April 8, 2013

Bonjour ma famille,

Another great week here in France. I really like it here in St Etienne. The members here are all really nice. (and they feed us way to much!) It's smaller than Marseille and it is a lot less crowded. Also you don't here ambulances and police sirens every 2 minutes. I've only seen the sun once while i've been here because it's been cloudy and rainy every day. Elder Jackson is a great missionary and i'm glad i get to serve with him. We have a couple of amis that we are teaching and they are all awesome. One of our amis is named Jisun. She is from South Korea and we teach her in english because she is still learning french. It's the first time that I have taught someone who doesn't have a christian background and it is definitely a new experience for me. But she is awesome and i know that it will all go well.

General conference was good, or at least the things that i got from watching it in french. I definitely need to go back and listen in english. Because of the time difference we watched the saturday morning session on saturday night, and all but the last session on sunday. I still haven't seen the last session though. I don't know if its just because i am a missionary and thats what i picked out but i felt like there was a lot said about missionary work. I feel like i got some good stuff from the conference. I hope that you all did too. One thing that we engaged our amis to do was to come to conference with a question in mind and then we promised them that it would get answered if they listened carefully. I know that this is true. We are so blessed to be able to listen to the apostles and prophet who can give us guidence and counsel for our time. We are also lucky to have the gift of the Holy Ghost through whom we can receive personal revelation to help us with our day to day problems and concerns. There is a quote by Joseph Smith that says "The Holy Ghost is a revelator and nobody can recieve the Holy Ghost without receiving revelation". Never forget that you can always have your prayers and questions answered if you prayerfully seek direction from the Lord. He is always there and waiting to help us if we just ask and are willing to do our part. I love you all and hope that everything is well for you.

Elder Swenson