November 17, 2014

so yes, this week we are having a conference with the entire mission! i didnt mention it before cause it wasnt sure. but yeah! the mission hasnt been all in one place for a few years, for one cause we have a vast mission and transportation is very expensive, and for two we really dont have any chapels big enough for eeveryone to be there and eat and facilitate easily, but they figured it out and i am oh so very excited to have an apostle come visit! :D

this week was pretty dang good, we had a number of miracles and good experiences. During mission council we talked about the missions goals and the plan to attain the goals, and we talked about how we as zone leaders are in the trust of president, and that he trusts us to be obedient and to protect our zones, but taht we are like the mission presidents of our zones and the district leaders in our zones are like our zone leaders, basically if youve never been on a mission this wont make any sense to you, but he told us to have a new meeting once a transfer with out district leaders, the meeting is like a mini mission council, so we talk with our district leaders about how the zone is doing, about our goals and plans and stuff. so with this new thing Elder Smith and I decided to come up with a vision for this trimester, the vision is TRUST. first in our missionaries, our leaders and our companions, trust that we are folowing the Lord in our decisions and that  we are doing things the way they are supposed to be done. second, trust in the model of consecration, that way when we are stressed about the area and lessons and what to do we know that we are doing the best we can and the Lord will make up the rest, so whats getting done is all that He wants to be done. takes the blame off our shoulders. Third, trust in THE invitation. the invitation is the invitation to baptism, which is to follow the guidelines in the first lesson invite people to be baptized, the second lesson give them a baptismal date. this isnt easy or and is sometimes seems like a bad idea, but we decided to trust the invitation last night and this guy, Tibaut accepted to be baptized ondecember 20th, hes super cool, but normally we would not have given him a date to be baptized, but we decided to follow the lords council for our zone and trust the invitation and be baptized! super cool miracle and that deffs set the tone for the vision! :) super happy about it!

In other news, i want a cat. really bad. i dont know why, but ive grown to like cats more and more on my mission, and i know i dont really want a cat cause they get hair everywhere, but i like em! so well see how that happens :P umm, thats pretty much it! cant think of anything new... :) have stellar week errbody!

what a lovely yard...

we made a turkeydinner! happy between american and canadian thanksgivings! it looked SUPER tasty, but tasted otherwise...

November 10, 2014

this week has been pretty good, im trying to think of specific things i can talk about but it really wasnt that terribly eventful, weve been going pretty hard, and we have really got the area into good shape, before elder smith got here we had investigators, but we were constantly finding new ones, and the old ones just kinda disapeared, but we have gotten alot more organized and focused, and so far we have a good number of investigators and a solid base, alot of really high potential, but we wil see how it goes! weve got alot of people were teaching, but nobody is like EXPLODING at the moment, ya feel? it feels good though, its going to be a good transfer here in Tours, oh, yeah i get to stay in tours with Elder Smith! so thats pretty sweet, we get along really well and we work well with eachother! :) i have a ton of cool experiences and stuff i could share from this week, it just feels so random cause none of the miracles continue into anything, i mention somebody and never talk about them again, i can imagine that would get pretty annoying... so ill jsut wait for now :P give it a week or two till we see who is going to progress and stuff, deal? :)

well yeah, things are starting to get a little chilly here, my toes are pretty cold at the moment! but its better than -20, (good luck everyone)

im going to send a bunch of pictures from last week!

-Zone Finding day!

-Haloween in Le Mans with the Alençon district,

November 3, 2014

hey errbody!

so life here in tours has been REALLY sick this week, not the illness kind of sick, but sick as in missionary work being on FIRE!

so as for things going on here, monday night we tracted into this sick group of people, we rang and they let us in, then we talked about why we are here, prayed with em, and they asked us for bibles next time we come, unfortunatly we dont have those, so we brought books of mormon, and they loved it! they totally understood why it was there, what it could mean to them, it was sweet, plus we didnt even bring enough books of mormon for them cause they had guests, and they said they would give some to their friends.

then we had exchanges here with our district leader and his comp on tuesday and that started us out on a good foot, then we went to Le Mans and had a super rad haloween party/district meeting, so that was dope :P we dressed up, i was an old man and elder Smith was my cat in a sweater, we had a good combo costume, unfortunatley my camera is being goofy, so ill have to send pictures next week.

then on thursday we were running around teaching and finding people, good day,

on friday we had a Zone-wide finding day. the whole zone came to Tours and we did mini-exchanges for the morning and evening, it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. in total we were 23 missionaries, and we taught 34 lessons, made a bunch of new investigators and found 30 ish potentials. it was sick. everyone loved it! during lunch everyone brought candy and we went trick or treating between us, it was a good day!

finding day was sweet, but like all in all i think that this week i taught the most lessons and found the most new investigators of my mission. its been super good! life is good, love is good, families are forever. and THAT is my weekly update for You.

Elder Oviatt.