Week 55, Aix en Provence

Bonjour,

This week was great. It was my first week with my new companion Elder Walters. We had a really great start to the new transfer. I am really exited for this transfer and know that we are going to see some great miracles. We were really busy this week. On Tuesday we taught our English class about St. Patrick's Day and taught the Garcia family. We saw Wayne on Wednesday. We taught him about prayer and then later in the week we watched a film with him called finding faith in Christ which is a little old but it was still good. 

 

Normally we go to ward council once a week which is where we talk to some of the people in the ward about missionary work and try to get things organized to help the ward. It is hard sometimes because we need to talk in French but I feel like I am getting a lot better at it and better able to help the ward. I really like working together like this with the members. We also have a meeting before ward council with the ward mission leader who helps coordinate the missionary work in the ward. We have the best ward mission leader in France. His name is Kevin and he helps us a lot.

 

We did service this week for a lady where we took really cold sand out of a big bucket. It was not the most fun thing but we got play with the dog while we did it. The Kools invited us over as well at the last minuet. I don't know if I've mentioned anything about them but they are a really great couple. We are teaching the wife, Charmain, who is from the Philippines and the husband is from the Netherlands. I really like them and it is always a good time at their house. They always feed us a big meal that is a mix of Philippine, Dutch and French food. We also went to Pertuis again to see Leonard. I have only been there twice but every time I go it rains. It is still a nice town.

 

Miracle of the week:  On Sunday we were scheduled to teach a family who are a little closed. As my companion and I were preparing for our lesson I was having a hard time knowing what to teach.  As we prayed we both felt strongly that we should teach about families. When we met with the family and started talking to them about their family they opened up a lot and we had a great time and they told us that we could talk to her neighbor about the same thing! 

 

I hope you all have a great week!

 

Love, 

Elder Bake

Fun French Fact of the week: They do not celebrate St. Patrick's day in France. Today I made myself a baguette sandwich with goat cheese. It was really good!

Week 54 Aix en Provence

Crepe Party

New Companion, Elder Walters from Chicago

On the Train

Bonjour,

I had a great week that started out normal but ended in an exiting way. On Monday we helped a guy move whose daughter is in the ward. Afterward he took us out for pizza which was fun. I got anchovy pizza just for the fun of it because in kindergarten we sang a song called I AM A PIZZA about eating pizza but not with the anchovies and I always thought "why not, what's wrong with anchovies?" So I gave in a try and now I know. 

 

Later in the week we saw Wayne and taught English class. We also had a crepe party/ lesson with 2 members who have not been to church in a long time and one of them brought a friend. On Wednesday night we traveled to Gap so that I could do legal stuff so that I can stay in France for another year. Then we had district meeting in Gap right after I finished.  So Friday was the infamous calls day when the mission president calls us and tells us what will happen to us for the next 6 weeks. My companion got called to be in the Mission Office and I will be staying here in Aix!! I am really happy to be staying here. By the end of this transfer I will have served in Aix for 6 months. Elder Whiting was not very happy to be leaving because he really likes Aix and will be leaving after just 6 weeks. We call this a "one and done". President also told us that we needed to come to Lyon the next day so that Elder Whiting could get started on his office work. Normally we get calls on Friday and leave on Monday but this time he only had one day to get out. So then I had to cancel our 4 lessons that we had already planned for the next day so that we could go to Lyon. I spent the weekend in Lyon with the office Elders. I went to church in the ward that the president and his family attend on Sundays and I got to see a bunch of people like my first companion Elder Davis who is now the assistant to the president and Anthony who is from Valence and is probably my best friend in France. He got baptized right before I got to Valence and I spent a lot of time with him. He is now engaged! Today I went to Marseille to pick up my new companion Elder Walters. He is from Chicago and came into the mission right after I did. He is great! 

Miracle of the Week: There is a really great member in the word named Fernando who we visit. When I first got here he did not come to church but now he comes every Sunday for the last 2 months and he even traveled to Nice for stake conference! We saw him again this week and then ran into him on the bus just before we left for Lyon. 

I hope you all have a stellar week

Elder Bake
 

OK, since I forgot last week I got a good one this time. 

Fun French Fact of the Week:

The Bisou  - So French people do this really weird thing when they greet each other and when they say good bye where they kiss each other's cheeks. The interesting thing about it is that in different cites the number of times you kiss is different. For example in my first two areas, Valence and Montpellier, it is 3 times and in Aix it is 2 times. There does not seem to be any sense to why some cites are different than others. Even two small cites next to each other can have a different number of kisses. As missionaries we are not allowed to Bise woman which is something really hard to explain at the last second as they start to lean in.  

Week 53, Aix en Provence

Our ami, Wayne

Bonjour,

This week I hit my year mark. A year ago from Thursday I left Oregon and started my mission. It has been a really great year and I am looking forward to another great year to come. A year ago I only knew a few words in French but now I know a few more. I weighted myself and I have gained 0.04 lbs. I guess the French food is just not doing it. I am probably a lot taller though. I have met some really great people here that have changed my life and I hope I have been a good influence on some other people's lives as well. 

This week we got back from our little vacation in Nice and Saint Raphael and went back to work. We have been meeting a lot with our amis Joel and Wayne. They are both doing well. Wayne is one of my favorite people. He is so cool and loves the gospel. He wanted us to buy the apartment next to his in Rogne so I took some pictures of the place just in case. It takes a bit of a bus ride to get to Rogne to teach Wayne but it is worth it. We also have a retired man in the ward, who lives in la Roque, come and help us teach Wayne. We visited a really nice family this week, the Labeyries. They are a very nice family and after our lesson they made us crepes. They were really good. We talked to them about their family and it was fun because they are very French and have lived in this area for a long time. They know and do all the traditions from the area.  

 

 

I did an exchange this week with my old companion, Elder Dover, who is on the last week of his mission! I have been around him almost all of my mission so it is a little crazy that he is going home.

 

There is a member who stoped coming to church a little bit before I got to Aix and we visited him a lot but then he said he did not want to see us again. This was hard but then this week he called me and invited us over. We were able to talk with him for a long time and it was great. 

 

Miracle of the Week:

On Saturday there was a baptism in our ward for a lady named Sr. Blondel. Her husband met the other missionaries a little more than a month ago and the two of them started coming to church and meeting with the missionaries. The husband said he was not ready to be baptized but the wife said she was so they when they had the baptism everyone was asking the husband when he was going to be baptised and he said I dont know. Then the next day Fr. Blondel said that he wants to be baptised in two weeks. They had the confirmation for Sr. Blondel on Sunday. 

 

On Saturday we went knocking on doors. This is one of the few times I have done this on my mission but it was actually a lot of fun. We went to this one house and a man answered and invited us in. He is Jewish and we talked to him and his wife and daughter for about an hour. It was really fun to talk to them about all sorts of things including their religion. I think the Jewish religion is really interesting and after this week I am even more interested. 

 

I hope you all have a great week. 

 

Elder Bake

Elder Dover and Elder Whiting: The Texians

Fr. Rodrigez

Nicolas Pichon

 

Elder Davis

Week 52, Aix en Provence, Ronge, Saint-Raphael and Nice

Nice

Bonjour,

This week was one of the best! I was really exited last weekend because by Sunday we already had a bunch of lessons set up for the week. Most of them worked out and we were running around from one lesson to the next in the beginning of the week. My companion complains sometimes that we are always needing to run to get to something on time or catch a bus but I like it. This week we taught our amis Jackline, Joel, Halima, Wayne, the Garsias, and Frederic. They are doing well especially Frederic who is really interested in our church and accepted the challenge to be baptized this week. He takes notes during our lessons and asks really good questions. Wayne is also doing well. He accepts everything we teach and it is fun to go out to Ronge and see him. I saw him one time this week with Elder Nye because we did an exchange. Our bus got home really late so we had to run home to get our bags and eat some potatoes and then took a really slow bus to the gare and barely made our train. We were then out of Aix from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. We stayed in Saint-Raphael which is a really cool touristy town on the beach. It was my companions first time seeing a beach and I told him that the Saint-Raphael beach is not a bad place to have a first beach experience. We went to the beach Saturday morning for our morning exercises and had a good time. There was a bunch of Elders all together for the weekend and we had a great time. There was a mission conference in Nice on Friday and then stake conference in Nice on Sunday. I learned a lot in both the meetings and am really exited to apply everything. Right now we are trying to focus a lot on families in our missionary work and get people to talk more about the importance of families in our lives. This is a lot of fun and going really well so far. On Sunday we took a bus back to Aix with the members. During conference they did not have any space so we were in the hall but then they had us go sit in the back behind the speaker which was a little scary.
 

Miracle of the week: Wayne and a less active member that we work with, named Fernando, both came to stake Conference in Nice and became BFFs and had a great time. 

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Bake

Streets of Saint Rapheal

Train Ride

 

View from the train



All the Elders squeezing into one apartment



Nice Conference, or should we say a conference in Nice?

 

Fun French fact of the week: In down town Nice there are orange trees lining the roads.