I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go: Letter

Hey!

So here's the summary of my past week!

So last Sunday was a little rough, not gonna lie. It was our last Sunday with Elder Sughroue, and he gave an awesome testimony in Sacrament Meeting. Versailles was his bleu ville as well, so he talked about how grateful he was to finish and end his mission here and how much he grew in the 18 months in between. After church I was gonna go out porting and everything, but I got super sick. So Sughroue and I just sat in the apartment and I worked on the Area Book while he packed.

Monday we had a pretty big project. The Elders from Mantes-la-Jolie were moving to the other side of town, so we drove in and helped them out. We're the only people ever that have a big enough van, so it was kind of essential. They were supposed to have a bunch of members show up, so naturally no one came but us :) It wasn't a big deal though, we got everything in 3 loads pretty easily. We were in McDo's eating lunch afterwards and ran into some American members that were passing through. They were there on vacation for 2 weeks, so it was cool eating lunch with them. He's a pretty young RM that served in Paraguay and works for Nintendo, so that was sick. As we were driving home, Elder Sughroue called us with some sad news. He had gotten his flight plans and he was going to fly out Wednesday :( So that was kind of a bummer.

Tuesday we had District Meeting. While we were driving there, we passed by a truck with LIONS in the back. Apparently there's a zoo in town this week, so we stopped and took pictures and everything, it was tight. After District Meeting we hit the office. I had to deal with disaster, we had this company that replaced a broken window in one of the apartments I manage, but they were pretty sketchy. They never sent a bill, just demanded payment, finally two of their workers just showed up at our office. I think they were surprised when they realized that they've been pushed around all week by a 19 year old American ha..ha. They were both young sketchy looking guys, and they just asked for cash up front. I told them straight up that I wouldn't give them a dime till I saw a real bill or they could leave. So they called their manager, he emailed me the bill, but the work hadn't been done yet and they expected us to pay in cash. So we sent them off and I told them that once the work was all done, we'd send a check to their manager. They were super put out, but they left without any further problems. Sketchy people.

Wednesday we dropped Elder Sughroue off at the airport. That was tough, we became really good friends these past 8 weeks that we've been (technically) comps. But, he'll get way better medical attention at home! Elder Bates had his training with Alexander Merkel, the Vehicle Coordinator for all of Europe. That meant that I sat on my behind and worked on the computer all day. It was kind of boring, but I got a ton done. Right now we're running all of our apartments off of a program similar to what most missions use, but we run about twice as many apartments as most missions. So I've been creating a new system and overhauling everything we have to hold more info and be more simple. So that's taking some serious time. There's a lot of things that have been ignored for years, and they're starting to bite back hard. So I'm trouble shooting that while re-doing the program. It was a stressful day, haha. Elder Christiansen is doing the same thing with all of the stats for the mission, cuz he's the AP that manages stats. I don't think Président Babin knew quite what he was getting when he called the two of us to live together and work in the office at the same time... everything is getting brought up to speed haha.

Thursday I had an exchange with Elder Wickern! He's in Elder Rafanomezana's group and was trained by Elder Nelson, from my group. So he's a pretty young missionary, with tons of energy. It was kind of funny to be with him, because I haven't been with young missionaries really since I was a young missionary. I trained Elder Rafanomezana not that long ago, but he's also 23 and francophone... so he's a young missionary, but not really haha. It was nice to get out and do some really solid missionary work, and it got me feeling better about after the office haha. Everyone says you just die after the office, but as soon as we jumped into missionary work I had tons of energy, it was like being on fire haha.

Friday was pretty chill. We finished the exchange and went back to the office. We took Elder Christiansen and Elder Johnson out to sushi buffet, then did office work all afternoon. We had to take our van into Paris to get it checked out. It was cool, we took this tunnel that went from Le Vésinet all the way to Antony, on the other side of Paris. No traffic, super fast, it was awesome! The only sketchy part was, the clearance was only 2m. Our van is about 1m9ish... But that van has been through there before, so we went for it! It was ridiculous, the roof was RIGHT above our heads haha. Turns out our transmission is just a little off, so we'll get that taken care of easily, as well as some dents and stuff that past missionaries never reported. So on paper, Elder Bates and I will be listed as the worst missionary drivers in Europe! haha.

Anyways, that's my week! Today we're going to the baptism of an excommunicated member and his wife, they're basically the coolest people I've ever met! I worked a lot with his son when we closed the apartment in St Nazaire, and they're such a sweet couple! Then afterwards we're going to the Eiffel Tower (FINALLY!!!) It's been 16 months, and I'm finally going :) Have a great week, I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin