well. Love ya lots, until next week,

Elder Swenson

October 7, 2011

Bonjour,

Conference was pretty awesome huh? There were alot of really good talks. Alot of holy boldness was used. I know that there were specific things in there for all of us and that if we take the time to study and go over the talks that we will recieve personal revelation. Luckily in montpellier there was a room where it was playing in english. It is so much easier to take things in when it is in your native laguage. Also when it is being translated the jokes just don't work so you hear everyone laughing at the conference center while everyone in the french chappel is trying to figure out whats so funny. Also president Uchedorfs voice sounds much more epic than the naisally french translater.

This past week was pretty good. We began teaching a few new amis. One is a girl who has seen missionaries in the past but due to opposition of friends and family she stopped. Any way she has decided to give it another go so we will do our best to help her strengthen her testimony. We also taught a cool young guy from Vietnam. He is studying here and speaks english and very little french. He seems really cool and even watched some of the saturday conference with us. Because he doesn't have any Christian background or knowlege coming from Asia, we really need to teach simply and slowly. Any way the work is coming along here nicely.

Sunday between conference sessions we decided to go do some contacting. Me and Elder Taylor went on a mini exchange and talked to everyone that we could find. We jogged next to people on bikes, jogged to catch up with people and after a lenghthy door contact with this older guy, ran back to the church for a good five minutes so that we wouldnt miss any of the talks. It was fun. Conference gives you alot of energy for that type of stuff. Elder Taylor is a stud. 

Anyway I hope that all is going well for you and that you enjoyed conference week end. I love you,

Elder Swenson