June 13, 2011

Hey family, how is everything going? Well Paris is Great! I love it here. There is always something to do and a lot, a lot and a lot of people to talk to! It has been a great few days here in Paris. Well, my last few days in Le Havre were also great. Monday at our English class we wore our Boo Boos because we have a few Africans come and they loved it. They all had a good laugh over it and they took pictures also. I will have to send it next week though because I don’t have my camera with me. But it was fun. Tuesday we had a dinner with a member family and it was awesome. They are so cool. We also had a district meeting in Rouen. This was the last one for me there. Because it was the last one I had to go and get me a Dr. Pepper...Yes it was a necessity. I had to have one! It had been a long time...I do have to say it was very good. Then we took awesome district photos. Then I spent a lot of time packing. I don’t know why, but I have a lot of stuff. I left a lot of it and sent some stuff like my journal and letters home. I left about 4 shirts, two pair of pants, some gym socks and a couple of ties. I love my ties, but I had to get rid of some of them. Some I never even wore so there was no point in keeping them. I finally got things ready for Wednesday. Wednesday morning I got ready and the member who gave us dinner the night before gave me a ride to the Gare (train station) to say goodbye. Then there were two other members at the Gare already to say goodbye to me as well. They are soooo nice to the missionaries and to me. They gave me two ties, a bright blue one and a black and blue striped one. I also got some treats for the ride to Paris. Well, that is when I was off to the big city. It was a couple of hours by train, but I finally got there. There were a couple of elders there to pick me up and take me to the church. My new companion didn’t come in till about 4:30 and I came in at 12:10, so I had some time to chill. Well, he eventually came and we headed over to the apartment. We are sharing our apartment with the Zone leaders so we are in a 4 man apartment. It has been great. We all get along and have a good time. Well, my new companions name is Robin Dick. He is from Oxford, England. This will be his 3rd transfer. The cool part is he was also trained by Elder Caywood. So, we both had the same trainer. Well, we get along and work hard. Elder Dick loves to sing and has a great voice. He took professional singing classes for 4 years and is a great singer. Our first couple of days here have been great. When we got here we had about 1-0 investigators so we had to start off with nothing and start fresh. We have been doing a lot of contacting lately and we have gotten a lot of numbers. This is good! We even had an investigator make it to church. Now this is something else - I couldn’t remember a ward like this. This ward has kids running around; it is loud and has a lot of people. It is just a different experience with all the members. I forgot what a big family ward was like. It was awesome though. I had a meeting early in the morning so we had to get up early because we live about a half an hour away by metro. So, we get there and Elder Jacquier and I had a meeting because we are the district leaders. We have a meeting every Sunday. After the meeting we had our first church meeting. In sacrament we were asked to sing the intermittent hymn. So, we had our two districts, Elder Jacquie’s district which is the Chinese district, and my district, which is the French district, sing. So there were 12 missionaries. It was so cool! We sang a rendition of “Called to Serve”. We sang one verse in English, then one in Chinese, and one in French. We then end again in French. It was so cool! They absolutely loved it. There were so many members coming up to us telling us we did a great job. We also have been asked to do a musical thing at our zone conference on June 21. We are thinking about singing that same song again. Well, let me tell you about our ward. We have a lot of French, a lot of Africans and a lot of Chinese. There are also a lot of Americans and a lot of visitors on vacation. We also have several BYU exchange students. So, we have a big ward. There are about 300 people at church each week, which is a lot here. It is so cool though, our church is right in the center of Paris. It is so cool I am so happy to be here. This place is sweet. Our work is starting to pick up and move. We also have a Visitor Center here in Paris where we work for one night for 4 hours a week. It is pretty cool. So those are some things going on. Oh, it was so cool, on Saturday we play sports and we played basketball last week. It was so cool; we played right next to the Eifel tower! It was so cool. Then today we had a Paris p-day where all the missionaries around Paris come. We played some American football and it was a good time. Well, I love it here! It is cool! I love the work also and love my companion. We are going to work hard this transfer and do the best we can and have a great time also. Well, I love ya!
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER