December 15, 2014

this glorious week went by SOOOOOOOOO fast, probably because it was raining miracles again, but who know, it could be that we were mission a day cause Elder Smith was sick... but either way it just zipped by!

on tuesday night we taught a couple lessons,

wednesday we went to the gare and said goodbye to sister hopkins, and later we welcomed sister anderson who was in Melun at the same time as me last year, so thats pretty cool!

on thursday things went pretty well, got stood up a couple times, but saw some cool miracles, and shared some good christmas messages! :) lifes been good!

friday we did alot of planning and calls, then we went to the branch christmas party. it was super loud, super unorganized, and super fun! i loved it so much! everybody was laughing and having a good time, and our cool ibnvestigator gabriel came with his wife and son! that was really really cool!

we also found a wallet on the ground on friday and it had a ton of info on the guy but not his phone number, so we called the assistant (my good buddy/ex companiopn) elder christiansen and did some searching to find his phone number. we found it and called him up. we were expecting a super cool christmas miracle, but he was just super greatful and offered us 20 euro but we said no thanks, wished him a merry christmas and we carried on our merry way!

sunday was good as usual, i got to sit with my companion during sacrament meeting, that was weird, its been probably over 6 months since ive done that! :P

life has been good, we are very happy and healthy again, very cheery and excited for christmas!

i love you all, have a good week!

Elder Kaden Oviatt

our  dusty tree

christmas party!

December 9, 2014

This week was a busy one for sure!

we had our district meeting on tuesday and that was all fun and stuff, then the Assistants came over and did an exchange in Tours, it was SUPER LEGIT. one of the APs served in Torus last year so he was just havin a blast, and they went and taught some of his old investigators! it was rad! I got to do an exchange with Elder Christiansen, who was my companion a few months ago, so that was dope too getting to hang out and work with him again! during an exchange we were planing on setting a baptismal date with some of our investigators, and Smith and i were thinking late january, but Christiansen was like DECEMBER 27th. its happening. then it did. it was sick!

and on thursday we went over to Orléans and attended their district meeting, which was pretty good, got to be edified and stuff. their district leader is a chimpanzee though. he moved the district meeting back an hour without telling us so we got there an hour and a half early and had to just wait for him. then one of the companionships' train got stopped and they showed up just in time to eat!

THEN we went to Bourges and did some more dope exchanges there, taught a whale load of lessons, so that was sick, and pretty much just tore it up! i love exchanges so much! you get so much stuff done.

then you know the sunday deal, church is good, life is good, everything is just, Good! :)

BONUS DAY! Monday, cause Elder Smith was WAY sick and i wasnt feeling 100% either, we stayed in and rested up, i also swept and mopped and cleaned a bit, and set up a christmas tree i found in the missionary storage cave under the apartment, so its probably 15 years old, but its christmas-y and fun! our apartment is so cozy now! its been a LONG week, spirits have been low and spirits have been high, but for the most part high, yay CHRISTMAS! heres some food for thought; smith and i will be together for last Thanksgiving (we were in the same district) and haloween, canadian thanks giving, american thanksgiving, Christmas, and Soldes(huge french sales) this year. crazy eh?

this is Christiansen and I, and the Cathedral in Bourges

i depart with a covenant of peace.

Elmers Glue

December 1, 2014

last monday we went to a castle, Chateu Chenonceau, it was pretty sweet -see pictures-

yeah, so basically we actually had a really good week! we had 3 thanksgiving meals, one for our own district meeting, one for the Aleçon district meeting, and one with some members! there was sorta turkey at one of the dinners (turkey sandwich meat) and chicken at theother two, so like, not to shabby! i definitley clogged a few of my bodily functions, arteries, bowels, brain-flow, all that jazz. food-coma(x3) so i cannot complain! i ate so much i wore one of my stretchy dress shirts and its a good thing i did! :P

we did exchanges with Alencon and Orléans elders, so that took a bunch of time, and was super fun!

the assistants are coming to do exchanges this week, thatll be fun, but honestly i cant think of anything to add to this, so you all get a short email this week! :)

peace out,

Elder Oviatt

the castle

November 24, 2014

this week was pretty sweet! alot happened, without alot happening, ya feel?

so the city's christmas decorations are up and light! they have a skating rink(somehow... its like  +7° every day... in ground cooling or something ridiculously expensive... they have like 5 massive decorated trees around the city, its been good! and theres music that plays in the streets! so festicve. no snow though, so it can only look so much like christmas without snow...

well obvs we had the conference with the entire mission and Elder Cook, that was only super cool! a ton of really cool insights and a VERY strong spirit. it was the coolest conference ive been to. i think it was cooler than it would be to go to Genereal Conference, cause it was very personal and very close. there was a Question/Answer portion, and he had a talk prepared but he decided not to share it because we were spiritually prepared for a different message, so he basically talked about how cool the prophet is and how much he loves all the brethren and why, he gave a very interesting insight to the life of an apostle that i never had before. eye opening and very touching. it was a very cool very spiritual conference!

in other (less cool) news, we got stood up a ton this week, didnt get to see the guy that we set a baptismal date with, so that is probably going to be pushed back a couple weeks, our list of fantastic potentials and current investigators sorta got slimmed down a bit, but hey, thats how life works! time to go find some more people! i actually cant really think of anything that happened other than the Cook conference... OH! yes, okay, so Bouchaîb Afoufou, hes our investigator, he didnt seem to motivated, but he was willing to meet with us cause hes got nothing better to do, but he totally came to church! and it was not like the simplest thing for him to do. so that showed us that sometimes people are just decievingly lazy-looking, and they really do care about what we teach!

and yeah i can pretty much say that thats about it! :) fun-ish week eh?

well, catch ya on the flip-side homies! :)

Elder omlette.

PACKAGES!!!! yay england trips! #ThanksJdawg

and elder ruttan, cause yall know i love that guy!

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.

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.

September 15, 2014

so this week has been sick, i dont want to type it out, and i recorded it! i love how efficient i can be! i do pretty much my entire email whenever i have free time cause i just record it! glorious! ill give you an update on today, so we are going to be away for the majority of the week, so we decided we were going to schedule lessons during pday, so we did our groceries way far away so we could get to the lessons more efficiently, and it ended up that we walked like 2 km with all our groceries, it was heavy and sucky, and it was way too hot... but it wasnt the worst thing, cause we had a lesson and it went really well! it was cool :) but yeah, the rest of the week is going to be wrapped up in this voice recording! oh, we met these 2 guys from iran, and they are Christians! thats super rare! and the one is totally interested and legit. both of them are named Mehrdad, but the one is super cool, they both came to church though, and that was super cool!

pictolegend:

late night walk home!

coke for the french members!

peace out homies!

-smelder K

September 8, 2014

awkward... well! huh, i got 7 minutes.

this week was sick! we had Zone conference in Angers, and that was super cool, we found a new investigator for the elders there and now they are teaching him! the training elder Cramer and I gave was pretty sweet, the assistants and the mission presidents wife was there! stressful! :P haha no it was good. 

On friday we, being all the france paris mission and the france lyon mission had a day of finding.----listen to recording---- and on sunday we had a couple investigators come to church! today we went to a museum in tours, and they had a painting by Monet! so that was cool! :P lots of real old art, there was a couple things from before Jesus Christ. so like, thats pretty old! :P ill attach some pictures.

WE HAVE BEDBUGS IN OUR APARTMENT. the apartment got sprayed the week before i arrived, but they are back, and ive been feasted upon. Cramer has no bites, but im like, hardcore munched.

but its been sick, :) sorry for failing at emailing this week... its been busy!

this is the monet painting and this is a crazy tree/roots in a park by our house.

September 1, 2014

ill give a decent email this week :P

okay so on monday we had a family home evening at the church, it was super cool! Julian, he is a recent convert, from england, and he just got baptized a month ago, he came to the family home evening, and a less active guy we have been teaching alot, and a family in the branch who are just super cool. Fr K, the member, he is a convert aswell, he was islamic, and his name is muhhammud, which is pretty cool, cause you dont see muslim converts a ton! but he is super cool. we were having hotdogs at the FHE, and hes like "no thanks, i dont eat porc" and were like ,dude youre not muslim anymore :P it was pretty funny!

then on tuesday we had a busy day of running from lesson to lesson, good day for sure! we had a lesson with a guy named Daniel, and hes super legit, but he is really fed up with waiting for his papers, without papers he cant work, without work hes goin crazy! so yeah, it was a little tough, but we had a good lesson.

wednesday we had "week 2 district meeting" which is basically zone conference, us the zone leaders give the zone presidents vision for the tranfer, help them see what president envisions and stuff, and we give a training, then we all break out into district meetings and then we finish by eating together! :) it was a good time, and our lesson went pretty good. i was a little stressed to give a training with someone, cause as a district leader its solo, but now i have to share it, so its weirder for sure!

on thursday we went on exchanges with the Assistants to the president, and i was super nervous, cause like they make alot of big decisions! and im a new zone leader so i had to make a good impression! but it went well, i had a super fun time and we worked Versailles real hard. Errbodys gettin baptized.

then on friday we woke up early and left the Assistants, we went up to laon to pick up elder Cramers legal stuff so he doesnt get deported-------listen to voice recording------- and then that night we slept in paris with the Zone leaders in Paris Lillas, who just so happens to be ELDER RUTTAN! :) so yeah, sleep over with the sickest missionary in the mission, whatup! :)

saturday we caught a train back to tours, taught daniel again, decided to do a fast with him so he can recieve an answer if this church is true, and he left to paris, so hes going to be there for a week or so, but we hope hes doing well! we also set a baptismal date with him! also, ---JUMP CUT TO CHERBOURG--- marco totally got baptized! no way right!? so cool. then we visited this family, they were on vacation but they are home now. the mom is american, dad is french, and he is in the branch presidency, they ahve a son who is 4 and one who is 2, and the 4 year old speaks french and english, its sick. both the parents are bilingual and actually have perfect english, it was a good time over there! they are super cool :)

then sunday was pretty good, no investigators at church, but we had a good time! after church we did a ton of weekly planning and preparing our training for tomorrow,

and now its today!

thats pretty much my week! ill send you a picture of this crazy train/monorail/rollercoaster we had to ride. laon is built on a mountain and so the old part of the city is up on top of the mountain, and the rest is down on the ground, so to get up the the government buildings and stuff you have to ride the train-o-rail-o-coaster!

 

well, thats about it. peace our hermanas.

-elder Stankinfresh Oviatt

August 25, 2014

so life here has been great! being a Zone Leader is super busy, i have had one full meal time since being here, but so far yeah, its been GO GO GO! i love it! its so much different than cherbourg, i dont really know what to say, but i recorded a thing for you to listen to, its pretty much my weekly email, but vocal. i hope you like it cause it was kinda fun. i might start doing it more often. normally id write too but because we are always movin movin movin we have a lesson to go to, so i gotta cut short! i love you all, Bisous!

oh speaking of bisous i got bised. for the first time! i lasted almost a year! but yeah. broke a mission rule, bised by anne marie. dirty dirty.... :P

okay so ill send the audio thing next week, cause i really gotta scadaddle!

bye errbody!

this is my new comp, this is "goodbye cherbourg"

August 18, 2014

yeah thats right. birthdays and such! it was good! we had a super fun week this eek, i honestly dont even know if i can wrap it all up!

firstly, last pday we went to utah beach!  so that was pretty sick actually! theres a less active out there so we took an hour of our pday to go down there and see how hes doing, then we took the bonus hour of pday to check out a cool historical sight! :P

also, we were walking around in city center and this guy said "hey brothers" so we turned around and this guy was like "im algerian, i dont want anything from you, i just want to give you a present." digs in his pocket, "hold out your hands" kindly places a walnut in my hands and a hazelnut in Elder Jenness'... then he smiled and walked away. pretty sure he cursed us or something, so we threw the nuts in the ocean... :P

Marcos girlfriend wants to move back in but he was like "back it up lady! ive made a commitment to the missionaries, to the church, and to god. we cant live together until we are married. so you move in to your moms house, finidh your divorce, then come see me" he then gave her the chastity, word of wisdom pamphelets, and a book of mormon saying "read it, then youll understand. and if we do get married you will not stop me from having members at the house or from going to church and participating as a member." then he brought up the sabbath day saying "and ive been thinking about my restaurant, normally sundays are pretty proftable days, but that would be breaking the sabbath, so i decided im going to close on sundays instead of mondays" all on his own! that was on the hit list of thinkgs we needed to talk to him about! so holy ow! hes on the ball! so prepared.

we had a pretty good family home evening with the african ladies, and we are having another one tomorrow before i leave to TOURS! i was called as a zone leader, and will now be serving in tours, so heres my new address:

les missionnaires

Elder Oviatt

5 imp. 10 rue de Metz

37000 Tours

France

 

and yeah! pretty solid week! :)

tons of love

Elder Kaden Geezer-pants Oviatt

 

Photolegend:

Utah beach

My lovely district

Esthers son James has startd loving wearing our tags, :P

August 4, 2014

oh my goodness, yeah! just an all around rad week! life is going grrrreeeat! :)

so the begining of the week wasnt that amazing, but the last few dayse were fantastic! especially sunday.

 

so marco... heres a quickie update:we decided hes probabl not stable enough to teach, but if hes progressing we will continue to teach him, so thats what weve been doing. after we decided that he called us to drop us, so we were like sweet, that was easy, then he called us the next day, needing someone to talk to, we went over, explained that we love him, we love teaching him and we love helping him with his problems, but the best way we can help him is by showing him the path to christ, and that us listening is just wasting his time and ours. and if he was interested he would listen and not interrupt, and that if he ever dropped us again that it was over. we were very strict, but we needed to be. he accepted, and then later he came to church, HE BORE HIS TESTIMONY! so cool. so pure! but yeah, hes trying to open a brasserie so like a pub, and before church we caught him smoking around the corner. so we decided to have another make or break lesson, and we went in, had what was planned to be a super hard lesson, but then he was like, guys i understand the word of wisdom... i just have some weaknesses, then he told us how much progress hes made, and theeeen we broght up the brasserie, and he was like, im not selling alcohol at the brsserie... then he showed us his menu and sure enough! it was sooooooooo so relieving. man i dont even know why i doubt him sometimes! :) so prepared.

  tuesday was dstrict meeting, that was good, wednesday we had a sweet FHE with the recent converts, it was SOO fun. we watched the testaments (sorry to non members reading this, you can get a copy of this movie from my parents or you can request it on Mormon.org) and Esther was quoting every scripture and when Jesus came to the americas she was freaking out! she was like"thats jesus why are you leaving!?" "oh! go get other people!!!!" "take your dad to be healed!!!"  it was hilarious, but so good. they loved it!:) then otherEsther made rice and chicken and we had lunch there, and Esther gave me a jar of her imported african 'piment' its like, hand ground chilies. SOOOO HOT. ive really started liking spicy food since coming on my mission!

and on saturday we taught4 lessons in the road! 1 became a new investiator and two others we got their info and stuff, so they will be amis soon anyways! it was a good day!

and on sunday we got to bless Maddalenas children! like "name and a blessing" blessing. so that was cool, its going to be great with my future wife "dont worry, ive done this before" haha, maybe its not funny, but i think its oging to be pretty good! :P but yeah! i love it! missions are AMAZING. be safe friends, <33333

Bisous

Elder Jean-Michel (every french persons name) Oviatt

July 28, 2014

yeah, so Esther has literally been SOOOO prepared by the lord, and was supposed to be bpatized a month ago, but she was amazingly pregnant, then she had her baby and had to wait 2 weeks after she had it to be baptized. she was super sad to have to wait, and she had even had her baptismal interview a month ago, so she had to re-do it, but she was still ready as ever, and she was super super excited! she asked me to do the baptism, so that was cool, elder Jenness came into the ocean with us so he could be one of the witnesses and actually hear that i was saying it right! Turns out Esther is afraid of the water and we got about waist deep and she had a mild panic attack so i stopped her, we said a quick prayer together, and kept going. we didnt go as deep as i would have liked, i was worried i wouldnt be able to get her all the way under, but she couldnt go any further, and so i said "itll have to do!" and right as i went to dunk her a big wave came so i didnt have to go as low as i should have, nd it went perfectly! definitly a little miracle, i dont know what she would have done if she had to be dunked twice. God loves his children! the talks at the baptism were amazing, and the spirit was so strong! Marco couldnt make it, but he was there at church for the confirmation, and even though it was in english im sure he still understood the spirit testifying. so cool. Marco is still super legit, hes been listening to us, and talking to his girlfriend about us, usually when we teach a "big" commandment he laughs or acts like he cant do it, then the next time we go he like talks to us about how good hes been doing with it, like for the law of chastity, his girlfriend isnt living with him, but he was planning on her moving in in a couple months, but i explained that after his baptism that would be willingly and knowingly committing a sin, and that it was worse than before, and he said "well thats how its gotta be" and i was like "we cant baptize you if youre planning on sinning... just tell her that if shes serious about you she will live on her own for hte next 5 months till you can get married" nad he laughed, i decided we would just re-visit the commandment again later, wasnt worth arguing about it... then the enxt time we went he was like "i talked to my girlfriend about not moving in and yeah..." and he goes on and on about how great obeying commandments is. hes super cool, but hes still goig through a really hard time right now, so kep him in your praers! also we found a new investigator! dont know how legit he is yet, we taught him a little and asked if we could teach him more, and he aid, yeah not today, but like, tomorrow? or this afternoon... so yeah we set up a lesson with him for tuesday, so well find out! his name is cerge, so yeah, itd be cool if you prayed for him too! i love all of you so very much! keep being lovely, <3

bisous

-Kaden Frenchbread Oviatt

July 21, 2014

ike i said, nothing too exciting :P this week has been pretty uneventful... didnt get a ton of lessons, didnt get a ton of much except sun! i sunburned my face and forhead, that was embarrassing... and i have a pretty wicked glasses-tan which is also rather unsightly... last pday was sweet though! you know how we left to go check out beautiful things? well we went to a massive lighthouse! it was swee! we went up inside it, it was cool :) i took alot of pictures! i live in such a beautiful place! we also explored a huge cemetary, and we found some canadians that died in the wars, and we found a guy whos name was lebaron, and some that were like crypts, they were super cool. we sorta got distracted in there for a long time... :P but it was a good break! but other than that we did alot of porting, alot of contacting, and a few lessons... oh we went to coutances, a town 2 hours away, there used to be a branch there, but now its just merged with our branch, so they rarely come to church, so we visited a bunch of them! that was pretty chill! but yeah... whats new? Esther is getting baptized on friday! so that will be super cool! obvs ill have pictures for you next week! sorry i have nothing to share, i was bored with this week too... :P

im doing a district meeting on service and i really like this quote!

"Focusing on serving our brothers and sisters can guide us to make divine decisions in our daily lives and prepares us to value and love what the Lord loves. In so doing, we witness by our very lives that we are His disciples. When we are engaged in His work, we feel His Spirit with us. We grow in testimony, faith, trust, and love."

—Ronald A. Rasband, "The Joyful Burden of Discipleship"

have a super duper week! <3

-Kadey Kat