July 21, 2015

Holy cow, it feels like it's been a month, but at the same time it feels like it's been 3 days since I last emailed. So much has happened! This week has been super duper. Where do we start here... Oh! Monday. 'Course,

   So on Monday we did P-day, I bought some corduroy pants. Dope. Then after that we did some calls, we had never finished weekly planning so we took some time to fill the week up!

   Tuesday we had district meeting, as usual, and all of our lessons fell through... Bummer, but still a good day! We went on a search for the ghost list—the ghost list is the list of members that they don't know about. Either they moved, they aren't sure about the address, can't get in contact with them, they died, or they don't want contact with the church. So the ward gave us this "ghost list" to investigate and try to get in contact with these people. I'll refer to it from now on as 'ghost hunting'.

   Wednesday we went contacting for the first time in forever, and then we went for my physiotherapy, which, for the record, I've diminished to once a week cause I'm feeling a lot better! From there we dashed over to Basile's house and had a good lesson with him. He wasn't able to come to church on Sunday though cause he went to his nieces wedding, but that's all good! He should have a good time! He has been keeping us really informed on the Tour de France, it actually is pretty exciting! Later that night we went to the ward council and talked about our needs as missionaries. We goin get some integration in this hood. Dope.

   That Thursday we taught Adolf, a member that recently moved in. He's pretty sweet. Then we helped brother Micale again with moving stuff... That man is a serious hoarder. He has a lot of stuff. And this super dope mint condition Polaroid camera. I covet that thing. I know it's bad to say, but I asked if I could buy it from him and he was like...ugh maybe. I think that's a no. But it's all good, we don't do service to get sweet treasures, even if he has filled his apartments comfortable living capacity by 300%. Then that night we went to the Guerrero's house and ate with their family. They are some of my favorites, :)

   Fridizzle we started out by going to sister Ts house, she's #cray, but we love her. Franqui and Pastora invited us and the other elders and a member family and their neighbors over for dinner and it was super sweet! A really good spiritual thought about faith was exactly what the neighbors needed! So great! :) 

   Saturday we went to Chriso's house and had a super good lesson with him and the kids. We're going to try to see if we can set a date for his daughters baptism, I'm sure it'll go well, but we might have to pass them to the sisters cause it's closer to their house and we are going to be dang busy. The reason for the busyness is that the other set of missionaries is getting taken out, so we have to take our already pretty full schedule and add another pretty full schedule, then our life becomes awesomely busy for my last transfer! I'm also district leader for a district almost 2 times bigger than the last time I was DL about a year ago... It's going to be a super fun way to go out! :) after finding out about the whole transfer shenanigans we got stood up, then we got stood up again, then we went ghost hunting.

   Sunday was pretty good, Valentin came even though he was in Spain all week, he got home Saturday and came to church. He also brought us back fancy Barcelona cheese and ham. I said "it was nice of you to think of us" and he was like "I'm always thinking of my missionaries!" It was really touching :) we also went to sister Ts house again so Weston and Ho could say goodbye. She always gives us brownies, it's real nice :)

Wish me luck with the fist week of this super busy transfer! :) it's going to be super lame not having the other elders in the apartment, but at the same time I think apartments with just 2 elders are more spiritual and quiet. More time to think and reflect, write in the good ol' journal, all that good stuff. Just what I'll need with my final weeks. Plus, we are going to squoosh our bunk beds together to make double size bunk beds. It's going to be off the hook! Hahah, well, it's been good. I'm excited to make trainings for the district again, it's going to be fun! :)

And that's the week!

Elder Oviatt. Kickin' it since 2013.

heres a very cute and colorful french street. couldnt help but appreciate it :P

"road of the babes" (more or less)

and a busted firehydrant all the ghetto kids(and lots of adults) were playing in.

this email looked alot longer on the ipad.

July 6, 2015

This week started out pretty Horribly. Solds shopping was almost a total bust, it would have really failed, except we found sweet wife-beats, normally I'd be like "naw, I can't wear that..." But we have been playing basketball 5 times a week, so we felt justified to get team wife-beats, just like the good ol' days, :)

But Monday night was sweet cause we did a bunch of calling like last week and totally filled out week to the brim! Fun fact, EVERYBODY ANSWERS THE PHONE ON MONDAYS! Okay, not everyone, but enough to fill the week, so what more could ya ask!? Dang hot out though.

Tuesday we had a sick district meeting, we brought baguettes and cheese, which makes our part of the meal super cheap and also no preparation involved. Glorious. Then after that I went on exchanges with my step-brother (he was trained by my second trainer or step-dad) Elder Madsen. All of our appointments for that day weren't super solid cause I knew that I'd be working with ZL Madsen so he'd be down to go hard in contacting with me. That was my favorite thing when I was a ZL, just to come in and tear up an area then leave them with tons of blessings! So I figured I'd give that joy to another :) we had a really good time, went hard in the paint, as expected! The heat started to get bad. I slept with a frozen water bottle, and managed to get through the night.

Wednesday HAPPY CANADA DAY! I was reppin' my sweet Canadian shoelaces while I was frolicking through the the balloons and streamers and other Canada themed articles. But aside from that wondrous event, the day started out poopy... Woke up, got a call from the assistants saying that they could see all the apps, movies, music and websites I've visited/downloaded with my iPad since Friday and that I had to give it back... Just kidding, sorta. So the story goes that half the iPads, so like 150 iPads got stolen out of the mission home, so instead of each missionary getting their own iPad they are doing one iPad per set of missionaries, so they asked for mine back. So first thing Wednesday I had to go deliver my new technology so there's could have he same wonderful tool for their teaching! It's seriously pretty useful! But we had a sweet lesson with Michel, then we went for my physiotherapy, and we finished the day by going to Franqui's house, but we were way late so we shared a message and set up an appointment for Saturday. The heat peaked and warmed up he whole apartment, took a cold shower before going to bed, apps again slept with the frozen water bottle, but it melted and by 3 or 4 I was steamy and wide awake. Bad sleep.

Thursday was sweet, started out by trekking through a big park in the open sun so we could get to a less actives house, Chriso, it went really well, he's a super nice chill dude! We went straight from him to Basile, and you all know how much I love Basile. He is so cool! We showed up today and he was feeling a lot better, and we had a good chat and then he's like, well, where's the message!? He's like 6'6" and 70 something, lanky old black dude, he's so sick. Shortly after that we bounced on over to the wonderful Guerrero's abode, where we gave a sweet message and ate a delicious meal before goin home. Thursday night was the same as Wednesday. Insufferable.

Friday was good, got stood up first thing, but it didn't phase us. Then I went for physio, and after that we had lunch, went to the church and made invitations for the music night, and went home for dinner. Hot sleep=bad sleep

Saturday was that thing in the states, but we didn't do anything to celebrate. I was on exchanges with elder Weston, our district leader. We started out by going to Franqui's house, and we talked about scripture study and faith, and the lesson went super well, he bore his testimony! It was sick! We just need everything to be figured out so they can get married already! After that we had McDo for lunch and then went to soeur Tourets house, she really appreciates when we hang out with her. She's #loco. Then we had our correlation meeting and talked about the music night. And from there we walked 5 meters to Valentin's house and he made an amazing zucchini gratin, it was delish. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, and invited him to be baptized and he was like "yeah of course, it's deffs something I'm not against" and I got super excited cause he's really legit. but I contained myself. No worries! It was dang hot at night again.

Then yesterday was great, cause it was Earnshaws birthday, and cause it was the wonderful sabbath. It was a good time at church, then after we came back and ate, then we did some weekly planning. The sisters kindly brought us homemade cookies for Earnies birthday. That's the first time since I've been in France that I had homemade cookies that I didn't make. They are oh so good when you just get to eat 'em.

Then it's today! :D

this was a block of butter... then happened the heatwave.

canada day festivities

this is camping-paris style. you can see the entirety of the treed area. and you can see their fire, and the tent. so silly :P