Monday, January 26, 2015

January 26, 2015

so this week wasnt our best week, missionary work kinda lags a little bit. you do good work one week, but nothing might happen, then two weeks later, even if you dont feel like you did exceptional work bam, your life is great. cause the results are like, late. but thats why we work all the time so that we are always blessed! now i dont think 2 weeks ago we didnt work hard. im really not sure why this week was tough, maybe were just getting a patience test or something? who knows! not that big of a deal though, cause we did our best and thats all we can really do! were no superheros. were awkward 20 year old boys, trying to change the world. And with that in mind, ill stop trying to be cool and philosophical and go back to how our week was.
monday night we had Family home evening at the church, and we did a lesson with a rubix cube! and about how we are messed up mis-matched cubes, but through christ we can be made perfect, like a completed rubix cube. genius right? ;) anyways, it was simple enough for the investigators, and complex enough for the members. just the way a good lesson should be.
tuesday we got to go to a district meeting in Le Mans, it was sweet! good lesson and stuff, plus the district leader, Elder Madsen, is a legend. well, he just has cool drawings and stuff, and he gave a hand out of a drawing for his formation, it was pretty cool! i like art again by the way, i decided i need to spend time doing it when i get home, so be prepared for that! :)
wednesday we had another district meeting, this time it was our own, it was good, and after we had exchanges! they were super fun! Elder Nez and i had a super good time!
thursday we woke up, sent the other elders home after the exchange, and then ripped off to Paree to do an exchange with the Assistants! that was a good time, as always!
friday we came home from paris and then we got stood up like 5 times, by members and investigators. that was super lame. but then a brother was riding his bike past and said "hey elders, why dont you come inside for a bit, its really cold out" so he let us in and we shared a good moment with them and we warmed up! it came at a perfect moment cause we were pretty down about not having any lessons go through. tender mercies! :)
then saturday things picked up, life went back to normal and we went hard, saw good stuff, taught Orly our investigator with brother Kehli, and that went super sweet! really good lesson!
but sunday went back to friday and nobody came to church. :/ boo hoo! oh well, mmotivation for next week, right? :) well yeah the rest of sunday wasnt too bad!

i havent done a day-by-day run down in a while! huh! its been good! i love you all, keep being awesome, email me and stuff!
Elder K. Oviatt
i had to slurp a plate of pudding at the Le Mans district meeting, i was very fast and very thorough! and i won the sick darth vader tat which is pictured in the other photo! :)

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Monday, January 19, 2015

January 12, 2015

hey everyone! despite the valiant efforts, we are alive, we are kickin, and life is going good!

this week we did 3 exchanges! thats alot of exchanges, and im super tired. i hate sleeping in other peoples' beds. i think my bed in tours might be the bst bed in the mission... so like, sleeping on dinky mats on the floor just isnt a ton of fun... but i like the actualy exchange part! its super cool to work with other people and jsut see otehr techniques and to learn and teach with and from other people! good to be back with smith though. its going to be rough when one of us gets transferred... anyhow!
we worked with Bourges, Elder Peterson and Elder Nez, taught a crack-ton of lessons and had a grand 'ol time! i really dont remember all that much, it sems like it was weeks ago.
we also did an exchange with alencon, Madsen and Connolly, and they are pretty dang good missionaries! we hadnt gotten a ton of lessons yet, then they came and just took over the town and made it rain. it was sweet. we needed their help!
and we also did an exchange with le mans, who are not district leaders, so it was an exceptional exchange, but we felt like it was necessary, and then we went and after 1 hour of working we got a text from president that we had to go on lockdown cause of all the nutso stuff goin on in paris, so we worked for an hour on that exchange, but it was good! after that we went and taught a ton of member present lessons cause we hadnt the time to do so during the week. so we went ham on our investigators, and it was good! tehre was a protest march against terrorism yesterday, there was a TON of people. it was dope.
thats about it! we set a baptismal date with a guy named Orly, hes super cool, real nice, and hes got the finest dreads! :P hahah
well, thats about it... bye for this week!

no pictures... :'(

January 19, 2015

okay, were not dead. but somebody totes wanted to fight us! dirty kid. we just laughed and kept on our merry way, but on the inside i was 1-ready to kick his face and 2-scared beyond belief. but thats a warry as it gets here! :) 
monday we had a sweet miracle! we have really been working on being determined with our goals, and on mondays we have pday till 6, then FHE till 8:30and then we go home. 30 mins to the church, 30 back. its a perfectly full day. But we decided we were going to teach a lesson and find a new investigator after FHe before goin inside. we got of the bus by our house and saw 1 person. on the biggest road in tours. so we decided, well, if anybody is going to listen, why not him. totes taught him and we set up a lesson for tuesday and we saw him 3 times this week! miracles. they happen.
tuesday was pretty much raining lessons, it was sweet! we have this new investigator named Francine, shes super legit! we taught her the restoration and we had a sweet member there, and her daughter is sweet too, her name is sara. well we saw them tuesday, and set up a lesson for friday but she cancelled. so on saturday we went by to see when we could see her and she said "i read the pamphelet and i didnt like something. im not interested anymore" BORKEN HEARTS so we said "what didnt you like" "that youre mormons, i didint know" that was awkward. then she said how she had a bad experience and she would never go to the mormon church. we convinced her to come and she did, and were prety sure she loved it! we'll see where that goes! hopefully she felt the spirit and wants more! :)
wednesday was exchanges, that was good! 
thursday was good as was the rest of the week!
suinday though... we left for hcurch at 8:45 and got home at 5:45. it was a long day. we had branch conference, and then it was a branch meal, then we taught an investigator, then we had branch council with the stake leaders, it was all good, but it was long. good week though! :)

this is the only picture we took this week...

have a good one! :)

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

January 5, 2015

hello hello!
this week we had a very high commitment to our goals. we set high goals. it was tough! :P haha
to start out we set a zone goal to have 3 lessons with members present per set of missionaries, its a pretty low goal, but even so, it pushed our zone, and good things happened. we reached the goal of 3 last week so we set it at 4, and we were really trying to get it, but by saturday night we had only had 1. it was a super bummer. all week we were trying our best to get members to lessons and we were goin hard, even without the members. we were pretty down with the fact that we hadnt reached our goal, but we kept trying, we managed to get one more on sunday but we still didnt make our goal of 4. we got 2. it was preeeeettty lame. but when we were totalling our other lessons taught we realized that we had gotten 13! which isnt too bad at all! its actually pretty good! but we were so focused on what we didnt have we werent enjoying the satisfaction of having had a good week either way! i learned to count my blessings, and to reallyseek to see the hand of the lord, even if it isnt in the way we were trying. we all know that God does things in his own way, at his own time. But, even with that being said we set our member present goal for this week way high. haha, we can do it! its a goal from the mission president, so we knos its inspired and that we can obtain it! heres for the best!---
we found a really cool dude on tuesday, and later in the week we taught him again, hes pretty legit! and hopefully he will be coming to family home evening at the church tonight! so thats good! we were able to help the sisters out alot too, we gave them one of our super cool investigators, even though its a family and we could technically keep teaching her its alot easier for the sisters to manoever it and teach her, so that will go better for them and her!
on wednesday we taught one of our investigators' wife, and she was super cool! so now when we go out to teach him we can teach his wife and that way the whole family will  be baptized! :) Yeah! we also ate escargot and turkey-farci, its like, stuffed turkey spomething or other. i also learned that french people eat alot of chestnuts! (i think thast what they are called in english) but they eat them with gravy, and green beans, and there were some inside the turkey... super weird. not the biggest fan :P haha but they are good!
and on thursday we went to the branch presidents house and ate till we went into comas, then we napped and watched a movie (that was glorious) then he took us home! it was a good day!
friday we worked, taught lessons, all the good stuff, you know that story already...
same thing with saturday,
and sunday we had a really good day! we got to set up a lesson plan with this investigator that is too busy t see us, so we got permission to teach him seperatley during sunday school so he can cme to church, but still get the lessons the way he needs to! that is super exciting! :)
yeah good week :) 
later gators
elder O

dope frozen spiderwebs and a giant minion set up at the boulangerie right beside the church :)

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December 29, 2014

hello hello! this week was so good! we had so many cool miracles and had a great christmas!

on monday we ate at an "investigators" house, they arent really investigating the church, but they arent members. they are just a nice family that wanted to have us for dinner! :) it was pretty good!

tuesday we had our district meeting, that was super good, a few awkward moments, but it was good! we taught a family we found a week ago and it went very well, talked about the meaning of christmas and shared a good time! we also taught Bouchaïb, one of our progressing investigators, he is really slow, but he is gettin in gear and really seeing the point of it all (we hope)

wednesday was good, we wandered a bit, handed out all of our special christmas contacting cards cause it was our last chance :P and we dropped by bouchaïb again to give him some cookies! :) then we watched Kung Fu Panda, it was hilarious :P haha then we went to another not really an investigator, just a nice familys hous to eat and have a good evening! while we were there santa came and gave us al presents! that was a glorious surprise! :P haha---well he didnt really come, we all went outside to search for him and while we were running around the neighborhood he stopped by and left all the presents! it was an interesting way to do christmas!

thursday we woke up at 6 with anxiousness, then went to bed and woke up at 8 (nothing has changed :P ) we opened our presents ate at 2 members houses, had a good afternoon and evening of skype and games and foie-gras!

friday we did alot of running around contacting and going to lessons and stuff! one of which is that we went door to door singing and praying for 45 minutes, and we got 3 lessons! it was sweet! 

sats was sick, got a couple good lessons, taught some cool people,

sunday was good, we finally managed to have Emmanuel, a less active come to church, and we had bouchaïb there too! our friend André was going to come but he got in late saturday night, but he was so determined he came after church :P and we taught him a lesson and gave him a tour fo the church! it was sick. we also taught a lady named julia that i taught with cramer when i first got to tours, and that went super well!

good week! good times!
happy new year! :)


Tours-at a distance
big baloon takeover...

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December 22, 2014

hey errbody! hope youre super psyched for christmas, i know i am! All the packages under the tree have been taunting me for weeks!
this week was really really sweet! Twice we went downtown to sing christmas carols with our branch mission leader, that was super fun, we sang at the entrance of the christmas market, we sang at the piano in the train station, we sang in a basilica, and we sang in a mall. it was super fun and we found some really cool potential investigators as well as shared christmas cheer with the world! :)
we found a sweet new set of investigators, André and David, david is Andrés like 35 year old maybe aadopted son, and they are sick. André has 2 audis, and one is and audi A2, which is one of the more hideous cars. i rode in it. it was rather spacious inside! But back to them, they we talked to david like 3 months ago, and set up a return lesson, then he no-showed, so we called him the other day and they are so legit! weve taught them 3 times and they are praying about a baptismal date right now! super cool!
we had a conference with Elder Teixeira, hes our regional president or whatever, it was a super cool conference! learned alot, humbled myself alot, and we have already seen so many blessings from following his counsel!
we taught a TON of less actives this week, not actually that many, but like, a solid handful, that was nice and good!
Christmas is almost here! im excited to talk to my family, im excited for my friends to talk to their families, its a magical time of year! My mission president told us that during christmas season we feel more people are open and willing to listen cause their hearts are open with the christmas feel, but he told us that more importantly than christmas spirit is the fact that we have such confidence in our work during this season. we are convinced that we will see miracles and stuff, but its more of a placebo, its mostly our attitude that opens and softens peoples hearts. so keep this cheer and joy with you all year! touch hearts and share love! i love you all and wish you all a merry christmas!

love, Elder snOviatt

singing and singing!

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