Monday, May 5, 2014

May 5, 2014

week 3, came and left, the transfer is half over and that is literally frightening. but whateves, another good week! weve had a sick week to say the least. flippin so cool! because my comp is the district leader and the zone leaders are in our district, we get to go on exchanges with both of them, which is boss, and on my exchange with elder meisner we taught like 8 lessons or something like that.. it was cool and im pretty sure i made myself look like a boss in front of the ZL! dope.
this week we decided to start teaching lessons right in the road at the first contact, cause usually our attempt is like "hey we have a sick message about Jesus, did you know you can live forever with your family?" then they say "not interested" then they leave. BUT we changed it to "HEY. you know how much god loves you? the answer is SO much. in fact he loves you and the rest of the world, his children, so much that he gives us direction through a modern prophet. you know Moses and Noah and all those other bearded dudes" "yeah" "what did they do even?" "helped the people talk to god? i dont know" yeah exactly! they were leaders, or guides you could say! and they spoke to god and then told the people what god wanted them to hear...." etc.. yeah! people are alot more interested. and even since doing that we suck at it, but of the like 5 times we actually did it we got lessons and 4 of those 5 times we got new investigators.
our district trainer/my comp prepared a sick training about being someones hero, and how you dont have to be stronger or braver than anybody else, you just have to be braver for 5 minutes longer. so every night we called the district and asked them what they did to be a hero that day and it was sweet! tons of boldness and just working outside of the box, it was sweet! :) for instance, we were teaching this lady and she wasnt too interested, but we decided to teach the lesson in the street to reel her in ya know? then as she started getting interested her bus came so she like booked it through the street! i was NOT about to let this new investigator sneak off so i pretty much jumped over 3 cars and did a triple flip over a moped to give her a card with our phone number on it. it was intense. she hasnt called yet, but still, it was potentially heroic! we also made a lady cry during a street contact. in a good way, shes super depressed and elder christiansen said his dad has been depressed since he was 13 and that the only thing that really helped him was our message of the gospel, and she was like okay im interested. then we prayed with her and she literally vocally sobbed during my prayer. it was LEGIT.
we have a new member from sierra lyon(spelling?) named esther, she is a refugee staying in an appartment owned by france for refugees. in her apartment she has a friend named esther from nigeria, (yes 2 esthers, its ridiculous) but they both only speak english, so we translate all day sunday. its killer. plus they both have a son under 3. it is so ridiculous. every monday we have family home evening at the church with the single adults, and we were trying to decide who we should invite, and we had the idea to invite the esthers, but we decided to hold their own family home evening at their place so we dont have to translate everything and so they dont have to ride the bus with the kids. its just easier! so when we went to their house to suggest the idea they had another friend who wants to have the discussions! so dope! i love african people! but so at church, because it was fast and testimony meeting i told them that if they wanted to bear their testimonies i would translate for them, and esther(the member) totally got up and bore her testimony! that was sweet! i just stood beside her and translated it, and she talkied about how greatful she is for the church and for the missionaries cause she doesnt have a family and we told her we would do family home evening with her, and she started crying and i was translating and i teared up, it was just really cool to see how much little ideas and promptings we follow can really affect people. i was not expecting her to be that greatful! but it was sweet! i dont know, today was such a good week :)
i love you all and i wish you the best, dont forget about me, be safe and remember whats really important in life! (the answer is Gospel)
Your favourite Missionary in the France Paris Mission;
Kaden Butter-Smooth Oviatt

Thursday, May 1, 2014

April 28, 2014

Hey!!

Happy Warm Week! At least, I don't know what the temperature was like up there, but it was nice over here! This was a good week!! We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! Only my 3rd exchange this transfer. Wouldn't be a huge deal, execpt I have 2 more to do still. =P We had a super cool experiance with a less active member yesterday. Brother St.-Pierre called us up. We have visited Brother St.-Pierre consistently since I have been here, he has been less active for many a year. Often when we were driving to his place on the way to or from Ottawa, I had the thought, "Why are we even going to see him? He is never going to come to church, he doesn't have a car, his health is very poor, and he has no desire to come even!" So, Sunday during Sacrament meeting we get a call from him and we step out to take the call. Turns out he got admitted into the hospital and is being put on Dialysis. He needed some 'spiritual recharging' as he put it. So we drove down adn bought one of the members with us, and Brother St.-Pierre told us that he wants to comeback to church. He wanted to know if someone would be able to drive him and he would help pay the cost of the trip. And, the Member we brought is the only member from down in his neck of the woods that regularly comes to church, so he said he would be able to take him to church! Ah, it was a great meeting, and Brother St.-Pierre looked much better after we left. We're going back down Wednesday to see him, and We're going to start the lessons. I guess that was why we kept going to see him! That was the only phone call we received from him in 9 months, even though every time we left his place we told him to call us. And trust me, that one phone call in 9 months was totally worth the wait... Oh... What else... We had a branch talent show. I played teh Ukulele. Not very well, but that is OK. it was an extra performance in the show, and besides, the best part of the night was the pie auction, not the talent show. So much pie. =) OH! Today we were going to a members house, to play games. But, the members invited a member who is our age-ish and her Fiance to play games too. And were having a deep-Fry night. So basically were going to spend our MOnday playing games and getting mega fat. We bought the desert to deep fry (Read: 21 dollars of chocolate and candies from the dollarstore). And speaking of getting fat, Everyone has started inviting us over for dinner because I'm leaving soon. We will probably not eat supper alone for the next 2 weeks. I think in the next 7 days we have 8 meals with members. I don't like to think about leaving, but that being said, I should have told all of my areas that I was leaving to go home in 2 transfers so that we could have gotten fed way more! =P P.S. I got accepted into the U of L. So, I'm excited. P.S. We had almost 90 people at church yesterday! It was insane! There were more pople than there were parking spots! There were people parked on the side of the road! It was legit! Man, I love being a missionary!

Elder Oviatt 

April 28, 2014

so this week has been fantasticular and dreamalicious. first off, we had Week 2 district meeting, which just so happens to be a zone meeting too. so we got to meet the zone! unfortunatley the zone conference was in rouen; 4 hours of trains. no way. we had to get up at 4:30 to catch the train. then the last train back was at 5, so we literally burned a whole day. that sucked! but the day was good, lots of bonding and jokes with the district cause we all had to ride the second train from caen (the rest of the district is in caen) to rouen. so that was fun stuff! while we were waiting to catch the train back we went for dinner, 4 elders and 2 sisters, and we hit up this little Kebab shop(kebab is not like shish kebab. its like veal compacted into a massive barrel shape and they shave meat off it into a bun. we had a shop that sells donairs in sherwood park, donair=kebab) but yeah so when we finished eating we looked outside and it was dumping buckets of rain. it was SO glorious. walking less than a block to the train station and i was soaked all the way through my suit and shirt. dripping wet. it was so good! love rain like that!
then on wednesday we had the jehovah's witness-mormon showdown. it sounds a lot cooler that in is, cause we didnt actually see them, we just went to an investigators house, anne-marie, and it had tj (témoin jéhovah) magazines all over and at the end she asked us about jesus being the only one whos allowed to have the melchizedek priesthood and she gave us a piece of tj proselyte and it had like 5 scriptures on it and she told us to prove ourselves right and how she just stumbled upon the question... lies! but its fine cause she actually had alot of good questions so at the next lesson we answered all her other questions first and asked if she had any others and she said no! so obvs this whole priesthood thing wasnt actually bothering her, J-Dubbs were just trying to fight us through her. dirty TJs. dirty dirty TJs. and that night we had pizza at another investigators house, his name is Nizar, hes so legit. so so so legit. he was born muslim but ditched that theory and told us hes seeking the truth. weve been teaching him alot and he agrees with pretty much everything, he jsut needs a testimony about joseph smith. but hes searching with real intent and hes going to find it!
church yesterday was dang sweet too. we have one investigator and a new member that dont speak french. they live together and are refugees, both named esther and both have a son between 1 and 3. so we are translating every class. Man its Exhausting! and even when im not translating im just worried that someone will say something to scare the other investigators off... man church as a missionary is stressful! but this week was good, we had 4 amis at church and the people giving talks addressed the amis by name. so sweet! anne marie told me during sacrament meeting that she is loving church more and more. at the beginning of the week i was really scared about her but i think she secretly knows deep down she wants to become a member.
well, this is one of the better emails ive sent in a while! hope you all enjoyed it! :P 

1 theres a circus in town, as usual... and they had the creeeeeepiest clown.
2 this is our cute little town of cherbourg!

weeeeeellll, adios amigos,
Kaden tastyface oviatt