Crazy Week!

Where to even start!?  I guess I will try and answer a few questions. My companion is from somewhere around Sandy Utah.....No I haven't had time to buy a Christmas gift yet. We haven't really had time to do anything but work our buns off, which is good!! I think the only thing I will be buying anyways will be a new pair of glasses because mine are still on my old prescription and I think I would like some nicer ones. Other than that I will save the rest for school or something!

       OK, now the good stuff!!!  First off I finally sent those letters, sorry it took so long! Secondly, the first district meeting was awesome! We met at the Poitiers Elders apartment because we all live forever away from each other.  The churches in each of our separate villes are far away from the train stations so we just meet up at Poitier's apartment.   I used 1 NE 16 where Nephi brakes his bow and takes the initiative to make a new one as an example.  When we go out "hunting", (or searching for new investigators), and we don't find anything, and our "bows" break (or our ideas for finding don't work), we need to take courage, resist murmuring, and also have the faith to take the initiative and make a new bow or idea to find people.  Like Nephi we need to ask our Father in Heaven,"Where should I go to search for investigators....(instead of food)."  We have also been given our own liahonas, the preach my gospel and our scriptures to help us receive revelation as to how, when, and where, we are to help people come closer to Christ. It works according to the faith and diligence and heed we give unto these tools.   After the formation we practiced contacting and I think it went really well!

        Later I went on exchanges with Elder Whitecar in La Rochelle (SUPER PRETTY TOWN) and boy did we have a good time. We didn't get back until 4pm so we only had about an hour until dinner but we used as much time as we could contacting and literally EVERYONE stopped and talked to us! It was INCREDIBLE! We even got a number from someone who said we could see him later. Then the best part is: that after dinner we went to an apartment complex and started knockin' all the doors, and again EVERYONE would at least talk to us!!  AND, outta the 10 or so people we knocked into, TWO of them fixed rendezvous with us.  One of the young women, named Laura, talked to us for about 20 minutes. We basically taught her the first lesson!! She was super sweet and had LOADs of good questions!! AND now she is a new amie that La Rochelle is teaching. Apparently their first rendezvous went REALLY well and they gave her a tour of the church and had a great time!! In any case, SUPER awesome exchanges!!

       Later in the week  you won't ever guess what happened!  We had an interview with a journalist for one of Frances biggest radio broadcasting groups, France Bleu. Apparently Mitt Romney served part of his mission in Limoges so they wanted to know what a normal day for missionaries was like. SO, me and Elder Fisher had some training by a church media leader to help prepare us, and then last Thursday the journalist interviewed us. It was kinda cool, we got to share why we were here and what we do a bit.  I hope that people will better understand who we are while listening to this.  The journalist herself said she changed her mind a lot about us and realized that we aren't a bunch of freaks like they seem think.  Anyways, it went on air this morning and the bishop said it went really well.   It should be online as well so you might be able to find it if you would like.

      ANYWAYS,  back to real missionary work!! We taught a ton of rendezvous this week and hardly had time to eat lunches.....not a good idea by the way. We had a really good rendezvous with Damien who will be getting baptized on the fourth of February. SWEET! We taught him how there are two things separating us from God. Spiritual and Physical death. Christ already ransomed ALL of us from physical death, it is a free gift from His atoning sacrifice, and He also made it possible to overcome Spiritual death (or our sins), by the same sacrifice.  This requires 5 things on our part. We need to have Faith, Repent, be Baptized receive the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the end. It went really well.

      We taught this same lesson to a man named William ,from Ghana, and invited him to be baptized! He is ready and is all down for it!!  The only let down is that he is going back to Ghana and wont be back til February. The good news is, that there is a church super close to his families house in Ghana and he will be going to it with his cousin who is a member already! PERFECT!

       We also made new amie this week that we taught at the church, and many other good things are going down but I unfortunately am going to have to let you read about them in the letters because I need to write the Pres. now.  I loves all of you and I enjoyed hearing from so many of you at the farewell!!! You're all great and I loves y'all tons!

LOVE ELDER LYONS