#doyouwannabuildasnowman? - Letter 12/27/14

Hey everybody!

This letter might be a little shorter, because I already told you guys a bit about our week during our Skype call :) But, I'll try to be detailed.

So last Monday, after emails, we pretty much spent the whole day in the office. We went out to eat with the APs at (you guessed it) sushi buffet :) I'm just taking advantage of it, because I'll never find an all you can eat sushi buffet for 12 € ever again haha. I knocked out some paperwork for a meeting with Président later in the week.

Tuesday was a little crazier. We started off the day at District Meeting, which was pretty fun. We have one of the biggest districts in the mission, so we tend to have a lot of fun every week. After lunch and everything, we drove to a member's house to pick up our Christmas movie :) Later that afternoon we went and sang at a retirement home with our whole district. We've got some rocking voices in this district, and everybody loved it :) This retirement home is right down the street from the temple site, so all the workers and the families know a little bit about the church. After, we went as a district to get kebabs at a sketchy little shop down the road, because Soeur Morris and Soeur Curtis (both Bleus) haven't had a kebab yet. Turns out, we probably won't be going back to that guy's shop haha. He was a jerk the whole time we were in there and kept flirting with Soeur Curtis. When we went to pay, he took everyone's money and we started heading outside, but he kept Soeur Curtis there and said that it was free if she gave him a kiss, but if not it was twice the price of everyone elses. He thought he was pretty funny till all 6 Elders came back inside to see what the problem was :) So, we ended up leaving with her not even having to pay the full price because the guy saw what a tool he was. Luckily, she didn't actually understand a word of what he was saying, so she came out of it pretty unscathed haha. After it was WML Coordination meeting and then we headed home.

Mah burfday! We started the day by heading into Paris! We had to drop off everyone's packages that had come into the Mission Home to the Visitor's Center, so I put on my Santa hat and we took the sleigh (or metro, whatever you want to call it) into town. When we got home, we just went hard in the office all day. Everyone in the bureau sang Happy Birthday to Soeur Bousseau and I and we had a tarte, which is pretty much like a pie/pastry. They don't do a lot of cakes like we do at home. Somebody bought sparkling cider and we had a little fiesta in the kitchen of the office :) That night, Elder Bates and I made cookies then headed over to the party with the Bousseaus :) It was awesome hanging out with all the office couples, and of course the Platt family :) It was so weird to see 'Josh' not as a missionary haha. We hung out and ate cool French foods all evening before heading home.

Christmas morning! We got to sleep in that day, then opened all our presents and got ready for the day. We headed to the office for the moment we'd all been waiting for: FROZEN. It was so good! Definitely worth the wait, we all went nuts over it haha. The APs had a lunch appointment right after, but Elder Bates and I had about two hours to kill... So we watched it again in French! It's definitely better in English, but we liked it nonetheless :) Then it was the Skype call! It was so good to see you guys and talk to you, it's so weird that it's been over 7 months since the last time! I feel like I was just barely in Le Mans with Elder Mattson. Right now, I have about as much time left in my mission as I have been in the office. #gettinreal haha. In the evening, the Bussons (the new couple replacing the Bousseaus) saved us haha. They didn't have much food to do a dinner, but they gave us some foie gras and these little "melted goat cheese pocket thingys" (direct quote from Elder Bates). It was super good, and we really enjoyed our evening with them :)

Friday the 26th (aka my least favorite day of the year) actually turned out pretty well. We went super hard in the office all day, and I knocked out some stuff that I've been sitting on for a long time. I actually started a couple projects and put some solid spreadsheets together for whoever my replacement is gonna be. I talked to Président about what the next couple months are gonna hold in store for me, since we don't really know yet. He said he hadn't actually thought about the fact of training the couple, but that he would consider our options and what he wants me to do next transfer. So, we'll see! 

Today we went to the Wall's to meet with a plumber that came to look at a leak. This afternoon we're going to Sacré Coeur, then we might check out the Disney store on the Champs-Elysées. So, should be pretty fun! 

I've been thinking a bit about resolutions this week. I guess that's normal in between Christmas and New Year's. This year includes leaving Europe, going home, starting college, and starting real life. So, I guess I have some big resolutions to make :)

Don't worry about the Christmas Eve PJ's, I was able to wear my ones from last year no problem. I hope you have an awesome New Year's, I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

 Caroling at the Retirement home with our district

Chinese Plaque

Christmas tree at Notre Dame

Awesome Nativity at the Notre Dame

Paris Traffic

Surprise Bread from Soeur Babin (look inside...)

Sandwiches inside the bread (the loaf of bread is a container for like 60 sandwich slices)

My Shoes

Yep, that's my finger!

Celebrating my Birthday with Soeur Bousseau and the other Office Missionaries

Picture Soeur Bousseau took of me on my Birthday

VICTORY!!

Christmas Package

Elder Christiansen

Oh ya!!!

Preparing food for Conference with the Couples

 

 

 

 

Christmas Skype - 2014

We had a wonderful visit with Elder Martin this morning.  Best Christmas present EVER!  We were able to meet Elder Bates, his companion.  Aunt Katie sent him a pair of Christmas socks, to which he celebrated with a resounding "VICTORY"!  Elder Martin is doing so well.  He looks good and sounds happy.  One more Skype on Mother's Day and then he will be home.

#drowningingeneralauthorities - Letter 12/22/14

Joyeux Noël!

So I finally got time to write! This past week has been crazy, but we've really enjoyed it :)

Last Monday was a little busy, we had to go pick up the APs car and another car that we just had repaired. But, everything is fixed and good to go! Neither of the APs can drive right now, so technically Elder Bates and I just have a second car :) That night we set up all the tables and chairs for the conferences, just to be sure that we would have enough for everyone.

Tuesday was just preparation for the conferences. We knocked out the programs and everything in the morning. In the afternoon I had to go to Paris for an insurance convocation on one of the apartments. Way back in June they had a pretty major leak that destroyed an apartment underneath them, so I had to meet with the insurance representative for that. It was fun though, because it's Elder Mattson and Elder Hall's apartment, so we got to go hang out with them. After it was over we had lunch with them and headed home to finish knocking everything out for conference.

Wednesday started at 5h30 so that we could finish baking the rolls for that day! We used the ovens in the office and the Babins' house and knocked everything out in time to head out. We were there to get everyone welcomed, seated, and reverent for when Elder Teixeira came in. It was a pretty good conference, we talked a lot about Preach My Gospel and Christmas. That night the APs had a Planning Session with Elder Teixeira in their apartment, so we just hung out with the Rennes Elders, who stayed the night with us for the conference. 

Thursday started the same way with getting the rolls ready for conference. At the conference, I missed the first half because I was helping the couples get dinner ready. But the second half was so good! It was much better than the first day, we all really enjoyed it and felt the Spirit as we learned and talked about our role in helping people progress in the gospel. 

Friday was the start of our road trip :) We had to go into the garage first thing in the morning to get our tire fixed from transfer week. The people at the garage love us, so we got to go back into the workshop and watch how they repair a tire with a broken rim! That was pretty entertaining :) After, we went home, changed clothes, loaded the van, and headed out for BELGIUM! That afternoon we stopped in Braine l'Alleud (the first apartment that I found while in the office) and dropped off some furniture. Then we went to Bruxelles to drop off an exercise bike for an Elder with some knee problems. We grabbed a mitraillete for old times sake and hit the road to Liège :) We actually showed up at IKEA right on time. The Redds and the Steenbliks had gotten everything and went to pay, and his card wouldn't pay for all of it. So, luckily I showed up to be able to pay it all before they had to take half of it back haha. That night we got everything loaded into the apartment and slept at the Elders' apartment. 

Saturday was building, ALL day. We got to their apartment around 8h30, and with the help of the Elders and the Soeurs, we finally left at about 5 o'clock. They were all headed to a ward party, and we stopped in for a few minutes because one of Elder Bates' recent converts from Charleroi is now in that ward. So, we talked to him for a few minutes, grabbed a bite to eat, and hit the road again. We finally got home about 10h30 that night :)

Sunday was exhausting. We were both pretty beat, but it was a good meeting and they asked a lot of the young adults and recent converts to bear their testimonies. After church and curry, we went out caroling all evening. We taught Phillipe and Brigitte, the older couple we found a few weeks ago. After, we continued knocking doors in their neighborhood. We got the feeling to head down one street in particular, and so we knocked on the first door. Turns out, it was a less active member! He's been trying to come back to activity, but his wife has no desire to come back. We had no idea he even lived in that city, but we ended up on his front porch! We shared an awesome lesson about Christmas with them, sang for them, and went home. That night we watched Mr. Kreuger's Christmas (I bought it for myself for my birthday haha) and opened up my Christmas package :) Thanks so much, it was awesome!

I love you guys, have a great week, Merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

Christmas Conference - 12/18/14

#whatarepdays?? - Letter 12/15/14

Hey!

Sorry, I only have half an hour right now, so things are a little crazy. We were pretty lucky, I almost had to just wait till next Monday or Tuesday to write.

Last week was transfer week, so we didn't have any down time all week :) Luckily it went pretty smoothly, because there wasn't a big group coming in or leaving.

Tuesday we picked up the group of 10 Bleus in the morning. Elder Christiansen and I ended up booking it across the airport because we were told at the last minute that there were 2 missionaries coming in from the Madrid MTC that we had to pick up on the other end of the airport. It's usually me and him that get paired up and sent off for stuff like that ha..ha. Otherwise, it was pretty laid back.

When we were backing into St Merri...we got a flat tire. We really cannot make it a whole transfer week without something falling apart on our car ha..ha. So after unloading all the luggage in the church we walked to the store and bought an electric pump. It was kind of fun, while it was running on the car battery and refilling the tire, Elder Bates and I just sat in the car by ourselves and relaxed while we listened to our Christmas music :) We left the tire overnight and it held air perfectly well, so we're calling it good for right now. 

Wednesday was laid back, I took the Bleus to Notre Dame and Elder Bates got stuck behind playing piano for the trainers' meeting. It was cool, there's a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the place in front of the Notre Dame, and we got to go inside again because there weren't many people there. In the afternoon we loaded luggage and headed back home. Unfortunately, traffic started about 3 hours early, so I drove through the craziest Paris traffic I've ever seen. Nuts. Instead of the normal 45 minutes to get home, it took us about 4 1/2 hours. But, we made it on time for dinner with the dying missionaries :) 

Thursday morning was perfectly smooth at the airport. But, it was pretty tough. I had some really good friends in this group, which didn't help. Elder Johnson got picked up by his family, we put Elder Davis on his plane, and Elder Christiansen and I put our Sisters on a plane! The Sisters that were in the MTC with us are now home and have been released for like 5 days! So, the two of us are officially old now. Great. But, it was good to have somebody else from my group there to wallow in self-pity with :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty dedicated to getting ready for the Christmas Conference. It's coming up on Wednesday and Thursday this week, so we're getting pretty close. Like I mentioned to you, we spent ALL day Saturday making rolls for the dinner. Today we picked up the AP's car from the garage and set up the chapel for the Christmas Conference. It's gonna be crazy, but it is gonna work!

We had a couple cool miracles this week. On Friday we were walking out of the office and a black guy walked up to the front gate and asked if we spoke English... We talked for a while and he had been searching for the mission home for 5 hours! His name is Victor, and he recently moved here from Spain. He was taught by missionaries there, and the mission home was the only connection to the church that he could find. And so, he showed up and we were there to welcome him! He actually lives north of Paris, and so we hooked him up with the St. Ouen Missionaries and told him how to get to the church. We gave him the Book of Mormon in English and Akans (his native language) and helped him get on the train back home. So fast forward to yesterday night, we got a call from the St. Ouen Elders saying that Victor had showed up to church, they had taught him, and he was planning on getting baptized the 28th of this month! So, if that still goes through, Elder Bates and I are invited to his baptism that day :)

Last night we had our Stake Choir Concert, which was a blast! Our ward did pretty well, and everyone had a great time. Afterwards, we ended up only having about half an hour to go porting/caroling, so we went out to the neighborhood we had been in a few weeks ago. We knew it was gonna be Elder Platt's very last time porting on his mission, and I was praying so hard for a miracle. He wasn't too excited to go, and I wanted him to finish on a good note. So, literally the last door of the night, a woman opens up her second story window. Usually, that's an automatic sign that we're not gonna get in. She said it was very kind, but she wasn't in the mood for a Christmas Carol or anything like that. We pushed a little bit, because who can say no to carolers, right? :) So she agreed to listen to us sing. So, we sang Silent Night to this lady through her upstairs window ha..ha. And, after we finished, she invited us in for a cup of hot cocoa! Turns out, she recently lost her husband, who happened to be a very popular French author. She was in the middle of going through his things and facing her first Christmas without him when we showed up. We taught her an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation and Christ's role, and she invited us to come back when she has more time. So, that was the miracle that I was praying for to close out Elder Platt's last night of porting :)

Just a heads up, I may not be able to write this coming Saturday either. We are signing on the Liège apartment on Friday, so Elder Bates and I will probably spend the weekend up in Belgium. If I don't write on Saturday, I will for sure do it Monday:).

I love you all so much!!  Tell Tristan Happy Birthday if I don't write on Saturday. 

Joyeux Noël!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

#santaselves - Letter 12/06/14

Hey!

So first off, that was a TERRIBLE way to present Kaden's hospital trip! haha. I saw the picture and started freaking out until I could open up your letter and read it. That is so crazy! Tell him to get feeling better! 

So to answer your questions... yes, GPS are pretty pricey over here. The one for the APs car cost over 400 €. So, he definitely knew what he was doing, plus he was smart enough to wear gloves. Luckily, they didn't steal the Sister's package from the back of the car, so there's that at least :) We should get the APs window repaired in the next couple days, but we just found out that the new AP doesn't have a European license! So, Elder Bates and I, essentially, just got a second car! It's not a car that we can give to other missionaries, it has to stay with the office. So, we get a smaller economic car for our smaller trips :)

We're actually starting to shrink as a mission right now. From now until when I come home we have to close about 20 companionships. But, Président wants to spread out the missionaries to cover more areas, so that's a big part of why we're looking for so many new apartments. 

So last weekend... Elder Bates and I essentially became the Pony Express haha. It was fun, we called people to tell them that we were coming and called ourselves Santa's Elves, so we made the best of it :) We started Saturday by driving to Metz, just south of Luxembourg. We dropped off the books, and ate lunch there. The rumor is that the best kebab in the mission is in Metz, so we had to test it out. And it was pretty good, definitely the best one I've ever had! After, we went to Nancy, Strasbourg, and Mulhouse. In Mulhouse, we showed up at the church right as their Ward Party was starting! So, the members invited us to stay and eat dinner before hitting the road again! It was fun, we stayed there and ate and played some games before leaving. Last stop of the night: Épinal! We crashed in my old apartment there that night, then went to church there Sunday morning!

The members were all freaking out when they saw me. It's been almost exactly a year since I left, and the branch has grown! A lot of the members are more active now, and they've baptized a couple people, so there were about 20 there on Sunday. I had a blast with all of them and got pictures with the whole branch before we left. After leaving, we headed all the way across the map to Orléans, south west-ish of Paris. From there we hit Tours, then Le Mans, and stayed the night in ANOTHER one of my old apartments :) Monday morning we went to Rouen, in Normandy, then to Amiens and Saint Quentin, in the north. It was so cold there! We were just about dying, because we hadn't packed for that kind of weather. Luckily we were mostly in the car. We finally got home late Monday evening. Definitely the craziest trip of my mission haha. 

The rest of the week was a little more laid back. Tuesday we had District Meeting (and we locked all the gates to the parking lot behind us) then went to Antony again! We had to take the car from Meaux in to get some body work done. After, we took Elder Wall's car in to another garage close to our house to check out the engine light that came on. Pretty much, the guy said that he didn't have time and we'd have to come back later. Then he blamed the problem on the fact that we assigned the car to an old couple and was a jerk about it. So, we told him we weren't coming back haha. Little did he know, we own 25 cars that need serviced regularly and 6 of them are within 20 minutes of his garage. Too bad for him!

Wednesday we took Elder Wall's car back to Antony. They are so much better there, we really like their customer service. So, they fixed that for free, then we worked on contacting cards the rest of the day. We made really cool cards for the new Christmas Initiative that the Church is doing, because they didn't translate the cards into French. So, we spent 3 solid days finding paper, printing, and cutting cards for the entire mission! Wednesday night we went into Paris to pick up Elder Taochy, who's been serving here but is going to the London South mission. So he stayed the night with us and Thursday we took him to the airport. 

The past two days I've just been working on the repertoire for this transfer, we just barely sent it out a few minutes ago. So, everybody's finding out where they're going today! The new AP's name is Elder Lam. He's from Singapore. He was (almost) an Olympic swimmer and he went to Stanford. So, he's kind of an imposing figure haha. But, we're excited to have him here.

Even bigger news! So Elder Platt has known for a long time that his family wouldn't be here to pick him up until the week after transfers. So, Président was planning on assigning him somewhere for a week or just leaving him in Angers till then. But, last night he decided to have him come back to the Bureau to help out for a week and meet his family here! So, Elder Platt is gonna be my comp again for a week!!!!!! I called him to tell him last night and we were both freaking out a ton haha. So that's fun!

That's pretty much my week in a nutshell! Have a good one, let me know how the Christmas prep is coming along. Love you!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

#gpsbandit - Letter 12/28/14

Hey!

Sorry, this week my emails are Friday night instead of Saturday. We are having a crazy adventure tomorrow, I'll explain in a little bit! 

So last Sunday our Ward Mission Leader invited us all over for a huge Thanksgiving party. He served his mission in the States, and he LOVES Thanksgiving. It was a blast, we had all the missionaries, and a bunch of other members, as well as their family. They're a super classy family, so we had foie gras, caviar, and a humongous homemade cake for her birthday. Whole turkeys are almost impossible to find, but somehow they got one! After that, we headed out porting for the evening. It's great, we started our caroling again, and one old couple let us in to sing for them! They had a ton of questions about the temple in Versailles, so we talked with them for a while about the importance of temples and how it was gonna be a huge blessing to have one so close. They were pretty interested, loved the caroling, and invited us to come back another week. 

Monday was CRAZY with meetings. We had a staff meeting in the morning to plan for Christmas Conference and for next transfer. After, Elder Bates had a meeting with Président while I worked in the office. Most of the day was just office work, nothing too exciting. 

Tuesday was, arguably, one of the most interesting days of my mission. So in the morning we went and picked up the van from the garage!  Elder Bates drove it with Elder Johnson all the way back to Versailles for District Meeting, and I drove the AP's car with Elder Christiansen. We got to the church, parked in the parking lot behind the church, and had a pretty good District Meeting. Because of Thanksgiving, we got an extra 30 minutes of lunch and played some games and stuff with our District. I was supposed to go on exchanges with Elder Rigsby, and we started by testing out all the tables for Christmas Conference to see if they'll all fit. After we were all pretty happy, and I went out to the car to grab a package that had been sent for one of the Sisters. When I got out to the cars, I found the windows on both of them busted out and the GPS in both cars were missing :( Somebody had snuck into the parking lot and broken into our cars! So we called the police, but they told us they couldn't come out and look at it, we had to bring the cars in. So we had to find, (without GPS) the police station in Versailles. It was a pain, but we finally got there. Elder Bates and I each filed a report for the car we were driving, but they couldn't investigate because the fingerprint people had already gone home. So they said we had to drive back the next morning. After all this, I was still on exchange with Elder Rigsby, but we decided to just all sleep at our apartment to be able to go back to the police station the next morning. So, I had to drive to Montigny, on the other side of Versailles, where he lives, to get his bag for the night. We were all pretty beat, and me, him, and Elder Christiansen decided to get a kebab before driving home to just sit and relax. We got home and hit the hay pretty hard. 

Wednesday we went in and had to sit at the police station for about an hour. The specialists came out and looked at the cars and decided that the person was wearing gloves. So, not really a way to track them down. So that's unfortunate. The funny thing is, the GPS from the AP's car came with the car with a special mount, so the person won't ever be able to use it or sell it to anyone else. Too bad for him!  But our GPS was really nice and really easy to use anywhere. Anyways, we headed back to Antony to the garage. Lionel, the owner, didn't seem too happy to see us, but mostly he just felt bad for us. We had just bought the one car and just gotten the other one back from the shop, and we were right back there to get the windows fixed. Luckily, the one for our van they could fix right there, so we got to bring her home that afternoon. But the APs car, they have to order the window, so it'll take some time. But it's ok, they never actually use that car. And luckily, the insurance covered their car and the GPS, so that doesn't have to come out of the church's money. 

Yesterday we started pre-planning some of our week. I had a meeting with Président about the list of new apartments that he'd like, and he's pretty anxious to move forward on all of them. Usually I take 2 or 3 at a time to keep things smooth, but he wants all of them by the end of next transfer. So, I threw it all up and moved on ALL the apartments yesterday and today. We're getting some really good feedback, and hopefully, that will continue over the next few weeks. In the afternoon we drove out to Bussy Saint Georges, just east of Paris, to pick up their car. Neither of the missionaries can drive, and the car needs repaired pretty badly. So, I got to drive their little dinky manual through Paris :) That gets more and more fun every time. It makes me miss my manual at home. So, that'll be one of the criteria when I start car hunting after the mission!

The AP's were on exchange, but Elder Christiansen and Elder Hedquist (Elder Richer-Brulés bleu) were there for our Thanksgiving feast. Now, this wasn't your average missionary Thanksgiving. Elder Bates and I spent days preparing this, and it was awesome! We made 2 pumpkin pies, an apple pie, a huge pot of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, homemade rolls, and even found some turkey! It was one of the best Thanksgiving meals I've ever had, and I was pretty proud of us :) One of the pumpkin pies was from the can of filling you sent, the other came straight from a real pumpkin that we bought and prepared ourselves. And the one we made from scratch was probably the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. Win!

Today we did office stuff all morning and got a big assignment. So our mission just received some books from the church to use for teaching and stuff for Christmas. It was written by Neil L. Anderson, a story from when he was Mission President here. Someone translated it into French (fittingly) and made a title page with a message from Président Babin and President Roney from the Lyon Mission. The other day we received SIX THOUSAND of these little books, with no way to distribute them to all of the missionaries. So, we got signed up to be the Pony Express :) This afternoon we drove into Paris and dropped off everything for all the Paris missionaries at the Visitor's Center. Tomorrow, we leave to go to Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg, and Mulhouse. I'm hoping that we can go to church in Épinal, then hit Orléans, Tours, Le Mans, Rouen, Amiens, and St Quentin before getting home. Crazy! I'll get you more pics and info on that next week!

The weather is really warm here, I don't think we'll get snow in the Paris area. But, we'll be back east tomorrow, so hopefully we'll see some.

Thanks so much for everything, I love you guys so much!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

 

Champs Elysées during Christmas time:)

Our van...poor Lexi :(

The AP's new car

Glass EVERYWHERE!

Apple Pie

World's Best Pumpkin Pie!

Homemade Rolls

Turkey and Stuffing

Thanksgiving chez-les Elders du Bureau ;)