herro! well, i hope everyone is doing well and that life is going just
peachy. here in caen, everything is just great. we're continually
trooping along and everything is going well. this week, we had the best
week that caen has had in forever. so the story about caen. well, first
off, about normandie. so normandie, there is this attitude about it that
"oh people from normandie are all rude and you''re going to have a hard
time there". so at first as i was coming here that is what everyone was
telling me. but honestly, that's just dumb. all that is is a lack of
faith. so anyway, up until just recently, there have been next to no
lessons taught in caen. they would average 2 or 3 a week maybe. then,
last transfer, the two that were here finally caught the vision. they
started exercising faith and believing that things could happen, even
here in caen, and they started teaching lesson. they started teaching,
and they started finding. so when i got here, it started on the
uprising. they were at the beginning of a change. and now i'm here and
i'm going to keep this change going and just completely evolve the work
here. that's my goal. so now all that i have to do is do it.
so annnnnnyway. caen is a beautiful city. it's not the biggest one,
but it's big enough. it's just a typical french city. normandie is
supposedly typical french, so i'm getting a taste of the real france. so
it's nice, i like it. also, there's a whole ton of history out here. we
are going to have to plan some trips on p days to go see some stuff. in
our area, we have none other than utah and omaha beach. aka the d day
beaches. where they landed on d day. so that's pretty exciting, and one
day we'll have to go out and see it. also, in our area, we have mont st
michel which is supposedly super pretty and cool. so one day we're be
going out there too. the problem is that we never have time anymore
haha. we get to teach lessons on p day, today we have 3, so that leaves
us with little time for sight seeing. but tant mieux. i'd way rather be
teaching people.
the ward here. welll, ca va quoi. they're good and we have some good
members. it's true that after serving in v dascq, i don't think i'll
ever have a ward that is that good again, but this one is good. there's a
lot of work to be done and a lot of things to get worked out with them,
but overall, it's pas mal. our bishop is an interesting character, so
that'll be interesting to be working with him, but hopefully we'll be
able to gain their trust. we're working on it in any case. any ideas as
to what we can do to earn it? the missionaries in the past weren't
always the best missionaries and not the best workers, and kinda just
baptised whoever, even if they were'n't ready or sane ha.... so any
suggestions would be cool.
as to my companion, he's a cool kid. elder Dick from oxford england.
he's got a cute little english accent so that's always exciting.
something to keep me on my toes during the day. except we speak only
french during the day so i never get to hear it haha. bummer. but he's a
good missionary. we're doing some good work out here. he's a theater
kid, so he's a super good singer and wants to study theater when he
grows up, so that's fun. so voila elder dick.
as to other things, my address is now there en bas so t'inquiete
pas. amis also, we're currently building up our teaching pool. new amis
this week are: aniko, a girl from hungary in here 20s. she's a super
happy person and really open and nice, ready to find god :). arnaud, we
had a really intense experience finding this guy. we were contacting in
the street, and i end up contacting this guy. we start talking to him,
and he just breaks down and starts crying in the road. he said that he's
being "doing a work on himself for a year" i don't know how to say that
in english anymore.... i mean he has been really reflecting and trying
to figure out himself, i don't know if there is an expression in
english, but whatever. so anyway, he's been doing that, and we told him
that god could help him, and he is now convinced of the existance of god
because of these occurances. so he's good. we're teaching him along.
saeed - he's special. i don't think we are going to keep teaching him.
he's from iran and he's just an interesting person.
so yeah, the work is going well here, life is good, everything is
just peachy! hope that life in the states isn't terribly too boring!
love you all and have a good week!
--
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France
Monday, June 25, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
au revoir to villeneuve d'ascq!
well. the time has come to leave. sad day.
so as you are all so anxious to know, the big news! i'm heading down to normandy! i'll be going to Caen! from what i hear it's going to be way good. work there is going okay and i'm just excited because i want to go and see if we can light it on fire. it kinda feels like i just got done being trained again because me and elder andrus were able to just completely turn this place around, and now i want to see if i can do it on my own without elder andrus there to do everything. so i kinda look at this assignment as a test. see if i can do it by myself. i will still be a zone leader out there, and i will be over the zone of Versaille. that means that the office, including the APs are in my zone. also, i have my baby boy in my zone too, elder andrus is in Mantes which is in my zone. to name off a couple of places in my zone just quickly to give you a little idea, we have caen, cherbourg, mantes, rouen, versaille, and a couple others. so that's going to be exciting being there under the magnifying glass of the APs haha. so i'm exciting. also, my new companion! his name is Elder Dick. and guess where he is from? none other than an englishman! he's from england and he's a funny kid. he's really into singing and drama and stuff like that but he's way cool. so that'll be good. i'm not sure all that much about him, but i'm ready to whip him into shape if needs be. there is also another equipe in caen, so we'll be sharing the members again. so that'll be fine.
so that's the transfer. i'm not really sure about anything else yet, i'll be leaving wednesday, and then i'll give you the update about the place when i get there. as to vdascq, i'm sad to leave. this was such a great ward and a great place. but on the other hand, i'm excited to take what i learned and change caen hopefully. so pray for me eh :)
this week though, it was okay. guess how many baufs we had? 20. bam. impressive huh? that's just all we do lately. we still ended up with about 11 lessons this week, so it's okay i guess, but when you should've had over 30, it's not the best feeling. it's really interesting how my standards have completely changed though. in mulhouse, before, an 11 lesson week would've been extraordinary. i would've been so pumped. but we set our goals so high and these goals were so attainable that 11 felt like nothing. so that's a good thing. the attitude of this whole mission is just changing completely. it's so incredible to watch. as to our amis. wei is going well, he's kinda flakey at the moment and doesn't want to make a real effort, so we called him out on it last rdv and he said he would make an effort in july haha. so he's going fine. funny kid. i said bye to him last saturday, so that's always a bummer. as to gregory, he's just an all out champion. we have a quit smoking program in the mission that we use that helps you quit smoking in 7 days, and it works wonders. we did it with him last thurday, and he's still smoke free today. so he's just doing great.he's still good for his date on the 30th, and i'm going to miss it... so that's kinda sad and i'm not really looking forward to missing it, but that's life. i'm just going to tell him to write me his testimony and elder andrus will get me a program. he's such a cool kid. we played soccer with him the other day too, and he just pwned me. he had so much more energy than i did and he's quitting smoking. haha i'm so out of shape. he ran circles around me. after about 5 minutes i was pooped. love being in the worst shape of my life. hoooorah. when i get back i'm not even going to be able to play intramurals cause i'll be way too out of shape.
as to my english skills, i'm sorry okay. so what if i forget how to say things in english. i knew that that wasn't how you say service of baptism, but i couldn't remember how to say it in english. baptismal service? that looks about right. it's like calling our amis investigators. that's such a lame word. so we just franglais it and it works great :) so what if i won't be able to speak english when i get back. ce n'est pas grave. oh also, like i told you, we played soccer the other day, and i realized how bad my french sports vocabulary is haha. i don't know how to say anything in french about sports. i tried to do direct translation of what i would say in english, but that didn't work. so, that was a vocabulary slap to the face. pas grave.
Well, that's the big news for the week. i'm leaving the beautiful ville of lille, and heading out to caen, which is supposed pretty good, especially in the summer. so we'll cross our fingers. all in all, i'm mostly just excited. should be golden. well, je vous aime tous! have a good week!
oh also, did you get my package?? i sent you guys a package so look in the mail eh?? love you!
Elder Meyers
as to my address, i'm not sure yet. attendez.
so as you are all so anxious to know, the big news! i'm heading down to normandy! i'll be going to Caen! from what i hear it's going to be way good. work there is going okay and i'm just excited because i want to go and see if we can light it on fire. it kinda feels like i just got done being trained again because me and elder andrus were able to just completely turn this place around, and now i want to see if i can do it on my own without elder andrus there to do everything. so i kinda look at this assignment as a test. see if i can do it by myself. i will still be a zone leader out there, and i will be over the zone of Versaille. that means that the office, including the APs are in my zone. also, i have my baby boy in my zone too, elder andrus is in Mantes which is in my zone. to name off a couple of places in my zone just quickly to give you a little idea, we have caen, cherbourg, mantes, rouen, versaille, and a couple others. so that's going to be exciting being there under the magnifying glass of the APs haha. so i'm exciting. also, my new companion! his name is Elder Dick. and guess where he is from? none other than an englishman! he's from england and he's a funny kid. he's really into singing and drama and stuff like that but he's way cool. so that'll be good. i'm not sure all that much about him, but i'm ready to whip him into shape if needs be. there is also another equipe in caen, so we'll be sharing the members again. so that'll be fine.
so that's the transfer. i'm not really sure about anything else yet, i'll be leaving wednesday, and then i'll give you the update about the place when i get there. as to vdascq, i'm sad to leave. this was such a great ward and a great place. but on the other hand, i'm excited to take what i learned and change caen hopefully. so pray for me eh :)
this week though, it was okay. guess how many baufs we had? 20. bam. impressive huh? that's just all we do lately. we still ended up with about 11 lessons this week, so it's okay i guess, but when you should've had over 30, it's not the best feeling. it's really interesting how my standards have completely changed though. in mulhouse, before, an 11 lesson week would've been extraordinary. i would've been so pumped. but we set our goals so high and these goals were so attainable that 11 felt like nothing. so that's a good thing. the attitude of this whole mission is just changing completely. it's so incredible to watch. as to our amis. wei is going well, he's kinda flakey at the moment and doesn't want to make a real effort, so we called him out on it last rdv and he said he would make an effort in july haha. so he's going fine. funny kid. i said bye to him last saturday, so that's always a bummer. as to gregory, he's just an all out champion. we have a quit smoking program in the mission that we use that helps you quit smoking in 7 days, and it works wonders. we did it with him last thurday, and he's still smoke free today. so he's just doing great.he's still good for his date on the 30th, and i'm going to miss it... so that's kinda sad and i'm not really looking forward to missing it, but that's life. i'm just going to tell him to write me his testimony and elder andrus will get me a program. he's such a cool kid. we played soccer with him the other day too, and he just pwned me. he had so much more energy than i did and he's quitting smoking. haha i'm so out of shape. he ran circles around me. after about 5 minutes i was pooped. love being in the worst shape of my life. hoooorah. when i get back i'm not even going to be able to play intramurals cause i'll be way too out of shape.
as to my english skills, i'm sorry okay. so what if i forget how to say things in english. i knew that that wasn't how you say service of baptism, but i couldn't remember how to say it in english. baptismal service? that looks about right. it's like calling our amis investigators. that's such a lame word. so we just franglais it and it works great :) so what if i won't be able to speak english when i get back. ce n'est pas grave. oh also, like i told you, we played soccer the other day, and i realized how bad my french sports vocabulary is haha. i don't know how to say anything in french about sports. i tried to do direct translation of what i would say in english, but that didn't work. so, that was a vocabulary slap to the face. pas grave.
Well, that's the big news for the week. i'm leaving the beautiful ville of lille, and heading out to caen, which is supposed pretty good, especially in the summer. so we'll cross our fingers. all in all, i'm mostly just excited. should be golden. well, je vous aime tous! have a good week!
oh also, did you get my package?? i sent you guys a package so look in the mail eh?? love you!
Elder Meyers
as to my address, i'm not sure yet. attendez.
Monday, June 11, 2012
a week of baufs
salut tout le monde! comment ca va?
well, as you can see from the title, this week was a week full of baufs. which is a flakey person. we had potential this week to have a million new amis and just a terrific week. we set 10 RDVs with new people and then one by one they all canceled. or didn't cancel and just didn't answer. so in the end, we had more than 10 rdvs fall through, and ended up with no new amis. so that was kinda a bummer blow. the funniest part about the whole thing is that this week was easily the hardest working week we've had. we had an exchange with the APs and it changed everything. before, we thought that we were doing pretty darn good about talking with everyone and contacting everyone, but then after our exchange with them, we learned how much more we are capable of. so this week, whenever we would do contacting, instead of contacting together, we did something we call leap frog contacting. instead of us both talking to one person, do contacts seperate now, giving us the chance to talk to twice as many people. so as we are walking along, when we come across someone, on of us will branch off and then the other will keep walking and contact the next person. if we finish early, then we kinda just post around that area, walking back and forth contacting anyone who walks past. it's been way good so far, and the first two days that we did it, we got 20 new numbers in total, and we average about 7 a day now. which is pretty good. too bad that they are all baufs ha. but it's good. we're just being tested by the lord to see if we're actually going to keep up the hard work. i think elder andrus is going to, but i'm tapping out. done working hard if i'm not going to see miracle. haha just kidding we're just going to have to work even harder this week to have an even better week. and this week, we're set some really lofty goals, so we're going to rely on the lord to be able to reach them. pray for us eh?
other things that happened this week was some exchanges. we went on exchanges with the elders in valenciennes, and that was way fun. it was kind of an emergency exchange to help them out, because elder garcia, who is training this transfer is really stressed and so we went out to help him and to help him to get working hard again. so i got to stay here in villeneuve with elder richer-brulé, who is a french canadian, and i got to teach him how to really contact. so we had a way good day of contacting and he's a little stud. he's speaks english and french fluently, he's just really shy. he doesn't have the confidence to go up to people and to stop them in the road. i honestly think that i might be the same way, except for that i'm in france and i'm not speaking my native tongue, so it doesn't seem real. a mission in a different language just feels like a game. you always have the excuse that you don't speak very well and the excuse that you're foreign so it's great. i'm for sure getting the high score this week.
so transfers are coming up and i don't want to leave. i think i'm just going to tell president to leave us here for the rest of our mission. i think that's the best choice. we have too many great people here and too good of a ward. and me and elder andrus have been together for 3 now, so it's just going to be weird to change. i've gotten so used to him and working with him in this ville that i don't want to change. but i guess change is kinda good. we'll see i guess.
well, i'm running out of things to write about. i never really remember what we do during the week by the end, so sorry haha. mais j'espère que vous tous passez une semaine formidable! je vous aime!
--
Elder Matthew Meyers
7 rue Blanche apt 34
Lille 59000
La France
well, as you can see from the title, this week was a week full of baufs. which is a flakey person. we had potential this week to have a million new amis and just a terrific week. we set 10 RDVs with new people and then one by one they all canceled. or didn't cancel and just didn't answer. so in the end, we had more than 10 rdvs fall through, and ended up with no new amis. so that was kinda a bummer blow. the funniest part about the whole thing is that this week was easily the hardest working week we've had. we had an exchange with the APs and it changed everything. before, we thought that we were doing pretty darn good about talking with everyone and contacting everyone, but then after our exchange with them, we learned how much more we are capable of. so this week, whenever we would do contacting, instead of contacting together, we did something we call leap frog contacting. instead of us both talking to one person, do contacts seperate now, giving us the chance to talk to twice as many people. so as we are walking along, when we come across someone, on of us will branch off and then the other will keep walking and contact the next person. if we finish early, then we kinda just post around that area, walking back and forth contacting anyone who walks past. it's been way good so far, and the first two days that we did it, we got 20 new numbers in total, and we average about 7 a day now. which is pretty good. too bad that they are all baufs ha. but it's good. we're just being tested by the lord to see if we're actually going to keep up the hard work. i think elder andrus is going to, but i'm tapping out. done working hard if i'm not going to see miracle. haha just kidding we're just going to have to work even harder this week to have an even better week. and this week, we're set some really lofty goals, so we're going to rely on the lord to be able to reach them. pray for us eh?
other things that happened this week was some exchanges. we went on exchanges with the elders in valenciennes, and that was way fun. it was kind of an emergency exchange to help them out, because elder garcia, who is training this transfer is really stressed and so we went out to help him and to help him to get working hard again. so i got to stay here in villeneuve with elder richer-brulé, who is a french canadian, and i got to teach him how to really contact. so we had a way good day of contacting and he's a little stud. he's speaks english and french fluently, he's just really shy. he doesn't have the confidence to go up to people and to stop them in the road. i honestly think that i might be the same way, except for that i'm in france and i'm not speaking my native tongue, so it doesn't seem real. a mission in a different language just feels like a game. you always have the excuse that you don't speak very well and the excuse that you're foreign so it's great. i'm for sure getting the high score this week.
so transfers are coming up and i don't want to leave. i think i'm just going to tell president to leave us here for the rest of our mission. i think that's the best choice. we have too many great people here and too good of a ward. and me and elder andrus have been together for 3 now, so it's just going to be weird to change. i've gotten so used to him and working with him in this ville that i don't want to change. but i guess change is kinda good. we'll see i guess.
well, i'm running out of things to write about. i never really remember what we do during the week by the end, so sorry haha. mais j'espère que vous tous passez une semaine formidable! je vous aime!
--
Elder Matthew Meyers
7 rue Blanche apt 34
Lille 59000
La France
Monday, June 4, 2012
la vie est belle
salut!
well, life is good here in villeneuve d'ascq. this weekend was just great, we got to see the baptism of claver finally! it was a cool experience and it was way cool to see cedric baptize him. also, at the end, claver bore his testimony, and it was probably the best thing ever. he had a couple of friends that we there, and he just destroyed them haha. he talked a lot about being a christian, but not practicing. cause here in france, there are like a million. and he has asked us a lot lately about it, and he has a bunch of friends who believe and everything but don't want to be baptized because they know that it means responsibility. so claver just got up for his testimony and put them in their place haha. it was soo good. he talked about how being a non practicing christian is like being a cook and never cooking. or being a pilot and having never flown a plane before. the whole point of believing that God is there is to do something about it. it doesn't do anything for us if God is there and we don't act on that belief. we talk a lot about this in contacts too. anyway, so that was way good and he got the holy ghost yesterday, and it was just a whole great experience.
second miracle of the week. well, about a week ago now, we met a kid who's name was gregory. we were contacting in a city called tourcoing, and we ran into him and after a little, we asked if he would have 15 minutes to sit down and let us explain a little what we believe. so he said yeah and we sat down and taught him a little piece of the restoration, and gave him the book of mormon as the proof and to start reading, and set another rdv for a couple of days later. he told us he didn't have a cell phone though and all he had was an email address, so we were kind of pooped. usually if they only give you an email address, that means that they aren't interested. but we sent him an email the day before to remind him, and then showed up for our rdv. he showed up right on time and so we had another great lesson. we taught him about prayer and what it really is and how god is really our father in heaven. it was a really good lesson, and at the end, we gave him a soft invite to baptism. we told him that there would be a service of batism the 30th and asked if he would want to prepare for that. he said he'll think about it and so we told him to start reading from the beginning of the bom. we had a rdv with him 2 days later, and he had already read the first 40 pages of the book and he said he really liked it. so we taught him our lesson, and then at the end, we asked about baptism again, and he said that he had decided to do it. so we set a date for him for the 30th of june! and then the next day was claver's baptism, and he showed up right on time and had a good time and told us he was ready for his. and then he came to church the next day and just loved it. during priesthood, they asked him to introduce himself, so he stood up, said his name, and said that he was really happy to be here and to have met the missionaries, and that he was getting baptized the 30th haha. it was so cool. he's such a cool kid. he's 23. also, with him, we have been thinking a little about moving up his date because he is just so ready and prepared. and then today, president told us on the conference call to all the zone leaders that we didn't have any baptisms planned for this weekend, and he told us that there is someone who is ready to be baptized this weekend, and that we needed to find him. and we think that we might have found him. so we might be moving up his baptism to next weekend...! it's really quick, but we trust president and so we are going to talk to gregory about it and see what he thinks. so it's possible that we might have a baptism this weekend too. but we will see. if not, soon. cause he's a star.
in other news, we had our conference this week with elder teixeira. so that was way good. we had a way good conference and just got pumped to go out and talk to people. the interview after, he was really really rushed, so it was kinda just a how's your family and tell them i say hi. nothing too exciting haha. so there you go. hi from elder teixeira of portugal. well, that's life here. everything is going great.
i'm sad to here about sugar, but i guess that's how it goes. we had too good of a week out here so i guess i took some of the good week that you deserved. thanks for lending me that ha. you're all great and i love you.
hugs and kisses
Elder Matthew Meyers
7 rue Blanche apt 34
Lille 59000
La France
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