Belgium is going to make me Fat!

Ahhh sorry it took so long to do emails but we have been kinda running around with our heads cut off for the last couple of days, since me and Elder Fortuna both are new here. Nivelle is beautiful and also super tiny! The members rock and we have already eaten at three members houses and have been invited by a few others for later! P.S. Belgium chocolate is SOOOO good! Also if you ever think Natty is crazy you need to meet the Snikers family! They have 5 daughters and 2 sons! Three of the daughters are around Natty's age ranging from 3-6 and they are CRAZY!!!!!! We had Christmas dinner there and I was attacked by all three of them! I stood no chance! They also just got a new gift, something shiny and sticky for their barbies lips called glitter! Needless to say they showed no mercy and I became a sparkly elder! They were so fun but I don't think I have ever fallen asleep so quickly! Thanks for all the gifts, especially the pictures guys! Thank you Kiya for adding those crazy ones from BYU! 

Well.....we've got A LOT of finding to do cause the work is pretty dead here, beings the area was re-opened less than a couple of months ago! I was praying to be in the area where I could best learn how to efficiently contact people....... cause i am terrible at it,  and i think i might be a little more careful with my prayers next time he he! NO I am super excited to be here and there is tons of work to do so I am excited to get things moving here. P.S. the Lord has been really nice to me so far as companions go cause He just keeps giving me better and better ones! Elder Fortuna is from Illinois ........cant remember what part....but he is a SUPER hard worker, and he reminds me a lot of Tallen in the way he acts! We are gunna rock it here! Well not much else is going on here so I will try and figure out how the post works here and I will try and get letters out soon! Loves all y'all!

December 19th

      O.k. let's just get some little stuff outta the way! I have no idea what to expect going to a new country and all!!!!!  I have no idea how the work is going in Nivelles and I have no idea if they have something set up for the elders for Christmas!  However, I do know that it doesn't matter if I call you or you call me' and it doesn't even have to be on Christmas. It can be any day after that because families don't all have the same plans for Christmas! It does have to be reasonably close and we only get one call. I have no idea what the country codes are but  me and elder Fortuna have been calling each other and we have a plan! Y'all can tell me what you prefer to do and when me and elder Fortuna get in Belgium we can check emails really quick and confirm plans! This will enable us to figure out where we live and get to know whats going on there so we can tell you for sure what the plans are!    OK I am sending some pictures so hopefully they work on this stupid french computer!!!!  Ummmmmm this week was crazy! Elder Clawson was sick for half of the week and then I was sick the last half........not very effective to be sick on different days! I finally got fed up with doing nothing and told Elder Clawson that I could care less how sick we were," WE ARE GOING CONTACTING DANG IT!!!!"  And hey it was probably the most successful contacting I have had for a while! We met some clowns from San Francisco and talked to them for a while and got their email address! One of the guys said he'd been baptized Mormon before but he doesn't think he could be Mormon again cause he is bi-sexual.......yeah....well people can change ahaha! We also ran into a lady from Congo and after we talked for awhile she randomly said she wanted to know where are church was so she could come!! It was crazy! OH, we have also had some really awesome lessons with Alex lately!!! I don't know if you remember who he was, but he was born Muslim and he decided that he wanted nothing to do with that, met the missionaries (elder Mckay and Brady) but never really had to much time with anyone until me and elder Crump, and later elder Clawson came. But since then he has been taught the restoration a few times, (cause he kept thinking that the church belonged to Joseph Smith.....and was even cool with that but .....still not OK so we clarified that a few times), and most of everything else, and he just loved everything! The biggest thing was that we couldn't get him to church, but he came yesterday and absolutely loved it. He told all the members he would come in the next weeks to come! He is such a champ and has had SO many trials and also has struggled to keep a job! But his faith in Christ is ....amazing I wish you could meet him! He will definitely be baptized he has already expressed that and says that he knows that this is Gods church! He just wants to learn a little bit more! Well I hope all of y'all are just so pumped for Christmas! I have not been writing so much lately because the post freezes during Christmas here and it is ALREADY TERRIBLE so I am sorry you have not gotten much letters, but don't worry I don't get much either so we are all in the same boat, hehehe! But  I will start writing every week again soon! Oh! Give Joe a big hello for me will ya! Tell him he is my hero and that he is really gunna rock his mission cause he is already a super elder in my eyes! His papers might be a hassle but God knows when he needs him to serve and whenever he gets his call is exactly when he needs it, and I am SO SUPER STOKED FOR HIM P.S. He should go to Paris........but that is me just being selfish ,so he will go where ever he is needed!

I'm Going To Belgium!!

       

I'M GOIN TO BELGIUM!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to a little ville called Nivelle and I will be white washin with Elder Fortuna! so......if you want to send stuff your gunna want to send it to this adress:          Elder Lyons

                                                              2 Chemin Coparty

                                                              1400 Nivelle

                                                               Belgium

 

 Anyways,, other than that just to get some little things outta the way; I have gotten LeAnn's package and my family's and I'm sorry grandma I still have not gotten yours yet but I haven't checked the mail yet so maybe it will come today.  I really don't deserve all of these wonderful gifts y'all keep giving me I have more than I could ever want just being privileged to be in your family! DAD HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! Dang it I was so close! I guess I was only one day off......I thought our code on the garage was your birthday so I sent a letter saying it was that day..........I might have forgotten the number though, oh well wouldn't be the first time I failed! Still loves ya the same!

            

       Ummmmmm ok a lot of .....stuff happened this week! We didnt work much cuase I was sick for a little bit and then Elder Clawson was sick the past three days, so numbers were less than beautiful, but oh well! WE HAD AN AWESOME CONFERENCE IN PARIS! and it was the day where they hit record amounts of snow!!!!! I have a couple of pictures but I will send them next week after I take some more in BELGUIM!    So the baptism is not happening while I am here. We, being the leaders in the Le Mans ward, and a member that can speak the language famille henri speaks, decided that the baptism needed to wait! They said it would be better for Joseph and Jennifer to be baptized together and then their baptism would be a lot stronger,( like how you can easily break one piece of string but two together becomes a lot stronger ). There was also a clarification that needed to be made. Apparently Jennifer and Joseph thought baptism would cure her of her handicap and Angelina, the member that speaks Hindi and Tamul, knew this, and never told us until the week of her baptism.......yeah..... HOWEVER we had an awesome rendezvous with the entire family, Angelina (of whom we had tried for so long to help us at rendezvous in the past.....sorry) all discussed this together and explained what baptism does, and is, and more since we had a translater who could clearly say this in their language, and they were totally fine with it, which is a miracle because Joseph would never agree on a date before. But me and Elder Clawson had a chance to speak to them before this mascapade and he said he could maybe do it on the 24th of January! SO they will both be baptized together in either the end of January or beginning of February. But for now they are learning French better. We, slash the two new elders, will continue to teach them some last few simple things. It has been a miracle that they even understood half of what we've taught the past 10 weeks, but they will be gettin baptized!? SO CRAZY! oh yeah! The bishop also gave her an awesome priesthood blessing and she was deeply touched! I am gunna miss them SO much but luckily I know one of the elders coming in and he will take good care of them and I wont give him the keys to the appartment until he promises to write me when they are baptized! Sorry there is not much more, but I will tell you what ,the conference was so awesome! I got to see all of the elders from the MTC and talk with the pres, and the snow was beautiful? but WE WERE WIPED OUT! and it took us forever to get back! and we have been sick for awhile!( and no parents, I have not been having pancreas problems!) I have no idea why I keep losin weight but I dont feel sick right now and it might be that our scale is dying! so maybe I am fat and I just havent realized it yet who knows! P.S.  I am the one who calls you on Christmas but I am not sure at what time yet so I will tell ya when I find out. LOVES YOU ALL AND I CANT WAIT TO TALK TO YALL ON CHRISTMAS!

Venting

I think I will just start off by getting a bit of little things outta the way! Yes mom I am not cold I am totally toasty in my nice new gloves and scarf thanks a ton! Grandma  I haven't gotten anything from you until today so I am sorry I didn't tell you that I had received anything...........cause the post takes forever to get here! I got your family picture but I have not gotten any packages, but your letter was SUPER lovely thanks grandma! I hope that covers everything. A lot has happened since the last time and I wont have time to write everything in this email but I hope that I can write to a lot more of y'all by letter this week. It is just super hard living far away from grocery stores and places to email at and thus it takes up basically an entire P-day to do a few menial chores. ANYWAYS, Helene's baptism is postponed. It will no longer be the 11th of December. She ..........the situation with her is very difficult. I have told you some of the crazy stories she has told us and none of them need to be repeated. She has created a website that I have no idea how to explain other than the fact that we have to send the link to the president and have him look it over before we go any farther....... It is not over with her and she still wants to be baptized and is VERY intelligent and .....normal except for these very ..........interesting stories she sincerely believes are true. I wont lie though, I am SICK of people calling her crazy and insane and weird or whatever.  She is definitely very different and has something she needs to take care of, but every time we have taught her I have felt prompted STRONGLY to bear testimony of the atonement in particular and how much God loves her!! Because believe it or not I have felt Gods love for her as if He were in my place bearing witness of that love himself! Her soul is great in His eyes! The worth of every soul is great in His eyes! Who am I to judge one of His precious daughters! But I will get off my pedestal now,......she will make her decision soon and the president will tell us if we need to tell her anything about this strange website of hers. The next baptismal date is SOLID! It will take place probably on the 17th of December! Her name is Jennifer Henri and her husband, though he wants to get baptized and knows EVERYTHING about the church and even has a testimony that it is true he still wants to take a little more time to learn more...........that will change! But yeah she has not missed a single day of church yet and doesn't have anything left to do that concerns us! Ummmmm We have a ton of other amies that are so close!!!!! We have kinda hit the same wall with of few of them where they are fine with all the doctrine they believe it is true but they just aren't quite sure if they want to change. We ALWAYS come back to the same question ,"well have you prayed about the BOM the prophet Joseph Smith or the church to find out for yourself if our message is true?" and the answer may very in ways but basically the answer is no. AHHHHHH!! How can you try and make what is probably the BIGGEST decision of your life without even asking God through prayer if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is His church or if Joseph really did restore the fullness of Gods gospel or just even if God is there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU cant live off other peoples testimony!!!!!!!!! YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR YOURSELF!! OK now I'm just venting but maybe that gives you a bit of how I feel right now..... I cant believe the prophet , let alone God could have trust in a 19 year old boy to be teaching men and women like these! All of the people we teach are more experienced in life than me, most of them are SUPER intelligent and ask questions involving the theory of evolution, the intricacies of the atonement, atheist theories, but somehow they all feel something different about us enough to let us in to their homes and actually TEACH them! My testimony has been bombarded with the most intelligent schemes of men you could think of but God has destroyed all of them with my faith! It is amazing! You have to really grow up fast out here! One night you could be begging God to help you fathom what in the world he wants you to do to help his children that you are so privileged to teach and the next you will be at His feet in pure gratitude that He granted you a portion of his spirit to know the very words to touch their hearts in the very second you needed them! Well I will write y'all a more in depth occurrence of what happened this week by letter cause I STILL HATE THIS STUPID FRENCH KEYBOARD! However

however I will say one more thing.....it does not matter to me that I have not received any mail from any of my friends for .......a while but when the ONLY thing I hear about them, is that they are goofing off on their mission and not taking it seriously, That is when I start to get a little .......disappointed! I am not entirely sure what the situations and how many people this in tales of, and who even really gets these emails that I have been lead to believe that pretty much only my family reads! Whoever you are, pick it up! Remember the name you bear quite literally on your suit coat! Forget yourself and do the work!  It is not your time you are on it is HIS! So do it! And do it his way! And yes ,I will be writing you as well!  Elder Lyons

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dearest mother ..... yes the eagle has landed............slash I received my pin code so don't worry.   I thought I told you in my letter but I probably forgot! ANYWAYS, We TAUGHT 15 LESSONS THIS WEEK AND THIS WEEK WAS SUPER SHORT CAUSE WE HAD AN EXTRA P-DAY FOR THANKSGIVING!!!!  6 of those lessons were all on Saturday!!!! The first one was with Famille Henri....which took forever since they don't really speak much french and we missed our tram! But we had another rendez-vous in 15 or so minutes!!!! and it was at least 3-4 miles away...........so we ran! Best cross country race of my life, suit coat bags and all! But hey we got there only about 5-10 minutes late and we went straight into teaching an awesome lesson with Alex! He is a new amie who was born muslim but hates everything to do with muslims and their beliefs.  He had some rough experiences, and lived in poverty for  while but he has a TON of faith in Christ! I am telling you ,nothing ,would shake his testimony of Christ! He loves our message and believes it true, but we told him he needs to pray for himself to find the validity of our message.  Because after we talked about prayer, he was all like," well you said Joseph saw Heavenly Father and Jesus and I believe you, so that must mean its true!" He he such an awesome guy! Still needs to pray though.... anyways after that we went to our next rendezvous with Anne ... another new amie who is SUPER SHY!!!! We taught a solid lesson on the Plan of Salvation and it helped her a little bit cause her mom has recently died and she's been questioning life after we die for a awhile ,but it is really hard to tell with her.......; she just needs lots of loves and smiles! After we finished that lesson we rushed over to our next bus and taught a lesson to Nicole..........who has been taught a lot and basically knows the church is true, but is also SUPER SHY and was too scared to come to church; but we had had an awesome rendezvous last week and I bore my testimony about how hard church is for me because I have know idea what people are saying and it is scary coming from another country. Like her, I'm in the same boat, BUT the spirit speaks to all of us the same way and I can feel that spirit at church.  SHE CAME LAST WEEK woot! Anyways,  following that lesson we had another good lesson with her (after Anne's) on faith and the atonement, and challenged her to follow Christ's example and to be baptized ,she said she wasn't ready to pick out a day yet but maybe next visit. She is pretty timid but SUPER nice! After this we headed towards Helen's house to go over the baptismal questions with her!  On the way, a couple of college girls bumped into me and assuming I was English they said"excuse me"........then I could hear them talking about me and Elder Clawson trying to figure out if we were catholic or temoin jehova or n'importe quoi! I asked them," ça va" and they started asking us a ton of questions.  They were surprised that we spoke french but were also super excited becuse they like to try to speak English.   We got their number, because we told them about our English class we teach.........I am not so sure how far that will go.....cause I think they just wanted to flirt with us ..............and they aren't bad looking either, so I would rather not call them! Hehe anyways, we had the rendez vous with Helen who is basically a superstar now! She is so ready for her baptism!  Then we ended the day with another solid rendez vous and went home and died!  Ahhhhhhhhhh and that was only Saturday! We had lots of other cool things but I got to go, I will tell you all about how awesome Elder Clawson is in my letter, and other details. Life is good. We have no money because we bought some food for someone because she had nothing to feed her son with! But life is good and I loves all of you and I miss all of your shining faces. Loves lots, Elder Lyons

Wow......nough said!

       Ummmm, this week was even better than last week!  Just so I don't forget, I thought I would tell you, if you could send me some gloves that wouldn't look stupid with my suit and a good scarf that would be fabulous!   Stupid bus infraction kinda took up some money.......oops! Anyways many more miracles have happened this week including a baptismal date for the 18th of December and a new amie! That will be two weeks in a row with a baptism but I am getting ahead of myself!!!! OK, So the week started out as normal and we had a really cool FHE with a member on Monday, including fondue.....don't know how to spell it but it tasted heavenly!!!!!  Anyways We had interviews with the president and his wife, and a short zone conference,  which were so powerful!!!  I love our president and his wife is amazing too! I can't remember who said it but someone described the calling of the mission president as," finding one of the most worthy people on this earth and then calling their husband to be the president!"  Et je suis decord! They gave me some really good counsel!  I also find it very interesting that in my blessing, as I was set apart, how President Finn said I would be really close to the president and he to me because I really felt that with him and it was only our first interview......anyways We had ten solid lessons this week ,4 of which were all on Saturday!! SUCH a long day BUT SO good! In the morning on Saturday we taught the Henri family from India, Jennifer, Joseph, and their little 2 year old son! (don't speak French very well so it is VERY HARD TO TEACH.) We started teaching about faith and how baptism is the first step for us in coming closer to Christ. At baptism we make a covenant to follow all of God's commandments and to have faith in Christ, and to continually repent and learn how to follow Christ, we in turn are granted to have the gift of the holy ghost with us at all times to strengthen and guide us, so long as we live worthy of that companionship! We had previously extended a baptismal date for the 18th with them but Joseph wanted to learn more first. However, Jennifer who has been coming to church without missing a week for the past like 5 weeks, said randomly after that lesson that she was ready and wanted to be baptized on the 18th! She just had one concern. She said that some catholic priests or just some of the members of the church here had told her that babies had to be baptized and if they died before the were baptized they could not be saved. They had a two year old that died, and was not baptized and this had really made Jennifer upset and she was in tears when she explained it to us. We explained to her that children are saved by the power of Christ's atonement! Children cannot sin because they do not know the difference between good and bad and therefore need no baptism, and are automatically saved if they die at such an early age.This is why we are baptized at the age of 8, when we have a slight understanding of what is good and bad! Even then people die before having baptism! But we taught more detail on the plan of salvation of how all of those who never had the chance to know of Christ and his teachings or baptism, will have the chance to accept him in the next life because there is a period of time after death and before our resurrection where the very same missionary work that is happening now happens there to allow everyone the opportunity to accept Christ! We shared these truths with the scriptures from Moroni 8 and also talked about temple work and how we perform ordinances like baptisms for those who didn't have the opportunity (1 Cor. in the bible talks about baptism for the dead)! Long story short, she wants to be baptized and Joseph will probably be soon after!  We also had a very good rendez- vous with Jean Francois and Helen this week! Jean Francois already knows that the church is true but doesn't want to move to fast! He has taken lessons form the missionaries for over ten years! We asked him if he had prayed about the BOM and if it was true! He said no! Elder Clawson got on his knees and said will you pray right now! He was hesitant and then I got on my knees. He said I am not ready to be baptized yet! We told him that we only wanted him to pray! He got on his knees and offered a very simple prayer to know if what we said was true and if the BOM was true and if the church was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith, but it was so powerful and he received his answer in that room that it was true! Ummmmm there is a bunch more but I have got to go, I will right y'all this week as I did not find time last week, I love you lots and hope y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

More pictures from France

Notre Dame

Bridge in Angers

Angers Cathedral

Inside Angers Cathedral

Enjoying some French food

Street in Le Mans

One of our investigators

Three days of Miracles!

     Dang........ I don't even know where to start!  I think I will start with happy stinkin birthday CHRIS!!!!! And actually mom, this whole mission thing has made me like a super organized freak, so I didn't actually forget...(.my older self would probably think I was a nerd).   ANYWAYS, I love your fish Chris! She is almost as sexy as you are! I started to miss ya a ton after lookin at how much of a stud you've become in all those senior pictures! Definately a fan of the track ones.  It looks like they tried to add some pizazze to it to! Keep up the awesome work! You are already light years ahead of me.  Do me a favor, have a rockin birthday with lots of ladies or somethin!........Or ice cream that's close enough! hehe.   I'm sorry everyone is sick! Sounds like the holiday season is starting! woot!   Go coughin and sneezin! There have been Christmas lights up since before Halloween here, but they haven't turned them on!   Can you believe this terrible thought that came to my head (mostly because I was makin Elder Crump feel old, so then he placed this nasty thought in mine)! After January I will have finished 1/4 of my mission!   Which is totally going to fly by with all the holiday season stuff, blaaahhhh!!!!!!!   Well, I will pretend like that thought never came and just tell you how crazy my last couple of days have been! Transfers were on Wednesday and we did not have time for lessons or anything else because Le Mans is a big place for trains to have layovers, so we were kinda helpin missionaries all day movin back and forth.  Me and Elder Clawson finally got settled and planned out the transfer and our week!  Not gunna lie, I was so nervous for this transfer because a lot of things were on my shoulders to lead because he is new to the ville!  So I had to set up rendez-vous and find everything, and at least introduce him at the start of lessons if not teach the first part.   AHHHHH ,right!   But everything has more than worked out and we have had a SUPER busy weekend of many miracles!   For starters, the first full day here for Elder Clawson was the 11th of November ,which is a huge holiday in France, (Armistice day) and there was literally no one on the streets.   Not good, when all you have planned is contacting!!! But we figured we would start with a few pass backs to get things started. The first one we tried to get to ended up getting us lost for hours in the rain.   LOTS OF STINKIN RAIN!  By the time we found the street we realized that the number on the address could not be found anywhere.  We finally ended up finding it on a little apartment complex...... ,the only problem was that we didn't have any information other than their first names, Mike and Mimi..........no apartment number, and there were at least 50 apartments! We checked the mailboxes and there were no Mike or Mimi's, but there were last names.  However, for some reason one of the names really stuck out to me, so when we went past that door we ported it and it turned out to be them! Go spirit! We even got let in on a holiday and taught them a really good lesson! Turns out that they have been going to a Protestant church.  Mimi's brother had recently died and they were hit kind of hard by it. We taught about God's plan for us after this life, and how we can be with not only God but our famlies forever! Families are ordained by God and gives commandments to help us grow and learn, and prepare ourselves for that life! They really liked how our church is so united and family oriented and they couldn't decide what the right path for them was. Elder Clawson gave a powerful testimony on our purpose as missionaries, and that being, that we are not here to force anyone to find that path. We know how you can find it, and that is by faith and prayer. Tons of people say they have the truth but God is the only one that knows all truth, therefore we have to ask him through prayer what that is and He will show us the way if we do our part to find it! We left them with Alma 32 to read because we talked a little bit about faith and how to know if the seed is a good our bad seed (analogy made in that chapter) and they said we could visit them again!   Then one of our amies called and wanted us to visit, so we had an awesome rendezvous there!  We had a great lesson on Faith ,hope and charity and he said that he wants to be a member!  He just wants to quit smoking first, which he has already diminished a ton!  This was only our first day!  P.S.  Elder Clawson and I are awesome friends already, he is a goof!  Anyways, we had 7 amies at church, WOOT!   And Helene is doing really well right now and has decided that this baptismal date is final now!!!!  So it looks like it will happen!!!! We also had some awesome lessons with famille Henri, who want to be baptized, but just want to learn a little more first.  We also had another miracle but I got to go, so I will write y'all soon!  LOVES ALL OF YOU and thanks for all the emails.        Elder Lyons

So I Lied, I do get to e-mail today!

   Turns out I do get to email you today!   I ...still don't like french computers! Well like I said Saturday, we had a lot of exchanges this week, and I have spent most of the week in Angers. So beautiful, anyways I am starting to get a lot better at contacting, and understanding people is getting a lot better. I need to work on my pronunciation, but I think reading the BOM out loud has been helping.  The first few days of the week I was in Le Mans  and they were awesome! We had a solid lesson with Steve by reviewing the Restoration and watching the DVD on it. Afterwords, we discussed it and me and Elder Crump bore our testimonies of the proof of this message, that being the Book of Mormon. He opened up and started asking questions relating to the plan of salvation like where we go after this life, what's our purpose and common things I feel everyone not only wants to know, but NEEDS to know! We explained a brief version of the Plan de Salut and bore our testimonies of it's truthfulness and the blessings that come from following it. We will be with, not only God forever, but our families! The spirit in that room was amazing and he was very thankful for our message! We set up another time to see him and we should see him at church this coming Sunday! That was only P-DAY! woo! The next day we started a lesson with Stef Phillipe! He is a super nice guy, very sincere, biggest concern in his life is his family.  SUPER intelligent, and likes to study religions. Our problem we've been having with him is that he is too smart. He thinks he can find out everything about God by himself and only needs to ask God if something is true as a very very last resort. He actually had a lot of beliefs in common with us, but when we started teaching him we realised that he also diffinately had some ideas of his own. The biggest one of those being that he doesn't see a need for an atonement ,or that someone could suffer the consequences of something somebody else does or did, and this is only one thing but it is the big one. Well Tuesday we came in and really had no idea what to teach other than going over what he had read in the Book of Mormon, but since the book of Mormon is basically all about Christ the atonement came up again! We talked about it for a long time, and things were going pretty much the same, and it got to the point where Elder Crump just said," Look I can barely explain the atonement in English let alone French or the need for it, but I know that the Book of Mormon is true, because I have prayed about it and received an answer that it was true.   This means that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that Jesus Christ has restored his church once again on this Earth along with the fullness of the gospel and its principles, one of those being the atonement!" Stef's problem with that was that he knew he could create his own feelings if he really wanted to know if something was true, and didn't really see a need for praying about it yet.  Elder Crump explained that he had the same problem because he studied pyhscology a ton and this concerned him as well, but he went to god with that problem and said hey I know I can create my own feelings about this so I need to receive an answer that I know I did not create, and his prayer was answered. He testified that he could receive the same answer and that sometimes we need to realize that Gods intelligence is greater than ours and that he knows more than we do. Then I added my testimony and told him that I know that it is very difficult to logically see the need for the atonement, but I have felt its power in my life and I know its real, I can not explain it very well either but if you read Alma 34 and 42 and study the atonement for yourself, and prayerfully ponder out if it is true you will know that it is true! By then the spirit was just amazing and he was quite for a little bit and then he said maybe my intelligence is getting in my way and I do know that god knows a lot more than we do. I will study these chapters and I will pray to see the need for the atonement and if the book of Mormon is true! WOO so cool! unfortunately I have to wait till next Wednesday to see him and how he is doing but I will keep you posted. So YEAH that was my week. Except  that on Sunday we were in Angers for stake conference and I got to see my bros. Elders Nelson, Wood,and Hoopes, SO COOL.  Well I loves you lots family, and I hope you all know that I am not the only one out here; Mom, Dad, Chris, Meagan, Rachel, Natty pieces of you are there every time I bear testimony, because you are the ones who helped me mold it into what it is now. The biggest portion of course, goes to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who quite literally saves my life everyday, as well as all of us! I love my grandma and grandpa Johnson in Utah and my Aunt LiLi, you are basically my second parents and I don't know what I would do without you! Those hospital visits were rough but they were good times with grandma and LeAnn, and I love grandpas awesome jokes.!   I also love all of my other grandmas and grandpas, Larson and Lyons and all my cousins and all of my friends at the Y and the U- state; especially my sisters from St George! You are all amazing

                                                                    Love Jason

November 6th- Transfers!!

     Sorry this has to be so quick but we have got to catch a train and i am not gunna be able to email you on Monday so this is the rundown.  My first transfer is officially over WOW!  I am staying in Le Mans and my new companion is Elder Clawson .  I met him my first week here when they came to see the general conference. No worries, cause he is an awesome elder! Ummmm this week we were all over the place with transfers, and there are still a few greves to survive, but this week was AWESOME!   Yesterday I was in Angers on exchanges with Elder Walker,( P.S. ANGERS IS BEAUTIFUL) and I will send y'all pictures next week! Anyways we went contacting for like 7 hours! Ouch!, and he is almost as scared of contacting as I am and he speaks french very well.  That didn't boost my confidence very much, but I finally just decided I don't care how stupid I sound, this next person is gunna hear about the gospel in mumble-jumbled french and like it dang it!  I actually got to basically teach the entire first lesson to a couple of people, but I don't know what it is about Angers, cause they seemed like they are much ruder here than they are in Le Mans.   I problably shouldn't say that but ......... you know me I guess hehe.   This week is crazy, especially with the transfers coming up! I am a little sad that Crump is leaving, but I already know the other guy so I am pumped to get some unfinished work done here, and baptize tons!  MY french is doing a lot better as  far as comprehension goes, but my accent is terrible.   The Frenchies still laugh every time, but whatever, I think I pretty much lost whatever sense of pride I had before my mission, and that will probably only continue to happen so 's all good!  I don't have time to tell you about all the cool lessons we've taught but I will write ya a letter today on the train. OH, LeAnn I got your "collossimo" slash package today. It was super, I love the toys! hehe  It made my day, and thanks for the lovely e-mails Grandma.  I loves ya Mom and Dad you are the best! Chris, Meagan, Rachel, and NATTY PATTY, you are tons of fun!  Everyday is a party with y'all...........literally  and I LOVE IT! goodbye kisses hugs and .......stuff!

Crazy Week

First of all, SORRY I didn't know that Gate City 6th graders were the only ones that don't go to Junior High. But, let it be known that, I at least knew she was in 6 th grade! Sorry Cross didn't go the way we wanted it too,  it never does!  I was super excited to hear that Chris had taken it really well, and I was also really excited to hear about the traditional "cross country testimony meeting"! Those were always the best! Ummmmm this week was super tough, I will just say that right away. The greves kinda made train travel really difficult and since Elder Crump is the DL and there was a baptism in Cholet,  we knew he had to do the interview somehow. Anyways we ended up waking up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning to get there, and that day was pretty exciting getting the baptism ready.  We got stuck in Angers on the way back because the trains were canceled so we ended up spending the night there with the missionaries in Angers ( 8 missionaries in one tiny apartment because the assistants got stuck there too.......Needless to say I did not get any sleep that night. )  We woke up(I wasn't ever asleep) at 6 to catch a bus to get to the gares! Apparently my ticket didn't get composted so the controllers started yelling at me and now I have to pay a 30 euro fine. I was super tired and I thought they were trying to send me to jail or something because they pulled us off the bus, and were asking for ID, and all that stuff!  I was so confused.........grumpy frenchies! Needless to say, we missed our train but luckily there was a later one.  We had no time to go proselyting ,or anything for that matter, by hte time we got home. We did not teach a single lesson until Saturday, and this was with a family from India who can barely speak french so we have to draw pictures to explain everything. I totally don't mind because I can barely speak french either, so we can totally be friends! But yeah, kinda dry on the lessons for the week. Then I gave my first french talk in church ........don't ask I don't even know what I said, so I don't expect that anyone else did either......oh well. I thought I would take a second and tell you about all of our progressive investigators, more to clarify all of my past emails
                                             Helen: is an African lady (about 40) from the Congo. She is super nice and very outgoing, and caring about others, LOVES politics, does not like Obama, and is staunchly republican........very strange for here, we have a baptismal date set up with her on the                                                            11th of December. Ummmm she thinks....... well , I don't know how say this, but she thinks her father is watching her with satellites and is trying to get her, and a bunch of other things, and the only one who knows how to help her is the Pope. So she thinks she has to talk to him in person to resolve her problems.  She needs to resolve these problems before she gets baptized so .....yeah we still have a little bit of work to do with her........
                                             Nicole: is an African from Guine who knows the church is true and has had baptismal dates in the past but we have not been able to get her to church because she is VERY shy and doesn't speak french very well. She speaks taki taki and has an adorable
                                                        1-2 year old son who likes to play with my hair and climb all over me
                                             Steve: is an African man and he is the one who we watched finding faith in Christ with! His daughter has been in the hospital a lot lately so we haven't had the chance to talk to him until today. We had an amazing rendezvous!  First we reviewed the restoration by
                                                         watching the film "The Restoration", then we taught part of the plan of salvation. The spirit was so palpable it was unreal. He really wants to come to church and has missed out the last couple of times because of stuff that just kept coming up. He is coming next time, he says. He has also been reading the Book of Mormon......i will keep you posted.

I gotta leave now, shoot! I miss y'all lot's and I am super proud of all of you! Family, if you could maybe send me another copy of my patriarchal blessing and copies of your journal entries on my setting apart I would sure appreciate it.....I kinda left my scriptures, with all that wonderful stuff, on the train. We actually found out where it was, but it is all the way up by Belgium and the missionaries haven't been able to send it to me yet. With all the greves shutting things down. It would be nice to just have copies anyways, and OH BTW yes I have received the Halloween package.  I got it a week ago, and it was AWESOME!  You rock, love you lots and happy .......after Halloween!

Another Good Week

     So the greve is kinda obnoxious .........there is no transportation of any sort available cause everyone refuses to work during these greves. Truck drivers are not working either so no gas for France....i guess among other things. I would have thought, that if your economy was bad and you wanted to have more money, that you would want to keep your job and earn as much as possible. Maybe France is trying to trick their economy with reverse psychology. Anyways This week was pretty good. We had some pretty good lessons.  One of which, was a guy who has been an investigator for FOREVER, and coming to church FOREVER, and even has a calling but says he doesn't have enough faith to pray to know if the church is true. (His name is Jean and his wife is Malinda)......He is trying to get enough faith to do so and has been for quite some time. He was raised in a radical catholic religion, that is not the same as the normal catholic religion, that would abuse  their children every time they did something wrong. Then they would make them pray  and beg for mercy as their punishment. Sooooo yeah, prayer is really hard for him.

              He and his wife fed us A LOT OF FOOD!!!!! I thought I was gunna die! We had snails ( escargot )!!!!!!! it was weird picking those little buggers outta their shells. Then they kinda jiggle around on your toothpick.....it reminded me of the little snail guys on Flushed Away that sang songs throughout the movie in their squeaky high voices. I think the one's I ate were screaming at me as I ate them, which ,by the way, they actually taste pretty good.......still weird though! Then we had some salad thingy and then we had chicken and then we had bread and cheese and then we had an apple tart and then... I wanted to die.. but we had to teach a lesson.  Elder Crump still has to basically teach by himself.......I have been able to at least share experiences and bear testimony but it is really hard to jump into a conversation that you have no idea about what is going on. I still can't quite understand their accents yet but, I can understand the Elders perfectly, so now I can at least understand half of the conversation. Anyways I have been really good at finding out what we should teach during studies and finding tons of scriptures and applying it to every ones needs. For this lesson, I found a bunch of cool things on how faith is a choice to have and a responsibility to develop.  All things that are expedient to man are given him (2NE: 2) and all of us have the Light of Christ /commonly referred to as our conscience, that leads all men to do good and helps us to know the good from the evil. This gift that is given to all people leads us to good, and since all good things come from God, it eventually can lead us to Him.....IF we let it. This is all found in Moroni 7 as well as other places, PMG is a particularly good one. But yeah, lots of other good stuff of which I can explain better in a letter instead of  on this stupid computer! But of course since Jean is really stubborn he didn't really suck it all in .......we weren't actually thinking he would, but the whole faith is a choice thing at least got him to really think about it.  We also found support form a recent talk in conference. But yeah, that among some weird lessons with a schizophrenic guy......and his friends who burned some incense that made me very sick, and giving him a blessing, in french, which was weird in itself! we also taught a family that doesn't speak french very well so we had to draw out everything but they understood it and the wife came to church this Sunday! ........which seems to be every ones weakness, going to church! We have 8 really good progressive investigators but only 2 or 3 ever show up.  A little sad ,Oh Well ,it was a pretty good week, and I will tell you what!! This mission is like a crazy roller coaster everyday, cause there are some awesome ups and some really low downs

!!!!!!!!

                                               Me and Elder Crump( my first day) in Paris.

More Pictures of Le Mans and Cholet (city he did transfers in last week)

These are a few pictures that we recieved in Jason's last letter.  They include:  The Cholet Cathedral, A very tired Jason,His companion, Elder Crump, in Le Mans, His apartment, Man taco night, and Night time in Le Mans.

Awesome Week!

Well I really don't know where to even start! French people sure know how to greve!!!! Which is french for strike! They have been grevin' for two weeks now and it has kinda been interrupting a lot of good proselyting time. But we still managed to find 6 new amies!!!! The first two were on Tuesday and we got about as far as teaching this man  (whose name is Steve an African man from......Africa) about Jesus Christ, when his friend walks in, so Elder Crump retaught the few short things I had already said, and invited him to join us. He said why not..... he thought we were Jehovas witnesses but then we explained who we were and he got all excited and said his uncle was Mormon and he lives in Washington DC. He has visited him a few times and even gone to church and liked it. Then Steve said he had a movie about Christ that he bought in Paris and it was his favorite video on Christ and he really wanted to watch it with us. We said sure, having no idea what it was going to be, but when the menu came up and said Trouver la Foi en Christ -(Finding Faith in Christ ) we got all excited and explained to him that it was a film produced by our church! IT WAS AWESOME!! So we watched the video and taught the rest of the first lesson and committed them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. They agreed to ,enthusiastically, and were even more excited when they heard that we actually had a church here, and they want to come!  IT WAS A MIRACLE! We have a rendezvous with them tomorrow so we will see what else has gone on. I will keep ya posted! That was only our first day! We had exchanges with the ZLs the next day. They basically, both come down to LE Mans and one goes with me  one way, and the other goes with Elder Crump another way. We meet back at house later and tell each other of all the awesome adventures we have! Me and Elder Tom got lost ,cause I don't know this place very well, and we saw like three fights! One of which was two ladies who were like ripping each other apart......I can't remember what happened in the second one and the third one I didn't even see cause I was talking to one of our amie's that had recognized me. I was busy talking to her, but apparently  a bunch of kids were kicking the crap out of each other and when they were done they all got up and walked home together as if nothing had happened.....Elder Tom said, "he was so confused ",but then he saw that I was talking to someone and thought I might need help but I actually understood most of what was said. We got some guys number but haven't gotten a hold of him yet.  The others had even more adventures and even found a new amie. She had a seizure and was drunk out of her mind so she needed help to get home and they, (Elders Crump and Humphrey) just happened to be there. So they walked her home and apparently her husband had died recently and she has been hating life in a bunch of other ways ,so she drinks cause she has had all those issues, and even wanted to die. They talked a bit with her and told her about the plan of salvation and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't type down cause it would take me forever, but when we went and saw her on Friday she had already read up to 2NE 31 and things are looking a lot better for. Already she has quit drinking and smoking just like that! And so far hasn't had any problems! WOW ! Crazy right ,so yeah this week has been amazing! And, the lady I talked with on Wednesday is going to be baptized in December!!!!!!!!!   Which is a long ways off , but she was SOoo against it before we sat down to talk with her on Friday that even just having this commitment is huge! Of course, we have nothing to do with any of this! I CAN BARELY UNDERSTAND WHAT IS BEING SAID, AND YET ,ALL THESE MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING! God must be pretty smart huh! Anyways I am running out of time even though there is thousands of other things I could tell you, I will write it in a letter. Thanks for all the e-mails. I loves you so much and I really hope my pictures turn out for y'all cuse I had some really good ones. But I heard that they magnetically scan evelopes so the sd card I sent might have gotten zapped of its memory.......sorry but I attached some pictures of our first day in Paris so hopefully those work!

Love,Jason

Pictures of le Mans

Rough Week!

 This is a combination of two e-mails we got from Jason this week.
          
            I REALLY AM THANKFUL FOR ALL OF YOUR LETTERS AND E-MAILS. THEY MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!!!! These last few weeks have been REALLY HARD!  I have kinda lost track of home stuff, but never my family and I hope you know that! All I have been thinking about are our investigators and how to resolve their concerns! And how to find people! We haven't even found one new person that has  been willing to just listen to us until we went porting a couple of days ago. No one has showed up at our rendezvous and Leticia doesn't want to be baptized anymore because she thinks god is selfish for not letting her drink beer and tea. Crazy people think that it should be illegal to have the plaques with Christ's name on it(our name tags)because when we outwardly express our ideas about religion we will start wars. Everyone here smokes! Little children smoke! A 7 year old asked us for a cigarette his week! There is pornography everywhere! Few people have any concept of who God even is over here! I feel like Alma in his desire to be an angel to cry repentance with a trump for all to hear!  I have no complaints and I don't think less of anyone here because of their problems. EVEN CHRIST TOLD HEAVENLY FATHER TO FORGIVE THE PEOPLE OF JERUSALEM BECAUSE THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!!!!!!!! If people really knew the the sacredness of the name we have on our plaques and the weight of our message, this place would be a lot better!, and that is why we are here and why we have so much responsibility to share that message of Christ with everyone! 

          This week was even crazier than the first one!  I don't even know where to start. Ummmmm, Ok so We had our first exchanges this week. I was with Elder Draleau in Charlet for Tuesday and part of Wednesday. The first day started off rough by having rendezvous fall through and only being able to teach a breif lesson with the Audre,( their baptismal date), because her parents were gone and missionaries can't teach a woman without someone else there. No one wanted anything to do with us. Then it was 8:45 having only 15 min left to prosylete after teaching an english class. Which provided an oppurtunity to practice talking in english and visit some pass backs (which are old investigators that were dropped for whatever reason). We decided to be diligent and use those last 15 minutes to try and find someone with one of the  last passbacks. They were not there, BUT, on our way back someone stopped us because they thought we were TJ's. French for Jehovas Witnesses. They were lookin for a fight cause they don't like TJs.  When we said that we were actually missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ,  one of the two guys got all curious because he had never met mormons before. We basically taught this guy the first lesson ,and even though he is a devote Catholic, he now has a great respect for us and invited us to talk to his mother because she studies religon and likes to know alot about other religions.  Elder Draleau and Elder Smith went to teach them(because I was only there temporarily).  They taught the mom and all of her 8 children, and they basically loved everything  and are now investigators of the church. Hopefully that continues to go well. 

               Ummmm not the same luck in Le Mans. Elder Crump (my companion) was here with Elder Smith and they were teaching Leticia who now doesn't want to be baptized because she doesn't wanna stop smoking. When I came back and heard this I told Elder Crump that we need to see her RIGHT NOW!  He told me that we would see her Sunday because she still wants to come to church.  They  had talked to her for two and a half hours trying to explain everything to her.  I couldn't shake this feeling of needing to see her, so I prayed and the feeling came even stronger. We went to see her and she said she was busy. So, I basically bore the testimony of my life, on this subject, and put it in her mail box. We are going to her house today to see if anything has changed.  Other than that we have been pretty much showed up by everyone. Forgetting or being to busy for rendezvous and it has been a little depressing.  I will tell you some more details in a letter because I only have a minue left.    I loves you all, and I will send pictures soon.    Jason

CRAZINESS!

O.K. I still hate this computer, but I will do my best...anyways this week has been INSANE!!! First couple of days I think I already told you about but it already feels like I've been here forever.  I have completely lost all sense of time or reality for that matter (he he).  Me and Elder Crump have had some...interesting things interrupt our contacting this week.  The first one was completely normal.  They had some famous soccer players, (or football, who cares which) but yeah people pretty much payed more attention to them than to us.  But if you ask me France kinda choked in the world cup so I thought they would be hidding their tails between their legs right now(he he).  There was also a rave? Je pense?  Which translates to a strike, and when I say strike, I mean a full out revolt!!!!  People were pulling out soviet flags and they had a catapult...no joke!  People werer screaming in a microphone and of coarse they were all marchin on top of the tram system so no one could get anywhere and the streets were to full to drive buses.  Apparently there was a party and we were not invited.  The government wanted to raise the retirement age from 64 to 66..gasp!!!  Yea that was...cool. 
        We had a lot of lessons get canceled because they were busy, BUT we did get and new( we ressurected) an old amie and got to set up an appointment with them for this week, and we found a guy from Charte who was interested.... only problem is that he was from Charte so we gave our number to him so we can refer him to the missionaries in Charte.  I think that is where Elder Paul is.  Anyway we did still have a few lessons.  One was with Helen who has been an  amie for  awhile and she loves what we've been teaching but isn't completely sure yet.  We talked about faith and read Alma 32 with her and talked about experimenting on the word and explained what that meant.  It went really well.  I even shared a story about how I had to have a lot of faith and patience to recieve and answer to why I was in the hospital and to feel of Christs comforting spirit... it was cool!  We also challenged her to come to conference and she came!! The buses were having difficulties and it was a miracle that she was able to be there, but she and Leticia made it in time to hear the Prophet!
       A little about Elder Crump!  He is awesome.  He loves soccer he is very humble and he still has a girlfriend.... I would wait for him.(Hhe he)   O.k.  he his a lot liek me in the aspect that we come off as being super shy but turns out we actually can be a little crazy.... me more than he is.  Today we are going to go running and shopping and hopefully it will stop raining soon, cause people here tend to be more onery in the rain.  Obviously we saw conference and yes a few of them were delayed , bu most of them were in actual time.  All of it was awesome and I loved it!  This week is gunna be super even if I have no idea what people are talking about I am just glad I can speak the language... pretty well.  I am doing great.  The church is DEFINATELY TRUE!!! and boy have I been humbled beyond Anything.  I can't do anything here at all!!  But with God i can , through him I can do ANYTHING!!!  I have learned so much about Christ these past few days trying to get the .......... I would say something else but I will go with guts.  To try to contact people in French knowing full well that I won't understand a word they say!  Somehow  I managed to do it on my first day here and it turns out that most people just completely ignore you , so no worries.  Seriously I am grateful for my companion and Christ cause I woulda been toast out here .  Anyway my hand hurts trying to figure out this stupid keyboard out so I hope all keeps going well with you all.  I love you and I will try to write letters today.  Au Revoir!!  Jason

I MADE IT!!!

Hi everyone. I made it to France. I have jet lag sooooooo bad, and I kinda want to go to sleep sometime soon. The first day here we were in Paris and the first thing we did was contacting. I contacted a guy on the train from Nigeria. He was really nice and we talked about his family and what Nigeria is like, and I got to talk a little about what I am doing here, but he ran off before I could give him a pass along card or anything... and I was kinda peeing my pants because I couldn't understand anything anyone was saying! Later that day we had dinner with the president and had brief interviews and a testimony meeting.. by then it was way past my bedtime. The next day we got our first assignments and our companions. My companion is Elder Crump. He is fantastic. We are serving in a city called Le Mans and we have 8 progressive investigators right now! Thats all for now.

Hi Everyone,
Just a note to let you know that Jason has made it to France! He will be serving in the city of Le Mans for the next 6 weeks at least. His companion is Elder Crump from Orem, Utah. His current address is: Elder Lyons
49, rue Marengo
72000 Le Mans
France