Well, another week rushes past!! Wow. I hate the joke that time is always playing on us in making time so relative!!
tuesday Morning we treated as Preparation day, because the way exchanges worked out, we had to use or normal prep day to do that. In the afternoon, we taught our friend Shi-Lin. Shi-Lin had been out of town for the holidays a lot recently, so we were about to have to push his baptismal date back. But he didn’t want that, so we scheduled three more appts that week!! He is so dynamite!
We met our other investigator that night, too. He is the man who is going to Ivory Coast for 2 months, starting this past week. So we went to talk to him and had a good discussion on what the Book of Mormon is. We rechallenged him to read the Book of Mormon, and also to search out the missionaries in Africa. He accepted, and we got his information down there to send to the mission. Hopefully they continue teaching him and things go well! I really like Joseph, and he is just a good guy! He’ll get back from Africa before I leave Rouen (hopefully… I don’t actually know how long I’m here, but were assuming I should be here 2 more transfers) so I should see him again! : )
Wednesday marked the official start of my second transfer, making me no longer the youngest group missionaries in Paris! Such an accomplishment!! Haha We did our deep cleaning, which is a couple hours at the beginning of each transfer to make the apartment look super good. Elder barton and I had decided to change the room around to make it more functionable with some of our deep cleaning time! Such a Mitch thing to do, I know!! But it looks a lot better and the best improvements were bookshelves put on our dsks and bunkbeds!! So much space, too!! We did some contacting and taught English class that night. The first time in 3 weeks, due to the holidays. The conversation actually led to teaching one of the students the Joseph Smith story. My companion was in the other corner of the room teaching his group, so it was me teaching alone. It was hard, but I got the message acrossed! Im so glad that the French govt a litlle while ago told the mission we need to teach with church materials! They felt we were using English class as a finding tool, but not telling the students we were and it was deceitful. Well, we were using it as a finding tool. They were right!! And they just made bringing the gospel to those students easier for us! Thank you!
(oh, the church is officially a business in France. We are not a religion, but trying to be, so that’s why the govt is involved, as they are auditing all aspects of the church to make sure we qualify…)
Thursday We did a lot of contacting. A couple hours of that, and also taught a less active lesson. Nothing too exciting, but necessary.
Friday we did transfer and weekly planning in the morning. Set goals for the coming 6 weeks and week and stuff. Then we had an appointment with Shi-Lin. We had scheduled the baptism for a time that didn’t work for the branch president, so had to change it. When we told Shi-Lin, he was a little hesitant and we asked if there was a conflict. There obviously was, but he didn’t tell us and left it at “this is more important”. WOW!!! I love Him. He is such the man!! We had three member (one less act fam, one recently reactivated member, and a recent convert) appts that evening, but for one reason or another, none of them worked out!! Haha It was a let down, but we went out and contacted instead. At the end, we found the best deal for a Kebab Elder Barton has seen in 2 years here, so we stopped there before going home. Kebabs are SO DELICIOUS!!! Haha
Sat we taugh Shi Lin our last Commandments lesson and it went well, outside of him misinterpreting a sentence: “if you obey Gods commandments, you don’t have need to disobey the law of the land” or something like that which was written awkwardly. Haha, he interpreted disobey as obey! Haha he was so confused, but we eventually figured it out. We went and did some porting that afternoon, and will go back soon to talk to one guy that said he was interested. Then we had a branch party where we also met with our Branch mission leader and set up a potential baptism program for Shi-lin.
Sun We had church and confirmed speakers and stuff for the baptism, taught Shi Lin (who had to walk and hour to church because there weren’t any buses coming that morning! WHAT A MAN!!) and prepped him for his interview this Tuesday. The Baptism is sat the 17th at 5 pm. Im so excited!! And the elder I replaced here is coming back to baptize him! Itll be a great day. We had 2 member appts on Sunday, and the 2nd one was awesome. First off, on the way we climbed on a bus and Shi-lin was there!! So we talked to him for a while on the bus! He was going to a friends for dinner. Then at the appt- this is just one of those stellar families- we had FHE and it reminded me so much of home! They had a little chart and everything like us! Even the side comments. : p Their little girl just got baptized 2weeks ago, and she gave a lesson! She is so cute and reminds me so much of Lindsey!

It was good to read about Ian coming Home! Like I said about time before, it doesnt seem like hes already been gone for 2 years!!
As to sports: just one question, who is QB in Arizona, Warner or Leinart? I hope its not the old man… I think he makes even Favre look young!! Haha
Utah, it sounds did great and deserves a great ranking. Im surprised others didn’t vote for them. Like Bronco, for example… But I think they are asked as coaches to vote for the nat champ game winner… I’m not sure.
I finally know what trip you have been referring to going on!! You haven’t said what trip it was til this letter.
I had sent Mikey Scott a letter before I reported and was sorta sad I didn’t ever get anything back!! That’s great to hear about him, and ill def write him. Thanks!
The girls should have burned hank… haha
My daily schedule consists of one hour pers study, one hour comp, and half hour language. One hour lunch, then we come in at 8 for dinner, planning and getting ready for bed at 1030. we are supposed to get in one hour at least of contacting a day. Other than that, we don’t have any rules regarding use of time really… other than using it wisely obviously. There Is a phone chain each night to report all missionaries in- call your District leader, who calls the zone leaders, who calls the assistants, who report to president. And presidents interviews and zone conference each are once a transfer. And that’s our contact with president, unless we have things we need to talk to him about( such as baptism interviews… :p).
Things are good here in Rouen! We cant wait for our Baptism! The Church is true and im excited to be here! Til next week!

-Elder J