France - Week 9 (St. Brieuc)

4/22/13

 

Hello Everyone!

So this week Elder Adams and I went to Rennes for a zone conference which was awesome. President Poznanski and his wife gave us all some great council. We also got to sit down one on one with both President and Sister Poznanski for interviews so that was great too. They gave me some really good advice in the interviews and they both told me my French was really good so that was nice for the ego!

After zone conference I stayed in Rennes for the day with Elder Lerdahl for my exchange with him. This was my second exchange with elder Lerdahl; and he is as legit as ever! He's one of our zone leaders and I always get pumped when I serve with him. We worked hard together in Rennes (which is a big French college town) and did lots of finding and taught a good lesson.

Church was pretty intense yesterday. There were only 20 people there in total so that was kind of discouraging. Elder Adams and I taught priesthood for the first hour, then we taught our investigator who was at church for the second hour with a member, then we gave talks in church for the third hour. Basically we were teaching in each of the 3 hour blocks yesterday and on top of that we needed to translate and I had to play the piano. It was really good though, I'm thankful for all the chances we had to serve yesterday.

That was the first legit talk I've given in French. I think it went pretty well. I talked for about 20 minutes about Faith and got to share some cool stories and scriptures from the Book or Mormon and Bible. Everyone look up Moroni 7:33, that's a super good verse on faith. After my talk Elder Adams gave a 20 minute talk on prayer. While he was giving his talk I had to translate. Since half of the members in the Branch are from England and don't speak French, either Elder Adams or I have to sit in the back of the congregation and translate the message into a microphone. Translating is super mentally exhausting, but it's great practice for the French

Overall we didn't have a ton of success this week as far as numbers go, but we definitely worked our hardest at the things we can control. I guess that's all we can do. Please keep the French people in your prayers.

Oh I heard about the explosion in Boston. Elder Adams and I got stopped by a bunch of people on the streets of Saint Brieuc who wanted to talk about the attack with some Americans. I'm so sad to hear about that and the people who were killed and injured. It's sad to think that a couple of young men my age would do something like that. Definitely keep all the families involved in that in your prayers too. Any news in America spreads through France like wildfire.

Shout out to Elder Austin Long for getting his mission call to Iowa, I'm super excited for him!

Talk to you all next week!

Elder Davis

P.S. Sorry no pictures again this week, I am super bad at taking pictures. I'll try to do better this week!

France - Week 8 (St. Brieuc)

4/15/13

Hello Everyone!

Like always we kept very busy this week! We focused on doing a lot of finding this week because we really need to find some new people to teach. To do this we've been going through our area book (an area book is basically a record of all the teaching that has been done in Saint Brieuc in the past) looking for people who used to talk to the missionaries that were in Saint Brieuc before us. This along with knocking on doors and talking to people on the street kept us busy. Unfortunately not a whole lot of success, but that’s ok. I know there are people out there looking for me just as hard and diligently as I'm looking for them.

We had a miracle this Sunday! So on Saturday we went to Loudeac (a small city about an hour away from Saint Brieuc) to teach Jean Pierre who is an amazing African man who knows the bible like the back of his hand. We had a great talk with him and the spirit was strong during our discussion. He has so much faith in Jesus Christ so it was really inspiring. At the end of the lesson we invited him to come to church the next day. He said he would love to come but can't afford the gas to travel to Saint Brieuc and back. He told us if we could find him a ride he would come. Later that night we called Brother Sautron who also lives in Loudeac and he said he would be able to give Jean Pierre a ride. We called Jean Pierre a couple times that night to tell him we found him a ride, but both times he didn't answer his phone. Elder Adams and I were super disappointed because this most likely meant he wouldn't be coming to church. On Sunday morning the next day around 8:10 am (50 minutes before church starts) I had a really strong feeling to call John Pierre again. I kept telling myself that it was too late because Brother Sautron most likely already left to make the hour drive to church. I tried to ignore the feeling to call Jean Pierre, but I knew I had to call him. I'm still not super comfortable talking on the phone in French, but I finally couldn't resist the feeling anymore and called Jean Pierre. Amazingly, he answered the phone and said he was ready to be picked up! I immediately called Brother Sautron and thankfully he was running late so he still hadn't left Loudeac yet and could still pick him up. To me that was a miracle because if it wasn't for the promptings of the spirit I probably would have talked myself out of calling him.

Even cooler than Jean Pierre coming to church (in a legit suit might I add), was the awesome fast and testimony meeting we had. Testimony meeting is when people of the congregation can get up and share their testimony with everyone. All of the members were giving awesome testimonies and the spirit was super strong. After I got up and shared my testimony I came back to sit with Jean Pierre in the congregation and after I had sat down he got up and started walking toward the pulpit. This was the first time he has ever been to church and he got up and shared his testimony. It was a LEGIT testimony too. He went up there with his Book or Mormon and testified that he knew that both the Bible and Book of Mormon are true. He shared a scripture in the Book of Mormon that particularly touched him when he was reading the night before. He ended by saying he knew the book was true because of the spirit he could feel  in his life.

Man that was an awesome experience! All the heartaches of missionary work, all the knocking on doors, all the rejection is worth it for those sweet little spiritual moments. BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE! Jean Pierre is also married and has 4 young kids. He says he wants his family to start talking to the missionaries and coming to church so they "can be touched and feel the peace and happiness of the spirit" like he has. They are such a legit family.

That’s just one of the cool experiences I had this week. I'm looking for more awesome experiences this week! Thank you all for your letters and prayers. If I haven't heard from you yet, write me a letter! Have a good week everyone.

Love,

Elder Davis

Pictures!

1. How we watched conference; it was just the 2 of us for a couple sessions on Sunday. We had investigators and members at other sessions though

 

2. Elder Adams and I walking on an average cloudy, cold day. You can see how skinny the roads are, how pretty much every building has that brick look to it and that huge church/cathedral right in front of us which are all over France.

 

3. Kebab

 

4. Me and Elder Wallace right after our exchange. He is from Azuza CA.

 

France - Week 7 (St. Brieuc)

Okay, here's Elder Davis's letter from 3 weeks ago!! I know, sorry it's so late, things have been pretty crazy. Anyways, I'll try and keep things posted on time from now on :) -Bre

4/8/13

Hello Family and Friends,

Man, it feels like I wrote home just yesterday... this week has gone by really fast! Well, as I said last week, Elder Adams and I played ping pong last p-day. I'll admit, before we started playing I didn't think he was going to be much of a challenge... But boy was I humbled! Elder Adams has some skills on the ping pong table! He beat me pretty bad a couple times, but its ok, we're going to play again today after we finish writing emails so this time he's going down.

We got some more snow this week which is weird. It didn't really stick, but it was super cold and snowed for several hours. Of course this all happened on the day that we were outside doing service for a family that just moved into the area. Even in the snow, finding time to serve others is always great. Teaching the gospel really isn't the only thing we do as missionaries. We are representatives of Jesus Christ and try our best to serve others as He would.

Of course General Conference was amazing! General Conference is like Christmas for a missionary. We watched the Saturday morning session live at 6 pm our time. Before Conference started on Saturday, Eder Adams and I felt like we should get to the church early to set up. We got there at 4:30 which we originally thought was way too early. However, when we got there, we were surprised to see that none of the power in the church was working. In the past, we've had lots of trouble with the electricity in our old building, but normally the power only goes out in sections of the building. This time, everything was 100 percent dead. This was obviously bad news because no power means no conference and we were supposed to have 2 investigators come watch it with us. For the next hour, we did what we could to play around with the circuit breakers and what not, but nothing we did was working. We called members of the ward but nobody knew how to get the electricity back on and nobody was able to come over and help us. Unfortunately, Elder Adams and I don't know a whole lot about electricity and what not, so the situation wasn't looking too good. It was almost 5:30 (half hour before conference) and one of our investigators was supposed to show up at any time. (I'll explain why she came early later). Again, at that time, things weren't looking to good. We really didn't want to call our investigators and cancel, but at the same time we didn't want them to show up for nothing if we couldn't get the power back on. Personally, I said a prayer and just simply said "Father in Heaven, Elder Adams and I don't know how to fix this problem, but we are doing the best we can to turn the electricity back on so we can give Thy children a chance to hear the words of Thy Prophet. Please help us find a way to fix this." I know Elder Adams was praying too. After praying, we decided to go back to a circuit breaker thing outside. We had already flipped all of the switches on this particular unit several times before, but we felt like we should try again. Once again we flipped the switches... and nothing happened. We were really discouraged and Elder Adams was about to call our investigators and cancel. However, we decided to try the same thing one more time. This time the power turned on! I don't know why it took several attempts at doing the same thing to get the power back on. I really don't understand what happened at an electrical level, but I do know that it was a miracle and that this was an answer to prayer. God knows and can do all things. Sometimes in life we don't know what to do, or how to do it, but I know that everything is in God's hands.

We got the power on right before Joelle showed up at 5:30 pm. She came a half hour early because she was going to follow us to the house of another one of our investigators. Claude Franchard is blind and obviously can't drive, but he said he wanted to watch conference with us. It is against mission rules for us to drive anyone else in our car. None of the members in our branch were able to pick up Mr. Franchard for us so we asked Joelle if she would follow us to his house and pick him up and take him to the church. Joelle, being the most amazing investigator who has ever investigated the church, was able to follow us and pick him up. It was just me, Elder Adams, and our 2 investigators who showed up to watch conference at the church, but it was an amazing experience. Really the whole day was full of miracles. Elder Adams and I, as well as our amazing investigators learned so much and felt the spirit.

We watched the Saturday morning session again (this time in English) at 8 am Sunday (for personal and companionship study) then we watched priesthood session at 11, then we watched Saturday afternoon at 2, then we watched the Sunday morning session live at 6. Overall, 8 hours of conference that day! Elder Adams and I just finished watching the Sunday afternoon session this morning at 8 for personal and companionship study.

Even though we mostly watched conference in French with investigators, the spirit is the same and I was able to understand most of it. I am so grateful for a modern day prophet and living apostles. They are inspired men and really receive revelation from God for us just as prophets and apostles have done in biblical times. Study their words, but more importantly, put them into practice! I am thankful for my opportunity to be a missionary. Being a missionary is such a blessing. My experience on Saturday was just a tiny example of the many miracles and blessings I have seen during my short time as a missionary.

Enjoy the week everyone!

Love,

Elder Davis

 

France - Week 6 (St. Brieuc)

4/1/13

Hello everyone!

Today is the first day of my second transfer. We found out late last week that both Elder Adams and I will be staying in Saint Brieuc for another transfer (another 6 weeks)! We're pretty excited that we get to keep working together in this awesome city. Last week was the busiest week we've had so far. We taught a ton of lessons and found some new people to teach so we are really excited for the next couple weeks. We had the car this past week and should have it for all of next week too which is great; we are always more productive with it.

On Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Nielsen from Pennsylvania. He's a great missionary serving in Rennes who also happens to be one of our zone leaders. I spent Wednesday and some of Thursday with him in Rennes. One of the lessons we taught was inside the College in Rennes so that was interesting. The lesson went really well and now I can say I've been inside a French College haha! Exchanges are awesome because it gives you an opportunity to learn from other missionaries other than your regular companion. I learned a lot from Elder Nielsen including how to make crepes (essential for every French missionary to know apparently) so that was a lot of fun.

Oh funny story, Elder Adams got a speeding ticket this week! Apparently he was going about 10 km/hr over the limit. It was funny because there was a cop on the side walk in a roundabout and when he saw us he yelled at us to pull over. I think a cop may have caught our speed with a radar gun on a different road and then used the radio or something to tell the other guy to pull us over. Anyways, that was an interesting experience. It took the officer about 20 minutes to figure out all of our American licensing and what not so he could actually write the ticket. What's really crazy is somehow our investigator Joelle found out we got a ticket. During our next lesson with her she asked if she could "see" the ticket. As soon as we gave it to her she put it in her purse and insisted that she was going to pay it! She actually paid it too! Of course we paid her back, but that was crazy. Elder Adams and I had no idea where to go or how to pay the fine so she really helped us out. She is the nicest lady anyone could ever meet.

Needless to say Sunday was awesome! We had an awesome Easter and something that made it even better is that we had 3 investigators at church (Joelle, Ikbal and her son Ianiss) and they loved it! They all have so much faith and desire to do what is right. Lots of our investigators are really progressing; keep praying for them!

So next week is General Conference. For those of you who don't know who general conference is, it’s basically a worldwide meeting where living Prophets and Apostles speak to us. I'd invite everyone to watch it and invite their friends! Easter Sunday and General Conference back to back, what more could a missionary ask for. Because of the time change between France and Utah I'm not 100 percent sure how it's all going to work. Elder Adams and I spend a lot of time after church yesterday setting up a big TV and getting internet and everything hooked up to it. We will probably end up watching conference as a branch in the church on that TV. Conference will be translated in French of course so we are going to try to get as many of our investigators there as possible. I know it will change their lives!

I think I already told you, but we went golfing with brother Banks last Monday. It was a lot of fun even though I stink at golf! In the words of elder Adams (who was a super good golfer in high school) "you hit a golf ball with a baseball swing". I guess I'll take that as a compliment. I'll send some pictures of golfing. Elder Adams and I also found a ping pong table here in the church so that's what we are going to do after we finish emails. Elder Adams claims that he's pretty good, so it sounds like we are going to have an intense ping pong match this afternoon.

Again, I hope you all had a great Easter and were able to really reflect on the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the reason Easter is such a special day. It's sad how many people don't understand or appreciate its significance. We are just working our hardest here and are already seeing the fruits of our labors. I literally see miracles (big and small) each and every week. The Lord really has His had in each of our lives; sometimes we just don't recognize it.

Have a good week everyone.

Je t'aime,

Elder Davis

 

Pictures! :)

 

#1 Early in the morning doing personal study. Normally you study in a suit, but this was on p-day before golfing so we got to wear street clothes

 

#2 Everytime I finished my golf swing my foot was in this position like I had just finished hitting a baseball haha. Good for baseball, bad for golf.

 

#3 A little moped and a one person car. Common modes of transportation here in France. That car is small enough to be lifted by one person.

 

#4 A huge old church we drove past while driving from Vannes back to saint Brieuc

 

#5 A building by the golf course. I just took this picture because I think it shows what an average building looks like here in France. 95 percent of windows have that brick design here.

 

#6 Me with brother banks after golfing

 

#7 Brother Banks and Elder Adams after golfing