Hello Family
1. How do you pronounce Aix en Provence?
See the Subject of the email
2. Where is Elder Claffin from - tell us a little about him. Did he break his back in the MTC?
Elder Claflin is from Ceder Hills utah, he is great and speaks french SOOOO good, he did brake his back in the mtc and had to go home for 10 weeks and he then came straight to the field, he was supposed to stay home for a year and a half but he was tremendously blessed and was healed in a matter of 10 weeks. He has served almost his entire mission in Switzerland and is loving the south, he is a Door to Door type of missionary. He contacts but he has done door to door for most of his mission, I am a contacting missionary, so it is different but still great. Thus this week I did my first day of door to door
3. How is it to drive there? Is the car an automatic? In the movies the roads look narrow.
I learned how to drive stick shift today, I got out of first my first time and I am working on shifting at full speed. The roads are CRAZY and super narrow and confusing so I gave up and bought a GPS 2 days ago
4. Do you still have a mission newsletter like the "Banniere"?
Yes it is called L'Etantard
5. Someone we met (can't remember who) has family or friends living in Grenoble that is in your mission right? Is it your zone?
yes in the mission not in the zone
6. Haven't heard about Elder Allen or Fitch or Elder Magnan for a while? From what we read the temple is going to be very close to Elder Magnan's home. I attached an email with all of that
7. Have you seen or heard of Gloria's daughter Sister Tiffany Bartlome?
she is in grenoble
Today I got hit by a car and I am limping a little bit, and I can feel my pulse in my leg, but don't worry it is not as bad as it sounds, the sad part is, is that my collegue was driving the car! CRAZY!!!! but SO Funny!!!! We laughed for a long time
if it consists I will tell you next week
LOVE YOU
Elder Smith
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
No school like the old school
Old School is the kool school!
I will explain, I don't know why but with summer arriving we have like no amis that are progressing towards baptism, we are finding good amounts of people but we get to like 1 or 2 lessons and then people disappear or just loose interest. We taught like 22 lessons this week so we have things to do but we don't have a lot of people that are progressing for the moment because we baptised all of the good ones. So this week we have been doing a lot of finding efforts, and by the inspiration of our new mission president we have started a new way of contacting and it was A BLAST!!!!!!
It actually was't that new, if you remember the back in the old days, a missionary got up on a soap box and yelled the restored gospel at the top of his lungs and invited everyone to come unto christ. That is how we do contacting :) ok ok so we are not quite as cool as the old school but almost. We take a big easel with a picture of christ and the 1st vision and then we just talk to people about the restored church, we went to the down town of nice where there was tourist and shoppers and trams and buses and taxis and skateboards and people playing jazz music and breakdancers and a huge fountain and the ELDERS. It was great!
At one point Elder Harris got excited and did jump up on a little post and held the book of mormon up in the air and started talking/yelling about the restored gospel we are teaching a young student that was listening tomorrow.
All in all we are doing well and we started waking up eariler so that we have more time to work out and study and have more of the spirit with us, we still have moments of fatigue and we are going to keep working hard so that we can be better, but nevertheless it was a fun week.
I came across a scripture in the Doctrine and covenants this week that hit me, it was a scripture that I have read before and I don't even remember the reference, I think it is like 58:3 or something, but it just pointed out the fact that the elders needed to spread the gospel in order to have salvation, the spirit smote for a second and I realized that I really need to work harder or my salvation is up in the air! yikes!
I am happy to hear that carter is doing better and that everybody is going well,
I love you all!!!
Elder Smith
ps Dad - 1 Rimas Civanovic has his mother, brother and 2 cousins here in Nice and he has a sister in Brest and more cousins all over france.
2 - Bastille Day is this thursday are we are having a picnic with our amis and the members and we are going and playing soccer up in a park that over looks all of nice and monaco and the beach, should be kool
I will explain, I don't know why but with summer arriving we have like no amis that are progressing towards baptism, we are finding good amounts of people but we get to like 1 or 2 lessons and then people disappear or just loose interest. We taught like 22 lessons this week so we have things to do but we don't have a lot of people that are progressing for the moment because we baptised all of the good ones. So this week we have been doing a lot of finding efforts, and by the inspiration of our new mission president we have started a new way of contacting and it was A BLAST!!!!!!
It actually was't that new, if you remember the back in the old days, a missionary got up on a soap box and yelled the restored gospel at the top of his lungs and invited everyone to come unto christ. That is how we do contacting :) ok ok so we are not quite as cool as the old school but almost. We take a big easel with a picture of christ and the 1st vision and then we just talk to people about the restored church, we went to the down town of nice where there was tourist and shoppers and trams and buses and taxis and skateboards and people playing jazz music and breakdancers and a huge fountain and the ELDERS. It was great!
At one point Elder Harris got excited and did jump up on a little post and held the book of mormon up in the air and started talking/yelling about the restored gospel we are teaching a young student that was listening tomorrow.
All in all we are doing well and we started waking up eariler so that we have more time to work out and study and have more of the spirit with us, we still have moments of fatigue and we are going to keep working hard so that we can be better, but nevertheless it was a fun week.
I came across a scripture in the Doctrine and covenants this week that hit me, it was a scripture that I have read before and I don't even remember the reference, I think it is like 58:3 or something, but it just pointed out the fact that the elders needed to spread the gospel in order to have salvation, the spirit smote for a second and I realized that I really need to work harder or my salvation is up in the air! yikes!
I am happy to hear that carter is doing better and that everybody is going well,
I love you all!!!
Elder Smith
ps Dad - 1 Rimas Civanovic has his mother, brother and 2 cousins here in Nice and he has a sister in Brest and more cousins all over france.
2 - Bastille Day is this thursday are we are having a picnic with our amis and the members and we are going and playing soccer up in a park that over looks all of nice and monaco and the beach, should be kool
Monday, July 4, 2011
The Best Day of the Year!!!
You all are so so lucky that you are in America, I sang the national anthem this morning instead of a hymn with my companion during our companionship study. The 4th of July is by far the best holiday of the year, you all better have a great time! And besides that there is nothing different about the day. No BBQ's, no otter pops, no jets over the parade, no DATC breakfast, no fireworks, no homemade ice cream, no birthday cake for Sara and Elizabeth ( ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sara and Elizabeth!!!!), no carnival. You have got it made! I love America! I love France as well, and it is worth the sacrifice, but next year I am going to do every single thing possible to be as American as possible.
We went to Aix en Provence and we met President and Sister Murdock on Friday, and that was cool and super weird. I love them but it was different, they came in and they were both speaking English, and they shook my hand. ( that doesn't sound that different but the Carters always spoke french because they are from Quebec, and they always hugged us ) I love President Murdock and I know that he is inspired but I don't think that he will be able to replace president carter, he will be more like next to President Carter in my heart. He taught differently but I still loved listening to him and Sister Murdock. That was another major difference, President and Sister Carter were super bold, they always taught with the scriptures out and they would talk about shaking people with the power and word of god, they would teach kind of like Alma and Amulek. and President and Sister Murdock teach like Lehi and Sariah. I love them all so much and they teach us what we need to hear, it is just different. There are a couple rule changes but for the most part it is the Swiss mission that is going to conform to our rules, the biggest rule change is the emails, I only have 1 hour to write everyone, rather an 1.5 hours, not a huge difference but a change.
So I have less time to write you all now that I have a different mission president, sorry, I guess that the emails will get smaller and smaller and I things might just be going down on paper via snail mail.
ps Bastille Day is the 14th July not the 5th
pps if you didn't mark "Elder" Matt Smith or "Les Missionnaires"/Matt Smith, the package is off to Narnia and I'll have to pick it up in the world to come
ppps I am officially an Elder in the "Lyon France Mission", they created this new mission, President told us that we have a big chunk of Switzerland in our mission, but they we will never go there, because of visa problems, but that doesn't bother me, I am hoping to never go to Lyon until I go home, I was born in the south, I bleed the south and I am a southern, I don't want to be a Yankee, the Yankees are welcome to come down and join me in the white part of the field, but I want to stay down in my home.
Voila!!! Have a great week and enjoy the land of the home and the brave without me, I will be there next year and we are going to PARTAY!!!
Love Elder Smith
We went to Aix en Provence and we met President and Sister Murdock on Friday, and that was cool and super weird. I love them but it was different, they came in and they were both speaking English, and they shook my hand. ( that doesn't sound that different but the Carters always spoke french because they are from Quebec, and they always hugged us ) I love President Murdock and I know that he is inspired but I don't think that he will be able to replace president carter, he will be more like next to President Carter in my heart. He taught differently but I still loved listening to him and Sister Murdock. That was another major difference, President and Sister Carter were super bold, they always taught with the scriptures out and they would talk about shaking people with the power and word of god, they would teach kind of like Alma and Amulek. and President and Sister Murdock teach like Lehi and Sariah. I love them all so much and they teach us what we need to hear, it is just different. There are a couple rule changes but for the most part it is the Swiss mission that is going to conform to our rules, the biggest rule change is the emails, I only have 1 hour to write everyone, rather an 1.5 hours, not a huge difference but a change.
So I have less time to write you all now that I have a different mission president, sorry, I guess that the emails will get smaller and smaller and I things might just be going down on paper via snail mail.
ps Bastille Day is the 14th July not the 5th
pps if you didn't mark "Elder" Matt Smith or "Les Missionnaires"/Matt Smith, the package is off to Narnia and I'll have to pick it up in the world to come
ppps I am officially an Elder in the "Lyon France Mission", they created this new mission, President told us that we have a big chunk of Switzerland in our mission, but they we will never go there, because of visa problems, but that doesn't bother me, I am hoping to never go to Lyon until I go home, I was born in the south, I bleed the south and I am a southern, I don't want to be a Yankee, the Yankees are welcome to come down and join me in the white part of the field, but I want to stay down in my home.
Voila!!! Have a great week and enjoy the land of the home and the brave without me, I will be there next year and we are going to PARTAY!!!
Love Elder Smith
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