Bonjour a tous!
Je suis vraiment heureux ici dans la ville de Montpelier ce Noël.
This week was amazing! We were not in our ville (city) very much this week with our big trip but I will start at the beginning of the week!
On Tuesday we did service for a family that just inherited a house. It was fully wallpapered……… so we were spent the day steaming and scrapping wallpaper for 4 hours along with the other elders! It was actually really fun and it felt great to do something for the family. They are a young family and they don’t have too much this Christmas season, so we all gained a lot of joy from that experience and I know they appreciated it 🙂
After the service I went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders here in Montpellier which was very fun! We were able to do some contacting and we visited with 1 member and 2 less active members. We shared a christmas message with them. It was really nice and I could really feel the Christmas spirit in the air.
Something that is really cool here, is how the spirit of Christmas really brings out the best in people. People are a lot more open to talking about Christ, which is a really awesome opportunity for us to be able to talk to them and introduce the gospel!
I have been able to touch so many peoples lives here and I have learned that even just a simple warm smile can change a day or even a week for someone.
For my studies, I have been able to read a lot more in French which has really helped my grammar and vocabulary 🙂 I love this language and these people here in France! I am improving my french quite a bit and becoming confident in talking to people alone! Now on busses my companion and I split up and talk to people and it is super cool! It shocks many of them that I have only been learning the language intensely for a total of 12 weeks! That is so crazy! (12 weeks….) I now understand lessons at church and at meetings for the missionaries, so all of this is very cool here!
For Christmas we are allowed to watch a Disney movie! Since my companion has never seen Frozen (it came out when he was on his mission) we decided that on Christmas that would be our Movie. Of course it will be in French where its title is “La Reine des Neiges”. We are excited to watch it with the family this year.
Wednesday, we had French class in the morning with our ami who is a French teacher. It went really well and I learned so much! After the Sisters left, it was just my equip and I and we were just practicing French in conversations. However, it was obvious that our instructor was trying to ask us about the mission and church and it was really cool. We ended up talking about the gospel for nearly an hour after class. Then afterward, we went and got Kebabs!
Then on Wednesday night WE WENT CAROLING! It was so fun! We went to the big square in town where all the Christmas Villages and other stuff is set up and we sang hymns in both French and English and it was truly amazing! The Spirit was so strong and we had soooooo many people stop and watch and some even joined with us, all together it was an amazing experience!
Thursday we took a train to Bordeaux and went to a HFC, which is a ghetto knock_off KFC 🙂 🙂 It was sooo good, all of the missionaries here talk about it all the time, so it was really cool to go.
Friday was the big day!!!!
We all went to one of the chapel’s in Bordeaux. It was with half of the mission. Everyone got aprons with the mission logo and we all signed one anothers. Then we put everything away and started reading our scriptures while we waited……… then came walking in with President………….. David Archuleta! It was so cool! The other guests were awesome too! There was women who is named Kendra, who is a pianist that works with David and the Vice President of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was also there which was really cool and then David’s Manager. We all go to go shake their hands and talk to them for a couple of seconds and then take a picture of them afterward. (Sadly we didn’t have enough time to take pictures with them)
Then he started by singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful and it was amazing! He is so good at singing, It was incredible… I have never heard a better singer, live, in my life. Then he sang a song called Glorious from the new movie Meet the Mormons and it was amazing! It also used to be my favorite EFY song.
After he sang a bit we heard from Sister Roney. She gave a beautiful talk about Christmas and how we can invite the world to learn about Christmas and what saying Merry Christmas really means;
Then David sang more! He sang We Three Kings and it was the most beautiful rendition I have ever heard. Then we were able to hear from President Roney and he gave one of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard. It was about the 2 most important things in life which he learned from his Mother on her deathbed, The Savior and Love. It was a beautiful talk and I am so thankful for our mission president who is truly a great man of God.
Finally to close, David Archuleta bore his Testimony, it was amazing and powerful. He is just a normal guy and he made the decision to serve a mission. His mission was not easy, however, he learned so much. His big message was about weakness and how the closer we are to Christ the more we see our weaknesses and become humbled so that we may cause those weaknesses to become strengths. He ended in the most amazing way! Because he did 2 conferences in France (one in Lyon and one in Bordeaux) he wanted to learn a French Christmas song and he sane “Il est Né” and it was so amazing! In the past 3 weeks it has become one of my favorites and it was really cool to have him sing it for us,
That night we all got our Christmas presents that were sent to the office and the President gave us all new mission CDs and a Mission Cookbook and a warm Scarf! It has the Lyon symbol and the temple and the angel Moroni. It is really cool!
Then we hopped a train to Toulouse and stayed the night there because we had zone training the next day. Our Zone conference was really great on Saturday! Afterward we got on a train rushed to the Christmas concert here in Montpellier. We really had a great night filled with the Christmas spirit!
I love you all!
Je vous Aime!
Joyeux Noel!
Elder Peterson
Elder Aaron Peterson 