,: France - Week 1 (St. Brieuc)

Hi everyone! Sorry, I know it's been a while since the last post! I've kinda gotten off track these past couple of weeks, but no worries, everything should be back to normal now! :)

I decided instead of making one super long post with all the recent things going on, I'll just make a couple separate ones...so here is the first letter we received from Elder Davis after his first week in France. He flew out of Utah on Tuesday, February 19th, and arrived in France on Wednesday, February 20th. He wrote this letter on his first P-day (Monday), February 25th.

2/25/13

Hello everyone!

I am writing you all today from the beautiful city of Saint Brieuc. This email might be kind of weird because I have to write on a French key board and all the letters are in weird places and have French accents and what not. But anyways...I’m doing really well. Saint Brieuc is a fairly large city and we live pretty much in the middle of it. There is a mall next to us and a bunch of other tiny stores. There’s a bunch of little French bakeries everywhere to haha so we love buying French bread. We walk everywhere! I have never walked so much in my life. We have a car but we don’t really use it unless we have appointments several miles away. When we don’t have appointments we spend a lot of our time outside of the city in the tiny French neighborhoods knocking on doors.

My companion is awesome. His name is Miles Adams from Fallon Nevada, he’s 20 years old and he’s 6 foot 4 (so I hate standing next to him). He has been in France for a little under a year and we get along great and he is a big help to me. His MTC companion was Elder Ryan Lavering so I thought that was cool. Elder Lavering is from Snohomish (I think Lake Stevens) and he is serving in Congo right now.

The church building here in Saint Brieuc is pretty big, but the branch (group of people who attend the church) is very small. Yesterday in church there were only about 30 people there. I really love the members of the branch though. Since there aren’t many of us, it is an intimate little group. In church I was able to play the piano in Priesthood meeting since I was the only Priesthood holder who could play. That was a cool experience. In sacrament meeting I was asked to introduce myself and share my testimony. Again, the members are all awesome. They welcomed me into the branch like I was family. Some of them are from England to so it was nice to be able to speak some English with a couple of them. The only bad part is everyone in the branch lives so spread out. Many live an hour away from the building which makes it hard to get them to attend lessons with us.

Alright... so as far as missionary work Saint Brieuc is doing awesome. Just before I got here elder Adams and his old companion baptized a lady named Dayana. She is a solid member and has been at church ever since. One of our investigators named Joelle came to church yesterday and she is awwwwwesome. The members love her, she loves the members and she wants to get baptized... but she knows it’s a big commitment and wants to make sure she is 100 percent ready to commit. I know the church has already blessed her life and I know she recognizes that. The only problem is she is going out of town for a couple weeks on Wednesday; we just hope and pray that when she returns we can pick up where we left off! She’s so awesome. We are also teaching 2 African families. One just moved to Saint Brieuc from Belgium. Benjamin and his family are solid and want to come to church every week. Jean-Pierre and his family are solid too, but his wife isn’t as excited about meeting with us as her husband. Anyways, we love them and their families and just hope and pray that they will be able to come to church and continue meeting with us. Their families are so awesome. We have a bunch of other investigators... some a little better than others, but we are working as hard as possible to find people and teach them.

Last night was the first time I went trackting in France. You could say it was an eye opening experience. Not a single person talked to us for more than 45 seconds. What’s sad is they don’t know what they are saying no to. As a missionary, I feel like I am trying to (figuratively) shove diamonds into people’s hands. Yet they refuse to accept it. If people knew the blessings and strength and peace that come from the message we are trying so desperately to share, I think they would be a little more receptive. But it’s ok; there are tons of people here to teach.

Oh I forgot to tell you about my first couple days in France. I was exhausted for the first couple days (I’ve never really experienced jet lag until now). We landed in Paris, then right off the plane we went to the city of Paris and started talking to people about the gospel. It was an extremely humbling experience. Parisians speak so fast. We did that for a little while... didn’t really have any success/ but we did get to go see Notre Dame and that one bridge that is covered in padlocks (if you have never heard of that bridge in France just Google it). Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the Eiffel Tower. I couldn’t even see it from the airplane but I’m sure I’ll see it eventually. Our mission president and his wife are awesome. They have the thickest French accents ever so their English is funny. They took us out to an American restaurant for dinner haha. Then we slept in the mission home that night. The next day is when I (Wednesday) met my trainer elder Adams. Then we took our 4 hour train ride to Saint Brieuc and we’ve been working here ever since.

Sorry this email is so out of order haha. It is hard to write about soooo many things in so little time and on this weird key board. I’ll get used to it though.

I’m so thankful for the chance I have to serve here in Saint Brieuc. I know there are people here waiting for me to find them. The church is true. God is our Heavenly Father and he knows and loves us individually. I am a witness of Jesus Christ and I know that he lived and died for us. Death is not the end. We can live with God and with our families after this life because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it testifies of Christ. If you are an active member of the Church are invite you to find someone you can share the gospel with. Recommend them to the missionaries serving in your areas. If you are not an active member of the Church I invite you to go back to church, read the book of Mormon, pray to you Heavenly Father. He loves you and wants to bless you. If you are not a member of the church at all, I invite you to talk to some missionaries. Young men and women like me who am eager to share something with you that will change your life.

I love you all. Please pray for the people here in saint Brieuc

Talk to you next week!

Elder Davis

Elder Davis' mission actually has a Facebook page called "France Paris Mission Poznaski" and is updated regularly with all sorts of info and pictures of the missionaries serving in that mission. Here are some pictures from that page that were posted of Gavin and his group that he flew in with.

#1. All the French missionaries after just arriving in France!

#2 All the French missionaries at the mission home

#3. Elder Davis in the mission home

#4. Elder Davis meeting his companion Elder Adams for the first time

#5. Sorry this is sideways...I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it!! Anyways, this is Elder Davis with his mission president and his wife. President Poznaski and his wife sent an email to our family right after Gavin got there, which was really neat. He also included this picture.

More Pictures that Elder Davis sent...