Week #1 Transfer #3, Albi France

I've been in Albi for a week already!

River View of Cathedral of St Cecile

I'll begin this week's email with an awesome experience with our investigator who will be called Anastasia for confidentiality reasons :) we met with her earlier this week, I met Anastasia for the first time and we had a good lesson, and the spirit was there.  After I thought about her problem, which is smoking, besides that she's ready to be baptized and wants to.  So Elder Omohundro and Elder Robards and I thought this week of her and came up with some key phrases we wanted to share with her in our next lesson.  These were bold statements and helpful advice, scriptures and other inspired guides.  So we had Amis class on Sunday, and she was our only ami to show up.  We had the class with her and Sister Bernardi, and some other members, and right before Sister Bernardi had us change the lesson to faith in Jesus Christ instead of what we had prepared to share with Anastasia.

Houses along the River Tarn

So we went with it and followed the book to start. As the lesson went on we addressed her problem directly with our inspired thoughts from the previous week which fit perfectly into the lesson.  We expressed how faith in Jesus Christ is all we need, and with this He can help us overcome all things in our path.  The members and especially Sister Bernardi were key and helped relate these to Anastasia, and at one point Elder Omohundro just shared what he had felt during the week, a quote in French "soyez diligent et faites-le" - or:  "be disciplined and do it."  So pretty much to be diligent and do what's right.  Afterwards I had had a prompting throughout the lesson to ask her to give up smoking there with everyone, but had discounted it.  Thinking I decided to follow this, and with that decision acted in faith and so I directed the question of how we can all decide to change, and approach God, and asked them if they would all commit.  I then looked at each person, and Souer Bernardi started with how she could, and then when I got to Anastasia she said in French "well isn't it evident? I need to give up smoking" still hesitant, we all spoke and reinforced her and shared  experiences until, prodded by Soeur Bernardi, she told us: "I decide to give up  smoking". Talking to her after, she had found out that she could do it, it was all in her head, and if she decided to wait she could wait.  She had smoked one less that day than usual and had dropped to 2 less by this way the last week.  She had made progress, and she had now committed to follow Christ through his commandments!  I know the Spirit led us in this lesson, and she was given what she needed as we were bold and loving, and after she was happy and optimistic, not at all offended and happy. And I was so happy and felt so much joy.

Albi Street Cafe

This is what the mission is for!  I realize now that I have to follow the direction and inspiration the Lord gives me, the Holy Ghost directs us and we need to follow, it will only help others, and it will all work out even if it's hard because he knows what we need and what they need and we need to trust the Lord.

Elders Laney, Omohundro and Robards in Albi

Albi is awesome, and my favorite part so far is our Amis and our members here, because I'm here for them and they bring me so much joy.  Albi the most beautiful place I've ever been to, it's an old French town and a fairly good size and we have a ton of fun meeting all the people.  I also get to enjoy the beautiful countryside of France as we drive to visit members who live far away.  I love it here and it's so fun, Elder Omohundro and Elder Robards are super funny and fun, and great missionaries. I learn a lot from them and am so happy to serve with them.  

Elder Laney with Cathedral of St. Cecile in background.  This cathedral has the distinction of being is the largest brick building in the world.

Love you all and have an awesome week, may God bless you, and follow the spirit and you will feel greater joy than you ever have, serving others brings so much happiness.  I know as we are diligent and disciplined and do what's right we find so much joy.  That's what I found when I made that decision to follow the spirit. So decide now, that's what I learned :) and I know I'm happier because of it, and that someone was helped

Que Dieu vous benisse tous, je vous aime.

Sincerement,
Elder Laney

Pink umbrellas line one of the main streets in Albi

Week #6 Transfer #2

Bonjour!
I can now announce I am no longer a bleu!!  After 2 transfers your a full grown missionary, and I'm now in transfer 3!  It looks like now that I'm done as a bleu I have finished my service at Tarbes.

Me and Frere Pho from Tarbes. I'll miss him so much! I saw him every Saturday and it was the best!

I received my first real transfer call and am now in Albi with my 2 new companions!  Elder Omohundro and Elder Robards, from Kentucky and Georgia respectively, and our ville Albi is in my same zone as at Tarbes, Toulouse, just the other district!  So I'm right at home, just another ville and another district.  Super cool, both are awesome and super funny and I already know them!  I'm excited to really get to know them and their both really fun.  Below our first picture.  Robards is the tall one and Omohundro is the other.  Omohundro was actually Elder Ambursley's companion in Tarbes right before me!

Elder Omohundro and Elder Robards and ME!

We had a good week in Tarbes. Not a ton of lessons but we did have an activity with 3 less active members where they came to the church and watched the last session of general conference with us that we had missed on Sunday! Super fun and uplifting for us all, great talks and even though it was in French I understood a lot.  I liked the "meditiser" talk, which is the French version of the word the speaker made up: ponderize.  I'm looking forward to memorizing and pondering on some scriptures from now on.

IN A CAR!!!!  No more walking!  (Now all the cheese will catch up with me and I'll get fat!)

So in Tarbes I got to be a counselor for 1 day!  Both families of the counselors to the branch president moved out so they called the missionaries in Tarbes as the counsellors to the branch president this last Sunday.  I moved out the day after haha, but I think it'll be cool for the elders to serve in this capacity, and even more Elder Withers became district leader of that district!   So he'll be having quite some responsibility, haha but he's excited.

Anyways, Albi is really beautiful and I'm excited to be here.  It's so funny because I'm companions with elder Omohundro who I replaced in Tarbes, and I moved from the one ville with probably the most walking in our mission to one of the very few where we actually have a car!

Gonna miss seeing these Tarbes mountains from the train!

 I'm gonna probably start finally gaining weight now. It's cool to still be in the same zone and to see everyone still, minus about half of our zone who all returned with honor, they'll be missed, such awesome guys and I'm happy to have gotten to know them and serve with them. I'm psyched to be here and to be  companions with these two awesome servants of God and even more excited for what the Lord has in store for me and us together here in my first new town.

Passez une Bonne semaine et je vous aimes tous!

Sincerement,
Elder Laney

Week #5 Transfer #2

At last I enter my last week of being a blue!  My 2nd transfer in field is over after this week, and then I'm done with being trained and am a full fledged missionary! Haha nothing changes actually, I'm a missionary right now that just does an extra hour of study each day:) but hey it's cool!  And technically I could get called to go train brand new missionary or someone 1 transfer behind me haha - that just happened to my friend Elder Summers! Congrats Elder, I know you'll do awesome!

Elder Withers and me with a few of the amazing missionaries who will be returning home with honor this week!

This week was awesome.  We had an ami, (an ancient ami/he's been taught every couple years in the past since 2006), and we met him 2 weeks ago.  I remember feeling like he would be good to call, and so we were able to meet him, but the meeting which I had felt uneasy about didn't go anywhere and we walked away feeling defeated, he wasn't accepting and just argued about different points in the bible and said no to reading any of the Book of Mormon to try to find out if this is true, and we left feeling like we couldn't help him.  So I thought about it and it felt like he needed more time.  So we canceled our visit with him the next Saturday, and planned to meet him in 2 weeks.  He said we could send him small scriptures though, so we did, and I prayed the whole next two weeks for him that he would be prepared the next time we met him, and I know he wants to know since he's really trying to search for the truth.  Our rendez vous came and we said a quick prayer before to ask that he would feel the spirit and that we could help him. We had our rendez vous and my prayers were answered, he was way friendlier and everything we shared, the 1st lesson about the Restoration of the true church, he liked a lot, and though skeptical with some things he really agreed with some of the points we made. I felt the spirit with us the whole lesson and we were able to answer a lot of his questions.  At the end I asked him to read The Book of Mormon and he said yes, and it was so cool to see this step we made with him, and as he's not sure on prayer yet it's so cool to see how the Lord works with each of His children little by little to help them with what they need.  I know my prayers were answered, and my one before the lesson, as I felt the spirit strong during our visit and was led in how do teach each principle, and I know he felt that spirit and that he was truly helped.

Camembert cheese - YUM!!  Fancy cheeses are really, really ridiculously inexpensive and delicious here!

This week we also got to watch General Conference!!!!! General Conference is a broadcast by the Church twice a year in which the prophet and many of the 12 apostles and other leaders of the church are able to give messages of love, help and advice on how we can better live in this world today.  It so awesome to listen to the prophet and to the 3 new apostles who were called to take the place of those who recently passed away, who we miss so much.  I know Elder Perry, Elder Scott, and Elder Packer are joyfully in the Lord's work on the other side happy as can be.  The messages that were shared strengthened my testimony of all our apostles and of the reality of our prophet as God's prophet on the Earth today.  I know he is, and I'm so grateful to have the prophet's direction in the church today. I know God leads this church and that He works miracles through His called disciples.  I am so grateful to have the occasion to listen to these great men and women of faith during General Conference and to learn what God would have me learn from their inspired messages. 

Preparing to watch General Conference - snack necessities

Anyway, if you haven't seen Conference yet, I highly recommend it!  It's so cool and I learn so much.  Just go to lds.org and there is information all about it on the home page.  The Saturday Morning session was my favorite and the Sunday Morning session was so good, you can watch our prophet, Thomas S Monson, speak as the first speaker in the Sunday Morning session if you don't have too much time, the newly called apostles also speak right after him too. Awesome messages.

I hope you all have a good week, et que Dieu vous benisse. Ayez fois.

Sincerement,
Elder Laney

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!