Week 83, Agen France




Museum in Agen

Bonjour!

I hope everything is going all right over in the states because things
are crazy over here! Just kidding all is well. This week we had the
chance to watch general conference which was a big highlight of the
week.  When I got to Agen it was just after the last general
conference so I did not really expect to be here for this one but
then a few weeks ago I was looking at the calendar and was like, "wow,
that last few months flew by." We watched the Saturday morning session
Saturday night and then the priesthood session Sunday morning and then
we watched the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sessions. I have
not yet seen the Sunday afternoon but I will have to see it soon. This
was also my last general conference on the mission! I learned a lot of
great things that will help me for the rest of my life!

The rest of the week was great too.  We went to Mezin again and had a great time
with the Somsons and found a lot of other people that want us to come
back and talk to them. I like to go to the little villages where we
have not been. Sometimes we go places and it might be the first time
missionaries with the restored gospel have even been there! I hope you
all have a great week

Love

Frère bake

Fun North African fact of the week: In North Africa they have a Muslim
holiday where they kill a sheep and eat it. Then they give the
leftover stomach pieces to their neighbors. The Somsons got some from their neighbor and shared it with us. I sent a picture. They also have big horns on the top of
the Mosques that a guy sings into to tell everyone in the town to come
and pray.




My attempt to make French food



District Meeting - Matching companions



District Meeting

Honey and Cheese Toast



Fr. Cedric



Hunting Mushrooms with the Zambos Family

 



Fr. Econda



Jean Lou



Jean Robert



N'inday's kids



N'inday's kids



N'inday family



Kim and Nesser



Kenen Zambos



Nicola



Rebecca Zambos



Sr. Zambos



Sr. Wakon



 

 

 

Yennick Zambos

The Cousters

Week 82, Agen, Bordeaux and Mezin France

Bonjour,

This week went by very fast! I am still having a great time in Agen
with Elder Wilson. We are getting a lot better at French and having a
good time. So one of the exiting things we did this week was go to
Bordeaux for a special missionary meeting with Elder Adler in the
quorum of the 70. To start off we listened to President Brown and then
Sister Brown who showed a clip from a byu football game at part of her
talk. Then Elder Adler got up and after a few words I was like, "Wow
that is not an American accent." It turns out that he and his wife are
from Germany. They are both awesome and I learned a lot. Some of the
things he talked about are that we need to focus more on improving our
French so that people can understand us. He also talked a lot about
making sure that we are doing what we need to do to be constantly
improving our testimonies in Christ. I have been trying recently to
work on always testifying of Christ and it has been great.

Another fun thing we did this week was go to Mezin where we visited
the Somson family. We also talked to some people in Mezin and met one
nice family that said to come back and then we met another guy and
spent about an hour talking to him. He has some very interesting ideas
but we were able to introduce the Book of Mormon to him which he had
never heard of before.

Miracle of the week - There are three new people who just moved into
the Agen branch. One of them, Jean Robert, was actually in Agen before
and was baptized here about a year ago and then went to Bayonne but
now he is back! We went and saw him this week and he told us his story
which is amazing. He is so happy now that he has the gospel and is
getting ready to go to the temple! There is also a guy named Cedric
who is 20 and is here for studies. He is planning on going on a
mission in a year too.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Frère Bake

Fun French fact of the week
Almost everyone in France has dogs! There are these little dog that are
smaller than cats that are especially popular. After being on a
mission for a little while now I like dogs a lot less than I did
before.

Week 81 Agen and Bordeaux

How do you like my new riding hat?

Hello les gens,

This was another great week in Agen and all is going very well. I traveled to Bordeaux for an exchange and then district meeting. We also had a great time teaching people in Agen and found a new family that we are going to teach. When I was in Bordeaux  I was with Frère Garside who was in the MTC with me. We had a great time together and taught this Catholic guy in a big Catholic church. That was definitely a first. I read in the rules a few days after that we can't do that. Whoops. 

 

Miracle of the week: one of the big events of the week was an activity that we put on at the church. The activity was about temples because that is something we are very exited to talk about because there is a temple being built in Paris. We spent a lot of time planning the activity and getting as many people to come as possible. We had a great turn out and got some kids to come that we have been working with. Kim and Nasser also came and then came to church again yesterday. We started off the activity with some games that were a lot of fun and then we shared a thought about temples. We showed some videos including the video of President Monson announcing the Paris Temple. After we all ate crepes. We made about 30 before but they were all gone in a few seconds so we had to hurry and make more. We also tried to make some with this gluten free flower that turned out more like pancakes but ca va. Everyone seemed to have a great time!

 

Thank you all for your prayers, they help. Have a great week

Love 

Frère Bake

FFF of the week

So when we were getting ready for the activity we went to this convenience store. I noticed the lady in front of us was buying only two things; snails and Roquefort cheese. Elder Wilson and I were talking about how it is almost impossible to buy either of those things it the US and definitely not at a little convenience store. That is France for you. 

 

 

 

High Counselor from Bordeaux

"My incredible companion" 

Kids in the Agen Branch

They loved our jar of Nutella

Phillip

 



Sr Zamba, her mother and her baby to be

 

 

 

Week 80 Agen and Bordeaux

Streets of Agen

Bonjour!

I just finished doing an interview with the mission president on Skype! We have a general authority visiting our mission so president Brown will not have time to do interviews with us like normal but did them on Skype this time. It was a little different but pretty good. I really like president Brown and his wife. They are doing a great job here.

 

They gave us a little shout out in the weekly news letter that goes out to all the missionaries. I will explain. So last week, at the conference for the new missionaries, President Brown had the idea that  it would be good if we could figure out a way to get people's names engraved on a Book of Mormon that we give them. This way the  book will have a more personal meaning to them. Then he gave the challenge to us to try to see if we could do this and said once you have a Book of Mormon in your hands with your ami's name on it call me. So last Monday we found an engraver and did it. The guy was very nice and said that he would do it for free. When we got the books we told president. We also wrote our testimonies in the books and gave them to Kim and Nasser on Saturday. They where very happy to get them. We are also gong to do this with our ami Nicolas. I think I learned from all this how important the Book of Mormon is. It is really the most valuable thing that anyone can have and can do so much for us if we read it, pray about it, and apply what we learn from the Holy Ghost.
 

 
 

This week we also went to Bordeaux again for a Missionary meeting. It was fun to see some people that I have not seen in a long time. We also went to Mezin and visited the Somsons. We did a family home evening with them and then we went with Mr. Somson and his little girl to a community garden/orchard and picked a bunch of grapes, apples, and prunes. I think I have already talked about how Agen in famous for prunes. They are so good!

 

Miracle of the week: This week Kim accepted to be baptized! She has a long ways to go but they are very exited. We had a new member move in and the first thing she said to him was, "I am going to get baptized soon!"

 

I hope you all have a great week and good luck with school. 

 

Frère Bake

FFF of the week: The French countryside is very pretty. Here in the southwest they have all kinds of fruit. 

 

 

These Elders have been in this zone with me for 4 transfers now: Elder Walker, Elder Swanson and Elder Herdt

 

Elder Bake and Elder Herdt

Elder Walker and Elder Swanson

There are four of us Elders who got to France at the same time and who are now all serving in the same zone; Elder Garside, Elder Joly and Elder Allen

District Meeting

All these Elders - Elder Pien, Elder Whiting, Elder Walters and Elder Taylor have served with me as companions.  They happened to all be together and sent me this picture.  I love these guys!

Time to finally take out the recycling

These are just some pictures of what I see in Agen.  The first two pictures are of the canal bridge.

 

Streets of Agen

 

Our Temple Poster

These are some pictures from our trip to Lyon for training last week and our train ride home.

 

 

 

 

Week 79 Agen and Lyon, France

Bonjour!

I hope you all had a great week. This week was great for me. It was a
little different than normal because we went on a big trip to Lyon.
The train ride to get there is 5 hours so that took a good part of the
day on Wednesday and Saturday. We went to Lyon for a conference with
the newer missionaries. I did the same thing
about a year ago. We talked about a lot of things but the main message
was having faith and overcoming fears. It was fun to see a lot of
other missionaries that I got to know last month when we went to Lyon.
I also got to see my old companions, Elder Taylor and Elder Whiting who are
both serving in the office. It was fun to catch up with them. I can't
remember if I said this before but when Elder Whiting and I were
companions we taught this lady named Joelle who is now baptized so it
was fun to talk about that with him.

Miracle of the week- Our investigator Kim has been sick for the last
two weeks and we have been praying for her a lot. Then earlier this
week she called us and said she is all better. It was great to see this answer to out prayers.
I hope you all have a great week

Love

Frère bake