Week #6 Transfer #1 - Tarbes and Lourdes

Last week over of my first transfer!

We received transfer calls on Friday from the mission president and Elder Ambursley (my trainer/father) is leaving to Anne-Maas!!!  It's near Switzerland on the border and he's sad to leave but psyched to be right by Swiss for his last transfer.

Farewell Elder Ambursley

 I received my new companion today who will be finishing my training (so named my step-father) and he's super cool!  His name is Elder Withers and he comes from Spokane, Washington.  Super cool and a super nice guy, I'm excited to serve with him.  I'm sad to say goodbye to my 1st trainer this morning but excited for where things will go.

Elder Withers

This week was super fun. We got to visit a member who hasn't had missionaries over forever who lives 1 train stop away in Lourdes!  She is super cool and made a really good meal, and we had a good lesson with her.  We did a little sightseeing afterwards to view a bit of Lourdes and it's super cool.  Catholic capital of France pretty much, super nice people there and a huge super cool cathedral.  And a castle on top of the hill in the middle of the city. Gorgeous place.

Lourdes Basilica

Lourdes Village

Lourdes Basilica

We later got to see another soccer match, but Herman didn't play!  Their coach is crazy.  Bummer since Elder Ambursley had to leave later and that was the last chance for him.  We visited our ami Ludavich and had a good lesson on faith, didn't get a chance to meet Fata again but our two Amis will do well, and I'm excited to see how they progress in the coming weeks.  We also met with our less active member and had some Jambon Au gratin and crepes, and I got 2 cans of Coca Cola that are twice as tall: what an amazing idea. France understands me.

Josh Sized Coca Cola!!

Anyways, she's doing really well and I'm excited to see how we can help teach everyone this week! I'll be showing Elder Withers around town and hopefully not getting too lost, though I feel pretty comfortable with the town now. Its cool, I love Tarbes.

Missionary Volleyball

Hel 5:12- found yourself on Christ in the storms of everyday life. I've seem how Christ can take away pain and suffering from me, and I know he can for us all. Ground yourself in Him and ask for help and he will be there for you. Just pray, I know he listens to those who reach out, and he's always knocking.

Have an awesome week and I love you all and I pray for you all every day.

Sincerely, Elder Laney

Week #5 - in field

It's been 5 weeks already! This week I start my final week of my first transfer (as missionaries we separate our time serving here into transfers (un mutation en francais), which are periods of 6 weeks, and at the end of each you find out if you stay where you're at or move to another town! So this week on Friday I will be finding out if I'm staying or not, I'm guessing I'll probably stay. I like Tarbes and am excited for whatever the Lord has in store! 

Anyways, we had a good week. We stayed in town all week and made a lot of progress with all of our  amies (investigators).  We met with our 1 ami, and taught her baptism which she received well, and also found out she's moving!  To Toulouse, but we're sure she'll continue lessons there, we'll connect her with the elders there, she's making a lot of progress. 

Next day I got my first haircut from this super classy Vietnamese barber who loves English.  Later we met Ludovic an old ami who we called and set up a rendez-vous with.  Super cool guy, so awesome and super funny.  Even made us Raclette our first meeting with him, melted cheese on tons of different meets and potatoes, soooooo good.  

We even fixed a date for a baptism with him! He doesn't understand it fully but feels like baptism is something he wants.  I hope we can help him begin to make a testimony and thereby begin to progress toward baptism.  Later we met with a less active family who gave us their Raclette machine to borrow and we made more for the next 2 days. I ate so much lol. 

The next day we got to meet Fata for the first time, a mother of 5 from Nigeria who we met on the street last week and fixed a meeting with.  She, as soon as we talked about baptism and asked to fix a date, should up immediately and grabbed her calendar and had us write it down and was super excited.  She's super believing in God and has wanted baptism,  but English isn't super good, but I think we'll really be able to help her grow a testimony herself about the gospel and the truth of the church.  It's been cool how we could met so many cool people this week, we know someone on every pro sports team here haha. Super cool people.

I'm excited to see where we go next!  Have a good week and love you guys!! Que vous soyez benis et content, je vous aime tous!

Week #4 - in the field. Bordeaux & Zone Conference

Another week!!! This is doing by very fast now. Haha, but it's great!  We're just having too much fun, this week was very fun.

Bordeax flower fields

We started the week off with a relaxing p-day (day to prepare and relax each week, Monday) and then on Tuesday our zone leaders (missionary pair in charge of leading the zone with is like 15-25 missionaries) came to Tarbes and I went to exchange spending the day with Elder Hansen. Super fun day, we were a little lost since I was the one who actually lived in the city, so I got to lead him around town! We were able to do a lot of contains and met a few people, and though they weren't interested later i got a lot more comfortable with contacting in French, and since then it's been way way better. Plus I became oriented with the city! I'm finally getting a feel for some things. Wednesday was pretty light and Thursday we met with one of our less active members and had a really good discussion.
  

Bordeaux countryside

We then later that day took a 4 hour trip to Bordeaux for zone conference the next day. Super cool, President Brown, our mission president, was there with Sister Brown and they both gave some awesome talks about what we can do to share the gospel in a way that would emphasize more with the "end in mind", meaning seeing them helping do temple work. In the church we have temples, sacred places where we can do ordinances for our ancestors and those who have passed on. One of these ordinances is baptism, and by proxy we can give our ancestors and others ,who didn't have the chance to be baptized in this life, to be baptized through proxy which they can accept if they want to.  President Brown talked about this, and how for us we need to go and
speak about baptisms for the dead, and share the message about the temple to be built in France soon. Super cool, and I've already seen how others become interested in their families and what we have to
share.

Toulouse, Talents and Bordeaux zone conference

Missionary Games

Saturday was super fun, we did a ton of studies and then got to go see a semi-pro soccer game b/w Tarbes and Nice where our ami Herman got to play that day! Super cool to watch, and really fun. 

Soccer Game Tarbes vs Nice

Sunday was good too, church went well and then after some contacting we got to go see our less active member who is making a lot of progress and who we had a great discussion with.  

Today we got to have sushi at Frere Pho's a member from Cambodia working at a sushi shop here. Soooo good but he made us eat sooo much lol. Haha, it was super fun though, we watched mr kruegers Christmas and ate tons of sushi, and he's so flipping cool and funny.

Bro Pho and the sushi party

It was cool this week to share my testimony to our less active members. I was able a to bear my testimony to our less active member.  At the start of he week and share some things about Christ and focusing on him which I believe she needed and let her know that even if things are hard, Christ can help her with anything and will if we
believe he can. I shared this and my testimony of the Book of Mormon with our other less active ami who lives with her son downtown, and it was really cool to share the knowledge I've been so blessed to receive. I hope you all have an awesome week, and know that I love you all and pray for you each night. Be safe and have fun, and may God watch over you, He and Christ love you so much more than I could ever imagine.

Sincerely,
Elder Laney

Week #3 In the Field - Tarbes and Montauban

Hey!

Another week in France and a really good one!!

I'm walking everywhere here but finally getting used to it lol.  And it's interesting because we take trains every week to go to other cities for meeting other missionaries etc, it's cool.  

Beautiful countryside around Tarbes

Eventful week!  Monday we had p-day and didn't really do anything, lol Tarbes has lots of shops, so we visited those and then set up some rendez-vous  (lessons/meetings with people). Tuesday we taught our ami (or investigator in English, someone we're teaching the gospel who is interested).  We had a really good lesson, in English lol, she speaks English and French so we just did English this time.  But it was really awesome and we helped her and talked about faith and acting on it, and then invited her to church and she said yes!  We then taught a less active member and had a really good lesson with a lot of input from him.

P Day!  Updating photos and writing home

Wednesday we went to Montauban, the oldest city in France (so I'm told) and did a blitz, which means I exchanged companions with the missionaries there and we both went and taught and prosecuted in the same city.  

St. Oren Church in Montaubon France

Had a really good time, and learned a lot, and we met this man from Ghana who was super funny and later that week committed himself to baptism with the elders there haha, saying he "needs to worship with [us]."  Next day we did a district meeting with all the missionaries in our closer area and it was really good, about temples.

The Old Bridge is a bridge that crosses the Tarn

Friday we did some heavy brick and boulder moving for a member lol, but all with it because I had my first real French lunch.  As the big meal there, we spent 2 hours with tomatoes and mozzarella to start, bread, then an African curry, then cheeses and then fruit tartes to finish it.  Amazing, except for the moldy cheese lol. 

AMAZING lunch!  Tomatoes and mozzarella to start

Saturday was a bit slow, but Sunday was awesome because our ami came to church!!  One of our members her age befriended her, she's a bit younger than I am, and she had a really good time! And one of our less active members came to church for the first time in a long time, which was so cool.  And I gave my first talk in French lol. The branch president announces we only had 2 speakers and the first took about 7 minutes, so when I got up there I had a good 20 minutes to go.  Luckily I had prepared too much anyway so it worked out, I spoke for 20 minutes in terrible French and tried my best, I spoke on gifts of the spirit and how to find them, as well as gratitude for all we receive from God.  All the members said they understood most of it!  Success!!  Mostly haha, anyways it was so cool to have our ami and member have a good time.

centreville fountain

I'm having a fun time here!  It's hard work but good and I need to work on a lot of things to become the best missionary I can sooner rather than later.  Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Laney

Ps: I'm an uncle again! Congrats Morgan and Cade on your 1st born child little baby James Pierce. Love you and I love him and he's adorable!

James Harrison Peirce

Ky and Mike happy 10th anniversary!! You're so cool and I'm so happy for you and your family and to have you guys!!

An interesting note: Josh was doing a little family history on the internet and found a photo of Hyrum Laney, the son of William Laney (Leany) who was Josh's great great grandfather who joined the Church om 1834 with his twin brother Isaac.  William knew Joseph Smith and lived in Nauvoo. Isaac was shot 14 times at the Haun's Mill massacre and survived.  The chair in this photo has been preserved and passed down through the family and is currently in Gary's office!!

Hyrum Laney 

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Week #2 - In the Field! Tarbes, France

Week 2 is over, and it's great here in the south of France! 

It's super cool here and I had a good week.  I'm speaking French with people a lot (not as much as I should but it'll come) and understanding a lot more. The language is coming slowly but surely, and it's so cool to converse with people in another language! 

I'm learning how to intelligently pretend like I know what's going on, and understand the general drift of the conversations. Haha, but I can actually carry on! It's cool, and it's coming more and way better all the time. 

It's fun here in Tarbes, it's a pretty small town with not a ton of people, and we walk everywhere. My feet kill me at the end of each day, but I'm getting some killer calves in the process :)

I've seen a lot of cool buildings here and a park with tons of ducks and peacocks and geese (Jardin Massey is the park), and have been trying some French pastries. The cookies here are amazing, they're so full of butter and glazed and I'm in heaven. My favorite treat so far is the Pain au Chocolat, which is just a flaky bread with chocolate in it. 

 So good! Haha, anyways, we've been teaching a lot of our less active members and it's been really cool to get to know all of them. They are all super friendly and cool and have us over, and we've actually been over to member and less active's houses like every couple days which is awesome. Normally in France you don't get a lot of meals, but we've seen lots and I'm told I'm very lucky :)

To share an experience, I'll just talk about teaching in church. We had a good amount of members at church, about 25 (our branch is really tiny, so 25's a  good #!) and we got to coteach the lesson. It was cool, b/c I've learned a lot in my personal studies here that keep getting confirmed with other goals I have, and I got to share some of the things I found out with worked perfectly with the lesson. I bore my testimony in the lesson as well as in sacrament meeting, our main meeting in church(once a month people are allowed to come up and bear their testimonies and share experiences at church, it's always a really cool experience). I feel like my testimony's grown so much since I got here, and is growing more all the time. 

Love you all and hope that the next week is amazing!