Week 44, Aix, Manosque and Gap

Waiting for a train in Manosque New Years Day

Happy New Years!

I hope you all had a great New Years celebration and that you are having a good transition back into school and work. I was making some goals for the new year and I realized that I get to be a missionary for the entire year of 2015!!! I also will not have much time left on my mission when the next year comes so the goals I am setting for 2015 are pretty much goals for the rest of my mission. The time is going by so fast but I am really exited for this year.

My companion, Frere Arts is the District Leader so that means that we get to do a lot of exchanges. For exchanges we go to a different city and spend the day with another missionary. This last week I did two exchanges and I was outside of Aix for both of them. My first exchange was with my former companion Elder Dover! Elder Dover was my companion in the beginning of my mission in Valence. We have seen each other quite a bit since then and he is probably one of my best friends in the mission. We went to Manosque which is a small city north of Aix. It was really cold there but I was prepared so it was fine.

Miracle of the week:

With Elder Dover we taught a really cool family that is from Colombia. It was the second time they had talked to missionaries and the first time they were really taught. We taught the whole family about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. Elder Dover and I taught really well together and in the end the whole family agreed to be baptized! It was fun teaching with Elder Dover because we where companions before so we have taught a lot together but now I can speak French a lot better.

 

That night, which was new years eve, we picked up the Elders from Gap and we all woke up at 12am and did a little dance and then hoped back in bed. The next morning we went to district meeting in Aix and then I left to do another exchange in Gap with Elder Zenger. Gap is an even smaller city and is even more north and more cold. There is a lot of snow there which is fun. Elder Zenger was in the military before and he really likes to work out so I did some fun morning exercises with him. We taught a lot of lessons and did some service for an ami. It was really fun because we had a lesson with this lady and when it was over we just pulled out some cleaning supplies and started cleaning without telling her before. She has a really hard life and her house was in need of some cleaning so she was very happy to have us there. Later in the week I was back in Aix with Elder Arts. We are working now with Gabriel and Wayne who are both doing very well.

 

I hope you all have a great start to the new year,

Elder Bake

 

Fun French Fact of the week: Scarves are very popular in France. Our mission president gave us all custom made scarves for Christmas so that we can all fit in. 

A missionary's apartment

Train station

 

"Dinner - Elder Art is on a health kick"