Au Revoir, Paris

#3cheersto2years - Last Letter Home 06/08/15

Hey,

I'll be honest, I'm pretty sad writing this letter haha. It's a pretty bittersweet moment, so I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I don't think it'll quite hit me all the way till I get home on Thursday. Then it still may take a couple days :)

This past week was pretty fun, and very eventful. We've been getting ready for transfer week and saying goodbye to people all week. On Tuesday we had a pretty solid District Meeting, my last one! That night we had an FHE with the Saminadin family. They're a partially less-active family that I've been trying to see ever since I got here, and we finally did! We had a big dinner with galettes (really big crêpes made with rye flour). Sister Saminadin also gave me an awesome going away present that I'll have to show you when I get home :)

On Wednesday we had OFII again, so we provided the meal. It was pretty solid, I mostly just sat and talked with Elder Edmunds the whole time haha. Friday was another busy day. We went shopping for transfer week in the morning, then went and did a service project for a member, Sister Garfias. It ended up being building IKEA furniture, so they called in a pro ;) After, we went to the Visitor's Center to watch Elder Perry's funeral.

Saturday we got the Repertoire! It was really weird not seeing my name on there for the first time... But, we found out who my replacement is! His name is Elder Ricks, he's actually Elder Christiansen's Bleu. He's solid, it should be a lot of fun for him and Elder Madsen. That night we had a Visitor Center movie night where we invited a bunch of people and watched 'How Great a Possession' on the projector screen. It was cool, we had a ton of people there and even a guy that the Chinese Elders just invited in off the street right before it started.

Yesterday was pretty solid. Saying goodbye to everyone was hard, especially Wilson. He is seriously one of my best friends, I've never been so close with one of my amis. Bishop Hall invited us over for dinner, which was awesome. I think he really likes us, because missionaries are always dying to go over there, and we've been invited over twice this transfer :) It ended up being a huge party, because their nanny Stacey is going home this week as well, so we had a ton of members over there for dinner, including our Stake President:) Over all, it was an awesome week :)

I don't really know how to close this out. These past 2 years have been incredible, and I can't really describe it. Imagine the most difficult, tiring, satisfying experience ever, and picture it for 2 years :) And in the long run, it isn't as hard as you thought it was. It really has been a blast, and a mission is 100% what you make of it. I'm so grateful to have had the chance to serve in France, this really is the best place and best mission on Earth :) Thanks so much for everything you guys have done for me the past 2 years, for the prayers and support. I love you all so much, and I'm excited to see you guys this week! #3cheersto2years :)

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

#chalkingupthestreetsofparis - Letter 06/02/15

Hey!

This week was pretty solid, I can't complain :) Last P Day I went and got souvenirs, so everything should be good to go for next week :) Elder Madsen's cousin Hannah, who is living in our ward, came and hung out with us for the day.

On Wednesday we had another Zone activity! This transfer it was chalk art! We set up three different stations around Paris and drew a couple of gospel related drawings then talked to everyone that came and looked at them and invited people to come check them out. It turned out really well :) I'll send some pictures, the drawings were great. Especially Elder Madsen's, he did a tree of life drawing that was super good. I also went on exchanges with Elder Nga, our new Chinese speaking Elder. He's from Malasia, and he's a pretty fun guy.

We sent in Confidentiality report on Thursday, my last one that I have to do! haha. On Saturday we did our ward service project. All they told us is that it was in northern Paris and that we were cleaning up a main street in town. So we showed up, and it was just us and the Soeurs with some ward members. Anyways, so about an hour in the Bishop says, 'hey missionaries, come take a picture over here!' Turns out, we were right in front of the Moulin Rouge! We're definitely not supposed to be in that neighborhood haha, but we got a good picture before finishing our project haha.

For lunch we went out with Wilson and some of his friends. They're finishing up their tour of Europe soon and they stopped for the day in Paris. We taught Seyed that night, he's doing really well. He is accepting everything we say, he's just really unsure about baptism. He's Iranian, and he's worried that it might be a problem for him. So we'll see what happens. We worked at the bakery again that night, it was pretty fun. I'll show you the video when I get home of us touring the creepy underground bakery part.

Church was really good on Sunday. We taught Sunday School and decided to ignore the lesson in the manual and focus on Chelly, the Mandarin Elders' recent convert. We talked about baptism and stuff, and Marco ended up participating a ton in the lesson. He's really hard to schedule stuff with, but he's so solid. He ended up buying some cool books about Paris for me, since he won't be here next week so I won't get to see him again. Also said goodbye to Zhen, who left for China on Sunday night before she leaves on her mission next month.

That afternoon in the VC, we'd only been there about 10 minutes before a guy came in wanting to know all about the church. His name is Meshac, and we sat and taught him and he said he's coming to church this week! That night we had a sleep over with the Paris Lilas Elders! I needed Elder Jouffray to work on my back a little bit, so we stayed the night over there on Sunday so that we could do Conference Call with them on Monday morning. It was a party! Yesterday was chill, we just kind of hung out since emails were down. I finished up souvenir shopping, I think, so that was about it!

It was a good week overall, we had a lot of fun :) Thanks so much for everything, I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Tyler Martin

Sidewalk Art

Families are Forever!

Elder Madsen's drawing of the Tree of Life

Elder Madsen's Chalk Hands!

Ward Service Project

Cleaning up the streets of Paris

I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore!!

Transfer #16...FINALLY!!

Getting "Killed" off

Flan

#whosmycomp? - Letter 05/25/15

Hey!

Sounds like a crazy week back there, raining just like last year! Hopefully campus doesn't flood out again. Looks like Connor had a blast at that game, even if it was with a Madison team ;)

This week was pretty good! We had a couple of exchanges that went really well. My first one was with Elder Martin (Martin Squared!) in their area. It was pretty cool!  We were in the Visitor's Center for the whole afternoon, and had a ton more people than usual come in. We even had this lady come in and tell us that she'd been inactive for 3 years and this was the first time she'd been to a church building or talked to missionaries since then! She wanted to come back and try to get back in touch with the church, so we set her up with the missionaries in her ward. After that we taught our ami Seyed, the one from Iran. He wants to get baptized and is praying about a date before our next rendezvous. The next morning we went in to try and exchange Elder Martin's drivers license and ran into Hakim!! He's the less active I taught in Le Mans that moved here around the same time I did. We haven't had contact in a while and were able to get in touch like that, so it was pretty cool. It was definitely a tender mercy, it's been so cool to watch him grow and change over the past year.

Next I was on exchanges with Elder Ho again! He got transferred last transfer, but he stayed in the Paris Zone and his new companion is District Leader, so I still get to go on exchanges with him :) We had another cool experience in the Visitor's Center where a woman came in and introduced herself as a recent convert from Chicago. She was in Paris with her family, who aren't members, and felt pretty alone and stuff, when she walked past the Visitor's Center! She came in and we talked for about half an hour. Definitely an answer to her prayers :) Then we went to work in Frère Mora's bakery :) It was a crazy night, but we had a lot of fun. 

Friday we had two different meal appointments, which has NEVER happened to me on my mission haha. I've been lucky to get that many in a transfer usually. We had lunch with the Volnets, an older couple in the ward. For dinner, Prisen invited us over to eat with his family. He's the only member right now. His sister in meeting with the Soeurs, and this was kind of the 'first exposure' for his parents. So hopefully we can start teaching them soon, they're such a cool family :)  And Prisen is getting ready for his mission, so we spent a good hour just telling them what it was like. It's got to be hard for them, not having any Mormon background, to think of him leaving on a mission for 2 years. They felt a lot better after we left though :)

This weekend we had a big project to clean the outside of the Visitor's Center. It just kind of accumulates gross Paris filth haha, so we scrubbed the outside for a couple hours. It looks so much better now! Yesterday we visited the referral from St. George. They weren't home, but we know it's the right address now, which is much better than most referrals we get haha. 

That's our week in a nutshell! To answer your question, my favorite scripture this week was John 14:15. It's a classic that I was studying getting ready for my talk, and it just hit me how simple it is. If we love Him, we're going to do everything we can to keep the commandments. We're not perfect, and that doesn't mean we love Him less, but it gives Him a chance to extend love and grace to us. 

I love you guys so much, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

An African shirt a member gave me as a going away present

Last Sushi trip!

Feeding birds for P-day!

After feeding birds

#parisian

Last mardi fou!

Cleaning the Visitor's Center... don't tell Président he's up there...

This pic is especially for Katie... gotta love that Texan pride haha!

Part of our training for Zone Conference