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
