Monday, January 31, 2010

Hey Momma!

It was good to hear from you! Im glad to hear things are still going well out that way.

Today is me and Butels last p-day together and we are having a blast! I hope you enjoy the Videos that we send you today. I suscribed to the same site that he uses, so I will do my best to keep the p-day video tradition alive. We have a blast doing it. I am really, really excited for Elder Jensen to get here. As he is young in the mission I think it will really push me to be more of a presence in conversations and will really help my French improve rapidly. Because Elder Butel speaks perfect French everybody we talked to always spoke at a million miles an hour which has led me to believe that this past transfer has specifically improved my comprehension while this next transfer with Elder Jensen will help me learn how to speak.

Anyways I am going to keep this email a little bit on the short side since we are sending you so many videos telling you all about our week.

I did make a list of a few ideas of things that I thought would be super nice to get in a package. Obviously you dont have to send all of them but here they are!
~Pictures!
~A picture book or something to put pictures in!
~Toothpaste (I figured if you buy a big pack from costco it would be nice to get one)
~A toothbrush (my sonic care charger is not working) Dont worry I have a toothbrush but I figure I will need a new one by the time my next package arrives!
~Deoderant (old spice)-the kind I like is called Denali and its part of a new collection called Fresh collection
~Homemade Salsa
~Homemade Jam
~another memory card from my camera (my camera uses SD cards)
~Post it notes???

Alright, so I know might seem like dumb things to ship all the way around the world. But I think they are cheaper there and I am trying to get in shape. We do a lot of walking here and eat fairly Healthy and I work out every morning so I am TRYING to stear clear of the junk food. However if you shipped these things to me it would make it so I could spend more of my monthly allowance on fun random things like a pain au chocolat or a Kebab! Anyways, I am also going to try and somehow get rid of one of my suitcases. I wanna be able to carry all my lugage by myself on transfer days and well right now thats just not possible and I dont like it. So my last package was wonderful and I use/love every single thing you sent me. But if possible, just keep in mind that I am trying to avoid collecting too much stuff.

Anyways- I am having a blast here. Tomorrow we have our last district meeting all together and we are all going out to get Kebabs afterwords so I am pumped for that!

Okay! Alright- so the work here is good! We officially have NO investigators as of right now. Joseph died (mom's note: Joseph was an 80 year old man that they were teaching and he actually did pass away and Mason and his companion found him when he stopped returning their calls suddenly) this past week as you will see in the video and, well, just because of how insanely crazy and bizarre this transfer has been, me and Jensen will continue to do more finding this next transfer. Something else we will focus on is the Food Night we have scheduled for February 26th.

Our DMP (ward mission leader - Dirigeant missionaire de La Paroisse ) is named Manu Mangatia. He served his mission in the Paris france mission before it consumed The Northern Tip of France and Francophone Belgium. So, its cool because he has actually served in the Paris France mission but he was born in Lille. He is a great guy and we REALLY get along. He has only been back fro his mission for 2 years or so, so he is really young!

The Bishop... wow okay so the Duez family here is amazing. Pierre Duez is the Stake President. His Brother Marc Duez is the Bishop of the Villeneuve D'ascq ward and Jaques Duez is the 2nd counseler. Crazy huh!? I love all three of them though. It is cool to see how great they all work together! We are having dinner with Marc Duez tomorrow night! I am really excited.

The members here dont really know how to work with the missionaries. The bishopric has noticed this and we are working with them very closely on how we can help them. We are also trying to create as many oppurtunites as possible for members to invite friends to fun, comfortable non threatening situations where they can learn about why we are the way we are without the feeling of intense missionaries trying to teach them from the second they walk in. Some of the activities we have started doing to allow this to happen are:
~PPP - On saturday night we do ping pong and pancakes at the chapel. This has been a huge success!
~Samedi Sport on Saturday mornings we go and play soccer from 10-12
~Diner p-pot (some weird french slang for our activity on february 26th)
We have been trying to get members excited for each of these activities and get them to realize how easy it is to invite friends or people they know to play soccer with some people from church! Anyways I hope this helps give you a better idea of what is going on here in the Villeneuve d'Ascq ward!

Ok momma, we gotta go. Gonna go home and make a quiche! I love you soo much! Say hi to everybody for me and Tell andy I am sending him a letter and I will mail it no later than tomorrow! I hope you have a wonderful week and everything keeps on coming together for the wedding! Anyways I love you mom!

Love,
Elder Morgan