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.