I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go: #worldsbestmacaroons

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe it's already Thanksgiving again. Last year I was with Elder Stucki and we had our huge dinner with our Zone and the Strasbourg Zone in Nancy! It's really hard to believe that it was a year ago. Time flies!

So you already know about how Monday played out because of my last email haha. After I finished writing you guys, we worked in the office all afternoon. In the evening we went and set up some new desks and stuff for the Versailles Soeurs, because we just added another companionship in their apartment. That went pretty well, then we just went home and crashed before the storm of this week :)

Tuesday was also pretty boring. We were in the office all day just coordinating and organizing for the Conference. Who would've thought that there were so many moving pieces when you have to get 300 people from 3 different countries into 1 chapel at the right time and feed them and transport them home, all while maintaining order and reverence because there's an Apostle there? ;) So, that took a little time haha.

Wednesday was OFII again. This time there was no Président Babin and no Assistants, so we got to run the whole thing (again). It was pretty fun, we gave our trainings and actually had time to eat before taking all the Bleus to their appointments. We've never had it take as long as it did, we didn't get back home until after 7h that night haha. But, (almost) everyone is legal now, so that's good :) After, we went back to the office and found out that the APs hadn't done the programs for the Conference, so we finished that, printed out 300 copies, and folded and organized all of them that night. #stayingintheofficetill1am. On the plus side, the APs went to lunch with a member from Paris who works for Mackenzie, a HUMONGOUS business advising company, and he bought ridiculously expensive macaroons for all of us.

Thursday was incredible, spiritual, and exhausting haha. Elder Christiansen and I were stressing hard with people being late, people not sitting down and being quiet, everything. It was just the 4 of us in charge of all 300 people, Président was with the General Authorities. But, everything worked out flawlessly. I got to welcome the General Authorities at the door and shake their hands and their wives' hands as well. Elder Teixeira is just a big ball of happiness and love, I love him so much :) And Elder Cook was such a funny, down to earth guy. It was cool to meet an Apostle and see how... human... they are. He was a normal man, with a Utah accent and glasses. But, when he testified of the Savior during the conference, it brought an entire mission to tears. It was such a privilege to be there with them. It was so cool to see the difference between Elder Cook teaching, with the Spirit, and everything was just great and powerful. But then the atmosphere got even bigger, and it wasn't Elder Cook speaking anymore. There were moments when an older man stood up and spoke like a much younger man and there was no doubt that he KNEW that what he was saying was true. So, needless to say, it was one of the coolest moments of my entire mission :)

After getting everyone cleared out after the conference, we got to go home and 'relax' haha. I found out that we have a squatter in one of our apartments we're closing, that the landlord starting renting out to someone else while we still had the apartment and we were still paying the rent, So, Elder Bousseau and I are now becoming legal consultants too and figuring out how to get over this situation. Other than that things are pretty smooth right now. After the conference Président bought us (you guessed it) macaroons! They were from the competing company of the other ones we had this week, and they were amazing. So, we got to eat, literally, the world's best macaroons this week. Not bad!

Today we walked around the gardens of the Versailles Palace. The fountains are turned off for the winter, but the grounds are spectacular! We walked around for hours and it was just calm and peaceful (exactly what we needed this week) haha. We also walked by the temple site while waiting for our bus home, you can actually see walls and stuff now! It's definitely not a hole in the ground anymore, and lots of people ask us about it. So, perfect opportunity to teach!

Here are the answers to your questions:

First off, I do have a pretty solid date of when I'm getting home. I wasn't gonna tell you to surprise you, but I figure you probably have to plan around it haha. I will get home on June 11th, it's a Thursday. Probably late afternoon or early evening, depending on whether I have a direct to Salt Lake and when I can connect to Idaho Falls. I know that's what Ben did (I helped get his tickets taken care of haha)

The family I was talking about isn't the less active family, don't worry! It's the Portuguese family that Elder Platt and I found a long time ago.

I'm fine, I didn't get hurt with the radiator, just shocked and stressed haha.

I didn't see any problems with the package, it just said we never claimed it. But, there's ALWAYS someone here at the office, so I'm not sure what happened. You should be safe to send another, I've never seen that happen before.

Health is good, just really worn down and tired right now. I'm taking vitamins still and fluids and everything, the stress is just wearing on me right now. I've got another 10 weeks in the office, I think. The problem is, there's a new couple coming in February, so if they replace me after next transfer, my replacement will be there for only 2 weeks and have to turn around and train a new couple on his own. That would definitely not be possible. So, if they decide to put the couple here I'd have to stay longer to train them, then Elder Bates would finish his mission and they can't whitewash the office, so I'd have to stay another transfer. Essentially, it's possible that I could stay here until the very end of April. So we'll see what happens. What I meant to say it that I think the stress has something to do with my continued weight loss. Obviously I eat healthy and work out a lot as well, so it's not a big deal. I think I'm also just growing up a little haha ;)

You never told me Jacob Passmore was getting married, who's he marrying?!

Love you guys so much, take care and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin