February 23, 2015

hello hello, this week was pretty good! couple sweet things, but in general just a pretty dope week!

bullet point time:

•  took elder Bennett out to macdonalds for his first time in france
• it hailed, and it was really cold, but then it got super warm within 30 minutes!
• started a solid plan with our friends from ghana to prepare them--the one for baptism, the other for the aaronic priesthood-- so thats just a fundle. (bundle and fun put together.)
• had an awkward family home evening at the church, one investigator came, and one member. we played pictionary and it was super lame! but in that sense it became fun!
• visited a couple members, ive eaten with more members here than i did in - months in tours. that might not be true, but it feels like it!
• had exchanges with our district leader, hes pretty cool, his companion is from hawaii and hes going to teach me how to surf! :) hoooray!
• we were going to teach a lesson in the church, but the fuse for the front gate was burned out so we couldnt get into the church, so we went to a bar/caf" across the street and had an uterly fantastic lesson, despite the constant flow of muslims the whole time. and when we went to pay for our delicious hot chocolate the waitress thanked us for the work we do, and that the world needs more help from people like us! that was cool! :)
• found a lady from our first week here, we had given her a book of mormon, and we jsut stumbled into her again! so that was super fun! :)
• and we taught french to a couple kids, the ones from ghana aforementioned, and we taught them how to pray, and one asked to pray to close the sacrament meeting and he did, and he totes nailed it. solid solid! :)

we had a pertty soolid week, were happy, im a little sick, but nothing that will last, so we are healthy too, and we are doin good! :) thanks for the prayers and love! keep em' comin!
<3 Elder Oviatt

the gangsters are getting offensive with their tagging.
and that is the train information telling us that there was a world war two shell found in the trainstation... awesome right!

February 9, 2015

hope you are all doing just dandy! i know we are over here!

this is how whitewash training goes...

"where do we live?"

"wheres the church?"

"which key is the right one?"

"they didnt leave any food for us?"

"where does this person live?"

"i dont know what this investigator looks like but they are planning on us baptizing them"

"sorry we're late, we got lost" 

"this is his first week in france" "je ne parler pas très bon le francais"

"hey, can you give us directions?"
"i dont know..."

"where are we again?"

"where are we supposed to be going?"

"hi! were new here..."

so yes, its been good! my companion,Elder Bennett and trainee is from the grand ol' canada, Belleville Ontario, good to be with a canuck again! hes super cool, his french is decent, and hes full of fire! the area we work in is pretty far from where we live, so with that, and extra studies for training and with us not really knowing anything about where we need to go or how to get there, somehow we are decently effective! weve met with a bunch of members, and investigators, its been truly, and adventure.

thats pretty much how i can sum it up. every day is an adventure.

but anyhow!

tuesday was "preparing to leave tours" day, so we visited all our investigators, present and past(or tried to) one of whom was guy, hes super sick! we lost contact with him shortly before christmas, but hes back! so thats pretty awesome!

wednesday we went into paris and i said my sad goodbyes to elder smith, ;( then i met my new comp, and we went to our area! taught a lesson on the train, and then visited a member and she had her investigator friends over! so that was an amazing thing, members present at our first lesson in a new area!

thursday we went shopping cause we had no food. lamesauce. but then we went and explored a bit, tried to find the church building but got lost... taught a couple lessons in the road! not too shabby! :)

friday we had a sick miracle. we were planning on giving a book of mormon to an investigator (planned lesson) so we grabbed another book of mormon. then we hopped on a train and went contacting(on the train cause we cant even get to our area and back in an hour) for an hour and talked to this guy, hes got a sweet story, but hes left to africa for 2 months. we taught him the restoration, offered him a book of mormon and marked moroni 10 for him to read while hes back in africa. then we got off the train and realized we shoulda prayed with him... but we didnt. bummer. so we were walking away and this lady chased us down and she was like "can i have one of those books too?" and we were like "ugh, yes of course!" and she was like "mark that chapter too. can i have your number to call you when im done? i heard everything you said, well be in touch!" so that was super cool! good thing we grabbed an extra book of mormon! we also went and found the church, that is important cause we had to teach a lesson there the next day! later that night we ate with a member couple, it was pretty good! :P

saturday we taught this super fly dude at the church, he came to the lesson in dress clothes!
and we did weekly/transfer planning!

and sunday we went to church, we had 5 investigators there! this man from ghana came to church with his sons, one of which is baptized but the other isnt and he wants to be! so that was sweet! they arrived in france like 2 months ago and dont speak any french! the super fly dude from saturday came to church, and a couple of other people did too. amazing week!

there are going to be so many miracles and amazing things happen here! im so blessed to have been put in such a promising area with so much already going on!

its going to be good.

adios amigos---Elder Oviatt

this is Guy and I,

it snowed in paris! :D

and this is jsut a clearer picture of my boy bennett.

February 2, 2015

yep, theres the news, i am getting transferred, and i am no longer going to be serving as a zone leader, which i am sad but happy about. instead i am now going to be serving in Aulnay sous bois, in the parisian region, so tahts DOPE! its closer to paris than Melun was, and im going to be Training, so whitewas training... more than a little scary! :P but itll be good! heres my address before i forget:

Elder K Oviatt

33 Rue Maximillien Robespierre

94120 Fontenay Sous Bois

France

anywhow, we had a good week! monday we had family home evening, and Bouchaïb came, hes got a baptismal date, so like, good for him, yay progression! :D

We did A LOT of service this week. theres a family that is half french half american, and they were moving. their new apartment needed alot of work... painting, floors, all their stuff, so we went and painted 3 times and helped with the actual move on saturday, that was a super good time! :P haha

We taught this muslim student with our branch mission leader, but the kid barely followed along, it was all good though, and we called him on saturday telling him we wanted him to come to church and that we would walk with him, so we swung by his place at 9h15 on sunday and he came down, we walked to church and we realized we hadnt told him anything abuot church... he stayed for about 20 minutes and asked how long church was, we told him 3 hours, and he was like "ugh, i can leave early right?" so we told him he could, but he ended up staying the first 2 hours, real impressive! he should be coming on next sunday too:P unfortunatley i wont be there...

weve also been working with a less active in chisseaux, and he is super cool, we had a member swing down and pick him up on his way to church and he totally loved it! it was sad to say goodbye to him and the rest of the branch. they will be dearly missed.

yeah! thats our week more or less, im only real terrified for this next week, itll be good! im excited to train again and have the sick emxperience of whitewashing at the same time! yay faith! im going to need it this week! :P

i love you all! :) have a good week!

district pictures and the missionaries here in Tours

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! :)

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! :)

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 :)