October 27, 2014

hemlo,

this week i have nothing to say. 

BUT! we went on two exchanges, the first one in Orléans, and they are having a tough time out there, so the exchange was baller. we went so hard the people didnt know what happened, it was like a tsunami of spiritual forestfire. not really, but you know, it was pretty good! I had the pleasure of going and teaching a sketchy satanic investigator... i dont know what the missionaries there are thinking :P but yeah, so we get into his house and i was like "whoop! there goes the spirit!" it was sketchy, he is super christian and believing, but somehow hes gotten miwed up with wizardry and enchantments and conjuring spirits and stuff. so bad. so that was scary. during the lesson i went to say something and about 3 words in he stopped me and said "if you dont speak slowly and articulate, and get rid of your filthy english accent, im going to hit you. and im not kidding" so i didnt speak. the elder i was on exchanges with is french so he handled the lesson. very sketchy! people had just started telling me my accent is almost gone then bam. hot knife to the confidence.

but yeah there was that, then we went to Bourges, that was pretty cool, they have a deepfrier so we had some fun with that! :P we taught a couple lessons and found some pretty legit people! it was apretty good week.

as for people in Tours, we have Guy, who is so unreal! he told us this week that he believes everything weve taught him, hes just struggling with the "why is this happening to me" aspect of life right now, his wife just left him, hes a paraplegic, and his car died so he has to buy a new one. so yeah, facing alot of opposition right now, but he is an all star and im super excited for him!

my companion has written about 5 very large paragraphs about this week... so either i have a horrible memory, or im just a bad writer. i think its a combo of the two, but you know, thats just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

OH! i ate a "religieuse" which is a patissery, one large cream puff with a smaller creampuff iced to it, whith a dallop of cream on top, super good, normally like 7cm tall, but a "tours religieuse" is different for some reason. its special. and about 3 times bigger.---see photo included--- but yeah, i couldnt eat it all in one sitting. i felt sick... its a tradition for all the missionaries who serve in tours get one, so yay! now im an official tours missionary i guess!

and i started working on my legality papers for my 2nd year, so soon i wont be an illegal alien! YAAAY!

thats about all i got, so peace out, till next week,

your homeboy

Elder K Oviatt

October 20, 2014

so this past week we were SUPER stressed! and by "we" i mean I was, i dont know about smith. But either way we spent the beginging of the week trying to teach lessons and get things going but for some reason nothing was happening, just adding to the stress. then on wednesday and thursday things started picking up a tad but still not the normal rate. and on thursday afternoon we had to go interview somebody for their baptism and the trains were cancelled! we werent sure we could get back in time for our zone conference on friday, but as always, things just worked out!

our zone conference was super fun! we loved it, it was a blast! and we managed to make cookies and tie the cookie making experience into how we can have effective exchanges with other missionaries, president was pretty impressed! and the best part is that during the training cookies were baking so at the end everybody got a hot fresh cookie. it was rad. here are the general comparisons of cookies and living the gospel (during exchanges, not necessarily only during exchanges, but that was opur topic)

Preparation. just like we need to shop and have the ingrediants before hand, we need to pray and study in order to start out right.

Tools. you need a bowl, spoons, measuring cups and stuff to make cookies! you biggest tool when living ght egospel is Faith, one of the first principals of the gospel.

Learning from the recipe. a recipe is pretty much a list of how to get good results, a list that was achieved by other peoples mistakes. we need to learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others in order to  progress. we call this Repentance.

Applying the recipe. once you have a good recipe you have to follow it exactly. we need to follow the rules as perfectly and as exactly as possible.

---at this point you have cookie dough.---

they need to be baked. or, in gospel terms, baptism by fire, and as everybody knows, thats another way of saying the Holy Ghost. He is essential, as is our

Patience, in waiting and enduring to the end of the cookies being baked, we need to continue to be obediant and have the spirit withus.

and yeah, that was our training :P then after ZC we had exchanges and between the 4 of us we taught 10 lessons and found 4 new investigators, which is pretty dang good! so yeah, it all turned out super cool! i never sent pictures of last week, we went to a castle, Amboise. thats the city Leonardo DaVinci lived in, we went to his house too, PREEETTTY cool eh? :)

i love you all, be safe, take care, Bisous<3

Elder Kaden Oviatt

1)i dropped a pickle...

2)Castle Amboise

October 13, 2014

SOOOOOO this set of missionaries here in Tours... typically, Tours is not a "great" zone leader ville, which is stupid. its only as bad as you expect it to be. in other words, people here have tried really hard, and they get a ton of numbers, and all that jazz, the send really really hard workers here! but they didnt always work smart. there is probably 700 potentials in the phone, and we decided to call them all. we got through about 300? about? but we were calling potentials for about 4 hours and we got in contact with a ton of people, a ton of people that were interested but never got a call from the elders! So basically, we are benifitting from everyonesles hard work and teaching the legit people that want and need the gospel. so thats pretty dang cool!

weve been preparing alot for our training we have to give to the zone, and its going to be UNREAL! but we have a ton of work coming up this week. basically, we are teaching people about how to make exchanges with other missionaries super effective, and we are doing the sickest analogy to a good cookie, so were making fresh cookies during our training. errbody is going to love it! :P and president is going to be there with his wife, so extra brownie(or in this case, cookie) points holla! :P

we went to paris to work with the assistants, and we had an unreal time! basically exchanges with the APs are a forecast for 100% chance of rain. the blessing kind of rain.

on a more serious note, we have an investigator named Guy, he is super super cool, he got polio at 1 year old, and since then hes had to walk with crutches. i talked about him a little already, but we taught him again, hes so cool! one night he called us because he liked praying with us and he felt like he really needed a prayer, so he called to pray with us over the phone. it was so cool. this guy has a smile of pure gold, all he really needs right now is a hug and a good friend to get him on his feet... er, crutches... but then hes so prepared for the gospel! i love this work, i love seeing people who want to change, who see the good we have to add to their life and who seek after it. i love the feeling i get when it clicks with somebody. i love this gospel, and i love being a missionary. even with all the opposition.

i just wanted to take this moment to give a good shoutout to my parents, both biological and adoptive. i just realized that i have 4 wonderful mothers who are constantly praying for me, and my dad does the same thing, but i only have one of them. but either way, the love and support i feel from your prayers and letters is wonderful. mom and dad(the real ones) thanks for everything, for keeping me in line growing up! i know i couldnt and wouldnt be here without your examples.

peace and love from your french fellah,

Elder Kaden Oviatt

October 6, 2014

yeah so basically, half a week with Elder smith and its been luxurious! we get along so well, its going as smooth as a buttered up zuchini going down a slip n' slide of half melted icecream! so thats pretty dang smooth! Elder cramer peaced the scene on wednesday, so before that we had a pretty busy "goodbye i love you youve made such a big difference in my life" tour of the members in tours, one of whom made us a burrito fête, it was SO good. on tuesday we had family home evening and that all was cool, the Mehrdads both came and dominated in PingPong, they are champions. its not even fair. i go and play basketball to rebuild my spirits after getting obliterated by the mehrdads pingpong skills. they are so good they will do permanent dammage to your ego. maybe thats healthy! :P

since elder smith has been here its been so cool, we had mission council on friday and that was cool, they had the area doctor there and he talked to us about a bunch of common missionary problems, it was super fun! then we had a bunch of trainings and stuff, it was good stuff! :)

we saw Mehrdad and Mehrdad at the church for a lesson and we gave them each books of mormon, and they had alot of dificulty accepting it. they came up with pretty much every question and reason not to believe in it, and we had pretty rational answers for all of them, but when people look for reasons not to believe it they wont believe it. so it came down to testimony>rationality. which is how it usually works, at the end they both said that it was a very constructive lesson and it was good! i hope they actually read it and pray, cause once they do theyll see why its so important! theyll get it. :)

oh! theres this guy we found named guy, he has polio and his legs dont really work, so he walks with crutches, but his life has pretty much been aweful, but he was way receptive to our message! we have a lesson with him for tonight, so ill let ya know how that goes down!

then thers general conference! it was sweet, except there were no members there for saturday night (your saturday morning session) so we couldnt be in the church alone with the sister misionaries so we called a member and went to there place; that was annoying. then on sunday we got to church and the french priesthood session wasnt online yet, so we got asked to translate. thats the first time translating from english into french and it was SOOO HARD. so the next 2 sessions were nice cause we could just watch them and enjoy conference. :) and it was good! and that pretty much makes the week!

oh! the reason i mentioned talking to the doctor is because we went home and wanted to try some of his crazy tretments, so smith started a footbath thing and i wanted to participate in the personal care party so i put on a face mask. i found a tube of it in the bathroom... its probably been there for like 5 years! but it felt pretty nice :P

AAAAND that makes up the week.

adios amigos

KadenOviatttt.

the facemask was the same color as the wall, so theres my sweet stealth skill right there.

and this is us. -DreamTeam-

September 29, 2014

yes, there it is. transfers are this week, cramer is going to be leaving tours, and Elder Chandler Smith is going to be coming to this wonderful city to be my new companion! Heres a little on elder smitty: he was in my district when i was a 'blue' missionary, and he was only a couple transfers older than me so i felt really close to him! He was a huge support for me when i was all stressed about missionary life and all that jazz, and now were going to be companions! how unreal!? Im super pumped, although im sad that Cramer is leaving. hes been an excellent example for me and he has really taught me what "working like a horse" means... ive never really felt "full" after a transfer, like ive been able to say "yeah, i did my best, i worked my ABSOLUTE hardest" i work hard, but after this transfer ive learned where my potential really was!

this week we had 3 dinner appointments! i talked about them in the voice recording, so just check that out! nad as for everything else... well, weve had a couple miracles, a couple really cool things this week. im SO glad i get to stay in Tours, its a beautiful city and its so prepared for the gospel! im Psyched!

Sad news... i lost my scriptures... </3 i was in the middle of a street contact when i realized, and i literally started to well up. i havent cried on my mission, surprising enough, but last week i was havin a slow start, i was really sad about Gloria Dahl, and a couple other things going on in life, and i was pretty down for a bit, then in the middle of a lady telling us some lame excue for why she doesnt want to talk to us i realized i lost my scriptures. tears slowly filled my eyes and i choked back my tears as the lump formed in my throat, then she talked for 5 minutes (i didnt retain a single word) and she walked away, and i forgot about my scriptures. i forget they are gone until my studies, then i look around and remember they are gone. 1 whole year of marking and notes. over 300 hours of reading out of those bad boys. when i come home i wont have "my mission scriptures" ill only have half... maximum. so thats really sad. I dont even want new ones, we should be getting ipads early next year so ill use those i guess... so sad... so theres your tear-jerker of the day!

but something cool happened to us today! we were at a store called Lidl, and a young man confronted us, and in his broken French "je m'appelle Scott ---- I'm from America." He is a member of the church who has not practiced since his youth, and talked with him for a half hour, his brother just served a mission in Spain and Scott promised him that if he met missionaries in France he will have to talk with them, and voila! so that was pretty cool!

Sister Poznanski, my old mission presidents wife opened a website, its kinda like DearElder.com, but for european missionaries. she puts little general gift packages together and you can add specific items, notes, and pictures to the package, and its pretty cool! the site is tofromus.com shes pretty amazing! :) thats pretty much all i got for this week! Adios Amigos,

Elder Kaden Oviatt

a house thats COVERED in vines,

and we made brownies for an investigators kid, Leo, cause it was his birthday! he was super happy :P

September 22, 2014

hey there people! we ahd a good week! we went to Orleans and Bourges to do exchanges, its so cool to be a ZoneLeader, i remember going on exchanges and jsut thinking "Zone leaders are coming? sick miracles are going to happen!" and its true, but its not cause were good missionaries, its cause you have that attitude, the "im going to get something done" attitude, and that makes the biggest difference in the work. if you believe you can achieve! :P haha my zone leaders call that 'AP swag', the knowledge that you are going to see miracles and blessings, but not being prideful, its the fact that you know stuff is going to happen cause God lets it happen, we have no control! but this is His work, and he wants it to progress, but you have to be humble enough to realize that its all up to him, and if youre doing your best, and you realize that youre still useless in comparison, thats when you see the blessings. ill tell you about one cool little experience: so there was this ladyy who taught at Oxford, french literature, so i was like, 'cool my brother in law aaron does that' and she was like "cool! i know youre mormon, i know what youre about, ive read your book. ive had a ton of mormon students in the past" and seh was super closed, but just by being friendly and sharing her faith and us sharing our faith really opened her up! then she was like "okay well im not changing religions, have a good night!" and i was like "holla-holla-hold-up. were not here to convert you, were here to pray with you, and strengthen your faith in Christ, cause He is central in EVERYTHING we do, would that bother you if we prayed with you?" and she was like "that wouldnt bother me at all. ill get the key(we were behind the gate)" and then we talked for about 25 minutes and it was really cool, her friend from denmark was there too(they were about 70 years old) and it was a good chat. they are quite simply amazing! and then we offered to help her do yard work and she was like "this is the family house, i live in tours" and i was like "me too! we can help you here and in tours" and she was super excited! she took both our number and bourges' number, it was super cool. great experience! ---SeedPlanted---

ive gained a strong testimony about being an example member. there have been so many experiences that i have had recently where people were super impressed by mormons in the past, the way they handle themselves, their beliefs and all that. i wish i hadd been a better example, but you live and learn, right?

we had stake conference this week and we had to get up and transport a piano from the church to the massive conference center, and so we(elder Cramer and I, and the Alençon missionaries, and the Bourges missionaris, they were staying in our apartment for conference) loaded it up in the back of a truck, then we piled in the back and headed over to the conference center, and Elder Shaver was jamming on the piano the whole time it was freaking hilarious and it was alot of fun! :P then we put the piano in an elevator with a 9000 KG capacity, that was cool. its made for cars!

then yeah, heres a voice recording to go along with this decently lengthy email!

the pictures are:

 Amoako, Juliana, and Rachel (people i found in Melun and who are now active members)

 Setphane Heno, a kid from Melun who is leaving on his mission in 2 weeks to Tahiti, and who i love, hes sweet, his parents said me and my family can stay in their house when i come back to paris, theres also a family called the Lopez family who live closer to the train station and who said the same thing, so yeah, we have our options mom and dad)

 Also i hit my year mark! so elder Cramer bought me a raspberry tart :)

and this is a castle we saw on our way from Orléans to Bourges.