So I have been having a hard time finding time to blog...I think I will just post some picture of Jarom and parts of his letters. Hope you enjoy them even though they might seem kind of random. It was SO fun to talk with him last week!! He is doing so good, loves the work and still thinks the French are stubborn and sometimes lazy!!! hahahaha! They closed down all the stores one week just because and he was unable to find a computer anywhere, that was when he said they were lazy. I didn't like not hearing from him one week, so I'm not going to disagree! As of March 8 Jarom has been gone for 8 months. Sure hope they start going by faster where he is concerned but not with the rest of my kids...is that possible?
oh guess what!? yep i got transfered to another ville! yeah thats why i didnt write you yesterday, i was on a train all day long. yep so now i'm in a new ville called... Gap. Kayla's gonna be so excited, its like the closest place to italy in my mission i think. almost to torino. and guess what... its surrounded by mountains!! oh yeah!! haha its right next to the alps and stuff i'm pretty excited. the only thing that kinda stinks is that its a tiny ville. yeah i would hate to be in a huge city but missionary work is a little easier there haha i'm back to contacting all day long yay! haha but yeah i'm pretty excited.
So now my new companion's name is Elder Winslow. he seems like a really cool guy, not the crazy hard worker that elder dorton is but he's still super cool. he opened this area and has been in gap for 2 transfers. but yeah so Gap is like three hours from the nearest missionaries. we're so far away from everybody haha. but hey its a pretty cool place. we're surrounded by mountains. oh yeah.
So yeah its been one heck of a weekend but i'm excited to meat a lot of new people. the branch here is 8 strong members so we're gonna multiply that haha. oh yeah this mission thing is pretty crazy. i'm pretty excited to see how this transfer goes. oh and by the way we have the best apartment in the mission. its a fact. an old couple used to live there so yeah its pretty much heaven for missionaries. HUGE and very new. even has a balcony. anyways life's pretty good right now haha i'm in a tiny town clear away from everyone. oh yeah just like fillmore haha.
Alright enough of that stuff. so my week here, we have gone 2 weeks and found one person who would actually agree to meet with us. things are a little different out here. after 2 weeks of doing nothing but contacting people on the road, we found one person. geez no wonder there's only 8 members here and almost all of them are over 65 years old haha. not much to work with but hey, its better than nothing. i liked what the counselor to pres. carter (like an high counsel member for a branch cuz this branch is not a part of a stake) he said that we can see in this tiny branch of Gap that the quality of the members is so much more important than the quantity. and its so true! you'd be hard pressed to find members as strong as these anywhere in america. yeah not even utah. its true but with french members its either 100 percent or 0 percent. thats not always good but when they're 100 percent its so awesome!!
Anyways, so yeah we have been teaching some people here, a jewish girl and a muslim guy who's trying to convert us. then a dude who looks homeless and another dude who said that when people say that the church is true, they're being prideful. and yeah lets just say they're really not golden haha. the jewish girl came to church yesterday! and she was like walking around during everything, going out for a smoke break, and then bore her "testimony" in sacrament haha. that was interesting. the branch loved her but ya know... well, missionary work is so much different than every other thing in the world haha. like my instructor in the mtc said, we're called to be awkward. you wouldn't think it but yeah just about everything we do is awkward haha funny stuff.
So yeah its actually super hot here in gap and we've been going out in short sleeved t shirts. thats bad. i am so not looking forward to summer. i'm gonna die. my pants dont fit anymore though! haha thats pretty sweet i think. losin too much weight or somethin.
Anyways, so yeah we have been teaching some people here, a jewish girl and a muslim guy who's trying to convert us. then a dude who looks homeless and another dude who said that when people say that the church is true, they're being prideful. and yeah lets just say they're really not golden haha. the jewish girl came to church yesterday! and she was like walking around during everything, going out for a smoke break, and then bore her "testimony" in sacrament haha. that was interesting. the branch loved her but ya know... well, missionary work is so much different than every other thing in the world haha. like my instructor in the mtc said, we're called to be awkward. you wouldn't think it but yeah just about everything we do is awkward haha funny stuff.
So yeah its actually super hot here in gap and we've been going out in short sleeved t shirts. thats bad. i am so not looking forward to summer. i'm gonna die. my pants dont fit anymore though! haha thats pretty sweet i think. losin too much weight or somethin.
Yep there's really not a lot of stuff happenin here, its all the same, contact everyone, get lots of "not interested"s and stuff. people are pretty closed hearted here but most of the time they just dont hear a word we say just start screaming no no no!!! haha its funny. our lessons are always a gamble, it only takes one bad lesson to lose an investigator. thats never fun. but i'm learning a lot.
I hope everything is going great there at home. i'm having a blast with my comp and loving missionary work! and we just had church at the hotel for the last time!!! the new place is done with construction! its like pretty much an apartment but holy crap! i'm so so excited!!!! haha and so is the ward! its amazing what just having a chapel can do to raise the spirits of members. and missionaries for that matter. its going to be so so much easier for
everything now cuz the church is in centerville. or downtown. so so awesome!
This sunday was the first sunday that the members of Gap have every had a building of their own to meet in! it was soo cool! we cleaned it earlier this week and this sunday was the first sunday at the new church and it was testimony meeting so it was a super exciting sunday. the members are soo happy to have a building of their own to meet in. it means so much. then we had three investigators there at church which was even more exciting for them. thats the most ever in like the history of Gap! this branch will grow for sure! it was a very cool sunday.
Ok so about the work :) this week, a kid from the north of France who was born in gap and whose parents still live here, introduced us to his parents. we went over to his house and taught the parents, the dad is italian and the mom is french. both not too religious but also really sceptic about us. everyone thinks we're a cult here so people are always scared to talk to us. anyways, we had a dang good lesson and towards the end after all the testimonies and stuff, the parents accepted to read the book of Mormon and pray about it! it was pretty sweet, they totally feel better about us now. i'm so glad it went well, they've come to church twice now and the mom seems pretty interested. pretty cool huh? then we ate with them right after the lesson and they fed us a pretty good dish of like rice and curry chicken or somethin with veggies but then the italian dad pulled out a bunch of sheep cheese from Sicily! haha we totally had to try it. gross haha but better than french cheese. its just super strong and tasts like rotten milk. yum huh? haha i told him about kayla and how she served in italy. it was overall a pretty cool meeting. they seem way cool.
Well, I hope you enjoy reading bits and pieces of some of Jarom's letters. We sure do!!!
