salut!

hey there people! well, i'm not really in the mood of writing an email today, so it's probably gonna be short. here in villeneuve d'ascq, things are going just great. we honestly had such a great week here. the only problem is that i can't just worry about myself anymore.... now i have to worry about the zoneski. alors, we got done with our week and we ended up with 5 new amis and just a terrific week, and then we start getting in the stats for the other people in the zone and oh là. it was pretty bad. and so now i'm just sitting here wondering what we did wrong. because it was this week too that we went around to all of the districts and gave them a little training. the only reason that we are here is to get everyone excited about missionary work and to inspire them to do their best, and we obviously failed pretty hard haha. so yeah. last night me and elder andrus just tried to figure out what we're doing wrong and how to fix it. being a zone leader is no fun. i already have enough to worry about when i just have to work on myself. so that's a little summary of the week.

 on a brighter note, the 5 new amis that we found are all super sweet. 4 of them are young adults, and the young adult program in our ward is way good, so we're excited for that. they are all just really sincere and really have a chance to go somewhere. so it's pretty sick.

 i still love serving with elder andrus. he's a super good missionary and we have a lot of fun. we both think we're really funny, and most the time our french friends don't, so we have fun trying to dig each other out of the holes that we make haha.

well, i don't really see anything else to write about, so à bientôt! je vous aime!


Elder Matthew Meyers
223 A05, blvd De Valmy
59650 VILLENEUVE D'ASCQ
La France

Villeneuve d'Ascq!

herrooo!
well how are you everyone. so to start out, i love villeneuve. the ward is great and i love my companion. we get along super well. but before we move on from that, i'm just gonna say i still miss elder andrus version 1.0. we had a lot of fun together and he's a stellar kid and a good missionary. ima miss him. cry.

so here we are in villeneuve, and we were just so excited to get started. the first night we went to ward council, and it was so good. the leadership here is all stellar and we are really excited to get things going here. the sisters here are great, i'm enjoying it so far and they are helping us out a lot seeing as we know nothing about the city yet. just as a little background, the missionaries here before us weren't the best. when we got to the apartment, it was the dirtiest thing that i've ever seen. there were still crumbs allll over the floor and the table hadn't even been wiped off. also, all we heard from any missionaries who had served in villeneuve was about how bad the apartment was. but when we got there, it's actually not that bad at all. the only problem was that the missionaries before didn't take any care of it at all. it was the dirtiest thing on the planet, there were things broken cause they didn't take care of it, but other than that, it's just fine. we spent the first couple of days cleaning because it was absolutely unlivable, and now it looks really nice. i have no complaints at all. and the ward is just great, we had a really good time on sunday getting to know them a little, and i'm really learning a lot already. elder andrus is a stud. he's from idaho falls, and he's a baseball player. there you go dad. but he's super funny and we get a long really well. we think we're pretty funny too, even though most of the time everyone else doesn't haha.

so to answer some pronounciation question. villeneuve d'ascq - veelnuv dask. that's as close as i can get haha. and lille - leel. if you still have more questions, i'm sure there is something on the internet that can tell you about it. as to a summary of the zone. well. we have 4 missionaries out here in villeneuve (that's me! and sisters). 4 in lille. we share a ward building for the two wards of lille and villeneuve, so that's an adventure. valencienne has 2 out there, st quentin has 2 also. 2 in calais, 2 in amien, 2 in arras (sisters), dunkerque has 2. and that's it. so there are 20 in our zone. our area here in villeneuve goes from the edge of lille on the east to belgium. we have a little part of belgium in our area so that's fun.

other news, elder andrus likes to be lazy. haha no i'm just kidding, but, he does have tendonitis. bummer huh? so his left foot is all swollen and the doctor told him that he needs to stay off of it for at least a week. so we just got here and are all ready to work and to turn things around here, and then that happens. so these last couple of days we've just been sitting around the apartment being bored. and making our apartment really clean since that's the only fun thing to do. so yeah, we're ready to get out. but, this next week we have to go visit the three district meetings in our zone, so we're going to be out and about. we got him some super lame french crutches (since they don't use normal crutches, they are more like canes) and we're managing. since we haven't been getting out though we've been doing a lot of area book work, so we have a lot of things set for this week, hopefully it'll go through. as for the area, we weren't left with much. we're kinda starting over here so we're pretty exciting about it. it'll be fun.

well i don't really know what else to tell you, and we're kinda pressed for time, as it turns out, pdays as zone leaders are not fun. we have so many things we have to get done today. but that's life! welp, love you! au revoir!

-- Elder Matthew Meyers

223 A05, blvd De Valmy 59650
VILLENEUVE D'ASCQ
La France

off to VILLENEUVE D'ASCQ!

last week in mulhouse..........

hey guys! welp. i'm finally leaving mulhouse! feeling about it: well, i really liked my time in mulhouse, and i really love the people here, the ward the members the amis, everyone, but i am really excited for new things. i'm off to villeneuve-d'ascq! it's a city that is right next to lille. i guess that they are pretty much the same city or something. all i know is that the church for lille is in villeneuve, so we share a building for the two ward! so that's exciting. and. i'm a zone leader now! ha intense huh? so yeah, ima be on my knees a lot pretty soon haha. it's the zone of lille, which includes lille valencien (spellings are going to be wrong) villeneuve, calais, dunkerque, arras, amien and st quentin. so it should be an adventure. in the same ville as me, we have sisters too. That'll be a different experience for me. specially since before, i was completely out in the middle of nowhere, super far away from everyone else, and now, with the two equipes in lille and the two in villeneuve we will have 8 missionaries right next to each other. so that'll be fun. it's going to be a whole new experience up there in the north. but on the bright side, it's still going to be as cold as here! with rain! yay!!! super excited to hear that. psych. ha but whatever, on fait avec. so as to my companion! well, guess what his name is? i'm with elder andrus! another one haha. there are two in the mission and i went from one to the other. good work there eh? but word on the street is that he is a great missionary, so i'll have a good trainer to be a zone leader. just before this, he was zone leader in paris, so i'm in really good hands. we'll do work out there. i'm really excited. and really scared, but i think i've got the worst of it over with training. at least when i mess up, i'll have someone there to tell me and fix it instead of an elder with even less experience than me. haha no i'm joking, but speaking of my blue, elder andrus (the son) is staying here in mulhouse! he's going to be with elder cannon. i know literally nothing about him so sorry. he was in nantes before and now he's coming out to alsace! he's in his 14th transfer, so he's probably going to die out here. so that's fun. we don't really have any other exciting things going on, that about sums it up for transfers. elder coleman if you wondered is still in torcy with the same companion.

so things here are going pretty darn good. we had a way good week for the last week together. we got to teach a not bad amount of lessons, and we had people show up to church, so that was good. florian (i dont know if you remember who that is, but i wrote about him like 4 months ago, we finally got back in contact with him) we got to see, and he and his wife and daughter came to church! so that was fun. she is the cutest most funny girl in the world. she's 2 and a half and is so funny. she does this thing where she raises one of her eyebrows, and it is so funny. most of the rdv we just laughed at her. we also got to see PAM this week, but it was mostly just to say bye. we didn't have time to teach a lesson. and the sad thing is, the more that we talk to them and such, the more i think that they are just interested in the fact that we are two americans than the fact that we are here to teach the gospel. but it's okay. hopefully my replacement will be able to change that. i guess we were just too good looking...... haha jk. also, to update you on nathalie and jeremie mortz, they are still just terrific. they went to have an interview with the bishop this week, so that they could figure out what jeremie had to do so that he could baptise nathalie, and the bishop gave him a date in a month, that if he has all his bad habits cleaned up, he can baptise her. so we had a rdv with them on sunday after this interview, and we talked to them about the word of wisdom, and commited them and then taught about the atonement too and how Christ is always there for us, no matter what, which was completely unplanned and super good. this is the first rdv that i've had that i can say that i was really following the spirit in teaching. because we taught about a lot of things that were not planned, that they really needed we found out in the end, and at the end of our rdv, after the prayer, out of nowhere, i asked nathalie if she was ready to be baptized when jeremie is ready to baptise her. and the last rdv, we talked about fixing a date, and she wasn't really a fan of the idea, and we really weren't even planning about talking about this this time, but i asked her and she said yes. so we fixed a date! she's going to get baptized the 7th April! i'm so excited for her. and so sad that i'm leaving. that is one thing that i really don't want to leave for..... but that's life i guess.. the funny part about this is that most of the time when i try to commit people to baptism, i have the hardest time and don't know what to say, but this time, just right after the prayer, out of nowhere, i just asked, no problem, and she said yes! Spirit win.

okay well i don't have too much time, but i love you all and get excited, cause the next email is going to come from Villeneuve D'Ascq!

bisous!


-- Elder Matthew Meyers

223 A05, blvd De Valmy 59650
VILLENEUVE D'ASCQ La France

last week in mulhouse..........

salut mes amis!

welp, we're nearing the end of my stay here in mulhouse. i keep saying that, but i still don't even know if it's true. i guess there is always a chance that i'll stay here for one more, but who knows. transfer email is on saturday, so i'll keep you posted. when i get the email i'll send you a quick email telling you where i'm off to. or staying. we'll see soon. it's still so weird that i'm going to be leaving this place. this is all that i know. and there are so many places that i could be going. as of this moment, i'm feeling either paris area or belgium. yup, i just named off like half of the mission there, so i have at least a decent chance of getting it right haha.

anyway, onto other things, so guess what we had this weeek? freezing. it was the coldest week of my life haha. and, as it turns out, the coldest weather that mulhouse has had in 30 years! we were the coldest in france this last week i think i heard someone say. hoorah right? no. it's the worst. we go out just completely bundled up. we wear sweaters and coats and gloves and beanies and scarfs and everything. we wrap our scarfs around our faces so that they don't fall off. everytime that we get home, we look at each other and our faces are just completely red. it's stellar. and, i never thought i'd say this, but long johns are now my best friends. elder andrus doesn't have any and he dies, but with mine, it's a whole lot better. i never thought i'd use them, but they're just terrific. true love. oh so i never even told you how cold. it's been in the -20s C this week. and with the wind chill, which is just affreux, it's even colder. we got the wind from serbia. that's what someone said at least. aka it's cold haha. so be happy that you are all out in utah where you don't even have a real winter. we're real men out here. real cold men at least.

well, this week, we spent about half of it in paris. elder andrus had to go up to belgium to do his belge legality, so i came with him and spent the day in paris with some other trainers. twas good. so we went up there on tuesday evening because since we are so far out here, we had to go in the day before since there wasn't a train that got us in by 930 when we had to be at the gare. so we left tuesday night and stayed the night in paris. at elder colemans! so that was fun. we had some nice catch up time.he's doing well if anyone was wondering. he's just a champion of a zone leader. so anyway, on wednesday, me and elder burnside didn't have anything to do, so we went and spent the day at la defense. the biggest shopping center in paris, the shopping capital of the world. it was big. it's was a mall with like 4 floors. intense. and we got to see the cool defense arch so that was cool. so we did that and then just walked around paris for a little. it was good. so anyway, we had plans to return home that night, but then their train back from belgium was delayed 30 minutes, so that didn't give us time to catch our train, so we ended up staying the night in metz and coming home the next morning. so that was kinda a lame way to spend three days... we couldn't do any missionary work so that was pretty dumb. on one hand, it's nice to leave your secteur for a little as a little break, but on the other hand, i hate it when we can't get any work done... so yeah.

so also, monday, last p-day, we had a great thing happen. we lost our phone. we left it on a bus. boo. and when i say we, i'm the one that carries the phone, so i mean me. so anyway, we left it there, and so the next day, we went to the bus lost and found, and nothing.... and we needed to call elder coleman too since we had to tell him when we were getting in on tuesday. so we had district meeting and borrowed a phone to call him, and as it turns out, he called the phone yesterday, and this guy answered it, and it was the bus driver. so they got it all worked out that the bus driver was going to put it in the mail box at the church. (the bus drivers first idea was to just leave it at the bus stop............) so we're not sure why he didn't just think about giving it to the lost and found at his work, but whatever. so anyway, we've been checking the mailbox this whole week, and still nothing. he still hasn't put it there..... so we're kinda a little frustrated... last night we had to go to a members house to make our call to our district leader. it's kinda challenging doing missionary work without a phone.... so hopefully this man decided to do something with our phone.

anyway, onto good stuff. so we had a little miracle this week that was pretty cool. so as i said, we lost our phone, so it's kinda challenging to contact our amis... so when we got home from paris, we went to pass some of our amis. and as we were going to and from houses, we randomly passed 2 of our amis just on the road! so we got to fix a RDV just there on the road! and we usually don't see just on the road, so that was cool. we saw that god will always provide a way to do his work.

so, that was our week in mulhouse! wasn't the most productive week, mais on fait avec. so there ya go. i'll send an email on saturday telling you whats becoming of everything. je vous aime tous et passez une bonne semaine!!

-- 
Elder Matthew Meyers
2 rue Guillaume Tell
68100 Mulhouse
La France