#châteaublack - Letter 02/23/15

Hey!

Pretty solid week. We got a lot more missionary work in, which was heavenly. None of the Zone Conferences were in Paris this week, so we didn't have to help out with those.

We had two exchanges, so that kept things pretty exciting. On Tuesday we went back out to the Versailles District Meeting. It was pretty cool to be back there. Bates wasn't there, but I got to see Elder Edmunds, so that was good. After the meeting I went on exchanges with Elder Faura here in Paris. It was pretty dope, we taught Withold and Nathalie and did a lot of contacting. Withold is still just kind of chilling, not accomplishing anything. He didn't even open the stop smoking planner that we bought for him, so that was pretty low. That was probably the biggest challenge this week, watching him blow off everything we're trying to teach him and do for him.

Thursday we were on exchanges again, this time I was with Elder Ho and Elder Gram was with Elder Martin. It would have been a really solid exchange... but I got called back into the office. The new couple got in recently, so I went and spent the day in Le Vésinet, teaching Elder Seaman how to do everything, since Elder Busson didn't retain any of what I taught him. But the new couple is solid, so I'm excited for them. We had lunch with the Office Elders, which was a nice pleasure :) Elder Bates is so burned out. He's definitely not dead and he's going hard with missionary work, but he's pretty done with the Office. I don't really blame him, I felt the same way.

Saturday we taught this guy named Simon-Pierre. He may be one of my favorite amis of my mission. He's 23 years old and he's studying law right now. He used to be an ami and even had a baptismal date fixed with Elder Coulombe and Elder Gram, but then he disappeared. So last Sunday he called us and asked us to come by. He lives at the Metro stop Château Rouge, which we all affectionately call Château Black (there's tons of Africans out there ;) ) So we taught him and he wanted to fix a new baptismal date! So, if everything goes according to plan, he'll get baptized the 8th of next month. That night he also came to our Chinese New Year activity, it was a blast :)

Marco did come to church yesterday, and we taught him the Restoration afterwards with our Elder's Quorum President. Afterwards we went and visited some members that live right by the Catacombs then went home to plan Zone Conference. Not much else exciting this week. I felt like we were running around a lot, but it was all pretty typical stuff.

We had our two English classes this week, which went way better. In our first one they asked the Sisters to come teach a more advanced class (apparently Elder Gram and I don't speak well enough) so we didn't have all the obnoxious, stuck up people from last week :) Instead we had some really cool, pretty humble people that just wanted to learn English.

The package was perfect, thanks so much! The scriptures are exactly what I was hoping for, they're pretty easy to carry around and read on the metro and in the Visitor's Center. Oh, and to answer your question, the Visitor's Center isn't by the temple, but it will be when the temple is finished. Right now it's right in Paris, right next to our church. The temple site is about an hour from here.

Anyways, that's about it for this week. I read the story about the 10 lepers in Luke 17 today, I thought it was cool the importance of gratitude, not just obedience.

I love you guys, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

Elder Faura

Elder Ho

We found this time traveling man outside the Visitor's Center...

I hate doing stats on Sunday nights...

 

#jesuisboulanger! - Letter 02/16/15

Hey!

So this week was pretty fun, we were running around for Zone Conferences all week :)

To answer your question on the Visitor's Center, we have a shift every Monday night after P Day. It's usually pretty fun, because all the YSA come in before their FHE at the church :) Last week I had an exchange with Elder Martin, from Texas. He's one of the Chinese speaking Elders, so I got to sit and smile during some of our contacts with people while he went off in Chinese haha. He's our District Leader right now, and he's only been out a couple months. I really like working with him, he's a solid kid with a lot of spirit and energy, so I'm pumped to see what he's gonna do with our District between now and the end of my mission.

We did the coolest service project ever this week! We have a less active member named Frère Morah, from Chile, who owns a bakery. So we went over and worked in his bakery making pastries for about 4 hours on Thursday :) We came out of it covered in flour but pretty satisfied. So I can officially tell people that I've worked in a French bakery. The Mulhouse Elders stayed over so Elder Traue could do his legality, so we got to hang out with them again. It was pretty fun, he wants to come out here and kill me after this transfer ;)

We taught our usual English class this week, but Celia (the convert in Versailles) was the only one there, so we did it with the Visitor's Center Elders and just did a Q and A. She had tons of questions on slang, so it was pretty entertaining :) OFII was this week, so we provided the food and got to hang out with Elder Bates and Elder Edmunds for a little bit :) Most of the week we spent buying the food for everyone's Zone Conferences because they were all at St. Merri this week.

Our work this week!

Nestor is a guy from Angola (in Africa) that the Paris Lilas Elders found in their phone, but he lived in our area. So we went and taught him in his apartment near the Notre Dame, and he was super interested! We're gonna stop by again on Tuesday while I'm on exchanges with Elder Faura (Versailles DL) and get him to church this week.

Withold and Nathalie are our 'eterni-gators'. They know everything is true, but smoking is holding both of them back. They opened up to us a lot this week and we gave them some solid plans to quit. They're super sweet, a little older, and they finally came to Sacrament Meeting this week!

Rosario and Gina are two Filipino members that invited us over to dinner with their friend Amy. It was in the apartment of the family that Rosario cleans for, and the dining room looked right onto the Eiffel Tower... it was kinda cool :) We got to watch it light up during the meal and then we taught their friend Amy.

Marco came to church! We taught him after the Ward Luncheon. He was a little hesitant, but he's really excited to learn more :)

Daniel is a guy we found contacting when we only had a couple minutes in between lessons. He is from Romania and just got here to look for work. He speaks English pretty well, but no French. We taught him yesterday and he accepted everything we said. He's coming in tonight after our shift at the VC for another lesson :)

So, it was a pretty eventful week :)

The new office couples came in on Saturday, so I'll find out soon if they're calling me in or not. Our biggest challenge this week was finding a way to do missionary work in the middle of everything else. It's not like at the office when we were just stuck in the office and the APs understood if we didn't do much proselyting. Now, we're expected to be the examples for the whole Zone, and we have to keep everything on a good level while accomplishing everything else. But, it was all worth it :) We found Daniel in the very little time we had, and we were able to teach him :)
 

My favorite scripture this week was when Christ talks about considering the lilies. After everything else, God takes care of the minor details so that we can focus on the big picture. I feel like the Mission is the best example of that, that all of the outside problems are dealt with (largely by the Bureau haha) so that we can give everything to the Work.

I did get my package, thanks so much! It was perfect, we used the candy for English class. I love you guys, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Martin

The "Office" Boys

#parislife - Letter 02/09/15

Hey!

So this week was crazy!

Monday was staff meeting at the bureau, and we got everything laid out for transfer week. After, I asked the Babins to go out to sushi with us for my last time. It was pretty fun, we ate really well and got to laugh and joke and tell stories with them. I'm definitely gonna miss not being in close contact with my Mission President like I have been for 6 months, but it'll still be good :) That night I finished packing my bags and we watched movies haha.

Tuesday was Bleu-Day! We picked them up at the airport without any problems. The coolest tender mercy was when we picked up the missionaries that were at the Madrid MTC. I don't know if you remember, but when I was in Bruxelles I visited a Hispanic family pretty often, particularly their son who was super less active. His name was Chin Hsia Rivas. Nothing ever really happened with him while I was there, except that he finally agreed to start sitting in when the missionaries came. Long story short, he completely turned his life around, and I had the pleasure of picking Elder Rivas up from the airport that day to start his mission in Paris :) We spent the afternoon at St Merri and then took the Bleus back to the hotel for the night. Elder Bates, Elder Edmunds, and I all spent the night in the hotel with them. We figured out that the big t.v's there took USB drives, so we watched Saratov Approach before going to bed :)

Wednesday I went with the Bleus and Elder Christiansen to Consecration Hill one more time before leaving the bureau. It was a sweet experience, just getting ready for my last couple transfers :) Once we got to Paris we took the Bleus to Notre Dame again. That afternoon I met up with Elder Gram and made the transition (officially) out of the office :) I absolutely love the office, but it was the most difficult experience of my mission by far. It felt good to get a new start :) We were running around like crazy that whole day for transfer stuff. As soon as we finished that, the Paris STLs (Sister Training Leaders) called us to give a blessing to a recent convert in the hospital, so we booked it out there and gave the blessing before going home that night.

Thursday was a little more calm. We had lunch with the Volnets in the afternoon. They are a German/Croatian couple that feeds the missionaries every week. After, we went contacting with some journalists! They are students who contacted Church Public Affairs, so President Babin picked us to do the project with them. We basically just went contacting for a couple hours and they followed us with cameras. After they interviewed us for about 20 minutes and took off. As soon as we were done with them we went to Pizza Hut to order food for Mission Council the next day. After we had an English class for some of the members that we teach every week. Only 2 showed up, which was too bad, but next week should be better. Two of our amis, Yannick and his brother Thomas, showed up for Institute that night, so we gave them a little tour of it before they started. According to the Maynards, the couple in charge of it, they had a blast and made tons of friends :)

Friday was Mission Council! All the Zone Leaders and STLs came in to St Merri and we had some trainings from the APs and the Babins for our objectives this transfer. After we had lunch and got to hang out with Elders Mattson, Bayer and Christiansen :) After cleaning everything up, we ran to give Frère Volnet a blessing. He and his wife were leaving to spend a month at the temple in Frankfurt on Saturday and he got pretty sick Friday night.

Saturday was a little more chill. We had a training with all our District Leaders to get them ready for this transfer. One of them is Elder Christian Martin, from Texas, who's in his 3rd transfer haha. He's a Chinese speaking Elder and I'm pumped to work with him this transfer :) It was really interesting to be giving the training, because I've never actually been a District Leader haha. After our meeting and lunch we went contacting and met a super cool guy, another Yannick. We talked to him for almost an hour and taught him there in the park where we were at. We'll be seeing him again later this week. That night we went contacting not far from our apartment for a while and got a couple phone numbers and a guy with a family!

Sunday was a blast in the St Merri ward :) I met a ton of the members, and I already knew some from being in the office and already serving in the same Stake for 6 months. Our ami Marco came and gave some SOLID stuff during Gospel Principles class. He's gonna get baptized, we're sure about it :) He was definitely my favorite person this week. That night after church we had a shift in the Visitor's Center and then finished our weekly planning.

Today we had Conference Call after studies (all the ZLs and STLs call in to the office on a conference call to do announcements and training every P Day). After we cleaned and did shopping. We got kind of hosed because the grocery store didn't open till 3, so we just stayed at home and watched part of Saratov Approach because Elder Gram's never seen it. I know, we live in central Paris and we stayed home and watched a movie. We're boring haha. But, it was fun. Tonight we're in the Visitor's Center again, so I'll keep you updated on how that goes :)

I was reading in Luke today and found something I really like. It's the classic story of Christ calling Peter, James, and John to follow Him. When he tells Peter to cast his net out again, Peter tells Him that he's worked all night, he's exhausted, and he's had no success. But, he casts out his net anyways. And he gets the biggest load of fishes he's ever seen. So missionaries are kind of similar. Often, we spend a full day getting rejected, spit on, yelled at, and we don't see any success. It's hard, and everything says that no matter what we do or change, the results will stay the same. But when we follow the Master's voice and try, we end up finding the people that have been waiting for us. So even when it's almost impossible, it's always worth trusting Him and 'casting out your net' one more time. My goal for this week is to not let all my other responsibilities and stuff distract me from the fact that I'm a missionary and that I can take advantage of every second to bless other peoples' lives.

I love you guys, I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin

Elder Bates, Elder Edmunds and I at the airport

The Walls

Elder Christiansen and I at Consecration Hill

Remy

Robin

The Portwoods

Brother Snedden

Frère Grenier

Jean Yves and Martine

 

Look at That, I'm the King of [Paris] :) #newsies - Letter 02/02/15

Hey!

So I'll start off answering some of your questions ;)

Yes, I'm getting transferred out of the office this week. It's been a good, long six months, and I'm very ready to go haha ;) I'm leaving Versailles/Le Vésinet and heading to PARIS. I've been in the Paris Zone and the Paris Stake for 6 months, and now I'm heading right into the heart of it :) My new companion is Elder Gram, from Denmark. He's just a transfer younger than me :) Our apartment is the worst one in the Mission (and trust me, I've seen all of them) but it's only 5 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, so I can go jogging there in the mornings :) It'll be a bit of a change, because I've been in Le Vésinet for a while, which is decently far outside of Paris, with huge houses and lawns and stuff like that. So, I've spent a lot of time visiting Paris, but it'll be crazy to jump into and live in the biggest ville in the mission. I'm excited :)

In all honesty, I'm not sure how ready Elder Busson is for me to leave. I don't think he realized until today that I'm gone. My last day with him was Friday, and he just told me he didn't have time for me. Not much I can do now, I tried to teach him what I know and he didn't want to learn from a kid... so we'll see how things go next week. I changed my voicemail to say that all apartment problems will be handled by Elder Busson, so I'm officially done :)

I'll definitely see more of Elder Bates. After all, we're still in the same Zone and I will come on exchanges out to Versailles. We'll have Stake Conference and Zone Conference together before he heads home, plus we help out a lot with transfers. After the mission he's heading back to BYU in the Fall, so we'll be able to kick it there ;)

This week was an adventure :) Monday, we tried to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We made it all the way there, then the signs said that the top was closed for some kind of construction work. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was super foggy up top. So, we went to this panini/crêpe place that all the missionaries love. Elder Bates and I had never been there (go figure, 2 old missionaries that have spent 6 months in the Parisien area and never even been there) so Elder Edmunds took us there for lunch. It was really good and pretty cheap, We ran into the Torcy Soeurs while we were there. After, we went souvenir hunting, but couldn't find exactly what we wanted. So, we'll keep looking. I was pretty bummed because I thought that I wouldn't have another chance to run around in Paris and go up top on the Eiffel Tower :) Go figure.

Tuesday we had District Meeting and lunch, which was a blast. We did flan suck! I don't know if I've told you about that before. Flan is like a cream and egg based pudding, and it comes in little cups like pudding. But, it's a lot more consistent. So, you can empty it out of the cup onto a plate. The challenge is to put your mouth over it and suck the whole thing up into your mouth and down your throat in one breath. I'll try to send a video ;)  After District Meeting we took the train to the car garage to pick up the van! We finally got all the body work done, so she's sitting out front of the office :) This works perfectly for transfers next week. That night I went to Correlation Meeting with Elder Christiansen and Elder Mattson (the APs do exchanges with all the Zone Leaders, so that's why he was there) and Bates and Edmunds headed to Paris to print off our train tickets. I stayed the night in the APs' apartment and stayed up with Mattson and Christiansen just talking. He's the Zone Leader of the other zone in Paris, so we'll get to hang out a ton more :) 

Wednesday, we woke up early and took a train out to Nancy (where I used to do exchanges when I was in Épinal). We picked up the car that the senior couple left there and drove it back that afternoon. Nothing too exciting there.

Thursday, we took some Sisters to the airport to head home for medical stuff. That evening the transfer board came out, and that's when I found out that I was heading to Paris :)

Friday we had to pick up an Elder from the hospital because he had a surgery that morning. So, we went and hung out with his comp in the hospital then drove him back to the Mission Home to stay the night. Saturday we had to take another Elder to the airport to head home for medical stuff (3 in a week and another one who's staying but got surgery... not an easy week on our mission). We worked in the office all day and then had dinner with the Bussons :)

Yesterday the Bishop asked me to get up and bear my testimony before I leave. It's kinda funny, because I feel like this is the Ward I know the least, even after having served here the longest. Being in the office just changed how my mission ran for such long time. But, I had some people I'm really close to, so I got lots of pictures and said goodbye to everyone. I'll see all of them next month at Stake Conference, so it could be worse. 

Today we had Staff Meeting to organize transfers. After, I asked Président and Soeur Babin if they wanted to go eat sushi with us ;) So, we all went out there for lunch and had an awesome time just relaxing with them before I head out. 

What else... Nothing too exciting this week. Just getting ready for my new assignment, it's definitely gonna ask a lot, but I'm excited :) Elder Gram is a really good missionary, and we're gonna have fun with our Zone this transfer :) 

You can send any letters or packages to that new address:

4 rue Valadon

75007 Paris

France

Elder Christiansen never had any trouble getting mail while he was there, so that should be fine.

Tell Brady and Brooke congrats, that is so cool!!! I'm happy for them :) Thanks for forwarding me her email, I appreciate it :) Tell Gabby I said hey!

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

Love,

Elder Tyler Martin