Week 33 - May 18 - Nantes

Bon semaine 

(Good Week)

This week went by super fast, we taught a lot of lessons and set a baptismal date with a giant african named Sika. We have been booked every day all day this week. We ended up most of the days not even eating lunch because of the appointments we had. It is super nice to have a companion that likes to work hard and have fun at the same time. Nantes is sooo sweet. 

Monday: Today we played some football with the other Elders in the apartment. The missionaries in the apartment love sports like me. Later that day we taught a Nigerian named Immacuel. He didn't agree with a lot of the stuff we said and said that he wouldn't leave his church because he has a huge calling in it. But he did say he would pray about it, and if God tells him it is true then he will be baptized in our church. 

Tuesday: Today we went to district meeting and then taught our most solid investigator Sika. We read the brochure that we gave him and told him to read and when we asked him to read the introduction of the Book of Mormon he laughed in our face and told us he will read the whole thing by the next appointment! haha we will see about that. He doesn't even know how to pray, but he has so much faith. After that we stopped by a members house to say Hi and get to know them better. It went well. My companion and I decided to stop by each members house and just share a spiritual thought with them and get to know them better. It has been working really well. 

Wednesday: Today we taught Laure (the recent convert) about prayer. She had her exams for school the following week so we told her to pray and ask God to help her do well on her tests. She is almost done reading the Book of Mormon and is giving a talk in church next week. After that, I went on exchange with Elder Young in the apartment and we taught one of their less actives named Koffie. Koffie is a crazy african dude that loves weed. He has a super solid testimony, but he just can't get away from the Ganja. We decided to talk about work in the temple and we set the goal for him to go there and get his endowments. He was super pumped.

Thursday: Today we went with a member to do his home teaching with him. We taught a couple families about standing up for their beliefs and how to react to someone who tries to tear down your faith. 

Friday: Today we went to the church to help a kid in the ward do his mission papers. We helped him out a little bit by telling him how much the mission changed our lives and how important it is for him to go on a mission. His parents don't support him, he can barely pay for his schooling, and his girlfriend is slowin' him down. We are going to meet with him weekly to help him prepare for the mish. 

Saturday: Today we went and did service for a member David. (the canadian who is getting divorced) he  is putting grass in his backyard, so we dug up all of the weeds and raked everything out all nice. Next week we will put down the grass. We shared with him a Mormon message called "the refiners fire" and he cried. He has a tough life. I have had it pretty good these past 19 years.

Sunday: Today we had 7 appointments set up today and all of them frooged us except for 2 of them. We were riding all over Nantes to get to the appointments on time and they didn't show up. 

Love all you guys! 

Love, Jax

 ​Got to play some ping pong with the youth for Saturday sports!

 ​Baptism with Laure 2 weeks ago.

 ​On a famous bridge in Nantes.

 ​Waiting for one of our investigators in the park.

Elevator fun with Elder Mcbride.

 
The street of Chantier Nevals.

Week 32 - May 11 - Nantes

 Nantes France!!

Fam,

This week was a good one! 

For P-day we played baseball with the mitt's that I picked up from the last apartment, went shopping a little bit and then taught this dude called Rugé. The lesson went really well. I am super pumped to have a comp that loves to teach. 

 

Tuesday: Today we went to district meeting and then taught a guy that we found named Dieu or translated into english God. He ls a huge African ex UFC fighter and came to France to find a job where he didn't have to fight to get money because he said he had a lot of problems with his head from it. We taught him the Restoration, and he believes everything that we said. We set a date for him to be baptised next month.

 

Wednesday: Today we met a guy named bonheur at a train stop, and he told us that for work he hands out flyers and said that his boss is going to be looking around to see if they are working so we just walked around with him and talked with him while he was handing out flyers. He brought us over to this butchers shop and we talked to all of his African buddies with him and ended up moving the appointment to another time because his boss kept telling him to get to work. After that we went over to a members house to eat and we showed them the Mormon message about the two boys putting the silver dollars in the farmers shoe and they loved it. We talked about charity and told them to get some friends for us to teach!

 

Thursday: Today we went to the funeral of the Nantes stake patriarch and it was a super spiritual experience. His kids that went up and talked about how good of a guy he was and how spiritual he was. During one of the talks, his wife that was sitting front row passed out and I thought she was dead. But after like 20 minutes she woke up and they took her to the hospital.  After that we taught a less active named Evers and then taught Dieu again. He has a hard time understanding what we say because I think he has had way to many hits to the head from boxing, so we are going to have to teach the same lessons at least 3 times.. After that we went to visit a less active member named Pedro who is blind. We taught him and his son that helps him get around everywhere about faith and hope. He loved it. He gets super Evangilic on us when we talk about Jesus. Super cool guy.

 

Friday: Today we taught a dude from Nigeria named Immacuel. He speaks English really well and is a pretty smart dude. He understood everything we told him, and is super interested. After that we went to do service for a member named David. He is from Canada and moved here and got married, but his wife now hates him and wants to leave him because he got into pornography. He packs meat for his job and he hates his life. We gave him a blessing and hung out with him and he said he feels a lot better now. He gave us a lot of good advice for life after the mish and is super grateful for us helping him out. 

 

Saturday: Today I skyped the fam and it was super nice to see everyone. I can't believe I have already skyped the fam twice on my mission! It is going by super fast. After we skyped, we went to the stake conference here in Nantes and it was super boring. The speakers were strait up awful.. ha

 

Sunday: Today we finished up conference and the morning session was pretty good. Our mission president spoke and his wife also. After the conference we taught a guy named Kevin. He came to conference and brought notes and had a ton of questions. He is probably the smartest African that I have ever taught. After that we taught this brotha named Sika and he wants to be baptised. He couldn't explain to us what exactly we taught him, but he wants to be baptised! haha 

4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

love, Elder Carson

Week 31 - May 4 - Nantes (New Area)

Nantes!

Monday: Today we went out to play basketball for the last time in Evry and then went to the last family home evening. One of the members in the ward made a cake for Elder Jacobson and I because we were leaving, it was super nice. I am gonna miss Evry and all the members.

Tuesday: Today I went to visit this old lady in the ward because she asked me Sunday to come over and say goodbye and we ended up staying there for like an hour. After that Jean Louis picked us up from the church to go eat lunch with him at a McDonald's. He payed for our meals and gave me his hat and his favorite french movie. I hope someday he will be able to be baptised. After that we headed over to see our recent converts Allan and Judith. We talked about temples and their patriarchal blessing that they just got and then gave Judith a blessing because she was going to go into surgery for something to do with her stomach the next day. Super solid couple.

Wednesday: Today I headed over to Paris to meet my new comp Elder McBride. He is a super cool guy from Canada and is only one transfer ahead of me. We headed over to Nantes which was about a 4 hour train ride and went strait to a lesson with his investigator who was getting baptised the next Saturday and it went really well. She is a super cool french girl that already read the Book of Mormon and has a solid testimony of the church. Then I met the other missionaries and their names are Elder Lucas and Elder Young.

Thursday: Today we found this super solid Nigerian named Imacutel and taught him the restoration in English. After that we taught three other people for the first time: Amir, Pedro, and Evers. 

After that we went to a less active members house and showed him a Mormon message.

I am gonna skip some days because p-day is over...

Saturday and Sunday: Saturday was the baptism of the french girl Laure and it was super sweet. I got to meet a lot of the members there. Sunday went really well too. I got to meet all the members and teach a blind less active.

love you guys and miss you!

love, Elder Carson

(This is his private email to me, his mom)

My new area is super sick. There is a ton of people and it is what I pictured France to be like. Tons of little shops, castles and giant cathedrals.

My comp is super sweet too. He is from Canada, speaks french really well, and wants to work with members.

Being in a new ward is super nice because the ward before didn't appreciate me as much because they always thought I didn't know what I was doing because I came here when I was a new missionary in training, but now with the new ward I made a super good impression with the members. It is super nice to have a comp that is cool and can talk with members.

His french is pretty good.

Jean-Louis was pretty sad. He took us out to lunch to get a burger the last day and gave me one of his hats and his favorite old science fiction movies in french. Super cool mish souvenirs. 

My new companion, Elder McBride!

Week 30 - April 28 (Tuesday) - Evry

Last week in Evry!

Bonjour mes fréres et seours!  

(Hello my Brother's and Sister's)
 

This week was super good.

Monday was my birthday so the other missionaries in the apartment took me to go get a kebab. After that we went and played basketball and soccer with the elders from Melun. Pretty good birthday, and super lucky that it landed right on a P-day!

This week we taught Charly a lot. He has been progressing super well. He always asks us if he can go contacting and teach lessons with us. He is only 24 years old so he could easily be able to serve a mission next year. We set up a family home evening with the bishop and Charly also and it went super well. Seeing Charly progress as good as he is makes me feel like I am doing a good job out here. 

This Saturday I found out where I am going to be transferred. I am going to serve in a place called Nantes in the west of France. The missionaries that I talked to about it said that they loved it, so I am pretty pumped. 

I also met my new comp at the mission conference that we had on the 27th. His name is Elder McBride from Canada. He seems like a pretty cool dude.

Mom I forgot my camera again so I won't be able to send pictures until next week!! (Boo)

love all you guys! 

Love, Elder Carson

Week 29 - JAXON'S BIRTHDAY, April 20 - Evry

Second to Last week in Evry!

Monday: Today we had the Elder's from Melun come and play the Evry elders in soccer. Before the mission I didn't like soccer at all, but it's kind of growin' on me. The FHE was pretty good also. A less active member that we found showed up and he was hittin' it off with the members.

Tuesday: Today we taught Charly the restoration again and taught him about the priesthood because he received the priesthood last Sunday. I was pretty surprised how fast people can get the priesthood after the baptism. But he is doing really well and is still reading everything but the Book of Mormon. he told us that he started another book Preach my Gospel right after he finished True To The Faith! ha

Wednesday: Today we talked to a Muslim dude in the park about the restoration. He didn't try to bash us at all either which was super weird.. He said he was interested to hear more and we set up an appointment for the next day. First time setting up an appointment with a Muslim dude on my mission!

Thursday: Today we went less active finding in a place called Le Ferté Allais and the 3 less actives we were trying to find were so far away from each other so we had to walk like an hour to each one. We found all three of the houses, but they weren't there.

After that we couldn't make any appointments so we just contacted the rest of the night.

Friday: Today we set an appointment with a referral from one of the members in Antony, but he didn't show up...

After that we taught Jean-Louis. It went well but he said he hasn't stopped drinking coffee yet. He said it is too hard for him... I am kind of getting frustrated with him because he thinks the only thing we can do about the coffee addiction is pray. He is from an evangelic background so he thinks that praying really loud all day every day will make the addiction go away, so he will just pray and then do the same sin over and over again.

I went pretty hard on him about repentance, but at the end he said again, "pray for me, that is all we can do..". Super frustrating

Saturday: Today we got frooged 3 times. (Frooged is a word that the mission uses to mean that the guy didn't show up)

But we ended up being able to do some service for a less active member. He is building a fence for his chickens, so we helped him clean out the part in the backyard where he was going to put the fence in, and started putting up the fence. I will take a picture of it next week and show it to you guys, it looks pretty good already.

Sunday: Today I had to give a talk in church. I decided to tell the story that Gordan B. Hinckley shared a while back when the two kids put the 2 silver dollars in the farmers boots and talked about charity along with the story. It went really well. I was preparing it every day this week an hour a day during language study and it payed off. I am probably gonna keep it for every other ward here that I have to give a talk in. ha

Thanks everyone for all of the birthday letters! I love you guys and miss you!

love, Elder Carson

Week 28 - April 13 - Evry

Une semain en Evry

(A Week in Evry)

 

Monday: Today we played some basketball and then went to FHE and learned about the proofs of the Book of Mormon. A member that came made us all a ton of crepes while we were listening to a member teach. Pretty good day.

Tuesday: Today we taught Charly in the park and it went pretty well. He is almost finished with the book "True to the Faith" and said that he cried a couple of times when he read it. I don't know how he even got the book but it was super random. It's good that he is reading stuff like that, but I want him to read the Book of Mormon! He will be a super solid member.

Wednesday: Today we found out that our most golden investigator moved. Since conference we have been trying to get a hold of him so we finally went to his house and one of his buddies answered the door and told us he moved out! We were both super down. Hopefully we can get a hold of him again.

Thursday: Today 3 of our investigators didn't show up to our appointments so we had to go contacting and porting for a strait 5 hours until Hubert at 6:30. in the lesson with Hubert, we taught him the word of wisdom and he said that he is not going to give up coffee because it helps him sleep. Super confusing.

Friday: Today we had zone conference and they announced that we will all be receiving Ipads on the 28th of April! Super pumped. Ipads are gonna be so nice for missionary work.

Saturday: Today I went on an exchange with Elder Rivas. He is a super cool dude from Belgium who speaks french and barely any English so I got to speak to him the whole exchange in French. During the exchange we taught a 9 year old girl. Her dad isn't a member but her mom is, so that is why we were able to teach her. She was really excited to be baptised and it was a cool experience for me as well.

Sunday: Sunday we only had Jean-Louis who came to church, but it was good because he told us that he had stopped drinking coffee and wine and feels super good now. 

After church I went on split's with Elder Jacobson because they had two appointment's set for the same time and we taught his investigator Willie. It went pretty well.

Love all you guys!

love, Jax

 The District Missionaries

 Jaxon on split's with the other Missionaries!

Week 27 - April 6 - Evry

le semain du conference general

 

This week has been pretty sweet other than the fact that my comp is sick with the flu. I have had to sit in the apartment studying a couple of the days and went on splits with the other missionaries so I could go work, but the days I was in the apartment were probably the longest days of my life. I read for probably 8 hours in the two days that I had to stay inside. My brain was dead.

This week we finally got a baptismal date for our golden investigator Nilson for the 9th of May. He is progressing really well.  We haven't met with our newly baptised investigator Charly this week because he keeps saying that he is busy. But it kind of scares me because he doesn't even have a job so I wonder if he is just rubbin' us off.. We'll see what happen's next week.

Jean-Louis is still my favorite dude here in France, but he is regressing since we last met with him at his house and found the alcohol and coffee.. We haven't had the chance to teach him this week either..

Our other progressing investigator Hubert is not doing very well either..haha,  he still just looks at us when he prays and doesn't start with god or heavenly father and ends with just "amen" with the same two phrases in between."help us get on the right path" and "keep us going strong so we can obtain eternal glory" every single time.. We teach him the right way to pray every time and give him simple examples but he won't change! haha I don't know what to do..

We also met this old less active lady from Wyoming named Betty while trying to get to a member's house and she just came from shopping, so we helped her with her bags and went to her house and she fed us some food and we shared part of the 121st section of the doctrine and covenants. She was super grateful that we came to help her. We invited her to come to general conference and told her that we would be there every Saturday to help her with her groceries. It was a miracle.

Conference this week was so sweet. I have never been into conference this much in my whole life. Conference was literally all day in France because they show all the sessions except for the Sunday morning session in one day. It was so sweet. Our investigator's showed up including Betty and they all loved it except for our 24 year old recent convert Charly.  He stayed for one session, fell asleep in it, and then left. Super frustrating.

They set up a TV in another room so the missionaries could watch it in English, so it made me like the member's a little more.

I am super grateful to have a living prophet and apostles who are ordained of God and sent to help us in this dispensation.

Love all you guys! I will send the picture I forgot last week from the baptism.

love, Elder Carson

Our brotha's Alan (on the right) and Charly. Don't worry Alan really had a great time.