Week 78, Agen, France

I am still here and will be for another six weeks of summer! I am
very happy to be staying and I know that there is some work the
Lord wants me to do here. I will continue with my companion, Elder
Wilson, which I am very exited about too. We will be going to a
conference in Lyon next week for all of the newer missionaries. I am
very exited but it will be a long train ride. 

This week was pretty good. I attempted to be a little more bold than normal
because I thought I might be leaving so I wanted to leave on a good note. Now I
will be able to profit from all of that for the next few weeks. I have
a feeling that a lot of good is going to happen this next month.
I think being bold is one thing I have improved on recently.
It is hard not to  be bold though when we are talking to people about
the temple and the important things we do there.
Last p day we went to this bridge that holds a canal over a big
river! It is just outside if Agen but I had never bothered to walk
there until last week. Is was really cool because you could walk
alongside the canal as you went over the bridge. Then on the other
side there were the locks that boats enter into and the water goes
down so the boats could go down a level without the canal being on
a hill. I will have to send some pictures next week.

Miracle of the week - I am staying in Agen!
On Saturday we had a word activity to clean the church. It was just
us, Fr. Cazoux , Sr. Somson and her daughter. Is was fun to spend time
with them. After we had a nice meal with  baguettes and cheese.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Frère Bake


FFF of he week - French people love yogurt!

Week 77, Agen France

Bonjour les Amis,

Wow another great week just flew by! So I sent some pictures of a
really old looking church and a fountain. Let me explain. Last Monday
our ami Mr. Lecomts called us and was like, "Do you guys have some time
this evening?" We said we did and he said that he wanted to take us to
this special place that he liked to go to with his family. It
was P day so we said, "why not" and we went to his house and then he
drove us really far out into the country to this little chapel that
was in the middle of a field.  Apparently this chapel was built 800
years ago. What was even more exiting was the fountain that was right
next to it. According to Mr. Lecomte this fountain is even older than
the chapel and is able to heal people. There is a story where
Charlemagne actually came to this very fountain and drank out of it to
be healed. Charlemagne is a pretty big deal in French history so that
makes this spot kind of important. There were a lot of people there at this little fountain in
the middle of nowhere to prove my point. It was fun to
see it and spend some time with Mr. Lecompe. I got pressured into
drinking some of the water and my companion got a video that I'll have to send.
On Friday we went to Mezin. It was Elder Wilsons first time there. We took our bikes
with us on the bus and then rode our bikes to another town called
Reaup to find a member. The bike ride there was
very beautiful and reminded me a lot of Oregon. It was fun to go on a
good bike ride. We were not able to go to the guys house but we
found out where he lives so next time we can get there. We talked to
some people who were sitting outside of the town store and asked
them about the town. The town is literally a store, a government
building and a really old church. There are apparently 300 people who
live in the town but they are all in the country.
On Sunday I gave a talk in church. President Zambo said to talk about
any of the things we teach as missionaries so I talked about the
restoration. Then I talked about how it applies to us, I am grateful to
live in this period of time on the earth when we can enjoy all the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Frère Zambo said I did good and was talking to me about it for a long time
after the meeting.

Miracle of the week - We had some time before we needed to go home one
day and so we desired to go to this park. We met a guy who was
really nice but he said he was atheist. After talking to him for a
little while we took his number and left to go home. We were walking
a little fast to get home on time and then about five minuets later
we heard from of in a distance "Wilson!" We turned around and there was this
same man running after us. He caught up to us and said that he forgot that
he changed phones and had given us the wrong number. Once he realized
he turned around and tried to catch up with us. This was a surprise coming from an atheist.

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy your last bit of summer.

Love

Frère Bake

FFF of the week
The electrical outlets are a big circle with two poles that are
circular. I forgot what American ones look like but I think it is
different.

 

 

Bike ride to Reaup-Lisse

Cathedral in Agen

The little church out in the middle of nowhere

The fountain with healing water

Kim and Nesser

The Lecomtes

Streets of Agen

Streets of Agen

Yannick Zambo



Zambo's parents



 

Week 76, Agen, France

Missionaries at the Bordeaux Conference

Bonjour!
It was another really great week!
We did a lot of service this week for the Lecomte family who we are teaching. We helped them
build some cabinets that they bought. It was a lot of fun. While we were working we talked about the gospel and the guy just sat next to us and asked us question after question. After we ate with them and just enjoyed their company. They are a really great couple and we have got to know them really well. I actually just got off the phone with them and we might go with them to a little village outside of Agen to sight see this evening.
We also met a guy named Nicholas who loves his family. He knew almost all of his great grandparents and they are all from the Agen area!
We met with Kim and Nasser a few times too! I don't know if I have said much about them. They are a really cool couple that I have gotten to love very much. This week they came to church for the second time and they had a great time. They love us a lot too and Kim loves to make us food.

Miracle if the week - A few days ago Kim decided to tell us that she
smokes a lot but for some reason felt recently like she needed to
stop. So on her own she has started to quit. We never told her
anything about how as members of the church we do not smoke and that
as missionaries we help people quit smoking! Now we are very exited to
help her with this.

On Friday we went to Bordeaux where we had a conference with the other
missionaries in the area and our mission president and his wife. It
was a very spiritual, uplifting conference and I learned a lot and I'm
very exited to apply the things I learned. Like I have mentioned
before we are focusing our efforts on the temple. We are trying to
talk with everyone about the new temple in Paris and the eternal
blessings it brings! I also did an exchange with Elder Garside who was
in the MTC with me. He is so awesome and we had a great time.

On Sunday we had a branch meal after church and Kim, Nasser, and Kerry
and her kids all stayed for it. I made a salad with apples in it. It
was a big hit. Ok maybe not but I did not think it was too bad. I
really want to improve my cooking skills but it's a little hard. This
transfer is going by so fast but I am very exited for next week!

Have a good week!

Frère Bake

FFF of the week - Elder Garside and I were talking about how French
people think of fruit as a dessert. If you grab some fruit In the
middle of the meal they are like, "What are you doing?" And then after
the meal they bring out the dessert and it will be an orange and
your like, "What is this? I want a brownie."

Week 75, Agen, France

Roquefort, France

Bonjour!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your summer. This is my second summer in France and it is going very well. At the beginning of the week it was very hot but then on Saturday and Sunday it poured. Our fan broke last week which was a little hard but today we got a new one so we should be able to survive for the rest of the summer. We bought the exact same fan that we had but we are just going to have faith that it stays alive. 

 

Miracle of the week:

This week we had a really great lesson with our friend Ludovic. We talked about having faith in Christ and that through Christ we can be cleansed from sin. Normally, before our lessons, we right out some phases that Frère Wilson can say but this time he was able to say a lot more and answer some questions. He also shared his personal testimony and invited Ludovic to church which was way more than he has ever done before!

 

Another cool experience from this week was having a great lesson with a couple who we found about families and  the temple. We are trying to talk a lot more about the temple now because there will be a temple in Paris soon, the first one in France. It is a very exiting thing for us to talk about it. 

On Thursday we had district meeting in Bordeaux and then I came back with Frère Durante for an exchange. We had great time and were able to teach the Dutiels and the Lecomps. They are both awesome and have made an effort to strengthened their own faith.  On Sunday the Dutiels came to church.  During church they were telling another member that I have helped them to have more faith and learn how to pray. I told them it is not me that is helping them but it was great to hear that I am helping them. 

 

On Friday we went to a little town called Roquefort, which is the name of a really good cheese in France. I hope you all have a great week!

Frère Bake

FFF of the Week for Ian (and any other Phineas and Ferb fan)

Speaking of fans, the French word for fan is Ventilateur wich means something like wind-inator

 

 

Salmon Pizza

 

Week 74, Agen, France

 

 



Cathedral in Auch



Bonjour!

This was a great week in Agen and was the second full week with my new
companion Elder Wilson. He is a great guy and we have been having a
very good time. He went to the Y before his mission and knows
everything about BYU sports. He is also picking up French very quickly
which is very impressive. He has already had a lot of French food which
is great but yesterday he made the classic new guy mustard mistake.
(mustard in France is way, way hotter than it is in America).

On Wednesday we went to Auch and visited Frère Carousel who
fed us and then we went with us to visit Philip. He use to live in
America and served a mission to Canada so
he speaks perfect English. Auch is a cool city that is actually
bigger than Agen!

We have also been teaching a new family that was taught by the
missionaries once before. We taught them about prayer.  After the lesson we knelt and the father offered the prayer.  He then told us that this
was one of his first times praying so it was a really great
experience.

On Saturday we had an activity with the branch that was a lot of fun.
We had a picnic and played a few games. We also found this really
weird bug that looked like a mix between a centipede and a spider.Kerry and her kids
also came which was great and then she came to church again yesterday.
They gave us a bunch of food before we left and some Roquefort cheese
which is my favorite cheese now.

Miracle of the week -  We had a goal on Saturday to teach two lessons
but we only had one planned. Then the lesson got canceled but we were
able to find other people and still teach two lessons. They were both
very powerful experiences.

Yesterday a couple we are teaching invited us over for dinner and we
had a blast. They feed us a full fledged French meal with all of the
courses. It was a lot of fun and very good. I hope you all have a
great week

Love


Frère bake

Fun French fact of the week- like I sad before, the mustard is very
hot.  When you buy mayonnaise it comes with mustard mixed in
and it is always Dijon.

 

bug at the ward activity

 

Selfie on a bike




Train station in Agen