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!