Boy oh boy I loved conference!!!!

This week was a little different from last week, last week was my most busy week in France and this week was my least busy week in France. We had alot of Ratez-Vous' (when someone doesn't show up) I think we had 10 or something. So we tried to be busy and we had sent up the week to be busy but apparently these people weren't quite ready for the gospel this week. I realized this week how much of our success is granted from the Lord ............100%!!! We need to teach well and work hard, but if we don't have tons of lessons that means that the Lord had a different agenda. I hope that made sense. But at the same time even though we weren't not crazy busy with lessons we were still teaching alot and found success. One of our Amis', Carlos Bentos, he is from Portugal called us and told us that the Book of Mormon was true and that we wanted to be baptized. We thought about it for a second but we accepted his commitment. :) ha ha it was kinda fun to have the investigator give us the commitment, it made our job really easy. He is going to be baptized on the 23rd of October the same day that his wife was baptized 22 years ago in Brazil. They are really great, and I'm very very excited for them. We are still going to teach him intensely because we want to keep his fire lit, and we want to make sure that he is getting baptized for himself not his wife. We also taught Caroline, the girlfriend of a less active member. She prayed as well and told us that the Book of Mormon was true, again we agreed. :) She doesn't have a baptismal date yet, but we are going to keep working on it.

I also have a new member of my district. His name is ELDER DANNY ALLEN!!!!!! he is in Beziers and I will be seeing him very often, tomorrow in fact, and I've talked to him on the phone several times already. He has a good trainer, French as well, and as far as I've heard they are seeing lots of miracles as well. Beziers has been a little bit cold for the last 6 months, but he has been here for 6 days and they are already seeing much more success. Elder Magnan said that it was normal because new missionaries have more faith. I guess that helps :) I want to have faith for all of my mission so that I can continually see the miracles of faith for 2 years not just 2 transfers.

Sunday was SO SO good!! I loved listening to conference, I listened to half of it in French which was a little difficult, I don't have an apostle size vocabulary in English, so in French.... it was a little rough. And unfortunately, I didn't understand anything of Elder Cooks talk, I was trying but I was totally lost. I'll have to read it in English in the Ensign next month. I really loved the priesthood session and it made me miss watching it was with all the brothers, brothers-in-law and dad. We watched Saturday morning and Sunday morning directly, and Priesthood session and Saturday Afternoon on delay. Unfortunately Sunday Afternoon was live but it was from 10 pm to Midnight and we had to be home. I wanted to hear Elder Bednar and I assume he spoke in the last session. Maybe we'll get to watch it next week, I hope so. I especially loved the talks of the 1st Presidency. I felt like they were talking right to me, and I felt honored to have had received a mission call from these great leaders, apostles and prophets.

I did hear the Temples announced and unfortunately there wasn't a France temple, but watch for next time. There is word that the property has been purchased in Versailles and that the land is already being prepared. I had this knowledge because Elder Magnan's family lives 15 minutes from the temple site. There is also a member in Bordeaux that is helping with the design and blue prints. Apparently they have been this close in the past, so nothing is for sure. But the members are more confident this time.

Are you eating well?
I eat really well, sometimes too well

But I was curious if you had enough money?
I think you probably heard about Elder Spackman. haha They eat out alot and thus it is expensive

Do you pay for your own heat?
Nope, in fact it is kinda of cold in our apartment and the French government doesn't turn on the heat until the 18th or 19th of October, so our land lord gave us a space heater for the nights, its cozy :)

In some places you put coins into a meter to heat your apartment, how do you heat?
Nope

Did you get winter clothes?
I bought one V-neck sweater, it is rather dashing in my opinion, and it is a grayish brown color and it looks good with all 3 of my suits. I am going to by an umbrella this week and a coat, it'll cost about 100 Euros, ouch.

There was another massive protest, it was kinda funny. Elder Magnan said that they usually yell and heckle the missionaries so we had to change our outfits on the fly to try to look normal while we walked past the protest for a block and half, it was kinda funny.





Hope all this well and I hope you all loved conference. I love you.

Matt