January 27, 2014

NEW COMPANION BROTHERS AND SISTERS, and yes, i know the important question you were about to ask, he is CANADIAN, and he is a STRAIGHT UP BOSS. ill stop using allcaps now... um yes, Elder Ethan Ruttan, from victoria BC, hes pretty cool, and like dang tall. like 6'4". so crap that right! anyhow, hes pretty sick, we laugh alot, and so far weve been having a ball, so whateves right, going to be another sick transfer in the promised land of Melun!

okay, so cool things that happened, ill start with today, we went to paris, and saw the arche de triomphe, its huge and covered in naked ladies, so be careful to avert your eyes folks. we also walked down this huge sopping strip caled Champs Elysees or something, and cause its soldes, (sales) everything is on for like 40-70 percent off. i saw a Zara suit jacket from 120€ to 40€. it was hard not to buy everything. but not really cause i dont have any money. i did however buy a socktie and a dress shirt, cause it was Zara and 20€, how could i not. sorry family. whateves, um yeah! so that was today!

yesterday Miguel finally came to church again, freak yes. thats cool! we taught a bunch of lessons and talked to a lot of muslims. we are trying to get a kuran handed to us by a muslim like to kep, and also a jehovas witness bible, cause they would be cool to read! we are working ofcourse, but thats like a little side goal. life is going good, i cant even remember any of our other lessons, because they are all so miraculous and full of gospel joy, yall gotta study the scriptures more, i dont care how mmuch you are already studying, its not enough. sorry to break it to ya!

i dont really have a spiritual thought, but like, think about this for a while, god loves you, no matter what, but its alot cooler f you give him a reason to love you, so like help somebody out with their groceries, hold the door, pray for people, be nice, smile, turn the other cheek ;)

i love each and every one of your delicous souls, <3

Elder Oviatt

pictures...

a swan, there is only like 7000 of them in melun!

l'arc de triomphe & companion selfie as usual

thats just a HUGE ZARA, so yeah,

January 20, 2014

sooo this is the begining of a new transfer! elder Gram is leaving me here in Melun, stranded. but its okay, we have alot going on for us here and i think i can figure my way around, so well see!

i cant really remember much of this week, but i do remember that we had some pretty sweet lessons, and we finished the transfer with a bang! this transfer we taught 48 lessons to non members and a handful more to church members. we had 2 baptisms and have three more coming up! we taught some pretty great lessons, Killian and Bryan, the 13 and 11 year old(respectively) are really progressing, they live with their mom and dad, their mom has been part of the church her whole life, they got married when she was 17! her husband is Bertrand, my second baptism, and yeah so he just got baptised and has the goal for being sealed with his family in the temple so he can be with them forever, its really cool to see how much he has learned and his faith in christ and the gospel, the parents are amazing for helping their kids, i wish every investigator we teach could have parents that are members. those kids are eager and excited for baptism, we just have to teach them the lessons and then thats it! our other investigator who has a baptism date is miguel, and he is really struggling. its going to be hard to get him back into progression, but he knows what he should do, he just has alot of distractions. we had a pretty amazing lesson last night with a guy named Jean-Paul, his wife just got baptised in the summer, and she wants very much for him to be baptised, we went into the lesson without much of a plan because its been since before i got to melun since we have had a chat with him. so i met him, we planned on seeing how much of the lesson he remembered from months earlier, and to really act on the spirit for a guide. i thought the lesson went very well and we really got to him i think. i think i felt some of the pure love of god. that sounds silly, but i think i saw what god sees in Jean-Paul, ive felt love for investigators before, but this was like this random man ive never met, and i just felt so much respect and love for him, i really want to help him come to the gospel, not for statistics or for the sake of having another person baptised, (not that thats usually what i want, but still) i just want him to recieve those blessings that i know the church can bring him. it was cool because i prayed to feel more love for my investigators, have charity and really want to be there for them on a whole new level, and i felt it. i probably sound really creepy talking about a strange black man, but im talking about all the investigators now, i really got an insight into how much god loves us, it was very cool and he really wants us to follow the commandments and stuff, not for his benefit, but for ours, because he loves us all so so sooo very much! i cant even begin to describe it, cause i dont know...

on a less spiritual note, i have alot of pictures for this eek, of me at cool places! so yeah!

and back to spiritual stuff

spiritual thought for today comes from moses! thank the heavens for that guy!

so a background on how i fell upon this. elder gram gave me the idea to read the entire missionary library in 2014, so that consists of: old and new testaments, book of mormon, d&c, pearl of great price, jesus the christ, our search for happiness, true to the faith, and our heritage. for a total of 3704 pages. so yeah, i started in the old testament!

so exodus chapter 4, god had just given the commandment to moses and given him instruction and such,

10 ¶And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of ^aspeech, and of a ^bslow tongue.11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who ^amaketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy ^amouth, and ^bteachthee what thou shalt ^csay.

i really liked this because moses, appareantly he has speech problmems, being called to be a prophet, has doubts. i would probably have doubts too! but moses explains his concern, like god doesnt already know moses has talking problems, but god is just like "i made your mouth, i know your problems, now trust me, cause i called you to this work, i will provide a way for you to get r done." i dont know, think about that for a bit, :) take it how you may, but god calls all of us to do things, sometimes it seems too hard, but He knows, so trust him! 

Elder "Wisdom" Oviatt out.

(picture description;1i just like this angle of that tower thing, 2 and 3, me and elder gram taking stupid selfies at notre dame and at that tower place)

January 13, 2014

legit though, we are so blessed and we dont know why, i mean obvs we are trying out hardest and obeying he rules and stuff, but we feel overly belssed. so pray for remembrance for all the sweet oppertunities we are having!

okay this week we got alot done! we visited a bunch of people and taught a bunch of lessons! one of my favourites was with this couple, mid fifites, maurice and odile, i wasnt there when elder gram first contacted them, but they just sang and prayed with them, wished them a merry christmas and stuff, but we just made it back to see them and they were so touched by us! so maurice stopped smoking, and they both started praying and they said since we left they have just been so happy and more energetic and stuff! so we went and taught the book of mormon and gave them a background and stuff, they said they would read it and they asked us to come back before we even brought it up. so sweet! then we taught this lady christelle and she has been reading and praying and she was also found shortly before christmas, right now we have 19 investigators, and almost of them were found by christmas contacting(singing a christmas hymn and praying with them) we also taught this couple who are early 30s, and they have been taught by the missionaries in the neighboring area and we are going to start teaching them now cause they are in our area. they both want to be baptised, they just need to find jobs so they can get married so they can get baptised, then theres always miguel, who we fixed a baptismal date with, febuary 1st, and we also fixed a baptismal date with Killian and Bryan, Bertrands two kids, and thats for february 8th, and man, theres just so much good work going on here, im pumped, im more pumped just by writing this email and thinking about all the mad blessings we are getting! i love it. i. love. it. keep praying for me cause im seeing the benifits of all your prayers! i love you all so much, have a wonderful week and ill talk to ya next week! 

<3 hugz n' kissez

Eldah Ohviahtt (thats how all the africans say it)(no thats not racist, there are alot of african immigrants here)(there is an african investigtor my friend is teaching in luxemburg whos name is niggas. thats pretty close to racism.)

SPIRITCHAL THOUGHT:
10 I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

just dwell on that for a bit.

Now forgive everybody, cause its not your job to decide if they deserve it or not.

also, please pray for our investigators too, :)

picture explanation:

first, the ugliest car eevr created. me and elder gram call it the platypus. its disgusting.

second, a little chapels stained glass, so sick.

and third, a sweet bit of trees we found cause i had to pee.

December 9,2013

A church from my window. I thought it was sweet. 

The same church but foggy

Hello! 

yeah, so this week elder willden was sick. so no work got done, thats not even an exageration, so yeah, killer. so yeah, transfer calls came today and we are getting a third companion, trio life! itll be... interesting!

but on the plus side i read over one hundred pages of the book of mormon, so thats been good! from jacob all the way to alma, im somewhere in the begining of alma, so yeah! the book of mormon actually is epic. ive read it q few times, but never like sped through it, so this is different! a new take on it. its solid. ummm so this week i watched every video we have, some of them in english and french, and we didnt leave the apartment once for over 48 hours straight! so that nearly drove me crazy. but its been good, lots of learning and self reflecting, so todays spiritual thought is pretty good. its on pride, by my man Ezra Benson. here it is,

"most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on top, such as the rich and learned, looking down on the rest of us. there is, however, a far more common ailment among us- and that is pride from the bottom looking up. it is manifested in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting,withholding grattitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous;" Ezra Taft Benson

i dont know, i really liked that one, its an interesting perspective, and he also says in that talk that the book of mormon is just a warning, a warning of pride, for pride is the destruction of all nations. or something along those lines. so yeah, be humble, pray for humbling experiences, i tried it, it works. haha... yeah,

well i love all of you, <3 be smart 'n stuff. 

Keep Thuggin'

Elder K-Dawg Oviatt

Our Christmas tree

January 6, 2014

Tokay. bear yourselves. this week was siiiick.

so on tuesday we only had to work till 6 cause of newyears, then we went to this sweet families house, the lopez', they are so much fun we just hung out, but one guy there only speaks english and spanish, his wife only speaks spanish, brother lopez speaks spanish french and a little bit of english, and his wife only speaks spânish and french. so we had the most fun tri-lingual dinner and we were all just havin a good time! then on the first we had the day off so we decided to go into paris and see the sights and whatnot! so we took the train with the sister missionaries that are in the same boundary, then we spit up and me and elder gram went to notre dam and the eiffle tower, but i forgot my camera, so i borrowed one of the sisters', but now i dont have the pictures, theyll come eevntually! (speaking of pictures i have the baptism picture of bertrand) 

this week we have been on fire. we only worked 4 days because i had legality work to do so that took a whole day. but yes, none the less, we got 8 new investigators and had 11 lessons. not tryinbg to sound prideful, but dang we are good. so the reason weve had so many is because we were christmas contacting so like caroling and praying with people, then setting up return appointments but most of them said come back and sing in the new year, so wi did and were seeing huge success from it.

my favourite moment was saturday, we were doing some pasbacks, going to go sing and spread joy and whatnot, and we had finished, we were walking back to the train station and it just started pouring! both our umbrellas broke a while ago and we never bought new ones, after 3 minutes we were soaked, but i have been having a good week, and particularily good day, so i decided not to let the rain get me down, so westarted singing singin in the rain and i was dancing and just singing all my favourite songs, just havin a blast, we went puddle jumping and splashed eachother and we were so soaked! we had such a good time that our train came before we were at the station so we sprinted and barely caught the train, we had so much fun. we were so drenched, jumping in the puddles didnt even change how wet we were.

we have just been packed for time. meetings all over the place. its so much fun, honestly! and last night our ward mission leader called us and told us to come over(he works at a patisserie shop) so we did and yesterday was the night for gallettes des rois, its where they celebrate the day the kings brought presents to jesus, so he made us a little cake thing and theres a little porcelain figurine in it and whoever gets the figurine in their piece is the king, i totes won :) oh man we have been working our tails off but weve also had so much fun this week! i love it!

be smart and stuff, i didnt come up with a spiritual thought so tough luck. i still love you though!

à bientôt!

Elder Puddle-jumpa Oviattay

oh and i saw and pet a wild hedgehog. no big deal.