Week #4 Transfer #2 Tarbes, France

Bonjour tout le monde!

This transfer is going by super fast, but it also feels like I've been here for so long - haha, time on the mission still confuses my brain. This week was really cool.

Awesome skies over Bordeaux

At the start of the week we took a train to Bordeaux on Tuesday for a mission conference in Bordeaux where we got to hear from our beloved mission president, President Brown, his wife and our mission mom Sister Brown, and from Elder Adler from the quorum of the 70 and his wife Sister Adler.  This conference was one of the most powerful meetings I have ever been to, and one where I learned more than I ever have in 4 hours.  Every single one of them cried at some point during their message, the spirit was strong and I learned so much. Elder Adler is hilarious, he's from Germany and probably the same part as Elder Uchtdorf (the 2nd counselor to the prophet in the 1st presidency of our church) because he reminded me a ton of him.  The message he shared was about the "evil behind smiling eyes", a talk by Elder Anderson of the 12 apostles, how we need to confirm what we believe are prompting a from the Holy Ghost with what we know is right, and what the commandments and scriptures say.  Awesome and then he pretty much went over every aspect of missionary work lol, my notes are like 10 pages long.

Elder Withers survives another Chef Josh meal

Anyways, we had a good time and I was so happy this week to have that conference, as well as an exchange (my first real exchange! I've only done blitzes or when 4 missionaries go to one city, so far) in Montauban with my district leader.

Sunset over Montauban

We met a lot of people this week, It was so cool!  I want to share one cool experience from Saturday night.  On Saturday night we had gone out porting and had some good conversations but no lessons and didn't find anyone interested in our message.  So we came back and talked to some people on the way home and got back to our apartment, but still had 25 minutes until 9:00.  Elder withers suggested making some calls at home, but we decided against that, I felt like we should try to hit our goal of 8 allez-vous that day, though unrealistic, so to try to see how close we could get.  We agreed.  I decided to have us circle around a block Ina route I felt like we should take, talking to people until 9.  

This one's for mom.  Sooooo jealous.

So we did and down the street I felt like we should go in our small route we met someone named Nicolas and did the  questionnaire on the family we usually do.  It got him taking about his family and so we introduced the temple to him.  After a good discussion Elder Withers was going to speak, and he sort of just waited with a puzzled expression, and then asked Nicolas if he thought it would be good for the world to have a prophet today. Completely changing the subject it was a little odd, but Nicolas didn't care and he thought about it and really decided that ya, he really thought the world needed a prophet today, to help out and give us God's guidance.  I was so happy then.  To share with him that today we do have a prophet, and a glint sparked in his eyes and he was suddenly sincerely interested in what we had to share.  We ended our what had become a lesson with him and scheduled to meet with him again, and as I checked my watch walking away it was exactly 9:00. We're going to meet with him on Saturday and I'm psyched. I know that as a team we can work together to accomplish the Lord's work, and as we each follow good prompting we can go where we need to go and talk to who we need to talk to and ask and share what they need to hear.  I'm so happy to be a part of this work, and to help others find what they're looking for, sometimes when they don't know what they're looking for!  Elder Withers' question helped Nicolas figure that out!!

Have a good week everyone, and I hope all goes well! Que Dieu vous benisse, et je vous aime tous!  (May God bless you and I love you all!)

Sincerement,
Elder Laney

PS:  We had an ami at church!  Met him on the road randomly during the week, he thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses and was sad we weren't, but when we shared a little bit we gave him a card, and then he called later to go to church with us!  He even confirmed later (what we usually do) in Saturday about it.  So many miracles are happening it's so cool.

PPS:  And dejuener, the word for lunch in French, literally means break fast! Or more like unfast, since jeuner means "to fast" but pretty funny nevertheless. So cool, just realized that this week. Breakfast is "little unfast"  btw, "petite dejuener".

Am now a completely competent cook.  And no, that isn't Rice-a-Roni!

Week #3 Transfer #2 - Tarbes, France

"Ca va" means how are you. Now you know some French. Your welcome :)

Another week down, and I now like French milk! I hated it when I got here, but now it's so good and I drink it all the time. And it lasts forever, you can keep it in a cupboard for like a month, some crazy way they treat it before sale.

Me and Elder Withers

It's cool how things are starting to increase again, were making progress. This week we started with an exchange with our zone leaders in Toulouse, fun and this random guy we talked with on the street took me and elder Hansen out for McDonald's! Got some ice cream, so awesome. And McDonald's is nice here too, not like back at home. 8$ minimum for a meal pretty much lol. Anyways we had a good exchange and a district meeting the next day with was cool and uplifting. Had some pretty tranquil (pretty much means chill, but pretty much means the same as the word tranquil in English)  days and then Saturday where we had 6 rendezvous! We were speed walking all over town. And only 1 fell through so that's pretty good! We had some really cool lessons with less active members and made 2 new Amis afterwards since we scheduled another rendezvous with each of the investigators we met with, so they are now officially Amis! Sunday evening was perhaps my favorite evening this week. We decided beforehand the night before to have a "miracle hour" in between all our studies that day where we would "suit up" literally in our suits and got contacting. 6 is a good time for talking to people and our suits we thought would give us a more professional look. And It totally worked! We had 6 conversations in that small hour and 2 of them were really quality, and another we actually ended up teaching pretty much a whole lesson on temples. We met a lot of super cool people and gave them all cards, and even though we didn't find anyone who wanted to have any lessons it was a great experience taking with all of them, I learned a lot, and it made my day and week. I really leaned how to better talk in French about families and such, and how to better direct our conversations to have them really think about their families and the importance of. It's so cool how people get really thinking about their families and e joy you see in then as they do so and as they remember all the good and happiness their families have and continue to bring them.

French countryside outside Lyon

As my allez-vous to you this week, think of one person in your life who has helped you and been an example to you, someone who has helped you to become the person you are today and/or to get where you've arrived. When you think of that person, go tell them or call them to tell them thank you if you can or write down a sentence or two of what you would like to tell them if you could tell them. Families are the best and can be forever, and I'm so lucky to be in mine, and to have you all who are all who mean so much to me.

Passez une bonne semaine! Que Dieu vous benisse tous. (Have a good week. May God bless you all)

Avec amour,
Elder Laney

Week #2 Transfer #2

Hey everybody!

Another one gone, another one gone,... and Another week bites the dust.

Haha this week was good!  Elder Withers and I are getting a lot more in sync and it's so cool to see how we can do the Lord's work.  The last four days were awesome though, I saw miracles every one of those days and it was so cool!  We had a zone training this week which was fun, got to see Elder Zhu and the rest of the elders I know here and it was really fun.  We did an activity where some missionaries were blindfolded and had to go through a maze I set up with our zone leader, and they were guided by their companions yelling to them directions (these were part of trio missionaries) while the rest of the zone yelled and gave them wrong directions so they had to listen and recognize their companion's voices.  Super funny and the construction workers there checked in the room because they thought something was wrong, they must think we're insane lol! :) Anyway, it was an object lesson of how the Spirit is so hard to hear but how if we listen carefully we can be guided where we need to go.

Toulouse Zone - awesome missionaries!

Tarbes is going well, not an eventful week physically but spiritually it was awesome. We do a lot of contacting, but it's good and the members are great and our ami is so cool.  We met a new ami this week while out checking an ancient ami, who turned us down.  After passing an old potential and leaving a note in case he's interested we decided to check the house across the street where my old companion/trainer Elder Ambursley had said a military guy who used to take lessons lived.  Turns out no military guy lives there at all, but we met this nice lady after we asked her if there was a guy there or if she knew the missionaries.  Anyway, she was super nice and we talked about the temple and the Book of Mormon and she was super interested.  She asked how much the book was and we told her it was free, and then she asked to give her a lesson right there and when we told her we had to have another man present with us according to the mission rules (she actually thought it was really good we had those!)  Lol, and she even then ended up asking us to give her lessons after we gave her a Book of Mormon! We scheduled a rdv (rendezvous) and will see her later this week. So cool, always there are miracles every day and God will give you really big awesome miracles when you don't expect it!

Église Sainte Anne à Tarbes 

Anyways, que Dieu vous benisse tous! And have a wonderful week!

Fraternellement,
Elder Laney

Week #1 Transfer #2

First transfer is over! I am now a seasoned missionary and no longer one of the youngest b/c we received a ton of new elders. I'm also not the shortest because I've found at least 3 shorter than me! In general therefore I am very happy.

Blues Conference Group - missionaries who have been out for six weeks.

Haha, anyways we had a great week. Elder Ambursley left of to bear Swiss for his last transfer, and though it was sad to see my dad go (my first trainer is called my dad) it's cool to meet another companion and begin work with my polisher (2nd trainer).  My new companion came, Elder Withers, who is super cool and an awesome guy.  We get along really well and I'm excited to be here with him!  

My new companion, Elder Withers

The beginning of the week was slow with just tons of street contacting and like no success but it was cool as it went on because I got to show him around town and I actually know my way around!  It's cool.  We got to go to blues conference ibis Thursday though Saturday which is a conference after our first six weeks for all the new missionaries.  So I got to see my MTC companion, Elder Kelsey, and all the others I knew which was really cool, and spend a day with them in Lyon and learn a lot from our mission president.

MTC Reunion of Elders Laney & Kelsey (and some random photobombing missionary)

Lol me and Elder Withers has our first lesson together on the train to Lyon which was really cool, and we got to share our testimony and teach an older lady who was interested even though she kept letting us know she didn't want to change religions lol, but she wants to meet with missionaries at her town anyways!

Elders Laney, Withers, Carlson and Smith

Later when we came back Elder Withers got to meet everyone at church and over those days in Lyon and Sunday we had made a ton of calls and talked to a ton of people and we have a good week set up with 2 lessons tonight! It's cool to learn how to start actually scheduling with people haha I was kind of forced to since Elder Withers doesn't know a lot of people yet, but it's super cool and I'm excited for the week!  Anyways, I hope you all have a good week!  I was reading in D&C 88:112 which states we need to share knowledge we gain.  So I would allez-vous you all (allez vous, which means "will you", is a cool thing we made that we keep track of that means you committed someone to go and do something that will help them come closer to Christ)  to this week when you discover something really cool you can share, go and share that knowledge with someone and help them with what helped you.  

Allez-vous partager quelque chose cool avec quelq'un cette
semaine? (Will you share something cool with someone this week?)

Love you all, bonne semaine et a bientot!