Week 12, Valence, France

Bonjour,

I have finished my first week of the second transfer and my first week with my new companion, Elder Dover. Elder Dover and I have a lot in common which makes life fun: He has been on his mission for about a year and has had some good experiences. He has spent most of his mission in the south by the Mediterranean. He is from Texas but lived in Oregon when he was young. I am only his second American companion. The rest have been two Germans and two Canadians.

We had the chance to meet a lot of the members of the ward this week which was good because Elder Dover is new. It is interesting because my companion does not know the area but I have only been here for six weeks and I don’t speak French very well. We are still trying to figure out how the busses work but it is not too bad.

On Friday we went to Lyon for a conference for all of the new missionaries. It was really fun to see all of the Elders I was with in the MTC. They are all doing well and their French is getting better. They are serving all over the Mission so it was fun to see them again. At the conference we learned that we have everything we need to be great missionaries and make miracles happen. We read the story in the Bible when Jesus fed a lot of people with a few loaves of bread and fishes. He got the bread and fish from a young lad. We are like the young lad because we have everything we need to make miracles. These things are the scriptures and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. This is the Lords work and he can make miracles through us if we let Him. After the conference we went contacting in Lyon which was fun and I got to be with Elder Herdt who was in my MTC district. I also met two people who spoke English.

One thing I forgot to mention is that Elder Anderson is coming to France. And I am not talking about a missionary but a member of the 12 apostles, Elder Anderson. Elder Anderson served his mission in France and was also a mission president here. He will be coming to Nice on June 10 and all the missionaries in the mission are coming to listen to him. Everyone is really excited about this and President Roney thinks this will have a big impact on the missions’ success.

Yesterday we went Porting which is when you go to people’s houses and ask them if they want to listen to our message. I have not done this very many times yet so it was a fun experience. There was one Lady that I could not see very well and I called her a man. There was another time when we talked to an old couple and the wife was really nice but the husband was yelling at us for a really long time. Then all of a sudden he got really nice and was talking to my companion about sports. I was really confused because it was all in French and they were mumbling a lot but it was really funny.

Fun French Fact of the Week:

Everyone in France Smokes! They also don’t believe in braces or brushing their teeth.

Miracle of the Week:

We have a good amount of single people in their 20s in the ward and two of our amis are that age. We set up a time for this week to play games with them and I think that will really help them.

I love you all,

Elder Bake