ça y est! je reste!

hey!

well, transfers came and went, and i am safely staying here in Caen with elder johnson! so that's good, i'm happy about that, especially after the week that we just had. as to changes that are happening, we are going to be having sisters coming into our city. weird huh? haha i swear i always have sisters around. but it's good, that's just what our ward needs cause there is a lot of sisters work here. and by that i mean a lot of single ladies that need to be visited that we can't due to their singleness. so that'll be way good. we'll see how the transition goes. it'll be good for the ward though. one of them is going to be a blue too so that'll be exciting. anyhow, this week was wayy good. guess how many lessons we taught? the most frustrating number in the world. 19. how lame is that huh?? i was so mad. one away from our goal of 20 lessons that we fixed at the beginning of the transfer. to have a 20 lesson week. but no, we had to be lame and only teach 19 haha. honestly it's really interesting how attitudes and expectations change over time. because anytime before this, i would just be exstatic to teach that many lessons, but now all i can think about is how many more we could teach and mostly the fact that it doesn't matter how many people we teach if we don't baptize anyone. so we really neeeed to find that person or those people who are going to be baptized this next transfer. we're working on it. we still have our two baptismal dates for the 29th, but we are going to find at least 2 more for this transfer. it'll be way good.

as to all of our amis, steve and stanley are both doing good. they are both in a really hard situation, but they are both dealing with it well. hopefully they can get their papers one of these days... on va voir. we also have june and judith, who are both 7th day adventists. everything is going along well with them, they are having some blocks about the bible and book of mormon and stuff, but we've planned a really good lesson for next time that will hopefully clear up a lot of their questions, and i can see them both getting baptized this next transfer. we'll see. they are both super cool though and we always have fun lessons with them. next we have olga, who is a russian psychologist. she is pretty intense. but we have been talking about the plan of salvation lately and she's been really enjoying it. then we have shery and philip. shery is the american lady and philip is her french husband. i think i told you this already, but her son and his wife (who are both strong members from america, they live in missouri i think) came this last week and will be there for about 5 weeks, so they are going to come to church for the next 4 weeks, (seeing as they already came this week and had a way good time. :) she is honestly ready to be baptized, we just have to help philip feel the spirit and then they will both go together. hopefully we can even do it before her son leaves, cause then he could baptise them. that'd be sweet. they are good though, we're going over there this week and we'll get to teach philip for the first time, so that'll be good. as to other people, we have the family bamélé. leo and sylvie and their nephew brandon. he is from togo and she is french, and they are both about 50ish i'd say. they are super good, we've been teaching them for a long time, but they came to church for the second time this week, and it was great. so hopefully we can get them in the habit to come to church and then after that, i think they will get baptized too. they are super nice and they always agree with everything we teach, they just need to decide that they are ready to make the commitment. also, exciting note, this week we had 8 amis at church. honestly it was the best week ever. 19 lessons which is a record for me and then 8 at church which is also suppppper good. missionary work is so fun. i luv it. i wuv france.

this week we also had our exchange with the APs. and that was really good too. i went with elder saguibo, and it was so fun. he is just a really fun loving guy that really easy to talk to and just to have fun with. we honestly had the best time just contacting people. he really reminds me of elder andrus and how we used to contact. cause elder johnson is a really good worker and everything, but he's pretty intense in his contacting. it's kinda just straight down to business. but me and elder saguibo just had the funnest time joking with people and talking to them about the gospel. that's how missionary work should always be. but it was good, we taught a couple of people and we had a lot of fun and i learned a lot. i really enjoy going on AP exchanges and just absorbing everything. c'est bien.

okay so intense experience that we had on sunday night. so we went out to teach someone in an area of caen called grace de dieu. honestly it's just so ghetto. it was intense. it's where alllll the poor people live. and all the africans and muslims that are trying to get legality for france. just really desperate people. so anyway, we go to teach this person, and he meets us at the tram stop and then we walk to his apartment. it's about a 5 minute walk, and we get there. as we are walking along, he's telling us how this place isn't a very safe place, and we believe him haha. there is music blaring and just a lot of shady people walking around. just people who would do anything to get out of their situation. so we walk into his apartment building and it's just shady. we start walking up to his apartment, and we walk up the first round of stairs, and we get to the top of that flight, and on the top there is just something that looks like red paint all over the ground. we walk over it and as we are walking up the rest of the stairs our friend there looks back and said "blood." it was a puddle of blood! crazy huh?? so we taught him quickly and got out of there as fast as possible and are not going back anytime soon. so that was a nice reality check. it's funny how things like that don't even really make us scared though as a missionary. we felt like we should get out of there, so we followed the prompting, and it's just cool because we know that as we follow those promptings we don't have anything to worry about. at least if we're not stupid. so that's what we did, and everything was good. a lesson learned. also, another contributer to not being scared could be that my comp is 6 foot 5, 280 pounds. he eats people haha.

well, that's about everything that i did this week. we taught a lot of people and had a lot of fun. i hope everything is going well there in the states! also, i just barely tried to type with an american keyboard again, and it's terrible. i can't anymore. completely forgot. so i'm probably going to have to use a french one for forever cause i'll be too lazy to switch back and get used to it haha. well, i love you all and hope you have a great week! hugs and kisses.

--
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France

the chronicles of caen

well, everything is terrific. how goes it at the home? i sent some pictures home so you can see all the exciting things that i'm doing here in the beautiful city of caen! i'm loving life here. everything is going great. this week was really a terrific week with the members. we gave a training this week about working with members and loving them and our amis, and it was super good. so this week we've really been trying to apply the things that we taught. first off, we went to visit a couple members. we went to the family lefoyer, and it was super good. we read a talk that is called the case study of sister susan fulcher, and it was super good. it really talks about how to work with members and how this missionary completely turned a ward around and just lit it on fire. you can prolly find it on the internet if you want. but anyway, the biggest thing that i took from it was attitude. having a positive attitude about missionary work towards the members and just telling them how much we love it. cause honestly, i've had some companions that just try to be the martyr and talk about how hard missionary work is and how hard it is to be away from home and everything like that, but honestly i love it, and it brings me so much happiness. just the simple fact of telling people that changes them completely. we shared a spiritual thought just about how happy we are on missions and how just the fact to share the gospel makes us so happy, then told them it's not just us that can feel this, but you guys can too! you can have this joy too. it just simply comes from sharing the gospel. so that was really good, and the members seemed really inspired and excited to do missionary work too. so that was sweet. then sunday was stellar too. what we did is that we made a calendar to pass around to the members during relief society (cause it's obviously the women who are going to invite us over since the men always just say idk i'll have to ask my wife haha) that had a couple of scriptures on it and a message from us about how we'd really like to come over and really get to know them so we could all work together and such. so we passed that around, and it actually came back to us really filled out. we have about 3 rdvs with members each week for the next month or so. so that was stellar. and hopefully we can get them all excited about missionary work too. then after, we had testimony meeting, and it was great. we had about half of the testimonies that were about missionary work. about how teaching with the missionaries has blessed them and how we all have to help the missionaries and invite them to eat and such haha. it was super good. kinda awkward to translate since it was all talking about how great our missionaries are and such, so that was weird to say back in english, but it's fine. oh also, i don't know if i ever told you, but we do an english translation in our ward. there are often americans that come to see the normandy beaches and we have some amis who speak english, so that's fun. it's super super hard though. i had no idea how hard translating was until i had to do it. and it was killer. by the end of sacrament meeting i'm just pooped. it's great. so that was great seeing the members getting at least a little excited about missionary work. 

hmm. i can't really think of any other things going on here. all of our amis are doing great. we had a sweet rdv with stanley the other day, he's just super funny and he finally really opened up to us and we joked around and it was sweet. the poor guy though is in a sticky situation... he's from nigeria and he's here in france trying to get legality, but he's not in the system yet, so he's half living on the street... he sometimes sleeps at his friends house, but sometimes he sleeps in the train station.. it's super sad. there are honestly a ton of africans here that are trying to get legality but it takes forever and it's really hard because while the try they have almost literally nothing... it's really really humbling seeing people like this who don't really have anything and see how happy they are. turns out happiness doesn't come from having everything after all. that's one lesson i've learned. happiness comes from being happy with what you have. one of my favorite talks is the one from elder uchtdorf in relief society, forget me not. the part about charlie and the chocolate factory is golden. i'm a fan. so there's the sad note for the day. the worst part is that we can't do anything for them. mais bon..

anyway, to end on a good note, we have a bunch of great people that we are teaching right now. we are teaching this american lady, i don't know if i've told you, but her son is a member in the states, and he's coming up for the next 5 weeks, so they will all be coming to church for the next 5 weeks! so that'll be super great. cause the problem isn't the american lady, but it's her husband, who is a french guy who we don't get to see that often but who we're working on all together. cause she would love to get baptized, but she won't until her husband will. so this is our chance to have them all at the church and for them to have just a terrific experience. we're excited. also, mother, thank you for your testimony in one of your recent-ish letters about how things always go better when you put scripture reading and prayers and just heavenly father first. i shared it with this lady last week and she really enjoyed it. so thanks! thanks for all the support and everything that you do! love you all! have a terrific week! à plus!

--
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France

pictures!

it's been forever since i've sent photos! so here you go. hopefully it works. explanation is as follows.

me elder andrus, elder whatcott and elder johnson in the car in mantes la jolie!

 typical normandy

Caen!

juno beach

tea party!

the basilisk of lisieux

the everyday meal here in caen! wraps :)

the package opening

opened.

 

package received!

bonjour!

well, guess what i got this week? yup, it does say that in the subject line, but i finally got the package you sent! i'll tell you the story. so i come home one night from paris cause we were there for a meeting, and i look in the mailbox, and there she is! the package. i was kinda wondering if it was ever going to show up, but hooray. so i pick it up, and it feels unusually light for some reason. so i kinda just figure there isn't very much in it. then as i am walking up the stairs, i hear things banging around in it. but i didn't think much of it, i just figured you maybe didn't have another box so you sent this one. so anyway, we get upstairs, and i set the package down on the couch so that we can plan. so we do our planning, get dinner ready, and then i get around to opening my package. so i start opening it, and it's super hard to open. for some reason, there is some tape all over it that says "la poste a renforcé votre colis" which means that the post has reinforced the package. so finally i get it open, and i open it up and there sitting on the bottom of it are 4 pens, 3 pills, and a letter. haha i was so confused. then i looked at the front and it said that there should've been candy and journals and such, but no cigar there. haha so finally, i put two and two together, and as it turns out, someone at the post or someone else had stolen all the stuff in my package haha. except for the pens and a couple pills. oh also, there was a sticky note too. haha exciting huh? that poor person who took everything. cause we were talking about it, and we decided that stealing a missionary's package is way worse than any of the ten commandments. haha but yeah, so i got it at least right. right.

so as to other things happening, this week was good. we had a leadership training on tuesday, and that was good. right after that, we did some exchanges with the elders in the office, and we got to eat lunch with one of the people that elder argyle (the elder that i was on exchanges with) baptized when he was in nantes, cause she is originally from caen. so we ate with her and her boyfriend, who had just got baptized in japan cause he was out there doing his studies. but these two are so great. it honestly just makes me want to work so hard to find people who are like that. she honestly worships elder argyle. i don't think we really realize how much we change these people's lives. how much we do for them. and how grateful they are for it. also this week, i got a letter for guess who?? gregory from villeneuve d'ascq! it was by far the best letter that i have ever gotten. he told me all about his baptism and how he gave up a book of mormon the day of right before it, and just how well he is doing. he is so great. honestly i love that kid so much. i feel so blessed to have been able to be a part of that life changing experience of his. he is so great. honestly i have never enjoyed a letter more than that one.

other events this week, steve is going well still. he still doesn't quite get it, so we're still helping him along. also, this other nigerian that we are teaching, we just fixed a date for him too! it's for the 29th of september. his name is stanley. so we're stoked about that. things are really looking up and university students are finally getting back and flooding the streets, so it's just dandy. life is good out here. on the down side, jordan and sebastien dropped us... jordan's mom said that he couldn't see us anymore.... so that was a bummer. but life goes on. everything happens for a reason right.

well, that's life here in caen. everything is going just great and we're nearing the end of the transfer and not quite ready for it. i hope i get to stay. i should, but we'll see. so voilà! love you all and hope everything is going well! au revoir!

--
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France

quicky

hi everyone!!

so i do not have much time at all today, so i'm just going to write a little bit real quick, and then i'll write you a letter sometime this week on a train okay? cool. well, this week was really good. we saw so many cool things and just saw miracles left and right. to give you a little idea, this week, we taught 10 lessons in the presence of a member! that's a lot! so that was really amazing to be a part of. it was really great and it helped in so many different areas to be able to teach with them. number one, it helps the amis get integrated faster. it gives them a friend right off the bat and also give them someone who in french to relate too. second, it helps them come to church too because they already have that friend that i just spoke of. third, it helps us teach the lesson. even though sometimes they like to go off on their own thing, it usually isn't too bad. fourth, it just helps us get to know the members better and really learn to love them. i can tell you that these last couple of weeks where we have been really trying to teach with members has increased my love for them so much. i am really learning to love this ward, and to love all the members of it. Caen is a killer place. as to all of our amis, they are all doing pretty well. steve is kind of an interesting case, we're going to see if we follow through with him... he really wants to get baptized, but he doesn't really understand... so we're really going to try to help him understand and hopefully get him ready for his date, but we might have to push it back. we'll see. he's a good guy in any case. as for our others, fady just got back from vacance and he said he would call us this week, so we're really excited about that. jordan and sebastien have both talked to their parents (sebastien has for real, and jordan has at least hinted at it and he takes that for a talking to them haha) but they are both going to come to church next week, so we're really excited for that. those two are really just great. funny kids. jordan is so shy and sebastien is such a talker. as to other people, we have fransisco, who is an old ami that we got in contact with again who is actually brazilian. he has a church here though and his wife is really against mormons, but i think that he is finally ready to make some efforts. he pretty much told us the last time that he knows it's true. so now we just have to get him to make the step. he's good though. he's having a lot of family problems though and stuff and he is going through a divorce with his wife, and stuff but he's taking it well. he's a really good guy. so yeah, that's everything for now. hope everything is good chez vous and that you aren't having too much fun without me. cause i'm having too much fun without you haha. jokes. but yeah, love you! expect a letter soon!

--
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France

Week 2

bonjour tout le monde!
well i'm just going to jump right in the week today cause i don't have much time. so, this week was the week that we go to all of the districts and we do a little training for them. so that was exciting. we talked about how our goal in the mission isn't just to teach people or find new amis or things like that, but our goal is to help others have eternal life, and the door that they have to cross through is baptism. we really just talked about perspective and how instead of just shooting for new amis, we should shoot for baptisms. instead of shooting for people who will listen to our message, shoot for people who are ready to be baptised. and honestly, it changes everything. it really helps us realize our goal out here and to put everything in perspective. and it works, as you'll see in the example later on. so that was fun.

also this week, we did some exchanges. and guess who i got to go with?? elder andrus! my son. it was super sweet and we had a ton of fun. he's training right now too, so i got to see my grandson too. it was stellar. we had a good time reminiscing all about mulhouse and everything and talking about all the betisses we did . he's doing well and it was cool to see how much we had both changed. we're completely different as to last time we were together when we both knew next to nothing about missionary work. so that was cool. and now he's all grown up and giving birth himself. la vie passe vite! hmm, as to other things, all of our amis are going pretty well. a lot of them are on vacance, so we haven't seen them in quite some time, but then the others that are here are doing well. this week, jordan brought his friend sebastien to our rdvs, and sebastien is maybe even more interested than jordan. but they are both sweet and are both progressing along. the only problem we found out this week is that they are scared to tell their parents that they are meeting with us because they don't think they will react well.... so we told them that we couldn't really be seeing them behind their parents back so they are going to have to talk to them. sebastien did it, and his dad was fine with it, but jordan is a lot more shy than sebastien and he doesn't really know how to go about it, so he's still a little scared. but if they don't do it, then they are never going to be able to come to church, which would be pretty bummer. so we'll see with them. we're praying for them so hopefully everything will turn out well. if you want, you could pray for them too, that'd be terrific. also, this week, we fixed a baptismal date with a nigerian guy named steve. it was our first rdv with him and he just told us that he wanted to be baptised and wants to know what he has to do to get there. so that was pretty sweet. can't say no to that now can we? haha so that was stellar, we're going to keep on teaching him and get him ready for his date on the 8th of august. we started praying for someone who was ready to get baptized, and voilà it works. 

 

well that's the week for you! i'm going to go and eat some lunch now cause i'm super hungry. probably eat some pasta. it's cheap. and assez good. cool cool. well love you all and hope you have a stellar week! 

 

-- 
Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France

quicky!

hey there family!

how is everyone doing? here in caen, everything is going just peachy. i finally got my new companion, so that's a bonus. haha story: so transfers come around, wednesday. we put all of the missionary on the train who are going to paris for transfers, and me and elder anderson stay in caen and do some work as we wait for our new companions to come. my companion comes at 12:03, and his gets in at 12:07. so it's like perfect. we do some work, we got home and prepare lunch for both of our equipes so that we can hit the ground running, and then we go to the gare (station) to pick up our new companions. so elder johnson is coming from rennes, so there is actually a train from rennes to caen, so he took that one, and elder shumway, elder anderson's companion is coming from paris. so we go to the gare and we go out to the platform where the train is coming in at. we wait a little, and after a bit, the train rolls up. so it rolls up, the door opens, and people start pilling out of it. we are just sitting there anxiously for him, to help him with his bags and everything, and then the stream of people gets less and less thick. so we keep waiting, it's normal that he would wait til the end seeing that he probably has a ton of huge baggage. so we wait a little more, and it finally gets to the end, and he doesn't come out. so we walk inside and look around, and there is no one there. completely empty. so we were kinda perplexed. so finally i pull out the phone and call him up to see where he is, and he answers, and i ask him what he's doing, if he's coming and everything, and as it turns out, he's in the hospital getting tests done! a couple of months ago, he was in the hospital because his gal bladder died and he had to get it taken out, and he was all better, but he was back there again, this time because he has a bacterial infection or something. so we were there waiting at the gare for him to show up, but as it turns out, he was sick in the hospital. and no one had told me haha. so i end up deciding to go to cherbourg for the night with the other missionaries, and then the next day i got on a train all alone to go to paris for mission council. i went to the meeting with all of the other zone leaders, and then at the end, i ended up going with the zone leaders of rennes back home with them to pick up my companion in rennes. then the next day we hopped on a train and got home to caen finally. so it's been kinda a hectic week, but it's been good and everything is going fine now. elder johnson is doing a lot better and he should be up to great pretty soon, so no worries there, and caen is doing well. as to amis, most of them are on vacation at the moment. we still have jordan, i'm not sure if i told you about him yet, but he's a good kid of 19 years of age who is super good. we're probably going to invite him to be baptized pretty soon here. today we had a rdv with him and he brought one of his friends, and we had just a stellar time together. it was good. so voilà quoi.

as to other things that happened this week, nothing too exciting. transfers, but that's about it. elder johnson background if you would like, he's from orem utah, about 6'6" about 250 pounds and he's a good kid. if he wants, he could probably eat me, but hopefully he will resist. if not, meh. one less missionary to worry about. we get along well and we're having a good time here in caen alors alls well that ends well. (i don't really remember what that saying is supposed to mean, and i doubt that it works in that situation, but it sounded good. anyway.....) yeah on second thought that doesn't work at all. mais bon. well, we have 4 rdvs that we have to teach today, so we're kinda rushed and trying to get everything done. love you all and hope you guys have a great week! bisous!

-- Elder Matthew Meyers
1 rue de la Délivrande
14000 Caen
La France