I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go: #180degreeturns

Hello!

As you can tell, it's not Saturday! No, we didn't have a project or a trip or anything this weekend to keep us from having a P-day... Our P-Day got changed back to Monday! I'll explain more later, but we personally made a lot of changes in the office this week.

Monday we drove out to Bussy Saint Georges, just on the opposite end of Paris, to set up some beds for the Visitor's Center Elders that just got there last week. On our way home, President Babin texted me saying that we were going to receive a Visa waiter from Blois, and he would need us to put an extra bed in Alençon. We were down, so we just asked when in the next couple weeks he would show up. And the answer was...in 2 days. So, we went home, loaded up a bed frame, bought a mattress at IKEA, and drove to Alençon that afternoon! We dropped off the bed, stopped at the church to say hello to some of Elder Bates' members that were there for an FHE, and bounced back home that night.

Tuesday was OFII again, so we spent the whole day in Paris. The trainings went well, and the wait in the office was about the same as usual. But, I got to hang out with some of the Bleus and just relax for a few hours, which was kind of nice. The security at the office was out the roof with everything happening here, and technically Elder Bates and I shouldn't have even gotten in because we weren't applying for legality. But, we made friends with the security guard over the past couple months that we've been taking Bleus there, so he not only let us in but also ushered all the Bleus to the front of the line and we got in super quickly. Tuesday night was back to the office and preparing for our trip to Arras.

Wednesday was our trip! We drove the 2ish hours to Arras and starting moving first thing in the morning. It was a lot harder in the Combo, because it's a lot smaller than our van. But, we were able to get EVERYTHING into the new apartment in 4 or 5 loads. We didn't end up leaving till later in the evening, but we got home at a decent time, so it was OK. Most everything was just Elder Bates and I, because the Sisters had lessons (and we didn't want to make them cancel them) and the Elders didn't show up till the end and didn't even help, they just went home after looking at the new apartment for a couple minutes. It wasn't a super big deal though, we're used to it ;)

Thursday was an interesting day. When we got home Wednesday night, we quickly read our office emails. One of them had a pretty big miscommunication error in it that made it seem like our work and our integrity was in question, and we got a little ticked haha. So Thursday we gave up on the office and went proselyting all day! It felt really good to be out doing missionary work, because that's really what we're called to do. Anyways, that night the miscommunication got cleared up and we cooled down, but we decided it was a good time to make some big changes.

President told us this week that next transfer, Elder Busson (who just got here with his wife to replace the Bousseaus) will be taking over my job. So my replacement will come in with the transfer, instead of today. So I'll be training Elder Busson and next transfer Elder Bates will train the new couple to take his job and whatever Elder Busson asks them to do. This means the office elders will be 90% proselyting. So, we decided to prepare for that. Now, we go porting every night, no matter what. We've wanted to do it for a long time, but there's just so much to do that it doesn't always work like that. Now we have to let some things fall, but we get to go proselyting. Essentially, that's how it should be. So, every night since then we've been out proselyting!

We met a cool guy named Smith the other night. We knocked on his door and... nothing. We knocked one more time and thought we heard running water and voices behind the door. But still nothing. So.... we knocked a third time! Finally, a little girl answered the door. We asked to talk to her dad, and she went to look for him. He came out and apologized for not answering, he'd been in the shower. We presented our message, and he said he'd love to hear it, but he had just gotten home from a full day of work. But, he asked us to pass by another time! So we'll see him later this week.

We taught Mdm Banda again. She fell off the face of the Earth for a while, but we got back in to teach her the past couple weeks. She feels like what we teach is true, and she has nothing against it. Her big worry is she doesn't think she can be rebaptized, even if she things that our church is true and has the right authority. So we told her to pray and ask God what He wanted her to do (because that's all that really counts). Hopefully she'll be coming to church next week!

To answer your questions:

The body work on the van isn't my fault haha, don't get any ideas. It's actually about a year's worth of office elders that didn't report the accidents they had to insurance, so it all got heaped on Elder Bates' and I's heads. So we're just getting all of that repaired right now.

We said goodbye the the Bousseaus on Thursday morning, it was pretty rough haha. They're from Cholet, which is about 4 hours from Paris. It's a tiny ville right by Angers. It's hard, because I don't think I'll see them again during my mission :( But, I'm spending time with them when I come back for Josua and Laura's wedding!

That's about it for this week, I love you guys so much! Have a great week, talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin