September 17, 2013

Hey all,

So new ville, new comp. This transfer I will be serving in Montpellier with Elder Pielstick. From what I've seen so far I think montpellier is going to be awesome. Last night we went to a family home evening at a members house with a bunch of amis and less actives. It went really well and I am excited to meet all of the members here. Montpellier is one of the bigger villes (still smaller than marseille and toulouse) so there are 4 equipes of missionaries here. Any way i know this will be a great transfer full of miracles.

Elder Crossman got transfered as well. We weren't really expecting to both leave but president Roney always does the unexpected with transfer calls. He is going to be serving in Perpignan. This is still in our zone so we will get to see each other at conferences. Any way, he is opening up an equipe there and so they have a new appartment. The keys to the appartment are in Lyon for the moment though because someone forgot to send them or take them or something. So for the next few days until they can get their keys they are staying in our apt. which already has 4 elders in it. Good times. I also found out this morning that it is better not to go last for taking a shower in an appartment with six elders if you want any hot water.

So last week in Angouleme we had an activity at the church. We had an american night where we played music, taught how to make chocolat chip cookies, and ate hamburgers. It went really well and we had a good turn out with a bunch of less actives and amis. For the beginning part we had a musical portion where me, elder Crossman, and two other members played guitar. Frere Temahouki, a really cool older Tahitian member played with us and it was great. He had this really old guitar that he's had since he was 19 (he's like 65 now) that was super beat up and had a big hole in the side of it. It was really funny and he won the crowd over. Because there were plenty of extra pre cooked hamburger patties left over at the end, we ended up eating hamburgers for the next couple of meals because they gave us all of the extras. I think i'm good not having a hamburger for a while.

Any way sorry for the late email. Yesterday was pretty busy so emails got pushed back to today. I love you all and hope you are all doing well. Happy birthday to all of those who had them recently. Until next week,

Elder Swenson

September 2, 2013

Hey everybody,

So things are going good here. Angouleme is a nice little ville. I am slowly catching after being here a week. It is a little easier to know the members when there are so few of them. Hopefully we'll be able to change that by finding all kinds of big cool families. We do have a couple cool amis that we are teaching at the moment and I am excited to get to know them better as we continue to see them more. There is a less active guy that the elders found before i got here who was baptised in Peru. He is really cool and has a nice little family but it can be a little hard teaching him as he mostly speaks spanish and neither of us really do. Elder Crossman bought a spanish grammar book so we will see what we can pick up from that.

So I did an exchange in Bordeaux last week. I have been there once for a conference but this was the first time that i got to work there. It is a really big ville with slow public transportation. Being there reminded me of Marseille because of how big it is. I like getting to do exchanges in other villes so that i can see more of France. I was looking at all of the villes where I have been on a map the other day and I can say that i am definately not one of those elders who seems to be stuck in one region of the the country their whole mission. President definately keeps me moving around.

Other news is that Pernel, our ami from Toulouse, got baptized yesterday. I'm sad that I missed it but am really proud of him for his progress. I'll see if i can steal some pictures of that from Elder Asay. It's crazy to think that in just over 2 months I will hit my year mark. The time has just flown by and its crazy to look back and see all of the things i've seen and done over here. I've been trying to do better with journal writting as i have been pretty bad with that. I have been going back over my pictures and planners and trying to fill in on any of the cool things i have neglected to write down and it has been really fun going over all of the good memories.

I love you all and wish you the best. 

Elder Swenson