Elder Christopher Walker's Mission

November 21, 2011

2011-11-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

HOMEWARD BOUND

In the quiet misty morning, when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red,
When the summer's ceased its gleaming, when the corn is past its prime,
When adventure's lost its meaning, I'll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture. Chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

If you find it's me you're missing, if you're hoping I'll return,
To your thought I'll soon be list'ning; in the road I'll stop and turn.
Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end,
And the path I'll be retracing when I'm homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture. Chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing, I'll be homeward bound again.

--PS Remember that I love you
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

November 14, 2011

2011-11-14T07:51:00.001-08:00

Bonjour Famille, how is everything going? Well things are going great - just living life as a missionary, working hard and having fun. We have had a good week. We have also had a couple of miracles. The work is starting to pick up...This week we have fixed two baptism dates with our investigators. One - his name is Luis and he is half French and half Portuguese. He came into the visitor center one day and we started to teach him. Then we went on an exchange with the zone leaders and Elder Tehaai fixed the date with him for Dec 3rd. Actually, Luis is the one who fixed the date for the 3rd so we are going to work with him and try to get him ready by then. He is good though. He told us that he wants to change his life so he came to learn more about Jesus Christ. He is pretty cool. We will hopefully see him this week to get him ready for the 3rd. The other baptism date is a guy named Juan. He is from Ecuador and is now here in Paris. He is pretty cool. We taught him a while back in my 1st transfer in Paris. Then he left on vacation and had work and then it was just complicated. But we got a hold of him and started teaching him again. We fixed a baptism date with him for the 3rd of December also. So things are starting to pick up here. So those are a couple of miracles we have had here. This week also we had my last zone conference and we had Elder Kopishkie of the 7O’s come and speak to us. It was such a great conference. All he brought was his scriptures and at the first of the meeting he told us to write down a question. Then after we wrote it down he told us that we just set the theme for the conference. He promised us that if we pay attention and think about that question that it would be answered in this conference. So then he just talked for the first part. We talked a lot about the spirit. Then after the lunch break he talked about desire, and what desire really is. It was good. After the conference my mind was finished. He blew my mind out of the water. It was good and he talked about how god answers the desires of our hearts and he asked us what we each desire. He asked, “Have you ever desired to know what your mission president sees for you or what God sees for you in the future?” All in all it was a great zone conference and I will have to go back and look at my notes, but in the end he was right! My questions were answered. He told us also that we can do this at church. If we have a question and write it down on a piece of paper and then go to church and think about the question, ponder and listen carefully. That question will be answered. The answer may never be said by someone, but it will be answered never the less. So it was a great conference. Well, so that was the highlight of our week. Our investigators are doing all great also. Our mother, Graciela, is doing great. She reads 3 chapters in The Book of Mormon every day and she even went to church when she was visiting her husband down south. She is doing great and she even told her daughter that she will be baptized. Cherif, our friend from Egypt, is doing ok. We haven’t seen him in a while. He came to English class though, but we haven’t seen him this week. We will call him and see how he is doing. Things are going great though. We have been getting some new investigators and things seem to be going pretty great. So we are happy about that. Well family, I love you and hope things are going great. Well, after this I will only have one e-mail left. The mission has been a life changing event that I would never trade for anything in the world. I met new people and friends from all over the world - from America to France to South America to Africa to Egypt to China. I will never forget the stories and the times I have had - the good and the bad. I have learned a lot about our Lord and Redeemer and I still have much to learn. It is a lifelong process. This has been something that I know has changed my life and I want to thank you all. All my family, friends, members - everyone. If it weren’t for you and your testimonies I don’t know where I would be in my life. You all have played a major role in my life and it is something I am truly grateful for. Thank you! You all mean a lot to me and I wouldn’t change it for anything. You all have been a blessing in my life. I will never forget this place and the great times I have had serving the Lord. It has truly been the best two years. Well, next week will be the last e-mail. Then I will shortly be seeing you. I love you and I will talk and see you next week. BYE

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Homecoming Announcement

2011-11-11T08:22:00.001-08:00

November 7, 2011

2011-11-11T08:21:00.001-08:00

Hi family and friends. how is everything going? Are you doing great? Well things here have been great. We have been working hard here and we also have been walking a lot too. I mean a lot...but I guess I should be good at that. I mean after all, my name is Walker, and the definition of a walker is a person or a thing that walks or likes to walk......Ya, I don’t think it is the 2nd one - liking to walk. Ya – no, I think I am more of the person who walks instead...No, it is all good, good exercise also. This week has been good, but like I said, we have been doing a lot of contacting trying to find new investigators. We have found some great potential investigators but we will have to see them again to see if they are really interested in our message. We have had some really great first lessons, but we will see where they will go. Well, a cool thing that has happened this week happened yesterday. Yesterday, Claire, our investigator who got baptized last week, received the Holy Ghost. It was awesome. The spirit was so strong there. After the meeting I asked her how she felt after receiving it. She told me that it was a spiritual confirmation that being baptized and becoming a member of the Church of Jésus-Christ was the right choice and that it is the true church. It was so cool. Her testimony has grown so strong and she will be a great member of the church. That is pretty much all of the big things that have happened this week. There was something big last week that I forgot to talk about. It is that Elder Gonzales of the Presidency of the 70’s came and spoke to us for a zone conference. It was pretty cool. He talked about la foi et trouver les gens or in other words Faith and finding people. It was great and really spiritual. Then this week we have Elder Kopischke from the 70’s also coming to talk to us. So it should be good. I am looking forward to that. He is also I believe in the area presidency over Europe so that will be cool. That is pretty much what is going on here. I love the work, I love my companion, I love our apartment - it is a fête chaque jour, I love being a missionary and I love you! What more can I ask for - not much. Thanks for everything. I hope you will have a wonderful day and week and I will talk/see you soon. LOVE YA!!!!!!

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 31, 2011

2011-11-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

So, how is everyone doing? Well this week has been great!!!!!! Our investigator Claire got baptized! Oh yaaaah!!!! It was a great baptism yesterday. It was so good! Well let’s start off at the start of the week though. After the call last Sunday saying she wanted to be baptized, we said we would have to see her every day and we did. It was so cool. We also had some great members with us who came and helped out a lot. Probably if it was not for the members I don’t know if she would have made it yesterday. The members helped out so much. They gave her a friend at church, helped her stop smoking, and change her life. They helped her with questions when we were not around. They did so much and I am so grateful for them. It was so cool to see someone change their whole life and turn it around. It was also cool to see that happen in a week. Every day that we saw her you could tell something was different and that she had a testimony of the gospel of Jésus-Christ. It was a cool experience that I am glad that Heavenly Father gave me. To see someone change like that for the better has strengthened my testimony that I know this church is true and that with the Lords help you can get through anything. Then Sunday, yesterday, was a great day. We had a lot of people at the baptism and it was great. We were scared that there would not be a lot there because it is fall break, but we had a good turnout. What was also cool - her friend from Georgia, USA came to baptize her. He got here in France around 11:20 Sunday morning then at night we had the baptism. So he was pretty tired after a long flight and then a long day. It was all good. It was a beautiful day and we all felt the spirit. So that was a pretty cool thing that we were able to have this week. Another thing that happened was Monday night president called us. This was around 9:30 at night telling us, “Oh by the way elders tomorrow you will have a mini missionary with you. So you will have to come to Versailles tomorrow to pick him up.” We told him we had a rendez-vous at that time and he said well you have to come. So we worked it out and he ended up going on a 3-way exchange with us and the 2 companionships in Paris - Lilas. It worked out and it was all good. So we had a mini missionary with us for 3 days. It was good.His name is Marc and he is from Evry, which is just south of Paris. He was pretty cool. He helped us out a lot. He is very, very shy but he had a good testimony and helped out in the rendez-vous. It was pretty cool to have him with us. So that was our week. Things are going pretty good for us.

Well, real fast, our investigator Cherif from Egypt - things are hard with him. I don’t know what we are going to do but we will still try to work with him. Graciela is doing great. She left to go out of town this week to go see her husband down south. She couldn’t come to church but she is still progressing and things are going great. She will get baptized soon - not sure when but soon. So that is all that we have right now. So that is how things are for us. This week is going to be spent doing a lot and a lot of contacting. So we have a lot of things to do this week...right! Well, it will be good. We need some new investigators so everything is great. Well, I love you and take care.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Official Release Letter

2011-11-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

Parents of Elder Walker,

Your son, Elder Christopher Merrill Walker will soon complete his service as a full time missionary in the France Paris Mission. His scheduled release date will be November 22, 2011.

At this time we wish to thank you for your invaluable support of his mission through your letters and prayers. We feel certain you are anticipating a joyous reunion. Upon his return he should report immediately to his stake president in order to give an account of his mission, receive timely instruction, and receive his formal release.

During his mission, Elder Walker has served faithfully, has demonstrated an extraordinary attitude, testimony, and spirit, and developed qualities which exemplify the very best in the performance of missionary work. He has treated the various responsibilities he assumed here as a sacred trust. By his faith, humility and devotion to duty, often in the face of adversity, he became an effective teacher and witness of truth. The great personal qualities which he discovered and enhanced during his mission will be a source of strength to him and to all with whom he associates throughout his life.

Elder Walker will be remembered with fondness and love by many friends and members of the Church in France, as well as by his missionary companions. His life has been enriched by learning the French language, by living in a foreign culture, and especially by serving others.

It has been our privilege to serve with him, observe his spiritual growth, and enjoy close association through personal interviews, and his weekly letters and accompanying reports. He is a fine young man whom we love and for whom we wish the very best.

Sincerely,

Franck Poznanski
President, France Paris Mission

October 24, 2011

2011-10-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, hey, hey how is everyone doing? Well, this week has been great. There have been a lot of things happening and a really cool miracle that took place. Well, this week started off great. We had a great family home evening with the young adults and Clair even came. She loved it. We also saw her on Wednesday and gave her a blessing to help her quit smoking and to answer her questions. It was a great rendez-vous. She is so cool. Well, she came to church on Sunday and then I went on a split with a member and we taught her. It was a great rendez-vous with her. She was taught about a year ago and she was almost baptized. Well, we committed her again. We said we know you know this is true so will you go home and pray for a date that the lord wants you to be baptized. She said she would. Well, we go throughout the day and just contacted and contacted. Towards the night I get a phone call and it was Clair. We were on the metro at the time and I asked how she was doing. She said or so I thought; “I am sick.”....then the phone cut out. I was in shock. I was thinking she was fine earlier today. Is she sick of us? Well, when we get off the metro I called and asked how she was and she said fine. I am fine..whoo…there goes that worry. Then she said "I was calling to ask you if...if we could actually fix a baptism service for next Sunday".........WHAT??? I was in shock! She said that she felt that it was time and she needs to get baptized. I told her I would have to make some calls. So, I called around to see if we could and I got a “yes.” So, I called her back and told her yes but that we will have to see her every day to get her ready. She was ok with that. Then I told her that everything needs to stop…the smoking, the coffee drinking and the tea. She said; “no problem.” It was so cool. She asked in the rendez-vous earlier if her friend from America who is a member can come and baptize her. We said of course. It is so cool. She remembers a lot from the last time she was taught. We have a lot of work though. We have to go over a lot of things and make sure she is ready. So, we have a lot of work and we also told her this week will probably be hard. We told her to just remember to rely on the lord and he will help you get through anything. So, we will be working with her to get her ready and we are praying and will try our best for her. So that is our miracle for this week. It is so cool. Graciela is also doing great. We have a rendez-vous with her tomorrow and we want to ask her to be baptized. We have asked her before but there is something that is stopping her from doing so. We don’t know what it is but we will work on it and hopefully find out what it is. She is doing great though. Our friend from Egypt - I am not too sure about. He is having a hard time right now and I don’t know what is going to happen. We will keep working with him to help him out. We will try our best. Things are going great here though with Elder Tehaai. We are having a great time. We are doing a lot of contacting though but things are great and we are having fun. Well, I love you and hope you have a great week. Take care and remember to rely on the lord and he will help you. --
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 17, 2011

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well things here have been fun. It has been a great week with my new companion and we have had a great time. We have worked hard and it was a very tiring week. Well, let’s start off our week. Monday was our last p-day of the transfer. We didn’t do much. We just went out to lunch and then we had a rendez-vous with Cherif, our friend from Egypt. It was just really to say good bye for Elder Dick. Then we left a spiritual message. He is doing well. I am not too sure about him though. For the moment he has stopped progressing. He has come to a wall and kinda stopped. I am hoping just for the moment though. I hope we will still try to work with him. We saw him with Elder Tehaai and it was good. It was a little difficult but it was good. He just wants to find a job first before he wants to stop smoking. We will keep working with him and hopefully help him out. Tuesday we just had our usual last district meeting for the Pairs zone. After the meeting we had a burrito fête. This is where we make homemade burritos and have lunch together. It was good. Then we just had a dinner with a couple of members to say good bye. Wednesday came and it was a fun transfer day. Luckily I didn’t have to transport anyone this transfer. But we went to the gare and found my new companion. I have to say he is legit. He is so cool and is so nice. Our apartment is so funny. Two Tahitians, one French and one American. It is a fête. We all have a good time. For a long time I couldn’t figure out something. I could understand when the Frenchy Elder Gubbay talked but when the Tahitians were talking I couldn’t really understand them. I could understand a little bit of what they were saying but the rest was just a blur. Then I realized that they were not speaking French but Tahitian. It was good. So, in our apartment we are speaking French, English; Tahitian, and Chinese. Last night it was funny. We had two Elders speaking in Tahitian, a Frenchy speaking Chinese and a very lost and confused American. We get along great in our apartment. We have good laughs and a great time. We have been doing a lot of contacting lately. We need to find some new investigators so we have been doing that for a long time. It is working. This week we also got a golden referral from the Visitor Center. Her name is Claire and she is from England. She is so cool. She met with the missionaries a while back but stopped. She then realized that there was something missing in her life and found out that it was the church. So, she came into the Visitor Center and talked with them for about 2 hours. I called her Saturday night to invite her to church. She told me she was already planning on coming. She then said that right when I called her she was praying and it was the first prayer that she had given for a very long time. So I asked her how she felt and she just said it was good and she felt closer to God then she has ever felt before.... so we saw her Sunday and she loved church. After church we saw her and just got to know her and give a little lesson. It was great. She remembers a lot of stuff that the missionaries had taught her and then she told us that she wanted us to teach her about the atonement of Jésus-Christ. So we taught that and asked her how she thinks she can be clean. She said that baptism is something that has been on her mind and that it is something that she must do in order to be clean and follow Jésus.....WOW it was such a good lesson. She told us that she will probably get baptized but she wants to take it slow for the moment. She was very cool and she may come to FHE tonight. If not we will see her on Wednesday. We also had a rendez-vous with Graciela and it was great. We taught her about eternal families and it was a great lesson she is doing very well also. Things here are going great. Elder Tehaai and I are getting along and working hard. Thank you family and friends. I love you and hope you will have a great week.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 10, 2011

2011-10-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Things here are just great. Well, I am sure you are wondering what is happening with my last transfer.....oooh it gives me chills just thinking about that. Well, there have been a lot of changes in the mission. President has changed a lot of things around. Well, I guess I could tell you what will happen, but what would the fun be in that. Well, I guess I could tell you anyway. I am staying in Paris! However, things have changed. I am getting a different companion. His name is Elder Mihiarii Tehaai. He is from Tahiti. He has been out a little over a year. He started when I was in my 6th transfer. He will also become the District Leader. So, that means a nice relaxing transfer. HAHAHA. It will be good. He is a hard worker so I am excited about that. Then we are also having the zls move out of our appt and we are having the Chinese elders move in. Also, one of them is from Tahiti. That means two Tahitians in the apartment....o yah… we are going to eat well and have super fun. Then the other Chinese elder is French - so that means 3 francophone’s and an Anglophone in an apartment. We will be speaking a lot and I mean a lot of French - which is great. I finally have a francophone companion. It is going to be great. They are also taking the sisters out of Paris and not putting any in for the moment. There will just be 4 French missionaries here. I am the only one in my district who is staying. Elder Dick is going to Metz, Elder Rako is going home, Elder Wood is going to St Brieu and the sisters are going to Brussels and Blois. Everyone is leaving. President made some big changes. So that is the transfer news.

Well, we had an awesome week. We didn’t teach much though. We had 5 rendez-vous fall through, but it’s all good. We didn’t have any baptisms either but maybe we can have a couple next transfer. We have some great potential with the mother daughter team and our friend from Egypt. Their names are Graciela and Cherif. They are doing great. We had one last concert last night before everyone left and they both came and loved it. The concert was about Joseph Smith. We had a speaker who played him and a narrator who told the life story of him. Then we had some great music and everyone loved it. It was so spiritual. There were people crying at the end. Our president’s wife, Soeur Poznanski was crying and loved it also. It was a great way to end a transfer. We sang some awesome songs. I can’t send it because it is to long but if you want to see what it was we sang a version of “Nearer my God to Thee” by Vocal Point. So, you can look that up. It is an awesome version of the song and you sing it with 9 or more voices. It was all sung A cappella. It sounds sweet! We also sang some other great songs. I have recorded a couple of them but I will just have to show you later because I can’t send them by e mail. It was good and it was a great way to finish a wonderful transfer. A lot of stress and anger came from getting it ready, but it turned out great. So that was the highlight of our week - it was really sweet. We had a great meeting with Graciela, our investigator, and taught her the commandments and they went great. She understands them. We couldn’t see Cherif this week but he is doing good. He is still smoking a little but we will work on that. Well family, I love ya and I will talk to you next week. I hope you will have great week also.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 3, 2011

2011-10-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Bonjour family or as President Monson said "HELLO". So, how is everyone doing? Things here are just great. Well I hope everyone had the opportunity to watch or at least had the chance to hear General Conference. It was a great conference. I don’t know how excited everyone is back at home with the news but everyone here is so excited!!!! THEY ARE BUILDING A TEMPLE IN FRACE YAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! We were not quite sure when he announced it but on the church web site it says they will build the temple. OH YA we were so happy when they said that. Everyone just yelled. It was so funny - it is so cool. There will also be another temple in Provo. WOW that is cool - two in one city. It just shows the work of the Lord is moving on. It was a great conference. We didn’t get to watch the Sunday afternoon session, but as I am writing this I am listing to it at the same time. So it is all good. Ya we watched the Saturday morning live at 6:00 PM our time, then we watched the priesthood session at 11 o’clock Sunday morning, then the Saturday afternoon at 2 o’clock on Sunday afternoon and then we watched the Sunday morning live at 6 o‘clock pm. The Sunday session was at 10 to midnight so we couldn’t watch it. Oh well, I still loved conference. I loved how they just look so happy and are full of energy. I don’t know how they do it. They are in there eighties (80's) and we are in our 20’s and we are just dead tired. I don’t understand. I love it though. I loved President Monson and how he starts off with “Hello”, then his talk Sunday morning about his 5 dollars and prayer and being ready to answer the Lords call when he calls. There were a lot of good talks. President Packer’s talk about the crows and the young and old people. They were just all good. I can’t just think of one that I loved the most. Every talk - it was so great. It was a great conference. I did also read the conference talk by President Uchtdorf from the relief society about the forget-me-not flowers. It was very good about the 5 things we need not to forget - how to be patient, how to sacrifice, how to be happy, the why in the gospel, and that we are loved. It was a great talk. Let’s just face it; they were all good and inspirational. I learned a lot from General Conference. I will always remember it. Before the mission I didn’t take it that serious, but now I know they are called from God to give us his word. I love watching and taking notes. It is something that will bless my life forever. It was also good because we had to go out to the Versailles church. It was beautiful and it was good to see everyone in our zone and our stake. Know that I love you and I hope you have a great week and remember the words of the prophets. If you didn’t have the chance to watch them then go to the church site http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2011/10?lang=eng and watch/lesson/or read the talks. They will bless your life. If we remember the words of the prophets we will be protected and we will know what we are doing is right. I love you and hope you have a great day.

PS - our investigators are doing well. Our friend from Egypt has a date for this Sunday, but I don’t know if he will make it. We will pray though.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 26, 2011

2011-09-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well things here are going great. We have had a fun week. There have been a lot of things that have been going on. Well, thanks again for the happy birthday wishes. They were really nice. Well, I had a great birthday. It was not bad at all. It was pretty cool though, we had a rendez-vous with one of our investigators and we found out he does not live in our area so we had to pass him. Sad - but it is ok. We have had to pass about 4 or 5 investigators this transfer. It kinda hurts but they are going good. I talked to one of the other elders we passed them to and he told us that they fixed a baptism date with one of them. So we are excited about that. Besides that, the investigators that we have are going great. Our investigator from Egypt is doing great. We had to give him 2 more weeks. He is so close. He is down to 2-3 cigarettes a day. He is cutting down. It is so good and yesterday at church he had a great interview with our bishop. It was awesome. He gave him great support and helped him out. Our goal is the 8th or 9th of Oct. so keep praying for him and he will make it. Our mother daughter team is going great. We had a rendez-vous with them last Saturday and we taught the Plan of Salvation. It went over well. I love the rendez-vous with them. They are funny. The daughter speaks English, Spanish and Polish. The mom speaks French, Spanish, and Polish. So, we teach the mom in French, ask questions to the daughter in English and then the daughter testifies in Spanish. So, we have all these language things going on. It is still awesome and we have great rendez-vous though. They feel the spirit and love it. Before the lesson the mom said she was scared about death. It is scary, but after we taught the lesson she had a lot more comfort as she realized that there is another life and that we can live together forever with our families. It was awesome to see how she changed and now has a better understanding of the gospel. They are going great. We also invited her to be baptized when she knows that it is true. She said “yes” but she wants to be a 100% sure that it is the true church before. They are awesome though. So those are some of the big things with our investigators. We have a couple that we are just starting to teach and hopefully they will be great. Another cool thing that happened yesterday - we had this great activity after church for the members and the missionaries. It was organized by our sister missionaries. It was an activity where the members and the missionaries could strengthen their faith. We had 3 stations - one was this video with Elder Nelson giving a little talk about member missionary work, the 2nd was a recent convert activity were the members asked questions about their conversion. Then there was a role play area. That is where I was. It is where the members act as themselves and the missionaries are their friend. The friends would ask a question and the members had to find a way to tie it in with the gospel. It was a great activity. After we had our bishop extend an invitation to have a friend ready by some date they pick to give to the missionaries. It was a great activity. Also, yesterday was one of the weirdest Sunday’s I think I have had. It started off ok then it was painful, then stress related, with an awesome activity and a good night. Well, we had to be at a members’ house at 7:30am to help him take some stuff to the church for the activity. We had to be at the church at 8:15am. Anyway, every Sunday I have a meeting with the leaders of the ward and talk about the work and stuff. Towards the end of the meeting my head started to hurt like no other. It started to kill me. I never felt like that before. I had to leave the first hour of church because it was so bad. It started to make me sick and to tell the truth it made me throw up. It was horrible. I never felt that much pain in my head before, but our DMP gave me some Advil and I was feeling great after that. I have no clue what happened but it sucked. It was just for the 1st hour also. Weird - but ok. Then the 2nd hour we were getting the sacrament ready and we ran out of sacrament cups for the water. So we were running around trying to find them. We were lucky and found just enough for the sacrament. After we found out we still needed some more though. We had to prepare 2 sacraments because this was the first week where they tried a sacrament in Chinese. It was so cool. They eventually want to open a Chinese branch here. It will be so cool. That was our 2nd hour. Then we had sacrament. Now that was fun. I am glad I participated in the scripture mastery in seminary. I helped translate and I was the one looking for scriptures. It was hard. You have like 5 seconds to find and read the scripture before the talker moves on. So they will say D&C 121:5 and you are flying through the scriptures. Then after a few you’re thinking I got this - it is all good. But you know what? I think the speaker knows how you feel – that you think you can handle it. They are just thinking ok I went easy on the scriptures, but try this on for size - D&C48:56 then Joshua 5 then after you have Mosiah 2. There! You shouldn’t have been just thinking you could handle it – YEAH - try to find all those in 5 seconds. So, you are flying through the scriptures and you miss them. Then all the English speakers are totally lost and have no clue what is going on and you are just freaking out. The speaker is just laughing thinking yeah, “I got ya.” It was fun though and we had a great time translating. After church and the activity we practiced for our last concert. It will be on the 9th of October. It should be great and hopefully we will have a great time. We have some great songs. Well that is my week. I love you and thanks for all that you do. BYE --
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 19, 2011

2011-09-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Thank you so much for the birthday wishes. They were really nice. It is weird to think that I will be 21 years old. I can’t believe it. It feels like two days ago I was learning how to drive and yesterday I left on my mission. Now I am 21 and legal. OK - it is weird to think – wow - I am old but it is ok. I am loving it. Well, things are going great here. We are having a good time and we are getting along. Well, we have had a good week. Our friend from Egypt is doing great. We have had a couple of rendez-vous with him and we have fixed a baptism date for this weekend. Now, we don’t know if he will get baptized this weekend. He smokes and it is hard for him to stop. He has gotten down to 4 a day which is a lot better and he is working on it. We have a rendez-vous with him tonight and we will see how he did over the weekend. We will find out if he smoked or not. It was funny. We had our Stake Conference yesterday and it was at Versailles. It was great. We told Cherif about it and we told him we could go together out there. The only problem was we had to meet at our church at 7:45AM to get out to Versailles in time for the conference. Well, he never showed up so we decided to leave. Then around 11 o’clock he calls us and tells us he is at the church, but no one is there. It was a good conference though. We had the conference in a big conference center in Versailles. The cool part is that it is right next door to the Castle of Versailles - the big huge famous one. It was awesome. It is a lot different than the big city. I forgot what it is like out in the outer cities. It is calm, clean and the best part - fresh air. It was really nice. France is a really beautiful place. It is so green and there are lots of things to see. The mother/daughter team is also doing very great. We stopped by one night after they got off work and we sang them a song and talked. They are doing awesome. They read together each night and it is just awesome. She knows the church is true and the daughter is helping out the mom a lot. The daughter is a member and she helps her out with questions. When she bears her testimony to her mom it is so powerful. It just shows that the family is very important and how the gospel of Jesus Christ can bless families. We can be together for eternity after this life. It really means a lot to me and I am so grateful that we have that opportunity to live together forever. Thank you again for all your birthday wishes. It truly means a lot. Well, I love you family and hope you have a great day and remember to BE HAPPY!!!!

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 12, 2011

2011-09-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well like always things here are going great and we are having a fun time. Well, we have had our ups and downs this week. It started off well, ended just under well. I have no clue what that would be called, but it was a good week. So let’s get down to it. Our friend from Egypt is doing great. On Monday we had a family night with him and some members at the member’s house and it went great. We talked about the Parole de sagesse (word of wisdom) and it went ok - a little rough, but the members bore a strong testimony on how living this commandment has changed their lives. We also fixed a baptism date with him for Sept 17. Things were going great. Then we had a rendez-vous with him on Friday and it was a hard rendez-vous. We got through it and we realized that he was not ready. The 17th is this Saturday and he was not ready. He is trying his best and he wanted to get baptized, before he left, if he has to leave. We will find out tonight if he has to leave to go back to Egypt or not. We are hoping he will stay, but if he goes home he said he would be back about the start of November. He would just go back for a month to get his wife (fiancée) and get some money and come back. So we are praying for him. He loves everything we teach and loves church. He told us that when he comes to our church he fills like he is home and this is where he belongs. It was so awesome to hear his testimony on how he loves church. It is so cool. I love it. So he is doing well. It is a little hard for him at the moment, but hopefully things will work out for him. Then we also have our mother and daughter team who are doing great. The mom left for the weekend but she will be back. They are doing awesome. We want to fix a baptism date with them for the 9th of October and hopefully things will work out for them. We have been teaching the daughter also so she can help us with the rendez-vous. Things are great with them. So hopefully we will be able to fix a baptism date with them and see that miracle. So those are our top two priorities for the moment. We are still looking for some new people to teach and things are going slow. Vacation is finally over and I thought there would be less people here without all the visitors. Was I wrong! There have been more people than ever. All the Parisians (people that live in Paris) left for the summer while all the visitors are here and now it is the other way around. The visitors left and all the Parisians are back and it seems that there are a lot more of them. The metros are always packed and the trains and buses - they are just packed. You are always in someone’s space when you get on the metro. It is funny - when the metro is packed when it comes to the stop more people try to get on. You are tighter then a pack of sardines. You are back to back and everyone is crammed into a little spot. It is funny. I have a good laugh every time. Paris is fun. I am having a good time. It takes a lot of energy out of you though - running from end to end, up and down stairs (let me tell you after Paris I don’t think I ever want to see stairs again in my life.) We get a work out every day with those stairs. You are at the bottom and by the time you get to the top your legs are killing you. But one thing - is it is a good work out so you’ve got to love it. Well family, my time is coming to an end here today. I want to let you know that I love you and hope you will have a great week – BYE.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Release Date!!!

2011-09-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well Chris must have filled out those "dreaded" papers he received a few weeks ago. Today we got an email say when his release date is. We are so excited and can't wait for him to come home. These past two years have just flown by. We love getting Chris's emails each week telling us about his fun adventures in Paris...but we can't wait to hear them from him personally. So without further ado...Chris will be returning home to Utah on

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

September 5, 2011

2011-09-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well we had a good week this week. It was transfer week so that means that the missionaries in Paris get to help others. It was good. We had to help a couple of elders get through Paris. We only helped out 2. It was not nearly as bad as last time. Last time we were helping people from 8 o clock until 2 o clock. It was hot and we were sweating, but it was a lot easier today. It is fun helping other missionaries through. It gives you a chance to get to know them and if you already know them, just to talk and see how things are going. We actually helped Elder Whitecar (my last companion) through and it was great. He just left Le Havre so I got to talk to him and catch up on the thing in Le Havre. Things seem to be going great there so I am happy for them. Well, I guess I should probably tell you something…so it may be hard for you to take this but I am a mother...confusing right! Well, let me explain. In our mission a mother is someone who takes a brand new missionary out contacting for the first time. They let them experience the mission life before he meets his trainer who is called their father. So we had the brand new missionaries come in on Tuesday and I was asked to take one and go contacting with him. It was awesome! His name is Elder Husle (I think that is how you spell it.) It was fun. We ended up giving a Book of Mormon away and got three numbers. It was fun. It was cool to have that experience of taking out a blue (greenie in English a bleu (blue) in French). It was pretty cool. So now I am a step father (stepfather is a missionaries companion after their trainer), and a mother. Cool huh! OK - well the work here is going great. We have some great investigators and we are just having a great time. So we have our friend from Egypt who is awesome. We had an awesome miracle this week. Our friend was having trouble finding a job and a new house before he has to leave. So, we have been trying to work on that. Then last Monday there was a group of us just standing around in a very popular area when someone comes up and taps us on the shoulder. He said he was a member so we started talking. Then he told us where he was from. He told us that he was from Egypt....wow right! There are not too many members from Egypt. So, we started talking and we told him we were teaching a guy from Egypt. Then the member got really excited and was just so happy. We told him a little of his problem. Then he said; “I will help him with his problem. I will help him find a job and a home. Give me his number.” We all were just shocked, mouth wide open and speechless. Then on Wednesday we have French class and our friend comes to learn French. We invited the member to come and he came. Right when he walked in and they just started talking in Arabic so I have no clue what on earth they were saying. But apparently it went very well because after our friend said that the member was going to help him. Then the member thanked us. After we were just standing there trying to think what it is that he needed to thank us for. It was us that were thankful. It was so cool and we feel so blessed. It was such a miracle. Then yesterday he told us after church that he has to be baptized into this church. He knows it is true and he wants it. It was so cool. I just love it. We didn’t do anything. He contacted us and he was ready. I feel so blessed to be here at this moment to have this experience. It is so awesome. Then another miracle - a while back we did this fast with this recent convert. We fasted to help with missionary work, because she wanted to help the missionaries. About a week later she comes to us and tells us that she has been praying for someone she could present - someone to give to the missionaries. Then she says I found someone. I have been talking to my mom and she wants to start taking the missionary lesson. She saw how it changed my life and she wants to start taking the lessons again. She started taking them with me but stopped after awhile and now she wants to pick them up again...We were just shocked and we were totally ok with that. She told us that she will go on vacation for a month down in Orleans, France. So we asked the missionaries there to teach her. Then, they just got back this last week and we had a rendez-vous with her and her mom on Saturday. It was so awesome and spiritual. It was just so cool. After, the daughter sent us a message saying that her mom loved the lesson. She learned new things and felt the spirit really strong. Oh Ya! This church is true. I love it. She then came to church Sunday and loved it. It is so cool. I just can’t explain. The lord is just giving us these awesome blessing and we are so grateful. So those are some miracles for this week. I love the mission. It is a great feeling testifying to others of the truth that is on the earth and of Jesus Christ our Lord. I love this church. I know it is true. I hope you will all have a great week and a wonderful Labor Day. Remember that I love you!

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

August 29, 2011

2011-09-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, I have some news for you..yep..some transfer news that is. Well, transfers are this Wednesday and I bet you will never guess what is going to happen. Well, there have been a lot of things that have changed. President Poznanski has made some big changes, but they are good. He has been talking and wants missionaries to stay longer in a ward to get to know the members more and the investigators better. So, with that I am staying another one in Paris and I am staying another one with Elder Dick. This is the first time I have stayed 3 transfers with a companion. It will be good, we are excited. Things should be good. We get along great. There are also a lot of missionaries who are staying 3 with their companions. It is a big change. We did have 12 zones in our mission, but now only 8. They have gotten rid of 4 zones and combined them with the others. It should be good, easier and more efficient, so that is nice. It is a little weird though since this is the first time that the Paris ward is not changing missionaries. All 10 of us in the ward are staying the same which is pretty cool. We will get the chance to work with them a lot more. Well, we have had a good week here. Actually we had a great week. Yesterday we had another concert at our church. It was so good. It was based on the Book of Mormon. We had copies of the Book of Mormon out on the chairs and we had 3 speakers who read out of the Book of Mormon before each song. We went through and picked out some very good scriptures and had them read. It was so powerful. You could just feel the spirit when they read the scriptures and then when they sang it was just awesome. It was a good concert and everyone loved it. We had a lot of investigators come and a lot from other wards also like Versailles, St Ouin, Paris, Lilla and more. There were a lot of people there and our Mission President was there with his family. It was very good. It was so spiritual and everyone loved it. We are planning to do one more. This one will probably be one of our last ones also, because next transfer we will be separated and will go somewhere else. So we will make it a good one. Another good thing is that vacation will be over soon. Everyone is starting to come back to Paris and home to go to work and school. It is awesome. We will have some investigators coming back so we are excited for that. It should be fun. One of them we had asked to be baptized and he said yes, but then he left and we had no idea. So we called and called and called again. Then guess what? We called again, but this time we left a message saying if you’re not interested you can just let us know. Then we will stop calling you. Well he calls us back and said no, no, I am interested. It is just that I am on vacation.....Oh! Ok! So he will be back on Wednesday and we can start teaching him again. Oh ya! We are excited. We also have our friend from Egypt and he is doing great. He is so cool and he knows this church is true and wants to be baptized. We just need to work some things out first before we can fix a date with him. He will get baptized soon - hopefully this transfer. He loves this church and comes every Sunday and reads the Book of Mormon and so much more. He is just elect!!! We also had a great rendez-vous with another one of our investigators, but then we found out he lives right outside of our area. So, we will have to pass him but we will still see him around. We asked him if he knew it to be true to be baptized and he said yes. So hopefully the other elders will be able to work with him. Things are going great here. Elder Dick and I are happy that we are staying together and we will have a great time. I love this place and I know this church is true. I LOVE YOU!
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

August 22, 2011

2011-09-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are great. We had a good week. It was pretty cool. We had our zone conference with President Poznanski and it was pretty good. We talked a lot about breaking the walls between the members and the missionaries. We also talked about raising the bar. It was good. We also had his councilor there who talked to us about a minute missionary. He was saying this is not a long time - 2 years or 18 months – it is not long but it will change our life forever and we will always benefit from it. It was a good conference. They are doing this new thing now and I think it is for every mission in the world. Every missionary will get a DVD player as part of their equipment. We are to use it to study the Preach My Gospel DVD. So at the zone conference we all received a Preach My Gospel DVD and a DVD player to use to study. We used it during companion study this past week we have been watching those sections and have been practicing and talking about them. They have been fun to watch and to see how they do it in Preach My Gospel. So that was a cool thing that we got that. Well we have had some awesome things happen here. One is with our investigator Cherif, who is awesome. We had some awesome rendez-vous with him. They were so great. We gave him 2 Nephi 2 to read and when he came to the meeting he had it read. He taught us what was in the chapter and how we needed opposition to know good and evil. Adam and Eve had to eat the fruit or we wouldn’t be here and because of that we fell. We could not return to Heavenly Father alone without help. That is why He sent Jesus Christ to come and lift us up and save us....WOW I was just sitting there with my mouth open and speechless. It was so cool! He knows that this is the true church and it was awesome. He even went to a baptism yesterday and loved it. He said he wanted to get baptized. Hopefully we will fix a date soon. We need to find a couple of things out first. He has to find a new apartment soon or he will have to leave and maybe go back to Egypt. Hopefully things will work out though. He is awesome. He went to a baptism yesterday for a young Chinese lady and it was awesome. I had to give the baptism interview. She speaks English also so it made it easy. We had the baptism questions in Chinese also just to make sure she understood the questions. She did and she passed. She has completely changed her life and loves it. She loves how the gospel fills to her and how it helps her in her life. It is so cool. You can just see how this gospel helps others. I know that this gospel is true. It can help others for the better and I love seeing it help others every day. Seeing that one person change their life for the better and how she just looks like there is something better in her life. I love seeing that and it only makes me happy to see others follow Jesus Christ. This gospel is true and I love it. We have also had some very nice members this week that called and asked us to come over to their house. They are so nice and I am glad that I have had this chance to get to know them better. Well family, I know this gospel is true. I love you and hope you will have a great week and remember I love ya! (And stay bright eyed, bushy tailed and eager to excel)!
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

August 15, 2011

2011-09-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well this week was good. “Was” is the key word though. It was all good up until about Friday...So let’s get on with the story. We started off with studies and they were great, but good things can’t last forever, as they say. Well, we went down to get the mail and I had a letter there for me. That is when my day went from great to horrible. There comes a time in a man’s life that they have to receive something like that in the mail. And just like the scriptures say, it will come to everyone both old and young, both bond and free, the learned and the unlearned, everyone shall have a part of it in this life to come. Well, I guess it was my time. As I got that letter and opened it and started to read my heart was in shock. I could not breathe! It just felt like.....like I was lost and I had nowhere to turn. (Epic story right) Well, I was shocked. I couldn’t breathe and I just told myself; “No! It is not true! It cannot be! But, as I looked and read again, it was true and my heart felt like it was missing. Well, I guess I should probable tell you what it is that I actually got. Well it was.....you know what? Let’s switch subjects here. I am getting all teary eyed just thinking about it. Ok! Onto new and higher things. Well this week started off great. Last Monday our p-day ended at 6pm and we were in the apartment wondering where we should do some contacting. We get a call from some other missionaries in the Visitor Center calling us saying that there is a guy who just walked in the center wanting to be taught and to be baptized. There was no one there to teach him. They asked if we could come. Well, of course we said “yes”. We live about 30 to 45 minutes away from the church but I think we set a new record to get to the church. It took about 20 minutes for us to get there. We ran to the bus stop and the bus was there right when we got there. Then it just felt like it flew to the train station where we jumped off and ran down to the RER (which is a big metro that is faster and has less stops then a regular metro). Well, it was there right when we got there. We jump on and it flew down to the stop by our church. We ran to our church and found him sitting there watching the special witness DVD. This is the one that has all the testimonies of the prophets. Well we talked and had a first lesson with him. We also fixed a second one but this one was a good lesson. He got distracted easily but it was good. He never came to the next rendez-vous but, oh well, we won’t talk about that, but it was still a good story. Now we did have an awesome miracle though. I think I have told you about the guy from Egypt. Well we finally had a rendez-vous with him and it went great. It was so spiritual and just a great meeting. We asked him to really read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He has read a little and tells us he loves it and he feels good when he reads it. Well, we saw him again and we asked how he felt when he read the Book of Mormon. He said; "Every time I read it I just feel calm, like at peace. The best way to describe it would be when you come in from a hot day and you have a nice Ice cold drink of water. It is just refreshing." WOW! Well, then we asked if he has been praying and he said; "I pray before I study and after I study". WOW! Again! It just blew my mind. I just wanted to hug him it was so cool. He has come to church 4 times and reads every day. He is so cool and he is the one that found us. Well, that was the big story of the week we also did a lot of practicing for our next concert. We have gotten a lot of members involved with this one because we want the members to really get involved with the missionaries. We are planning to do it on the Book of Mormon. We are going to have a scripture read and have a song about it. We have about 11 songs and some really good scriptures. It will be a great and spiritual concert......... Well, I guess I should tell you about my letter that I received.....well, here it goes. Well, it is what we call in our mission the “trunkie papers” or in other words the papers that say; “Elder, your time is almost up. This is your time to shine. Work hard and keep going, and by the way, can you fill out these papers and send them into the office so I can get things ready for you-like buy your ticket and everything...... Ya, you could see why I was sick and couldn’t breathe and felt lost. It is ok though. I will work hard. I still have a long time left. So that was my horrible news. Well, ya! Oh, last week we also went to the opera house of Paris. I will have to tell you more on that next week. It was cool and I will send a picture of that also. Well, I love you family. I hope you have a great week and hope everything is all good and well. I love you.

P.S. here is a picture of me and the papers
TTFN Love Elder Walker

August 8, 2011

2011-09-07T14:50:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how are things going? Well, things here are not too bad. I do have some good news and some bad news. Well - bad news.....there will not be a baptism this next Sunday. We have canceled the date. Good news is that Michael is still progressing. He told us that it was too soon and he still wants to be baptized, but he wants to be more prepared first by reading more in the Book of Mormon. I have no problem with that. He will get baptized for sure, just when is the question. He is still progressing and coming to church. We have decided to read in the Book of Mormon with him and so we have started that. He is still awesome and will be baptized. We just need to take it a little slower. Things are going great though. Vacation time is still here and hopefully our investigators are doing great on their vacations. We will make calls tonight to see if any of our investigators have returned from their vacation and maybe we will be able to see them soon. So do you want to hear a funny story? Well, yesterday we were on our way to the church about 7:00 PM. We were heading over and there was a guy who happened to be drunk. Well we walked by him and he had an umbrella and tried to poke at us with it. Well, I moved out of the way and it skinned the back of my neck. Then guess what? He gets ma and hits me over the head with his umbrella. We both just turned around and gave him this weird look like did you really just hit me. Then he just stumbles off. It was so funny. Just out of nowhere an umbrella hits me in the head. We had a good laugh about it. It’s a good story to tell the kids you know. I thought it was pretty funny. We both had a good laugh about it so it was good. Well things are going good here. It has been a little bit slow this week but things are good. We had 3 investigators at church which is always good and we are going to see if we can get some rendezvous with them and start teaching them some more. We had a leadership training last week for all the zone leaders and district leader in the mission. We all went to the church and had a training on some new things we should be doing to help our district. President is really pushing hard on having everything done in French. He can speak perfect English, but they think it will help the mission if we do everything in French. I think it is good. It will be hard at first for the blues (greenies) but it will get better and the French will really improve a lot. He also wants us to be working a lot more with the members here. So as a ward and a zone we have made goals to go and see the members and make friends. This will help us with the work to gain their trust in us and everything. So that is our goal for this next little while. Well, things are great here. It has been a fun week. We have been working hard and will continue to do so. Well I love you I hope you have a great week. Bye
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

August 1, 2011

2011-09-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, we had a great week this past week. Well, it has been fun. Things are also going great with our investigators. One of them is still going strong and he will get baptized. His name is Michael and he is just awesome. We had a rendez-vous with him last Monday and it was great. We have started to teach him the commandments. Then on Thursday or Friday we saw him again. It was so cool he brought his friend and his sister to the meeting. It was awesome. They loved it! We went over the first lesson again about the establishment (restoration) and it went very well. They had some great questions. Then he came to church yesterday and he loved it. He is so ready and the baptism is for the 14th. So, not this Sunday but the one after that. He is so cool. Our other b-dates have been a little shaky. One works a lot and it is very hard to see him. We can only see him on the weekends and maybe not even then because he works so much. We have not been able to see him in some time. We will keep trying and working hard at trying to get him ready. For the moment though we will have to move the baptism date with him. Then the last one we haven’t been able to see. He has been on vacation; because it’s the most wonderful time of the year - vacation time - aka the best. Hopefully when he gets back we can see him again. So, that is what is going on with some things here. We also had an awesome miracle. There is a guy that came from Egypt and awhile back he talked to me and another elder on the road. He asked for a Book of Mormon in Arabic. Well we didn’t pay too much attention because we were in a hurry or what have you. But he comes to see us the day we said we would be there. We were not there thankfully but there were other elders there that gave him a Book of Mormon. Then he came to church one Sunday and he stayed and liked it. He had read a lot in the Book of Mormon. We then saw him at our French class and he came having read the Book of Mormon. He even made his own handout in Arabic saying who Mormon was, who Moroni and Joseph Smith were, where the plates were found and in his own words what the Book of Mormon is.......WOW he is cool. Then he came to church yesterday and loved it. Hopefully we will start teaching him and things will be great. Well yesterday we had another concert at our church. It was so cool. We had a lot of people there and they loved it. It was a classical concert with some twists. It was really cool. We had some awesome singers. We also had some very talented BYU students here for 4 weeks and they came and played in the concert also. It was awesome. The spirit was there and everyone had a great time. We also had wards from all around Paris and missionaries with their investigators there. It was so cool. Our friend from Egypt invited his friend also - it was awesome and they loved it. It was a great time. We had some great music - mostly classical, but like I said we had some twists. Like one elder in the middle of the concert went up and played Mario on the piano. It was so funny. It was to help make people feel more comfortable and just have a good time. It was great. Also one of my friends from high school was there. She was one of the BYU students that were here for four weeks. They left today though but it was cool to talk and have them at the concert. So that was our week. Full of fun times great rendez-vous with our investigators, awesome members and awesome missionaries and a blast serving our lord. I love the mission! It is truly great. I know this church is true and I have felt that my testimony has truly developed on my mission. I love helping others seeing the light and inviting them to come unto Christ. Thanks for all you do. I love you.

TTFN ELDER CHRISTOPHR WALKER

July 25, 2011

2011-07-29T15:05:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, this past week was great, tiring, slow, spiritual, and funny....right… let’s get started. Well, this last week was transfer week and I am staying here with Elder Dick. Last Tuesday we had our last district meeting as a district and we decided to do it as a zone. We decided to have the zone leaders teach it, so they did, and after we took some group pics. Now this is funny, we took a big group picture and then all the elders for some reason decided we wanted to make a human pyramid. So, we had 5 elders on bottom then 4,3,2, and finally 1. It was a huge pyramid and it was very heavy. I was on the row with 4 people so the 2nd one and it was heavy having all the other elders on top. It may not have been the smartest idea but it was fun and we got some cool pictures. We had to try it a couple of times, like 4 or 5, but it turned out good in the end. So that was our fun meeting. Then we had a big burrito fête or a burrito party where we just made homemade burritos and had a good time. Well, then Wednesday came around. This was transfer day. You would think it would be easy because we were not going anywhere. But because we live in Paris we had to help all the other missionaries who were getting transfer and are traveling through Paris. It was a long day. We were helping missionaries from 8am to about 3pm. It was fun but tiring. We went to every Gare (train station) in Paris except for one because it was not in our mission. Besides that we went to everyone and some of them more than once. There are 6 Gares in Paris and they are all very far away from each other. We were running around all through Paris that day - good exercises though. So, that was our day Wednesday. Thursday we had to work in the Visitor Center. We have a Visitor Center right next to our church in Paris. We all take turns once a week to work in the Visitor Center. It wasn’t bad. Ok on to Friday. OK -Friday was not bad. I had to give a baptism interview to one of the sister’s investigators who is awesome. He is from Bulgaria and it was awesome. I have helped him a couple of times before and he was so cool at the interview. He speaks Russian, Bulgarian, English and French. They had to teach him in Franglish. It was good though, he passed then he was baptized on Saturday. It was a great baptism. We were asked to be the witnesses. The baptism prayer was in Russian so we had pieces of paper to read along to see if he is saying it right. It went well and he was baptized. Then he received the Holy Ghost on Sunday. It was a great time. He is so cool and so funny. And speaking of baptisms, we are still good with our b-dates. We have asked 3 people but only fixed a date with two of them. They are going good. One of them though we may have to push back to another date because we just haven’t been able to see him that much. So, it has been hard with him. He is still going strong. We will be seeing him today. The 3rd one we haven’t been able to see yet so hopefully things will work out. OK - one last thing - one of the sister’s just went home last transfer and her family came over to pick her up. They were so nice. They brought us all treats like peanut butter, Reese's Pieces and peanut butter cups. It was so cool. They were so nice. It was cool to talk to them also. Well, that was my week. It was great. Well, I love you and I hope you have a great week. Thank you for all that you do. I love you.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 18, 2011

2011-07-29T15:04:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Things here are great. Well, it was good until about this morning when we found out that we didn’t have any food for breakfast. So my question for you is - think about me and then think about what I would do for breakfast if we didn’t have any breakfast food. So, are you thinking? Well, some of your answers might be ice cream, hamburger, and stuff like that, right? Well, that was not the case today. Today for breakfast I had a salad and mash potatoes....yum right? Well, I actually made the salad and then another elder made the mash potatoes. He had some extra so I ate them but I was just going to eat the salad for breakfast. You might be thinking he is eating salad for breakfast or not just that but that he is eating salad period. Yes, before the mission - no way, but now –Ya! I eat salad. Amazing right! Actually this whole week every night we had salad. Just salad for dinner. It is really good. Ok well, now on to the miracles of this week. Well, we had a great week. We set another baptism date and we asked another one if he would be baptized. We didn’t fix a date with him yet. So now we have 2 b-dates and 1 who said yes. So this week was awesome! This was also our best week all around. OK I am going to tell you everything in 10 min because that is all I have right now so, let’s get going. Well, we had a rendez vous with our investigators and they were awesome. W felt like we should ask them to be baptized and they said “yes.” It was so cool. They are for August 13th. They are going to be awesome. OK – sorry - I will have to tell you things later. But - last thing - transfers are this week I am staying in Paris with Elder Dick. It should be a fun transfer and we are planning to have 3 baptisms this transfer! Maybe we can find another one. Sorry this letter is short. That is my fault. I got distracted with my photos. I was trying to do some things with them and I lost track of time. I promise I will spend the whole time next week and I will fill you in on everything. I love you and hope you have a great week.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 11, 2011

2011-07-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are going great. Well, there are a lot of things that have happened this week. This has been a great week for us. We got 4 new investigators and a baptism date for the 6th of Aug. It is so cool! Well, let’s start off. On Monday it was the 4th and we got to go over to a family’s house to have a 4th of July dinner. It was good. We had hotdogs and roast beef hamburgers. It was so good and we also had Jello. They don’t make Jello here in France. We don’t have it here at all. They got it from America and it was good to have some Jello. They made it look like an American flag also, it was cool. Then we got to play a game and have a good time. They also gave us some root beer! Oh yeah! That is so American! It was good to taste root beer again. It has been too long. So that was my 4th of July! So, how was yours? Well, other things, Wednesday was our best day. We had a rendez-vous with one of our investigators named Micheal and he came to church last week. We fixed a rendez-vous with him for Wednesday. So he comes on Wednesday and he brings his sister. It was so cool. So, we taught both of them the Restoration of the Gospel and they both liked it. We gave them a Book of Mormon also. They liked it and wanted to start to read it. We fixed another meeting with them. They are so cool and they are so nice also. So, those are two of our investigators. Then, Wednesday night, we had our Korean friend come again and we started talking about how we can have a happy life. We asked if he would like to hear more about our message. He said yes and we will now be seeing him on Wednesday right before our French class. So, he is the 3rd new investigator. Then on Saturday we found and old investigators who was lost for some time. We saw him again and he told us that he had a baptism date and he still wanted to be baptized. We were both shocked. But he is so cool. His name is Emanuel. He is cool. We talked and we fixed another date for the 6th of August. It is so cool. We talked about the plan of salvation with him and he has some great questions that he asked. It was cool. So, that is our 4th investigator and our baptism date. So that is cool. Friday we did a big zone activity where our whole zone came and we went to a big park. We did a family contacting activity with the Family Proclamation to the World. It was fun. I went with a Chinese elder - Elder Chung - who is form Taiwan. He is so cool. We contacted this cool lady that can speak 4 languages; English, French, Italian, and German. Wow! She was cool. She wanted to know some more about our church. Hopefully we will be able to see her again. It was a fun activity. It was also fun going with Elder Chung. He also taught me how to say “Hi, how are you? I am doing fine and you?” and my name in Chinese. I can wright my name in Chinese also. COOL! I have said cool a lot in this e mail, oh well. Saturday was a funny day. We played sports - some baseball and basketball again. It was fun and it was the day we also fixed the baptism date. At night we had a meeting with a member. After that the Chinese members were having a little party that they said we could go. So we went and ate some Chinese food. Then they were going to do a surprise birthday thing for a Chinese elder, Elder Liao. They had cake and candles, but no fire. Big problem right! Well, we decided to go out on the street to ask people for fire. Our church is next to a huge gay quarter of Paris. There are a lot of gays there. We found a guy next to the window so I went back into the church. Some other elders went to ask the guy if he had a match. By the time I got to the window with the candles the guy had left. So, they went to look for more fire. We needed the fire now for the candle. So I have a candle in my hand leaning out the window. Our windows have bars on them. So there I am waiting for the elders to come back. I am just looking around and the first guy I see and when I did see one I asked for a light. Now - think about it - I am in a shirt and tie leaning out of a building with bars on the window with a candle in my hand asking for a light. You should have seen his face. It was funny! He said “yes” and gave me some fire. It was funny. So weird, but funny. I mean – just asking a stranger like that, but it was a good b-day party. Sunday, well last Sunday, I saw someone from my school. They are here for a couple of weeks doing some vacationing. Her name is Rachel. She was in a couple of my classes and in my choir class. It was cool to talk to her and see her again. Then we went to a piano concert which was cool also. So, that has been my week. Pretty fun! We had a good time and a fun week and I know that the Lord has helped us with those 4 new investigators. It is so cool to see people wanting to come unto Christ. Well I love ya!

I will try to send some pictures. If it doesn’t work I will send some next week.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 4, 2011

2011-07-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! So, how is everyone this week? I hope everyone had some fun. Well, this week was great for me. Well, let’s start here. We got a new mission pres. last Tuesday. The change went very simply. When Pres. Poznanski stepped on French soil after he got off the airplane, he became our new President. President Staheli gave him the keys and the phone and he was in charge. So that was that. Then, on Thursday, we had our interviews with him, which was cool. The whole meeting was in French. They can speak English but they felt like it would help everyone to learn French faster. I thought that was cool. So, we had a training session and our interviews in French. He is a nice guy. We also got to meet his family. His two youngest daughters moved with him and so they are here in Paris also. It was fun seeing them again. So that was a great day seeing the new mission pres. I think he will do a great job. He knows the language, he is French, knows how to work with the French people and their mentality. I think he will be a great mission Pres. With him we also got a new part of the mission. All of the Nancy stake and about 21 missionaries from that zone are now part of the France mission. So we have a lot of new faces. So that was that. Another cool thing that happened this week was we had our concert last Friday and it was great. We had a great concert and it was so spiritual. We all had a great time. We had about 60 people there and they all said they loved it. So that was cool. We are planning to do one every month and hopefully it will get bigger and bigger.

So, miracle for this week. We teach French class every Wednesday night at the church. Last week a Korean guy came in named Brian. He met a missionary at a hotel and he told him we taught French at the church. So, he came and he was awesome. He also came to the concert and he is looking for a religion also. So, we will hopefully be able to teach him. We will see him this Wednesday for class and hopefully we will be able to talk. Some other things that have happened - yesterday we were walking down the street and a couple of roller bladders came by. Then two cops on roller blades zoom past. So, I turned around and then about 2000 roller bladders were coming down the street. I got some photos and a video. I was filming for one minute and I never saw the end. I guess they were doing a fund raiser. It was quite funny. So, those were just some things that are happening. Tonight we have a family that invited all 12 missionaries over to their house for the 4th of July. It should be a great time and very fun. I will have to tell you more next week. Well, I love you family and hope you have a great day and a happy 4th. I love you.
-- PS sorry this letter is a little short.

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 27, 2011

2011-07-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well things here are going great. Well, just some things to fill you all in. Last week, not last Thursday but maybe the Thursday before, I got bit by some creature. I am not sure what it was but maybe a spider, I do not know. It was a small little bump on my face then it grew and you could tell it was swelling. It was way hard and it hurt really bad. The good news is that everything is fine now. I am not dead and I am back to normal. So, that was a fun experience. Well, onto our week. We had our last Zone Conference with President Staheli and Sister Staheli. It was a good conference. It is said to say goodbye but we will see them again. They leave tomorrow around 11 and then we have a new president, President Poznanski. It will be cool to see the things that will change and what he is going to do. He will be a great mission president. We have interviews with him this Thursday to get to know him and start off some things right. Well, our zone conference was great. It went really well. We sang in the conference because our district was in charge of the musical number. It was fun. We sang the same song that we did for sacrament meeting. Well, we had a good training. We talked about finding new investigators and more, but I forgot. That is why we have study journals. I will have to read it and remember what we talked about, but we did watch a slide show with all the pictures we sent in. It was a good training. It was fun. I also got a picture with him because I never got one when I came in, so that was good. Besides that there has not been that much going on. We are still trying to find some new people and working hard. Oh ya there was a baptism Saturday by the dl’s. It was a cool baptism. The guys name is Jun Shu. I think I spelled that wrong, but he is Chinese and he is so cool. It was a cool baptism. We had to do it at the church in St. Ouen because we don’t have a baptismal font here at our church. It was not far away so that was good but the metro ride there sucked. First of all we were wearing our suit coats and it is boiling outside. Then the metro is even hotter, but not just that, the metro was freakin packed. So you were body to body with someone and that doesn’t help with the heat. By the time we got off we were just sweating and it was just horribly funny thought but horrible. The service was great though. It was in English and Chinese. It was a cool experience. We also had our resent convert move out of our ward. He is now in the Paris Lille ward which is right next to our ward. He didn’t move far away but he is not in our ward anymore, it was sad. We will still see him because he comes to FHE and institute, so we will see him again. So, that is pretty much all that is going on. Not much, just trying to find some new people. We have found a couple but we have only had one rendez-vous with them. We will try to see if we can get some more things set up and see if we can get them coming. We got another internet referral today. We will call him up and go and see him. That should be good. So, that is life. It is great here. We are having a great time. The members are really nice to all the missionaries. Last night there was a family who invited all the missionaries over, all 12 of us. We had this big thanksgiving dinner type meal. Then for the 4th of July there is another family who is inviting all the missionaries over again to have a little dinner. It should be great. They are so nice to us we will have to do something for them. Then this Friday we have our concert with the missionaries so that should also be great. Well, family I love ya and hope you have a great week. I also hope that the weather has cleared up a little bit. Well, love ya

P.S. I forgot my camera so I will have to send some photos next week.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 20, 2011

2011-07-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Things here are going great. I am loving it here. Well this week has been fun. It has been hard though trying to get things moving along and starting all over. We have been doing a lot and a lot of contacting. Every day and sometimes all day we do nothing but contacting, but things are going great here. We have found two awesome investigators who are doing great. Their names are Charles and Godwin. They are both really awesome. We had a rendez-vous with Charles last week. He told us he was contacted by some other missionaries but they could never fix a rendez-vous. Things kept getting in the way. We finally got a rendez-vous with him last Thursday. He is so cool. He has family back in Nigeria who are members and so he knows a little about our church. He likes it a lot and we both think he has some great potential. We think he could be someone who will get baptized. Godwin is also awesome. He has met the missionaries before and has talked about them. He is doing great and working hard. It was pretty cool, we had a rendez-vous with him and he actually beat us to the church and called us asking if we were on our way. It was awesome! Then during the rendez-vous he had some great questions. It was a great rendez-vous with him. Then we had some other meetings but they couldn’t come. We were able to fix other ones with them and everything will hopefully turn out. So that is what we have been doing. We have just been trying to get this place up and running. We have been getting a lot of numbers. We have a goal on how many we want to get and we have to get at least one number before we go into the apartment. So that is what is going on. We have called them and we have fixed some rendez-vous for this week so things should be great. Some other things that are going on is that we do district finding each week and it is pretty cool. We will go somewhere and we will sing and contact or we will draw on the sidewalk with chalk. It is pretty cool. The last two weeks though we have sung because it has rained here so we couldn’t do the chalk. Speaking about singing - we are planning to do a Concert on July 1st with the missionaries in our zone. We have some very talented musicians in our zone - singers, piano players, flute players, and guitarist and more. So, we have been working on that trying to get things up and ready. Let’s see here – Tuesday – tomorrow, we have a zone conference and we have to sing. Our districts in the conference are planning to sing the Called to Serve arrangement there and it should be great. It will be our last one with President Staheli. He leaves the 28th and we will have a new president, President Poznanski. Then we will have interviews with him on the 30th and get things moving. It should be fun to see what will happen with the new pres. We will also be getting part of the west of France in our mission. They are merging some missions again. We will be getting the stake of Nancy and 16 missionaries, so it should be fun to see what president will do. So, it will be sad seeing President Staheli go, but President Poznanski will be a great president. I know him a little bit from when I lived in Anger. He is awesome. Well I love you family. I hope that you will have a great week and I hope the weather is great there. Well I love ya!
P.S. here are our district pictures when I was in Le Havre

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 13, 2011

2011-07-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

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

June 7, 2011

2011-06-10T09:25:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well things here are good. I have just been getting ready to leave and head over to Paris. It should be fun. I am excited to go to Paris. It also should be fun to white wash and start a fresh. It should be awesome. Ya, so Elder Whitecar is staying here in Le Havre with an Elder Fisher. The work is going good here so they should have some fun. Well, these past few days have been fun. This past week we had an exchange with the zone leaders. They came down for the day and we each worked with one of them. We found some cool people and got some numbers so hopefully they will turn into new investigators. We have also had some pretty cool things happen here. There has been many times when people have just come up to us and started talking to us. The cool part is that they knew us and they knew a lot about the church. There was one guy who knew about the pioneers crossing the planes and everything. We ran into a couple of people like that. I guess a while back they had missionaries come over and teach them, but they didn’t progress or something. But now they are interested again and want us to come over. So, it looks like the seed was planted a while back and now they may be ready. It is pretty cool. That has happened about 3-4 times this week.

Well, our investigators are doing pretty good right now. Joseph our friend from Donatien is doing great. His life is just like from the movie Pursuit of Happiness. The Lord has blessed him so much in his life to let him be here in France going to school. He was asked last week to leave his apartment and he had to find a new one. He has some great friends who said that he could stay with them. He is so cool. He loves the gospel and is so elect. Our other investigator, Françoise Daniel, is doing great also. She is so cool and likes us very much. She gave us some real Normandy creme and some real Normandy cheese. It was good. She is progressing great also. She is coming along slowly, but she is coming along. She comes to church almost every week. It is hard to have some rendez-vous with her but we have them about every other week. Well, that is what is going on. I have been trying to just get some things organized to head out. It is going to be hard to leave and I will miss it but this is what the Lord wants. Well, I love you.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 6, 2011

2011-06-10T09:24:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Things here are going great. Well, the transfer e mail came and I have some news. There have been a lot of changes this time in our mission. Well, here is what is happening with me. I am staying a district leader, but not in Le Havre. Yes, I am leaving. Can anyone guess where?......I am going to PARIS.....but not just Paris - I am going down town Paris as in the center of Paris itself. If you had a map and found the city center that is where I will be. Well, this is where I will be living:

Les Missionnaris
Elder Christopher M. Walker
11 rue des Roses
75018 Paris
France

It should be fun! My companion and I are white washing Paris 2. That is we will be both new and without knowing the area or the ward. My new companion is named Elder Robin Dick. He is from England. The cool thing is he is my bother in the mission. Elder Caywood, my father (trainer), trained him and now we are companions. It should be great and I am excited. It will be fun to work in Paris. Well, I will write my big email tomorrow. I love you and hope you have a great day.

Love Elder Walker

May 31, 2011

2011-06-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are going great. We had a fun week this past week. Well, this past week I had to do an exchange with the elders in my district and we were running out of time because the transfer ends soon. We didn’t have time to do a full exchange with both elders so what we did was we had district meeting first. Then I worked with one elder for part of the day and then I worked with the other for the rest of the day. I worked with Elder Ingram first who is really cool. He is one of the funniest people I have met. Then I worked with Elder Able, one of the biggest U of U fans I have met, it was sick. I like them both. They are both really hard workers. So on Tuesday I had the awesome chance to work with them. Well, this past week we had an awesome rendez-vous with one of our investigators, Françoise Daniel. It was so cool. We have not seen her in a while so it was good to see her again. Well, last time we left her with Alma 32 to read about faith. Well, she came to the rendez-vous having read it and had a whole new meaning of faith. She also had some great questions. She was able to understand more clearly the definition of faith which is found in Alma 32:21. “And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” It was so cool. You could just tell she understood it. At the end of the rendez-vous we asked her to pray. In the past she wouldn’t do it, but this time she did it without even saying anything. It was very spiritual. We could all just fill the spirit very strong. It was a great meeting. So that was an awesome rendez-vous. Then on Sunday we tried to pass by a less active/part member family. The wife is a less active and the husband is not a member. In the past they told the missionaries that they do not want to see them again and that they don’t want us to come over. We decided to pass by anyway and they let us in. It was the husband at first. He let us in and talked to us. Then the wife comes and said, “Did you tell them that we didn’t want to see them anymore?” She sat down anyway and towards the end they both were participating in our discussion and where happy we came. It was so cool that they let us in and then that they were glad they did as well. They were a cool family. I was glad that we got to go over. Well, our investigators are doing well. Donatien, the one we wanted to set a baptism date with, is going back to Gabon, Africa for a couple of months. He needs to find an internship. If he doesn’t find one then the school year that he just finished does not count. So, he is going back to get one. His family is in Gabon as well so he will get to see them. He will be back in September for another year of school, so it should be good. His friend, Joseph, is doing awesome also. He is so elect and has a lot of faith and really counts on the Lord.
Well, transfers are coming up soon. We will find out on Saturday what will happen and next Wednesday is the actual transfer day. I would love to stay another transfer in Le Havre. I love this place. The members are great and I love the investigators. This is just an awesome place. We don’t know what will happen but we are guessing that I will leave because I have been here for 3 transfers, but you never know. We will find out. Well, thanks family for all that you do and for your love and support. I love you and remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to excel. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 23, 2011

2011-06-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope everything is going great. Well this week was a great week. We had to go to Paris again for our leadership training last Thursday. It was great...we got totally rebuked and chastised. We got “owned” as one might say. We had a big training on walking circumspectly. It was a great meeting. We were told to walk circumspectly and be fully obedient. We also talked about F.O.D. which stands for Foreign Object Debris in the aviation world. It means anything that is foreign to a jet engine that can destroy it. It also causes a lot of damage worth a ton of money. So we talked about F.O.D. in missionary terms and what things can be debris for us. They don’t even have to be big things president said. They can be little things like rolling up your sleeves if it is too hot, not buttoning your top collar on your shirt, chewing gum in public and a lot of little minor things that can easily be over looked. They can also very bad things. So we talked about changing the meaning of F.O.D. to Faith Obedience, and Diligence. So we had this huge talk on being obedient to the max! Don’t do anything that is not in line with even the tiniest of tiniest things we have been asked to obey. Then we talked about the talk by Elder Todd D. Christofferson, "As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten.” It was given during the last General Conference in April 2011. It was a great talk. They gave it to us and we were asked to read it and study it. It is a great talk. It may seem a little harsh, but it is totally worth it to study it and apply it. So this was our little training. I loved it! We also talked about what a BYU president once said. He said, “If you put me in a prison with walls so high and dig it so deep with walls so thick with no window, there is a slight possibility that I could get out. But, if you draw a circle around me with chalk and make me give you my word that I will not leave, there is no way I could get out. I would die first." So, we also talked about giving our word. We gave our word when we came into the mission. We gave our word that we would be obedient. So, this was our whole training. It taught a good message. It was one of the last trainings of President Staheli. We will have a zone conference next month and that will be the last time we will have training by him. Then we will have President Poznanski. So, that was a fun day. Then we had some time before our train so we got another BOOBOOS. Our whole zone pretty much got one. My new one is black with red, gold, and green around the neck. It is pretty cool.
Well, that was that day. Another fun story happened this past Saturday. There was a huge demonstration here in Le Havre for the G8 conference. They had 20,000 cops and a ton of protesters and people who just like to destroy things....So, we had two options - stay in the apartment all day or go to a referral we received. So we decided to go to the referral. Well, we took a 30 min train ride and then a 15 min bus ride. We end up in a place called Doudeville. The referral lived in Galleville. So we went to the city hall and asked how to get there. They said it was 5km away...so we start walking - and walking. We walk about 3 km and end up in this little town. We knocked on a door to see if we were still heading in the right direction and a lady told us “no” and we had to turn around. We had to go this other way. Well, we finally get there and we couldn’t find her place but there was a little ville right next to it so we walk there and couldn’t find it either. So we finally see a sign that said Doudeville 6 km so we walked back that way and we walk about 2 km and guess where we were? We were in the very place where the lady told us to turn around. We were only 2 km away and here she told us to turn around and go this long way. Well, we finally get back after a 4 hour walk. We walked about 15km which is 9.4 miles.... we get back to the city sun burnt and dehydrated. We ran into a grocery store called Carefour and bought a ton a water and just drank. We also found out that there was a bus at 1 o clock. Well, we missed that and the next bus was at 5, so we got to relax for a little bit and wait for the bus. It was a very fun and long day with very sore feet. Now the burn is gone and we have a great tan and a very funny tan line.

Well I love you family. I hope you have a great week. I love you!

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 17, 2011

2011-05-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are going good? Sorry if this e-mail is a little short, I don’t have much time. Well, things here are going good. We have had to do a lot of traveling here. Tuesday we had to go to Amien for Elder Whitecar’s legality so we spent the night there. On Wednesday we came back. Then Thursday we had to go to Paris. We were able to spend the night in Paris with the zone leaders there. On Friday Elder Whitecar went up to Belgium to get his Belgie legality. I stayed in Paris for the day to work there and it was awesome. I loved Paris! I worked in the visitor center and it was really cool. It was very fun. I also got to see a lot of missionaries there I have never seen before so it was cool to get to know them. Then we had to go back to Le Havre the same day. So, we got back late and then on Sunday we had to go to Caen to have a district conference. It was fun to go. I got to see the members in Coutance again and all the other people I met. We also found out that this will be the last Conference because the district is splitting up. Caen, Rouen, and Le Havre are going to be in the Paris Stake. Allençon will be in the Angers Stake and Coutance and Cherbourg will be under the mission, so the mission will watch over them. That means that the Caen district is no more. It is a change but pretty cool. A lot of the members are excited so hopefully it will be great.

Real fast - investigators are good. W didn’t fix a baptism date with Donatien but I will have to tell you about that the next time. Sorry this is short, I have one min. left. I love you and hope you have a great week.

--
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 10, 2011

2011-05-10T11:14:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? It was great to talk to you on Mother’s Day. It was the best part of the day. I am truly grateful to have a family like all of you. I love you all so much and am truly grateful for your support and your love that you give me.

So how was everybody’s day? Well, this week has been a good week and we had some great rendez-vous. Yesterday we had an appointment with one of our investigators, Donatien. It was probably one of the best rendez-vous I have ever had. He was telling us that he told the lord that he would always follow him. Then he came to France to do studies and go to school. Then he met the missionaries. He had wanted to get baptized for a long time but things just kept coming up and he would get too stressed out. He would want to wait because he wanted it to be calm and relaxing. So we put off the baptism date. Then Sunday came around and he wanted to talk about baptism so we fixed a rendez-vous for yesterday. Well, we go to his house and he told us that he wants to get baptized and he cannot put it off any longer. He told us that every time he was almost ready Satan was trying to stop him. He told us though that he wanted to get baptized ASAP. YA BOY! He then shared his testimony and it was so strong. I know that he knows that this is the true church. It was awesome and it was just one of the best rendez-vous I have had on my mission. So, Thursday we are going over and giving him a baptism calendar and everything. It is great! I am so excited! He is so ready to get baptized and he will make a great member.

Well, so that was our good news of the week. We also had a couple of other rendez-vous and they were great also. This week is also going to be lots of fun. We have to go to Amiens for Elder Whitecars legality. We will be gone tonight and tomorrow and then Thursday we have a district meeting in Rouen. So, we will be gone then as well. We are going to be all over the place this week. Next week we have to go over to Paris to have a leadership training....So much traveling. I am going to be sick of trains by the end of these two weeks.

Well family, I love you and it was so cool to talk to you the other day. I hope you have a great day and I will talk to you later.
--
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 3, 2011

2011-05-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope everything is great! Well, so how was everyone’s week? Well, this was the first week of the transfer and to tell you the truth it kind of was horrible. Wednesday was transfer day and we had to go to Rouen to be with Elder Ingram. We did this because we cannot be alone on transfer days. So we get up at 5 in the morning to head over to Rouen to get there by 7. Well we get off the train because we didn’t want to go to Pairs. Good news and bad news about that. First good news. The good news is that we didn’t go to Paris but bad news is our cell phone went to Paris without us.....Ya we left our phone on the train that was going to Paris. Ya - not good not good. So this whole week we have not had a phone and we still don’t have a phone to this minute. Let me tell you a couple of things. MISSIONARY WORK IS VERY HARD TO DO IF YOU DONT HAVE A PHONE! It reminds me of the old days when they didn’t have phones. Well, it is very hard because we can’t get a hold of our investigators or anyone. Good news is that we should get it back today though. Luckily, the elders in Paris found it and gave it to Pres. Staheli and he gave it to our branch pres. So, we should get it today. So it has been fun without a phone. It is very hard though to work. We can’t fix rendez-vous or get a hold of our investigators, but all should be well.

Friday was also a good day. We had a country night at our church were a member was teaching them how to line dance, it was great. They also asked us to make a chili for the night. So we found a good recipe and made some American chili for our country night. A lot of members really liked it so that is really cool. It was a fun night.

This past week there was an 8year old who got baptized. It was pretty cool to see that. Well, got to go family. I am excited to talk to you on Mother’s Day. Hey - Dad and Shann - what time is best for you to call? Please let me know. I love you.

TTFN Love Elder Walker

April 26, 2011

2011-05-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope everyone is doing great. Well, Happy Easter. Did everyone have a fun time and a great Easter? Did you all do something fun - like go Easter egg finding? Well, we didn’t do much here. In church though we did have 9 investigators there, which was really cool. In church we didn’t do anything big. We had a couple of talks but I didn’t really pay attention, because I was stuck between to investigators who kept talking, but it was all good. We did however have the Easter bunny come. He didn’t come to our house but apparently he went over to a members house and hid chocolate bunny’s in there garden. They had a note that said, “Give to the missionaries”. So that was cool.

Well, we didn’t do much this week. We had a good meeting with some of our investigators though. We have this one investigator who lives here that moved to Canada. He is back for a couple of weeks however, so we went to see him. The cool part is he is deaf, but he can read our lips. Another cool part is that he was a mute and couldn’t talk, but he taught himself to talk. He is really cool. He is an artist and he told us before we leave that he will draw us a picture of Mont Saint Micheal or Etretat. He is cool. He has come to church for a long time as well. We finally had a rendez-vous with the investigator who we wanted to set a baptism date with. We went over there and he told us that he may be leaving to go back to Africa for 3 months to do an internship. So that was some sad news. He is also really stressed out because of school. I hope that everything will go well with him and everything will work out with his internship. HIs friend, Joseph, who he brought to church, is doing awesome. He even brought a friend to church which is more awesome. We have been teaching Joseph. We taught him about the Plan du Salut (plan of salvation). It went well. He had some good questions. Some questions got in to some deep doctrine, but we fixed it and it ended up being a great rendez-vous.

The work is going really good here in Le Havre. Elder Whitecar is really excited to be staying another transfer together. We have some great investigators and things are really going strong here. So, funny story or stories. Elder Whitecar and I are wondering were president has sent us. There has been some weird stuff happing to us. First, we had a less active live in this one part of town. So, we go there. While there we found a drunk guy who ends up stealing my plaque and the only we could get it back was to give him a BOM. We finally got away. So we go back a couple of days later...might I say bad mistake on our part, but we go back and we ended up having a drunk prostitute start hitting on Elder Whitecar. She put her arm around him. So, then we hurried and just got out of there. It was so bad. So, we don’t get to far away when we stopped and we were talking. Just then a bird poops right between us - we just ran. That place is cursed I tell you, cursed. We decided to never go back there again. Next time we don’t know what will happen. There have also been a lot of other things that have happened this past week. We were walking and we heard this shatter sound - like a window breaking. So we turn around and saw this guy steal a purse out of a car. He then walks right between us and he meets his friend that was in front of us. They start walking off. We were following them and then they saw us. They ran and when we found them again they didn’t have the purse. They ran into a part of the city where we dared not be going. But I mean it was in the middle of the day and he breaks a window and steals a purse! He walked right by us and these other 5 people and we were just in ahh! We didn’t do anything else after that. There are some weird people here man - weird people. This place is funny, but I love it. Well got to go family and friends. I hope you have a great week.

Lots of Love - ELDER WALKER

April 20, 2011

2011-04-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Hey mom, can you do me another favor and send this to dad, Shan and everyone? I am starting to get mad at my ldsmail account. Last week it wasn’t working and now it is working but my password does not work. I have changed the password three times and it still doesn’t work, so I am getting a little frustrated at the moment. So how is everyone doing? Well, things here have been good. Well, we have had some fun things happen here. It has been about 2 weeks since I last wrote because of my email. Well things are going good. Transfers are coming up this next week. We will find out Saturday if we are staying or going. We had interviews last week and by the sound of it Elder Whitecar and I might be staying another one here in Le Havre. But we will find out this Saturday. So, well the weather here is great. I know back at home there is a bunch of snow and it is still coming. Here it is freaking hot. We haven’t been wearing our suit coats and we are also wearing short sleeves shirts. It is good though, things are great. Well some things that have happened - We went to the cliffs of insanity or Etretat this past week. It was so cool. The water there was crystal clear and the cliffs were freaking tall. The best part of it all though was that there was a golf course on the cliffs right next to it. JK the cliffs were pretty cool. I will see if I can send some photos. Well, we also got a bus ticket not too long ago. We got checked on the bus. So, I pulled out my pass and the guys told me it was April and I said, “Yes” having no clue why he said that. Then we found out that we forgot to get our bus pass for the month of April. We just had it for March. So we got a little ticket. It wasn’t much though because we had a pass, but it was something to laugh about. Last Saturday there was a member getting married so we had the opportunity to go to a French wedding. It was actually pretty cool. We didn’t go to the actual thing but after they came to the church and did something there where we were. It was pretty cool. The groom is not a member. His family came and some of them liked how our church was and they were a little interested. We didn’t do any contacting though because they would have probably got mad at us. It was cool though to see how it was.

Well let’s talk about our investigators. We have one named Joseph. He is from Ghana, Africa. He is sick. He trusts in God so much and he told us the only reason why he was here was because of the blessings of God. He has had so many trials and he has had so many miracles in his life. He is awesome. He loves our church and is reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. Our other investigator, Donatien, is doing awesome. He has been in Paris for a little bit visiting his family down there. So we haven’t seen him in some time. We should have a rendez-vous with him this week. So, hopefully things will be good. We have another investigator, Françoise Daniel who is great. We had a rendez-vous with her yesterday and she is doing great. The work here in Le Havre is going really good right now. Things seem to be great. Elder Whitecar and I are getting along just fine and we are loving the work. Well, I love you family and I hope you have a great week and a HAPPY EASTER this Sunday. Well I love you. TTFN ELDER WALKER

April 13, 2011

2011-04-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

My account is not working. Can you send this also to dad and Shan. I am sorry. Well, I don’t have much time but this week was good. Everything went great. I had my interview with our president yesterday. We had to spend the whole day in Caen because there was no bus going back to Le Have. It was great. I think this was our last interview with him though before he leaves. We will have zone conference and training but no more interviews. It is good though. It is also cool news that Wendi had her baby and that everything is going great with the family. I am happy for them. The family is great. I know that I have drawn closer to all of you while I am on my mission. I love every one of you. I have a strong testimony that families can be together forever and that is a great gift. I am so happy here. I love serving the Lord. Well family, sorry this is so short. My LDS mail account is not working for some reason. Hopefully next week will be better. I have a lot of things to talk about like getting a ticket on the bus, general conference, my story about the cliffs of insanity or Etretat and our investigators. I will just have to fill you in next week. Well, I love you and just wanted to write telling you that I am great and everything is going good. I LOVE YOU LOVE ELDER WALKER

April 4, 2011

2011-04-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Did everyone love conference? I sure did. We only got to watch the Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Priesthood, and Sunday morning sessions. I didn’t really understand a lot of the Sunday morning one. The reason why is we had an investigator come to church and watch it. So I watched it in French with her. Let me tell you I had such a headache. Trying to convert or translate all the talks in my head. Oh, my head was throbbing. I understood a lot, but they were using words I have never heard of. The next part was it was freaking hot and I was falling asleep. French didn’t help that at all either. It was still good though. When President Monson came on though, I ran back to the English room to watch it. I still loved all of conference. It was really good. I have truly come to love conference. I remember when I was at home and thinking, ”yes, conference, going to the family room in my pj’s then pulling out my game boy and playing games while watching it or listening to it.” If I was in fact doing that. Now I am like YES GENERAL CONFERECE! Grab my note book and a pen and take pages of notes. I also love reading and going back on the internet to listen to them over and over again. I have truly fallen in love with General Conference. I liked all of the talks. They were really good. Talking about the temples and loving one another and how we can give service to one another also. So, how did everyone there like General Conference? I hope everyone had a good one and they learned a lot. It is a great time to learn and grow.

Well, this week was also great. I had to go down Wednesday to Rouen to give their investigator a baptism interview. When we got there she told us that her family found out and they are not happy with her. So, she wanted to wait and see what was going to happen. She is cool though and she is ready to be baptized. I hope everything goes well. I know they have a rendez-vous with them today so, hopefully it goes well. Well, our investigators are doing great. We had one of them come to the Conference. It was Françoise Daniel. I think she loved it. I also think Elder Bednar’s talk was great for her about revelation and all that jazz. Our other investigator, Donatien, is doing good. We have not been able to have an appointment with him in some time though because of school. He just finished his tests so maybe soon we can meet with him. His friend though that he brought to church is elect. We had an appointment with him and it was sick! I can see him getting baptized soon. Well, things here are going great. Our investigators are doing awesome also. Well, today we went and saw some cliffs out by the coast. They were pretty cool. I will have to see if I can send some pictures home. They were pretty cool. We went with the elders from Rouen and it was awesome. Well I have got to go. Love ya -- TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

March 29, 2011

2011-03-29T09:33:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, this past week has been great. It was a hard week though, not too many rendez-vous but we fixed a lot of rendez-vous for this next week. We have about 10 at the moment which is really good. We also had a very cool thing happen this week. Well, it actually started about 2 weeks ago or a 1week and a half. But we were on this tram thing and we were speaking English. When we got up there was this girl who looked at us and asked if we were American. It turns out she is American also. She is from Nebraska. So we get talking and she asked why we were here so we told her. Then we asked why she was here. We thought maybe for studies or something, because she wasn’t that old. We found out that her husband plays pro basketball here in France and he is on the Le Havre team - which is really cool by the way. Then she asks if we liked basketball, we of course said yes. Then she asked if we would like to go to a game and she could get us tickets. So we talked about it and told her that would be cool. So we gave her our card hoping she would call us and we could go. We were also hoping to talk about why we are there and what our message is. So a couple of weeks go by. Then Saturday comes around and Elder Whitecar and I were talking. We were saying just like “hey, you know there is a basketball game today.” Then we were like, “I don’t think she is going to call us.” Well around 3 or 3:30 we get a text message saying, “Hey, I didn’t forget about you, If you still want to go give me a call.” So we gave her a call and ended up going to the game. They also gave us front row tickets which was sweet. And the game was awesome - they won. The best part was when we were talking to them after. We met also her friend who is from Philly and lived in California. Her husband plays on the same team. So we talked with them and they are so cool. We were talking about religion and how it’s hard here. One of them said, “Ya, when my husband and I moved here we were looking for a church.” Then they started to ask us what we do and why we are here. It was really cool. Then the husbands came out and I loved it. It was so American mixed with French. He said, "YO ça va" no one says that here. Elder Whitecar and I were just in ah. We were just thinking to ourselves, “that is so American.” Well we talked with them and they were awesome also. One of them asked if we could help him with his French. We said yes and gave him our card. They were so cool and I hope we can see them again. I know they were looking for a church when they came here so maybe we can meet them again and explain more of our religion. They were AWESOME!!!!!!!!! It was so funny also. When the husbands came out they came and shook our hands.....dang they were huge. His hand was the size of my face and he had to be like freaking tall - 6'6 or 6'8. After they invited us to go to the V.I.P. party thing where the sponsors had some treats and drinks for after the game. They had tickets for us to go also. Unfortunately we had to say no. It was getting late and we had to get back. They were really cool. I hope and pray we can see them again and talk more. They seemed really cool and interested in what we do and I hope we can see them again. Another thing that is awesome is CONFERECE GENERAL OR GENERAL CONFERECE IN ENGLISH! It’s the same just backward in French. But ya, General Conference this weekend. Oh ya! I love general. It is so great. It is a great time to learn and grow. We get to watch all of the sessions, but the Sunday afternoon one because of the time change. But it is all good. A little bit about our investigators. Donatien is doing really great. He came to church but he worked right after so we didn’t have time to talk about the baptism. We have a rendez-vous with him on Thursday. We also have another investigator, Françoise Daniel, who we have a meeting with tonight. So I hope that is all good. So that is our life. I am loving it. It is great! I love being here. I hope you all have a great week and an awesome General Conference. Well, Love Ya TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

March 25, 2011

2011-03-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Things here are going great. The new transfer went well also. We got Elder Hayden off to Nantes safely. I actually went with him to Rouen along with Elder Hartley. I waited with him while he was waiting for his companion. Then Elder Whitecar showed up in Rouen and we took a train together to go to Le Havre. Well, that was all good. Elder Whitecar seems to be an awesome missionary. He works hard and he is cool. His French is really good also. He is in his 3rd transfer. This will be his 2nd city and his 3rd companion. He is really cool. We seem to be getting along great we haven’t had any problems yet which is always good. So I am happy about that. Well, this week was good. The first week of the transfer is really hard though when everyone is moving around, but it wasn’t that bad. Saturday we went back to Rouen to help them with a service project. They do this every year were you go with the members and hand out “Family Proclamations to the World” to everyone on the street. There is also a contact paper with questions people might ask. It was really cool and it went great. We handed a lot out and hopefully people will read them and want to know more. It was a fun activity and we had a great time. Thursday was the anniversary of the Relief Society. It was an African theme. They had some sweet African people come and play some really cool music on their African instruments. It was awesome. The meeting was only for the women but they said we could come for about 15 mins and listen for a little bit. We ended up staying for the whole concert. It was about a 1 hr long. It was really cool. We were not the only men there also. We had our branch president and our new DMP (ward mission leader) there also. It was cool. I didn’t feel too bad. The best part was the next day because one of the members called us and told us there was left over food in the fridge at the church just for us. So, Elder Whitecar and I were happy about that. We got some food out of it so it was all worth it. One of our investigators was there also, Françoise. Which I think it was awesome and I hope she had a fun time. We couldn’t get a lesson with her this week but we have one for next week. Our other investigator, Donatien, is doing great. He couldn’t come to church this past Sunday because of studies but I need to call him tonight and fix another rendez-vous with him this week. This is when we want to fix a baptism date with him. Hopefully we will be able to see his friend Joseph this week also. Well, things are going great here and things are fun. Being district leader is fun also. I have learned so much. When you are preparing a lesson you get a lot more out of it I think, but it is good being district leader. I truly have loved it serving others. Well .things here are great and I hope everyone has a great week. -- TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

March 14, 2011

2011-03-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, sorry I didn’t get the message out to you on Saturday if I am staying or going. We didn’t have time to check our e-mail because we were helping a family move. After the move we had a big general priesthood meeting at Caen so we didn’t have time. But - the elders from Rouen told us what is happing. Actually though, I already knew what was going to happen. I got a call Friday morning from the assistants so that is how I already knew. They actually called to tell me President Staheli felt inspired to call me as a district leader. Sweet! I said yes. I am staying here though but I am getting a new companion. His name is Elder Scott Whitecar. This will be his 3rd transfer. I haven’t heard much about him, but what I have heard is that he is pretty cool. So I am excited about that. Well, being the district leader means I just have a couple more responsibilities. I have to teach district meetings, do exchanges and take numbers down. Besides that I still have the same responsibilities as all of the other missionaries. It should be a good learning experience though and I am excited. I know the Lord will be there to help me out, but I am very excited. Well, besides that this week was pretty cool. Last Tuesday we went to a choir concert at a church and it was really cool. It was an all girl choir because it was for the Women’s Day here in France. It was really cool and I loved it. They sang some great music. There was a really great spirit there - really peaceful. It brought back some good memories from when I was in the Bountiful choirs. I really liked it and I was glad we were invited. We also had some great rendez-vous with our investigators. We have an investigator named Françoise who is really cool. She comes to church every week and is just awesome. She told us though that she has not been feeling an answer to know if this is the true church or not. She likes the stuff we teach and she really likes the Plan of Salvation. She told us she wants to believe it’s true but can’t get an answer. We know she has felt the spirit but she may just not recognize it. So, this past week we taught about the Holy Ghost and how to feel the spirit and what he does for us and the feelings he gives us. It was a really good lesson. We also asked her to bring a question to church on a piece of paper and if she listens and has the faith we promised her that she will get an answer. So hopefully she did and we will be able to see her again this week. We also have another Amie whose name is Donatien. He is cool. He is the one that wants to be baptized. We have a rendez-vous with him tonight and we want to invite him to be baptized. It should be a great rendez-vous. Oh, and last Sunday he brought a friend to church. His friend took notes the whole church block and he loved every minute of it. He told us that he was so grateful for his friend inviting him. I think he has got some great potential. He couldn’t come to church yesterday because he was sick but he wants to see us again and get a Book of Mormon. Awhile back we ran into an inactive person on the bus. She was in Paris and just moved up here in Le Havre and then she met us. We have been working with her and it has been awesome. She came to church again yesterday and loved it. Then we had a little family night at a members’ house where she came and we had a good time. She has started to read the Book of Mormon again and loves it. It is so cool and we have another rendez-vous with her and she wants to come to church next week. We also had a missionary workshop at our ward where we had to talk about the Book of Mormon and how we can use it in our lives. We also talked about how we can share it with our friends. It was really good. So that was our week. It was really good. I liked it a lot and I liked the priesthood meeting. I also got to see some of the members in the Coutance branch because they were there at the meeting also. It was fun to see them. Well family, I love you and hope you have a great week. Bye!
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER
Here is Chris, Elder Hayden and their Boo Boos...too funny!

March 8, 2011

2011-03-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well things here are going great! So, I have heard that you are having some fun with the weather there in Utah. Rain, snow and freezing temps. Sounds fun. Here the weather has been great! The past few days there has been sunshine and temps in the high teens - which are about the 60’s in America, and it is awesome. Yesterday for our P-day we went to the beach and we played a game on the beach with blue skies and a calm ocean. It was awesome. Well, that is our weather here. I don’t know how long it will last for but I hope it will last for some time. I like the cold and all but I think it is time for a change. Well, we have been having fun here. We had to go to Paris again last Friday to have another training session or I guess it was Zone Conference. We talked about the last two points in the simplified curriculum which are the Doctrine of Christ which is our missionary objective and the role of the Holy Ghost in conversions. It was really good. We talked about coming unto Christ and how we can come unto him. Then we talked about the Holy Ghost and what he does in the conversion process. Also, how the Book of Mormon combined with the Spirit is the most powerful tool in the conversion process. So that was Paris. After the training we didn’t have time to go and explore Paris, but we did get....BOO BOOS. I have no clue how to spell it but it sound like that - boo boos. You may be thinking what is he talking about, and what is a boo boo. Is he talking like a little kid when they say, “Mommy, I got a booboo”...no I am not. A booboo is the best. It is a sort of clothing one can say, but African clothes... Oh YA baby. These boo boos are sick. I would send a picture, but I forgot my camera so next week for sure. They are sick and if I am ever in Paris again I will get another one. They basically look like jammies, but sweeter.
So we got those then headed back to Le Havre. Well, that was our trip to Paris. It was great. So there has been a lot of news going around about getting a new mission president this summer. His name is Frank Ponozki. I don’t think I spelled it right - sorry. But the cool thing is that I already know him and his family. He actually lives in Anger, France. So when I was there I got to meet him and his family. They are really cool and he will make a great mission president. A lot of people like him and I like him also, so that will be cool. Well time is running short, but I want to say a last thing. Transfers are coming up and we will find out this Saturday if we stay or if we go. Whatever happens we will be happy. Oh ya Cuz - Sister Whiting - I read her e-mail and she said she is serving with a Sister Dungan. I actually think it is the sister of my old companion Elder Dungan. Elder Dungan told me one day that his sister was in the same mission as Sister Whiting. So that is cool. Well, I love you family and hope you have a great week. Bye

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

March 1, 2011

2011-03-01T09:15:00.001-08:00

Hey family how is everyone this week? Well, things here are great. We had a great week this past week. We didn’t have much time this week to do everything we wanted, but we still had a fun week. Thursday we had to travel to Paris for the day and we spent Friday there also. I didn’t get to see much as we went straight from the Gare (train station) to the church in St. Mary. It is pretty much in the center of the city. So, unfortunately I was not able to see any of the sites or anything. We just spent two days in a church having leadership training by President Staheli, the assistants and the zone leaders. It was really good. Then Thursday night we stayed in Every with the elders there. It was fun. Then Friday we went back to the church and had another training session. Oh, and guess what? We have to go back this Friday to have another meeting. This one is our Zone Conference. So it will be fun to go back. Well, let’s talk about the things we were taught. The first day we talked about PAR’s. Prayer, attendance, and reading. In other words, more revelation through prayer, revelation through church attendance, and revelation through reading. We talked about how our investigators and ourselves will be able to receive revelation through these three things. We also talked about how these things are the things that will bring someone to conversion. One thing I liked very much is about the revelation through church attendance. We were told to ask our investigators to write down a question and come to church with this question. If they come to church with this question they will receive an answer. It was a great promise and it can also work for us. The one thing we need to remember though is that we need to have faith that we will receive the answer. If we do these things we will receive an answer to our questions. The next day we talked about teaching people not lessons. We invite, they commit, we follow up and I can’t quite remember the last - something about promising blessings though. It was good. the next time I will bring my notes so that I can tell you a lot more. Then on Friday we will go back and talk about two other things. They are the role of the holy ghost in conversion and my purpose and the doctrine of Jesus Christ. All of these are part of the new simplified curriculum. There are 8 things and that is why we are having so many meetings to talk about them. So it is good. I have learned a lot. Next time I will bring my note book to share more. Oh by the way, there is a new sister in our mission and the cool part is she was in my French class in high school. Elder Ryan Froyd will know her. Her name is Valery Reeves. So that was cool to see her. Well, got to go family. Sorry this letter is kinda short. Well, I love you and will talk to you next week.

P.S. Oh and I found out this week French people don’t like cinnamon bears. It is funny to watch them eat one though. Well, Love ya!

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

February 22, 2011

2011-02-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are great. This was a great week for us in Le Havre. But first, before I forget, I have something cool that I found out this week. It relates mostly to the Walker side of the family, but it is all good. Ok, Uncle Robert Condie, who is the mission president in Germany, or was, I don’t know, but I found out that my companion Elder Hayden knows him. He told me that Uncle President Robert played a big role in his conversion. He told me that Uncle Robert taught him once with the missionaries and how that was when he felt the spirit really strong. So, that was cool. I found out that my companion knows Uncle Robert. We were talking one day about general authorities and I mentioned Elder Spencer Condie. I told him how I was related to him and then he asked if I knew President Condie in Germany. I told him I didn’t know, but I then remembered the letter G & G Walker wrote me for my b-day. They were talking about how they were going to Germany to visit Uncle Robert because he was the mission president over there. So I told him and all is well. So, I thought that was pretty cool that they know each other. Ok, on to this week. Well, last week was good. We were able to get a lot of work done and we found some pretty cool people. Well, this week started off slow, and we got nothing the first couple of days. Then Wednesday came along and we were packed with rendez-vous which was good. Bad part was 2 of them canceled on us but we made it up and got some other lessons with some people. Thursday was about the same. We had rendez-vous but some canceled. It was good in the end though. It was like that all week -appointments canceling every day. But even with all these canceled appointment this was our best week this transfer with all the lessons. A little weird but I am ok with that. We also had 4 people at church, one whose name is Donatien. He has some great potential. He told us he wants to get baptized, but right now he is too busy with his studies. Good news is that there is a school break coming up soon so he will have some more time. He is so spiritually ready to get baptized. He has come to church 3 or more times and he has liked it every time he has come. He is doing awesome and we want to fix a date with him soon to get baptized. So that is really cool. We also found some other cool people. One is named Michael. He is a young guy and he has some great potential. We met him on the bus and we talked. His whole family is very believing. We gave him a Book of Mormon. He told us he has never read the Bible but he wanted to start to read the Book of Mormon. This was awesome. He also gave us his number and we showed him where the church is and it was sweet. We also met a young lady who actually contacted us. We got off the bus and she asked if we knew where she could find the pool. We didn’t know but Elder Hayden started to talk to her about God and religion. We told her about another set of scriptures that testify of Christ. She wanted to see these scriptures so we showed her the Book of Mormon. Joking around she said, "Ah, thanks for the gift. I will just keep this. No, I am just joking." Then we said, “No, you can keep it if you want.” She said, “Really, I really can keep it?” We said, “Yes! We are here to share this book with the world.” So, she took it and she had us sign it also. She gave us her number and told us she will start reading and we can call her. So, that was cool.

So, those are a couple of things that are happening here in Le Havre. Now, this week is going to be fun also. We have a lot of stuff to do. This Thursday and Friday we will not be here in Le Havre. We will be in PARIS. We have to go to Paris to have a big leadership training meeting. It is with all the missionaries in Normandy and Paris. The other cities have it another time, but we will be there to have this big training. This should be fun. Good thing is we are going to Paris. Then next Friday, the 4th I believe, we have to go to Paris again, because we have zone conference. So, we will be there again but I am ok with that. So, this week should be fun and when we get back from Paris we have an exchange with our district leader. So, this week is going to fly by really fast.

Well, I want to apologize. I have been reading some of my past e-mails and I realized that I spelled a lot of things wrong or did something wrong with grammar. So, sorry about that. I need to proofread my letter time and time again. Well, I love you family and I hope you have a great week. Bye!!!!

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

February 14, 2011

2011-02-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are good. Some fun things have happened. Well, we have been really busy lately. Most nights we get home and plan for the next day, then, if we have a little time, eat something light and go to bed. We then wake up at 6:30 again and start all over. Well first things first. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. I hope everyone will have a great day. Well, the French people celebrate it here but it is not too big, but it is good. Well let me tell you about my area. We live in centre-ville or the center of the city. We are about 5-10 min walk away from the ocean which is pretty cool. The average weather here is cloudy with a chance of rain one day and the next day is a chance of rain with clouds. Then the day after that is rain. The next day is cloudy with a chance of rain. Ya, that’s my weather...that’s Normandy for ya in the winter. But we had about 3 days of sun. I couldn’t believe it. I have only seen the sun about 7 times here in Normandy and then we had 3 days in a row...it can only mean one thing. It’s the end of the world....but the next day it rained again. So ya! It is so funny - the sun came out and we were like, “look it is the sun” then 10 minutes later it is cloudy and windy...ya, but you know what - I love it here. I love Normandy. I feel like it is my home away from home. So that is the average weather. Ok, other things, it is not a bad size of a city. I really like it. I think I am going to like it here. They are doing a lot of construction because they are putting in a tram. So the roads are all messed up but what can you do, its life.

Well, the members here are awesome too. They are really getting into the mission work. There is always someone available to come teaching with us if we need to have someone. We also have one Soeur Porrier who is awesome. She invites friends to learn more and everything. She is so nice also. Every once in a while she will make some food and put it in the fridge in the church for us. She will send us a text or call and say, “I left some food for you at the church.” So, Elder Hayden and I are ok - we will not complain. We also have one member who loves Utah. She goes there every year or something like that. It is kinda sad though, she has a BYU bag. I told her she needed to buy a U of U one. So, hopefully it will go well. Well, the work here is going great also. We have a couple amies (investigators) who have some great potential. One named Donatien who is a student about 30 years old who has great faith. He told us he wanted to be baptized after he is done with his studies. So, that will be cool. He is so ready on the spiritual level and he promised to come to church next week also. We have another one named Festus. He has been investigating the church for some time and he wants to get baptized - but he lives with his girlfriend so, we need to work on that. We have another one named Françoise who is awesome. She didn’t believe too much in Christ and she didn’t believe her mom believed either. But, not too long ago her mom died and she found a bible with her mom’s testimony in it. I was about how she always believed in Christ and she knows that the scriptures are true and everything. So that really touched her alot and I think she has some great potential. So those are just some of the people we are working with.

I have a story - I never thought a 2 year old girl could make me feel so low in my life. We were at a member’s house and they have a little girl. I have some fun stickers on my name tag so I showed them to her. She took my name tag and started looking at them. This is the name tag that goes on your pocket by the way. She grabs it and she breaks it almost in to two. It was like it broke my heart. I was depressed for the next 3 days. Just joking! It is all good though. I fixed it with a little super glue and I have an extra one as well. So it is all good. Well, Elder Hayden and I are great. We are getting along and everything is going well.

This week I have found some old general conference magazines. I have been reading those this week. They are back from 2002 and 2003 so they are good. Well, I love you family and hope you have a great week. Next week we are planning to do e-mails on Tuesday because we can do them for free at this other place. To do them here it is about 4 Euros an hour. So, next week the e mail will be on Tuesday probably. Well I love you family. Have a great week
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

February 7, 2011

2011-02-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, thing here are going great. Le Havre is great also. It is a lot bigger then St. Lô and Coutance, but I have to say that I do miss them though. I really did like it even though it was small. Well, things are going great with Elder Hayden and me. We have been working hard and getting along. The travel here was fun also...NOT. JK- no it was good, long but good. I did get a good work out though lifting the luggage up and down, on and off the train, and the bus. Elder Gull and I drove to Caen and after he left with our Zone Leader and drove to Paris. I jumped on the train then. I took it to a little town called Bernay where I had to hurry and get off the train, find my bus and get on. I only had about 7 mins but it was good. I made it. Then I took the bus to Rouan where I met my companion Elder Hayden. We took a train to Le Havre. On the train Elder Hayden pulled out of his bag a...can anyone guess? A Dr. Pepper....Oh yes, he said he got it for me. It was so good. The last time I had a Dr. Pepper was in Brussels and before that back in the states. It was so good. I really enjoyed it. I had the chance to get some before when I was in Anger but it was expensive. It was like 2 euros for a can so we never got any. But I may be getting some here maybe. I will see if I can resist. Well, that was my travel. It was good. The next morning though my arms were dead tired and sore. I never thought that moving so little an amount of things would be such a big work out.

Well, our last night in Coutance was pretty cool. We went over to our branch president’s house where we were talking about our investigators and after he looked at the clock and said, “Do we have time? Yes, I think we have time.” Elder Gull and I were like “time for what.” He said have you ever been to Uncle Scotts? We said “no” so he said lets go for dinner. So, we go - then I remember what it is. It is called Uncle Scotts the Country Restaurant. It is like an Applebee’s or a Stake house. So he took us there and I think it is an American restaurant. Due to the fact that when we got there, there were American flags and American signs all over. So, we went there for dinner. He ordered a big, big hamburger for each of us. When we got it, it looked so disgusting, but when you ate it, it was good. After though, you felt disgusting. But what can you do, right? He took some funny pictures with my camera while I was eating. We also took a funny picture where they told me to put ketchup on my face to look like I was a messy eater. I will see if I can send it. I am a little scared though, but oh well. Nothing I can do about that. It was good and really nice of him to do that.

Well, things here are good. We have a nice apartment - not bad - I like it. The city Le Havre…. Well, if you look at pictures it is really beautiful. And it is actually, but right now there are no leaves or anything because of winter. But ya - it is beautiful and will look better shortly. Now beautiful is not the first word I would use to describe this place. There is only one word I can think of and it fits in 6 letters. It starts with a GH and ends in an ETTO or in other words the ghetto. Yes, it is a ghetto, but I like it. It reminds me of Charleroi in Belgium. I like it. We still have a branch here but a little bigger, about 30 members, not bad. We have a good building so it’s cool. Well, Elder Hayden is cool. He is from Austria. He was born in Africa and moved to Austria where he was raised. So, it is cool. His main language is German, but he speaks really good English. He also speaks really good French. He may not be able to understand everything but he speaks really well. A lot of people are shocked because this is only in his 2nd transfer. He is really spiritual though. He has been a convert for about 2 years and he is 26 years old. He is really cool though and I think this will be a great transfer with him. I am excited.

Well, I had some things to write, and I wrote them down in my planner but I forgot my planner today. So, I will have to tell you next week. Well, I love you and hope you will have a great week. I love you all and I know that if you stay close to the lord, read, pray, go to church, and keep the commandments, the lord will take care of you and everything will be great. I was reading a talk by Elder Joseph B. Worthlin in the 2008 General Conference in Oct. His talk was called “Come What May and Love It.” It is a really good talk and you all should read it. I think it would be really cool. Well, I love you family. et que Dieu vous bénisse. Je vous aime.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

February 1, 2011

2011-02-01T11:45:00.001-08:00

Hey family, how are things? Well, things here are good - just trying to get everything ready for transfers. We did find out that they are sending a senior couple here to Coutance. So, we have to also get the apartment ready for them. So, this should be fun. Well, I also found out that my transfer day tomorrow will be fun as well.......ha right..... Let’s see what I have to do. I have to drive to Caen, then I take an hour long train ride to another place, I forgot what it is called. Then I have to take a bus to Rouen where I will meet my companion. Then another hour and a half train ride to Le Havre....It is going to be a long day. It is also going to be fun to carry everything from train to bus to train. But, when I get to Le Havre, Elder Hayden will be there to meet me so that will be good. So, pop quiz. Where is my new companion from? Any guesses? Well, I found out that he is actually from Austria, which is pretty sweet. I have no clue as to where that is but, oh well, I am excited. This will be his 2nd transfer and I have heard he is really spiritual and try’s to follow the spirit the best he can and he is a really hard worker. So I am excited to get to see him and see how he is doing. It should be a great transfer. I guess the work is going really well there. They had 6 investigators at church and they are teaching some part member family so things should be good. I was able to talk to him a little and we are both excited to get to work.

Besides that I have to say that this week, once we got the e-mail, kinda slowed way down for us. Because there won’t be missionaries here for about 4 weeks, we had to tell all our investigators. We also had to clean the apartment and then we couldn’t really do anything. We tried to see our investigators but they were not home. We can’t see the members so there is not much we can do. But we have a rendez-vous with one of our members, the branch pres., tonight. It will be our last one so I hope it goes well. So, I have to say that I love vacuum bags. They are the best. Just put everything in, vacuum all the air out and throw it in the luggage. So, they are nice. Oh, I almost forgot, Elder Gull and I are leaving. So, I am going to Le Havre and Elder Gull is going to Soisson. Soisson is just north of Paris. So, it should be fun for him. His trainer served there and told him some things and he told me he never wanted to serve there - now he is. Things should be good for him though and I think he will like it. He is with a francophone so he is excited for that. I think he will have fun.

So, that has been our week. Yesterday we went with the elders from Cherbourg to Mont Saint Michel again, and it was good. We got in for free so that was really nice. I didn’t take that many pictures though because I have already been there, but it was fun to go again. So, lately I have been getting ready for the move. We are going to have to clean up our apartment again because we kinda got it a little dirty with everything while we were getting packed, but it is ok. So, that is our week - just trying to get everything ready to go tomorrow. Well, that is all that is going on. I will probably go back to e-mails on Monday again. I will have to write and tell you all about my first week. It should be fun and I am way excited. Well family, I love you and hope you have a great day and week.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

January 29, 2011

2011-02-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

Hey how is it all going? Well I got some news about transfers. Well here ya go. I am leaving, and Elder Gull is leaving also. They are closing our companionship here in coutance....Ya I am actually going to Le Havre with Elder Hayden. If you have seen pricnes bride when they are climbing the clifts before the sword fight. Those clifts are actually in Le Havre. So that will be cool. I will also become a step father in the mission becasue Elder Hayden just left his father or tranner and this will be his 2nd transfer so I will be his 2nd comp. So that will be cool. Well here is my address:

Les Missionnaires
Elder Christopher Walker
49 rue Jules Siegfried
76600 Le Havre
France

Well I love you family and I hope you have a great day talk to you probably tuesday. By --TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

January 25, 2011

2011-01-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

Bonjour Family! Comment ça va? Well, things are going great here. It has been a good week with the work. Well, not the best but all you can do is try even harder the next week. Well, this week we were able to see all, but one of our investigators, but it is alright. It was Richard, the Canadian, who we were not able to see this week. But the good news is that we have called him every night to talk to him and help him stop smoking. Our other investigators are doing very good. The mother and daughter team is doing well but are in the middle of moving at the moment. I believe that they have to be out by the 28th, so hopefully everything will be good. They said they are too busy for us to go and see them but maybe we can go and help them move and do some service for them. I hope everything goes well with them and things will go great. They said they are going to stay in our area which is pretty big, but hopefully they will stay so that we can still teach them. We also have another investigator, Sonia, who just left for 15 days so we won’t be able to see her for some time. She went to St. Nazaire to help with her sister who is pregnant and about ready to have a new born. So, she is there to help her out. So, she will come back after transfers.... We will talk about transfers in a min. So that is the news about them so far. We also have a sweet African, Adolph. We taught him last Friday and he told us that he was not going to get baptized again unless the spirit tells him to get baptized. So, we are working on that. He reads everything we give him and he has started the Book of Mormon from the beginning, and that is sweet. Things are going good for him. We still need to find away to get him to church. So, hopefully we will be able to do that. So, that is what is going on with our investigators.

Well, let’s talk about transfers for a little moment. Transfers are next Wednesday. So, things are coming up. We will find out this Saturday if we stay or go. So Saturday we will find out and I will write a quick e-mail and tell you what is happening. I can’t believe this transfer is already over. The time has just flown by....question - does anyone know how to slow down time? If you do, can you please tell me? JK. But ya things are going good and this transfer just flew by.

Ok on to other things. This week our Branch President/DMB took us to go see Mont Saint Michel just for a moment. His wife was gone so he quickly drove us down there and we took a couple of pictures and then he drove us back. It was cool. While we were there we decided to run up the stairs of this place. There are a ton of stairs and they are steep. By the time we got to the top we could barely catch our breath, but it was fun and we had a good time. There is not much else that has been going on here. Things have been good. I have been reading Jesus the Christ a lot lately. I started it a while back then I just slowly, very slowly, read it and kinda stopped. But now I picked it back up and started reading it again. It is a really good book. I love reading it and learning more and more every day. I also have been reading the Book of Mormon, in French, which is going great. It has helped a lot with the language also. The reading has been good. I find new words all the time. Right now I am in Alma 55 which talks about all the wars going on. I just read where the 2000 stripling warriors just came into the story so things should be good. I have also made it a goal to study out of Prechez mon Evangile (Preach my Gospel) everyday. It has been great. I love it! I learn new things everyday that help me become a better missionary and a better person. It is a great book and it is not just for missionaries, but for the whole family. It is made for everyone one so that is one thing I like about the book. We can all learn from it. Learn more about the gospel, how to study, recognize the spirit and much more. It truly is a great book.

Well, that is about all that is going on right now. Things have been hard this transfer but hopefully we can get thing going here in Coutances. We have set some goals to do better with the work and hopefully things will get going. Well, I love you family and hope you have a great day and a great week. Je vous Aime

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

January 19, 2011

2011-01-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, this week has been great. We were able to fix more teaching appointments this last week and we were able to teach our investigators and everything went great. Well, we were able to see the mother and the daughter and things are going good. The daughter comes up to me all the time and asks me when she is going to get baptized. The mother still wants to be baptized so we are trying to get her ready. They are having some problems with their papers to stay here so they are working on that. I guess they have to move. They said that they will be staying somewhere in our area but we don’t really know quite where yet. Hopefully we will know soon. They came to Eglise (church) last week which was good and after we had a branch meal and they were able to stay for that, so that was good for them. At church we also got a new councilor. We now have one councilor and I think that is what we are going to have for some time because we really don’t have a lot of people. It was really weird to sit down in front again with the members looking towards the stand instead of towards the audience. It was cool though. The not so cool part was we had to give another talk in church. They had no speakers for last Sunday so Elder Gull and I gave a talk. It wasn’t the best but it worked. I just used one of the talks I used when I was in Charleroi. So, I was good, just touched it up a little. The bad part is next Sunday, not this one coming up, but the one after, a missionary is assigned to give another talk. So, that should be good. Maybe we can make a deal with our branch pres and get out of it. No, just joking. So that is what happened on Sunday.

Well, on p-day or Monday or Lundi, we went to Omaha Beach again with other elders who haven’t been. And it was really cool. We were able to take a tour this time with an American and a Flemish guy. It was awesome! They went through and explained the graves and some of the stories of the soldiers that lost their lives. We also found out that Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of President Roosevelt was laid to rest there. We got to see some other cool graves of people as well. It is an awesome spirit when you go there, just this feeling of peace. It is really cool just to go and see. They asked us also if we wanted to help them with the flag ceremony. They take down and set up the American flag every day. So, that was sweet. We were able to help fold the flag and we got a group picture of us with the flag, it was so cool! We also met other American people there. It was so weird to here English, and not just English, but American English one could say. A guy walked passed us and just said, “Hey guys, how’s it hangin.” Oh, that is so American. I love it. I miss good old American English. But it was really cool. Another cool part was that the cemetery is owned by America. So, we were on American soil. It was our home away from home. It was soooo cooooool.

I also was able to go on an exchange with my MTC companion, Elder McQuay. It was cool to talk with him again and work with him. He is our district leader now so that is good. He does a great job. It was cool because Monday we were on American soil together. It was also a year to the date of the last time we were on American soil, which was cool. On our exchange we have also been in France a year to the date, which was cool as well. It was cool to work with him again. We both had a great time.

Well, this past week I finished this book called, “400 Questions about the Life and Times of Jesus Christ.” G & G Walker gave it to me for Christmas. It was a really good book about, well, the life and times of Jesus Christ. It was written by Susan Easton Black, a BYU Teacher. She wrote a book that answered the questions her students asked her about Jesus Christ. It was a really good book and I was able to learn a lot about the culture and times. I liked it a lot.

So, those are some of the things that have happened. About our other investigators - we have our Canadian guy, who we have been working with. We saw him Sunday and we have been helping him with his smoking problem. We made a plan to call him every night to see how he is doing and so far things are not going too bad. He smokes about 2 cigarettes a day but he has stayed off the alcohol which is really good. So, things are going good with him. We have dropped the lady that had the baptism date. We have not been able to get in touch. We still try though, just in case, but all we can do is move on. We haven’t been able to get a hold of the guy that we gave the Book of Mormon to either, but hopefully things will work out. We also have this African guy who is awesome. We went over there and he has read everything we gave him and he told us that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. He wants to come to church. The only bad part is how to get him to church. He doesn’t have a car and he lives about a 30 min drive away. So, we have a little problem but we will find a solution and everything will be good. So, that is our investigators for the moment, but hopefully things will get better.

Well, all in all it has been a good week. We have had fun and have had a great time. Well, I love you all and hope you have a great time this week at work or school. Well, I love ya --
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

January 12, 2011

2011-01-25T07:52:00.001-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope everything is going well. Well, things here have been fun. Not much has been going on. This week started off slow, but it turned out to be a good week after all. It started off slow because we didn’t have anything set up but finding. As the week went on we were able to have a member present in one of our lesson. On Sunday, we decided to change it up a little. We went to Grandville to do some contacting. Well, when we got there we started to walk around and this girl just comes up and says, “Hi Elders, how are you?” So, we talked with her and found out she is a member but inactive. We talked with her and gave her the address to the church. That was pretty cool. Then, after that, we were walking around and this guy comes up to us and asks us if we knew where this place was. We told him, “No, we don’t know this area. We are from America.” So we talked and we ended up giving him a live de Mormon (Book of Mormon) and getting his address. So, hopefully everything will work out and he will be interested and we will be able to teach him. So, that should hopefully be good.
What was also cool this week was I went on an exchange with the district leader. Well, Elder Gull went with the district leader and I went with his blue or greeny. I went to Alençon which was a good change for me. It was cool to go to another place and do some work. The elder I went with was named Elder Abel. He is from Washington, Utah and the best part is he is a huge U OF U fan. Oh ya! We talked forever about the U and how the sport teams were doing and everything. It was awesome. He also talked about movies that came out and were about to come out. Pretty much all the movies I missed. I realized now that it was bad because now I want to see those movies....one day - but not to day. My time will come. But it was an awesome exchange and we had a good time. It was great.

Well, we got some news about our little tiny branch here in Coustance. We got a new branch president. It was our DMB or ward mission leader. The sad but not sad part is that we were released as councilors to the president. Our new president may call us again to be councilors but I don’t know. Our branch is really small and everyone has callings already so maybe one of us will be a councilor. I have no clue, but we should find out soon. So, that is what is going on with our branch. Oh ya, it was awesome at church. We had 17 people there. Ya, 2 of them where from the district (stake), but there was still 17. It was awesome. On average our church is about 9 people so almost double. So that was really cool.

Well family I hope everyone had a great week. Hey, I have a question for you. Can you guys send me some pictures of the fam. I haven’t seen recent pictures in some time. The pictures I have are from Wendi and Ben’s wedding. So, it has been some time. I have a couple from Brendon and Kristy’s wedding also. It is just if you want to send them you can. I just thought it would be cool but comme vous voulez. Well, fam I love you and hope you have a great week.

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

January 4, 2011

2011-01-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Well, things here are going good for right now. The work has been a little slow lately but everything should be good soon. Well, we can start off with our investigators... well, it has been sad. We have lost contact with our baptism date and we have not been able to see her for about 2 weeks now. I hope everything is fine and that she just had to go somewhere the last minute. So that is what is happing with her. Our Canadian friend is doing good. He is having a really hard time with his wife right now but he told us on Sunday that by tomorrow or Tuesday everything should be fine. He also told us that he will need our help again to get back in touch with God. So, hopefully everything will be fine with him and I hope that he will always remember that the Lord is always there. We just need to go towards Him. His arms are always stretched out and we only need to reach up and grab a hold. Well, some of our other investigators just got back into town because they were off having fun on the holidays. So, hopefully we will be able to get a hold of them. We had a rendez-vous with one of them today but right when we got here she called us and said she was sick. So we moved the rendez-vous for Thursday at 3. So, hopefully she will be better and we will be able to go over and see her. The work here has started off slow but hopefully it will pick up. It has been a little sad we lost contact with our baptism date but things will move on and hopefully she will be fine and we will get back in contact with her.

Well, besides all that, this week has been good. For p-day we went up to Nez de Joberg again to show Elder Gull around. We headed back up there and when we got there it wasn’t raining this time so we went to the beach and it was cool – freezing - but cool. So we did that then we headed back to the apartment. Well, I can’t believe it is 2011. Where has the time gone? Well, for New Years we didn’t do much. In our mission for some reason it is treated like a p-day. I don’t know why but it is. So, we just stayed in the apartment all day. We tried to go out to the store but everything, and I mean everything, was closed. There was nothing open so we ended up walking around and heading back to the apartment. At 6pm we went back to work. So, that was our New Years. It was fun though and it was good to get some rest.

Well, Sunday I was put in charge of leading church in sacrament meeting. That was fun. It was my first time but I got through it and everything went great. After church is when we had a rendez-vous with our Canadian friend.

Well, that is pretty much all that is going on here in St Lô - not much. This week has been fun with studies. Studies are my favorite time of the day. I love reading about the gospel and the scriptures. Before the mission I wasn’t a big reader. but now I like reading. I still don’t think I can read 7-8 books in a week like my sisters at Lake Powell, but I think I would be able to get 7-8 chapters read of one book, if we were there. Well, during studies I have been reading the Book of Mormon in French. This has been good. It is cool to read it in another language. I still think I get more out of it in English but the French is cool. I have also been reading Jesus The Christ. I love that book. I haven’t been reading this a lot lately but I want to pick it back up. I have learned so much about our Lord and redeemer Jesus Christ. I love learning more about that. I was listening to a talk lately from John Bytheway about 5 scriptures that will help you get through almost everything. The first one was 1 NEPHI 11:17. It talks about how God loves us. An angel is talking with Nephi and asked him a question. He answers with, “I know God loves his children but I don’t know everything.” So, the first one - God loves his children. The 2nd one is MOSES 7:26-33. It talks about how God allows evil but doesn’t like it basically. The 3rd is in ALMA 14:9-13. It says that our work is not yet finished. That is why we are here because our work is not done. OK - The 4th is ALMA 7:11-12. It talks about Jesus Christ and his atonement for us. It goes through listing all the things his atonement covered. So, that is the 4th one about how the atonement is not just for our sins. -- Ok the last one is D&C 101:32-36. It talks about how in time Jesus Christ will answer our questions. So, those are some scriptures that can help us get through almost everything, Jesus Christ can help us get through everything.

Well family, I love you and hope you have a great week.
TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

December 29, 2010

2010-12-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Did everyone have a great Christmas? I hope that you all did and that you all had a fun time. Well, Christmas for me was great. A family invited us over to their house and the cool part is they live right on the beach. So, Elder Gull and I went to the beach for a little bit and got to check it out. It was pretty cool. The weather was nice so we got to see out a ways, but it was cold, very cold. Then we had lunch at their house and it was pretty cool. Well, that was our Christmas. After, we went home and had the best part of the day. Calling home and talking with the family. It was great to call and talk to you. I am glad everything is going great and it was great to hear your voices. It really was the best part of my Christmas. Well, New Years is coming up so HAPPY NEW YEARS! It is so weird to think that it is already 2011. Were has the time gone? I remember when it turned 2010 and it just feels like it just passed in the blink of an eye. I am shocked! Well, time must go on. Well, this week has been really slow and kinda bad. We have lost contact with our baptism date, Katylen. I saw her last Tuesday with Elder Hall and we haven’t seen her since. She said she was coming to church so we went to pick her up. We got permission from President Staheli to drive her. So, we went to her house but she was not there. So, we called her - no answer. We finally went to church without her and it was great. I had to give a talk. I gave it on un refuge contre Satan or a refuge against Satan. It went well. Well, after church we went throughout our day and at night I decided to call her, but once again no answer. So, I called her on Monday...nothing, and Tuesday...nothing. So, we haven’t seen her for a week or even heard from her. So, I hope everything is still ok with her. Then with our investigator from Canada - we haven’t seen him in awhile either. The last time was last Thursday. We found out that he caved in and drank some alcohol and smoked also. He said that he is trying to recover from that and he is still praying, but that was the last time we saw him. So, we are hoping he is doing awesome also. Well, besides that, the rest of our amies have been out of town but they should be back soon.

Well, besides that our week has not been too much out of the ordinary. We do have another rendezvous with our old baptism date, the mom and the daughter. So, hopefully it will go great. Well, this has been a great year for me and the mission. I have really grown to love the Lord for all that he has done for me in my life and the life of my family and friends. I have learned a lot about this gospel also by having the chance to study it everyday. This has truly been a great year for me and it isn’t even over just yet. We had our interviews with our mission president, President Staheli. He encouraged us to fix goals for ourselves, for this new year coming up, and to look back at our old goals and see what we have accomplished over the year. So, this year was great but next year we should make it an even better year. Elder Ballard said this about setting goals, “We need to set goals and learn how to master them. If we don’t, when we get to be a ripe old age looking back on our lives, we might realize that we only reached a part of our potential.” Those are not the exact words but close enough.

So, I encourage you all to fix some goals and push for them this next year and make this year even better then the last.

Well, I love you family and I hope you have a great day and an awesome New Year. I love you!

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

December 22, 2010

2010-12-30T10:39:00.001-08:00

Hey family, how is it going? Well, we all know what time of year it is so Je vous Souhaite un Joyeux Noël et une Heureuse Nouvelle Année or Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. So, how is everything? Did everyone have a great week? Well, things here have been fun. On Sunday we had to cancel church. This is the first time I had to cancel church on my mission. The reason why is because there is a lot of snow! Our branch pres calls us and tells us he can’t come so we started making call to all the members. A lot of them couldn’t come either so we had to cancel it. So, we stayed home, did our studies and we did our deep cleaning on our apartment. Well, Sunday night we went up to Cherbourg for a little exchange and on Monday it was our p-day. We went to Nez de Jobourg which is on the coast and it has these really beautiful cliffs. It was awesome, really cold, but awesome. There was also a beach that we found so we decided to go out running on it. The bad part was that it started to rain and by the time we got back by the car we were soaking wet. It sucked! Well, it was funny though. I took some pictures but not too many because it was raining and freezing cold, so that was fun.

Yesterday we had a bad but yet good day. We were driving to go to the train station and there was a turn so we slowed down. We were not going that fast but there was black ice on the road. We were supposed to take the turn but our car didn’t want to. Well, we ended up hitting the wall on the right side of our car. It was not that bad though. There is just a little dent above the right side front and back wheels, but besides that everything was fine. Well, that was fun! The rest of the day thought was great.

So, Christmas is coming up. Santa is loading his sleigh it should be great. Hey, guess what? Guess where I will be having Christmas? I will be having Christmas in a cabin on the beach next to a fireplace....oh ya! It should be great. A family invited us over and they live right on the beach so, it is going to be fun. I am excited.

Well, our investigators are doing well. Some of them have left because of Christmas and gone on holiday. Besides that they are doing well. Our baptism date is still going strong. She is having some doubt but she is coming along. Our Canadian is great also. He wants us to start teaching his kids which will be awesome. We have a rendez-vous with him tomorrow, so it should be great.

Well, I got a new companion today - Elder Ryan Gull. He seems pretty cool. I haven’t gotten to know him that well yet but he seems like a cool guy. He just came from Charleroi and Patrick so it was cool to talk about Charleroi and the work there.

Well, time is short. I love you and hope you have a great Christmas. Oh, and I can’t wait to call home!

TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

December 15, 2010

2010-12-15T09:22:00.000-08:00

Hey family! Well, to start off I just have to say I love you. I am just thinking here now about all that you do for me while I am on a mission for the Lord. So, how ya’ll doing? Things here have been great. We had mission conference at Versailles last Wednesday. It was great to see the whole mission and all the missionaries. It was also good to see old companions. Well, it was great. They made this huge slide show with pictures throughout the year of missionaries and it was funny. Some of those pictures - I will get a copy and will have to show it to you. Well, it was also very cool because we took a huge mission picture with everyone in it and then we played a white elephant game. I sent in this 5 color changeable highlighter and I ended up getting a 100 French blond jokes. I have to admit some of them are pretty funny. It was a good conference though. When we left to go home that is where things got fun. We were there for about 4 hr and when we came, there was no snow. When we left there was about 10-12 inches on the ground.... Yea - everything was closed and nothing was working. So, we had to walk to the station after because the buses were not working; then when we got there the metro wasn’t working. We needed the metro to get over to the train station. We finally got on one that worked. Oh boy, Oh boy! That was fun. It was pretty much the only one that worked in Paris. That metro was packed tighter then a can of sardines. At one point I was smashed up against the window with a box of Restoration DVD’s in my stomach and millions of people pushing me. I looked like a pancake on that window. I have to say that that was the most uncomfortable ride I have ever had. Well, because everything was late and because of the snow we missed our train. So, we had to catch the later one. We didn’t get home till about midnight. The bad part is that we had to get up at 4 that morning to catch the train to Paris. What a day. It was still fun and it was a great time.

Well, this week we have some miracle stories to tell. One was today about an awesome lady who has been sick for a while. Well, we saw her today and it was awesome. We told her about the restoration of the church and she just accepted it. She just had an open heart. At the end we asked if she would be baptized and she said YES! So, we fixed a date for the 15th of January. It was awesome and she is so cool. She is also coming to church on Sunday. We had to get permission from our president to drive her there because she doesn’t have a car and it is a half an hour drive. So, we did that and now she is coming to church.

Another one which was so cool - we ran into someone from Canada. When we found him he was in bad shape. His wife just left him and he has been drinking and smoking cigarettes and weed. He was bad but we had a 3 hr appointment with him and at the end he told us he wanted to change. He hates his life. We taught him about prayer and how about God is always there for us. Well, we prayed with him and then we gave him a blessing of comfort. At the end we were just talking about how he can fight the temptations. We told him not to even have it around him. Well, he takes us into the kitchen where he gives us a bottle of red wine, a bottle of Jack Daniels whisky, a package of tobacco, and his weed. We left his house with all his drugs. Now don’t you worry, we threw it away. Well, we come back the next day and you can just tell by looking at him that he had changed. He told us he is doing a lot better and that he has not even had the temptation to smoke or drink. His wife came over the night before and he told us in 10 years he never saw her face look like that. She was proud of him right then, that night. And, she is also helping him become better. It is so cool. I am so happy for him. We have another appointment with him tomorrow, and it should be great.

Well, transfers are coming up. They are on the 22nd. Well, here is the news. I am staying here in Coutances/St Lo with Elder Gull. Elder Hall is leaving and going up to Namur, Belgium. I don’t know Elder Gull that much. I just know that he is the same age as Elder Hall, but that is about all I know of him. So, it looks like I will be having Christmas in Normandy which is always cool. I like it here. It is small but I can still have fun. Apparently we are also getting sisters in our district next transfer. So that will be cool to have sisters in the district again.

Alright, so next week is Christmas. Now about calling home – well, I don’t really know how it is going to work because I am trying to figure out if I call or you call and what times. I don’t know what times Elder Gull has either. Well, I know it is coming up. It is next week. There is a good chance I will be buying a calling card to call you but if not I hope you can call me. OK THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO. DAD AND SHANNON; MOM AND DENNIS - I NEED YOU TO EMAIL THE TIME THAT IS BEST FOR YOU BECAUSE I AM FREE ALL DAY BASICLY AND IT IS GOOD. I JUST HAVE A LUNCH WITH A MEMBER. I NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TIME IN YOUR TIME - AS IN THE TIME IN UTAH - NOT MINE. 2 O’ CLOCK IS THE LATEST I CAN CALL SOMEONE BECAUSE 2 O’ CLOCK THERE IS 10 PM HERE. SO, ANY TIME BEFORE 2 WILL BE GOOD. CAN YOU DO THAT AND I WILL TRY TO GET BACK TO YOU NEXT WEEK OR SOME TIME THIS WEEK.

Well family I love you and am excited to talk to you next Saturday. I love you and hope you have a great day and week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

PS - here is a district boy band picture.

December 7, 2010

2010-12-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how are you all doing? Well, I have to say this week has been fun, cold, and a little sucky. Well, let’s get on with the story. It has been fun because a member, our ward mission leader, took us to Saint Malo. It is a very beautiful city on the coast. Well, we went there and it was cool. The whole city is kinda like a castle fortress thing. It was built to keep out pirates so that was pretty cool. They also have this place where you could get the biggest ice cream I have ever seen.....and this is where the week started to suck. I am going to give you a little advice - never go 3-4 days without eating anything healthy and only eating junk food. Friday I had some bad food so I was not feeling very well. Well, Saturday came around when we went to Saint Malo. Our ward mission leader wanted to get us a treat. So, we go to this bar restaurant thing. The next thing we know he is gone and when he comes back he said he had already ordered. Well, they came out with two slices of the biggest cake I have ever seen, and it was all chocolate. So, we start eating, and I am still not 100 percent from the day before. Then a couple of minutes later they come out with this huge bowl of ice cream. Well, we eventually downed as much as we could. That just made me start feeling worse. Well, Sunday came around and after church we had a branch meal with the whole branch. It was pretty good. After the meal they bring out this huge bowl of chocolate mousse, which was awesome by the way. Well, after that we started our fast for fast Sunday. So, that is all that we ate Sunday. Monday when we broke our fast, we broke it by eating brownies......bad idea....and now let’s just say that Elder Hall and I are not doing/feeling too good. Ya – that’s a bad on our part.

Well, besides that things are going great. Our two investigators with the baptism date - well for right now they don’t have a baptism date for the moment. The mom is going through a rough spot and needs more time. But hopefully they will be doing a lot better soon. They want to get baptized so that will be a good goal to push them toward. We also had a rendez-vous with another investigator here in St Lo who is awesome also. We went over there and we asked if he had read in the Book of Mormon and he said yes and explained everything he read. His son also read it and joined in on the rendez-vous. That is freaking awesome! And he wants to join in next time also! Oh ya! It will be so cool if he is there and wants to join in again. They are doing awesome. We have another investigator who we think would have a baptism date and everything, but she is still in the hospital. She has an appointment with the doctors tomorrow, so hopefully that will go great.

Those are our investigators at the moment. Things seem to be going great with them. I just hope that they can hold on. Well, this week there has been a ton of snow and it is weird because it does not snow here in Normandy. We talked with a guy and he said he had lived here for 46 years. He has never seen it snow this early in the year, as in December, and has never seen it snow so much. There had to be a good 10-12inch of snow here. Everything was closed down. We were lucky when we went places that we never got stuck in the snow. There were many times though when we had to help people going up a hill. We were going somewhere and there were a bunch of cars that could not get up this hill. So, we made it up, parked the car and ran down to push people up the hill. It was great fun.

Well, my time is up family. I hope you have a great day and I love you all. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

More Funny Boy Band Pictures

2010-12-06T13:37:00.001-08:00

Looks like Chris is having fun over in Normandy. These pictures just make me laugh.

December 2, 2010

2010-12-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is it going? Sorry my email is a little late. The place where we do our emails was closed, so we had to wait to do them today. Well, things here are good but it is freakin cold!!!!!!! Oh my, is it cold. Normally it does not snow here in Normandy. But this year it already has been snowing and we have gotten a lot. It just actually started to snow here in St Lo yesterday but up in Cherbourg, which is right on the coast, they have got over 8 inches. It has been snowing all around St Lo but we finally got hit yesterday. I am ok with the snow but it is not just the snow, it is freezing. It was -7°c the other day. You also have to include the humidity and it goes straight to the bone. There is also a wind that feels like it is coming from the Arctic. It was bad, on Sunday we were out going door to door and we had been knocking on doors for about 3 hours from 3-6 pm. Around 6:15-6:30 we could not feel our hands and our faces, nor could we feel anything else. It started to hurt every time we knocked on a door. Eventually we just had to stop and come back inside. It was bad, but very funny.

Well, this week, besides the cold, has been great. Ok - I guess we found this one person who is just awesome and she wants to read the Book of Mormon. She believes in a life after death and she loves what we have been teaching her. We had a very good appointment. She then got sick and couldn’t come to church and we had asked if we could give her a blessing. She didn’t want to see us when she was sick. So, that kinda blows but it is good. She is so cool she could get baptized in 3 weeks, which is awesome. Let’s just hope that she gets better soon. She has a doctor appointment on Wednesday, so hopefully it will be good. Our other two baptism dates - well they are not.. let’s say.. doing the very best. We had to move the baptism date back and we have not been able to see her for a long time. We have an appointment with her today and hopefully they will be there so we can teach them. We were going to teach them about Modern Day Prophets, so hopefully it will be great and they will be awesome.

We have been doing a lot of contacting lately. We have knocked on every door in one whole little town. It took us a couple of days but we have finally done it

Well, this past Monday we had the elders from Cherbourg come down and we went to a place called Mont Saint-Michel. This is a very famous place. I guess there a lot of people that know about it in America. Well, we went there and it was beautiful. It is this church/monastery on an island. You should look it up on Google if you can. It is awesome. We went there with the elders from Cherbourg and took a tour of it. When we were there we ran into 3 members of our church, one from Costa Rica, one from Pennsylvania, and the other one was from L.A., but she lives in France now. It was cool. We got to talk to them and two of them didn’t know we had a church in their area. We told them we did and gave them the numbers of the elders in their area, which was really cool. When we were there Elder Easton had a great idea to take “boy band’ pictures. Ya, they are funny and I think they are cool. I will try to send you one in the email. Then we came back and did a little exchange and did some work.

Next week I think the email will be on Tuesday because we have our mission conference on Wednesday. This is where the whole mission is going to Paris or Versailles. it will be cool to see the whole mission. There are still a ton of missionaries I don’t even know. It should be a good time. We are asked to bring a 5 dollar gift and we are going to play a white elephant game, so that will be chouette.

Well family, I love you and I hope you have a great day. Thank you for your support and love. It really helps me get threw a hard day. Well, I love you again. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

P.S. Sorry if my email is a little weird. I am a little tired. LOVE YA

November 24, 2010

2010-12-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TOUT LE MONDE! Well, how is everyone doing? Well, this week has been great. Well, as everyone might have guessed, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is sad I will have to miss it. They do not have Thanksgiving in France. It is only an American holiday. Well, what we will be doing is working, because it is not a holiday, but it is ok. There are some other elders or missionaries who our going over to members houses for a dinner and stuff, but for us, we will be working. I think though that we will make some potatoes and gravy and try to do a Thanksgiving dinner with us. Hopefully it will work out though.

Well, things here are great. We have been doing a lot of port à port lately or door to door. We have been working in a little town just right out of St Lo. We are trying to knock on every door in that city. It has been going great. We have knocked on about half and we have found 3 potential investigators out of it, so that is really good. The work is a little bit slow but we are having a great time. We may have another baptism date here also. We already have two, the mom and here 9 year old daughter. They are doing great. We have a rendezvous with them today and we are planning to teach them about the atonement. We also have to move the baptism date back just a little bit because they couldn't come to church last week and they will be in Paris this Sunday. So, we will have to move is back but they are doing great. We also have another one named Sonya who is doing awesome. Her parents are members and last week they told us that she has read the Le Live de Mormon or the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true. So, we were very happy about that. We taught her the big two commandments on Monday. The word of wisdom and the law of chastity. They went well and she knows what she needs to do to change. We have another rendezvous with her tomorrow, so that should be great.

This past Sunday we had district conference. It is like stake conference but when you have just branches it is called a district. So, we all went to Caen and President Staheli was there also. So, we got to talk with him and it was great. He talked about the missionary work for members and how that they don't need to do missionary work, but just be missionaries. As in they should be an example and should invite people to come to activities. Then if they are interested, give them to the missionaries to teach them. And he encouraged every member to have a Preach my Gospel. The book is not just for missionaries, but for everyone to help them know the gospel more and help them with a lot of other things. President also talked about the miracle of 2010. For our mission, two years ago, 2008, they had about 105 baptisms. Last year the mission had about 120 baptisms. This year up to right now, we have about 230 baptisms. We have about 70 or more baptisms dates before this year ends. Our mission is shooting for over 300 at the end of the year. It is so cool. The work here has just exploded and it is just going to keep getting better. Our goal for our zone, the Normandy zone, was 12 baptisms. Last year we got 6 so they made the goal of 12. Right now we have 13 and another 7 more baptism dates here. It is so cool. I am lovin it.

Well, that is just some things that our going on with the work. Now on to the other stuff. Last Saturday was awesome. We were going to do some service with the elders in Cherbourg and we had some extra time before the service. So, we went and played football. And I mean football! American, not soccer, with a team in Cherbourg. This was like football and everything with pads, helmets and all. It was not a game but just practice, so we practiced with them. It was awesome. Their coach was in the army and he kicked our butts into shape. The next day we were all sore. They said we can come back so we are planning to go again this Saturday. Well, the service was cancelled and we were in Cherbourg with our ward mission leader. He took us to go see the world's largest nuclear sub. It was cool. It doesn't work anymore but it was awesome. I also found out that Cherbourg was the last stopping place of the Titanic before is sunk. Last week they had the Queen Elizabeth at the boat docked there, so that is cool. Well, we were coming back and we stopped by this church because we where with our ward mission leader lives. We stopped at this church, the St. Marie Eglise. I think that is what it was called where the 82nd air born landed in World War 2. There was a guy who got stuck on top of the church for two days and was not killed. So, at the church they have a manikin hanging by a parachute on the church. It was funny.

Well, those are just some things that are going on here in Normandy. Things are going great. Well time is short. I love you guys and hope you have a great week and a great day. I hope you are loving the snow. All it does here is rain and rain and rain some more. I think it has rained everyday since I have been here. Well, I love you. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

November 17, 2010

2010-12-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is it all going? Things here are awesome.... well, some things at least. Well, the train ride here was fun. I had to change trains 3 times to get over here from Angers. I almost missed one of them also. But I finally reached Coutances. So, our church is in Coutances but we live in St Lo, which is about a 30 min drive away, so it takes some time to get there. Well, we have done some cool things here this week. We have two baptism dates here. So, we have been teaching them and they are doing great. It is a 9 year old daughter and her mother. They asked us if they could be baptized. They asked us if they could be baptized! It was awesome! They are really cool. Well, the first day that I am here, we go do some service for some members in our ward. They live about a 30 min drive in the other direction of Coutances. So, it took us some time to go out there. Well, they live on the coast and it is awesome. You really have about a 100 feet to the ocean. It was cool. Well, we helped them out then we went back and they gave us dinner, which was cool. We had some fish soup. Ever since I got here I think I have had some kind of sea food every day.

Well, eventually, Sunday gets around and guess what I found out.....? I found out that we have a branch and we the missionaries are the councilors in the branch presidency....! So, you have the branch president who is like the bishop of the ward and we are his councilors. Every Sunday we have to direct the meeting and direct sacrament and all those things. Ya, so we got a job on our hands. And, I guess our branch pres. sometimes isn’t there, so we have to do the things. Well, can you guess how many members we have in our branch? We have about 15-20. But last Sunday about 10 came. It is a little change for me going from a big city to a little city. You had Brussels with 1.8 million people, Charleroi, I don’t know, Angers with about 155,000 people and Coutance with about 9,000 ....ya there is a little drop. Well, after church we had a little branch meal with the members and it was cool to get to know them. They are really awesome. Then our ward mission leader, his wife wasn’t home, so he asked if he could take us somewhere. So, we said ya and we just took the time off of our p-day on Monday. But can you guess where he took us? He took us to the beaches of Normandy! To Omaha Beach. Now here is some history if you don’t know. The beaches of Normandy is the place where the Americans, Canadians, and the British landed for D-day in World War 2 to attack the Nazis. Now, I love the history of World War 2 so I was so stoked to go there. It was awesome. We went to the American cemetery where there were over 9000 young adults who died on D-day. The actual land belongs to America. France gave it to America in about the 1970’s. So, you can kind of say I was home for a little bit. But it was awesome. We got to go into bunkers, see the ocean and the beach. We got to see some cool stuff there I will send along a picture to show you, but it was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, we didn’t do much on Monday. Tuesday we had a district meeting in Caen. They asked us to bring some meet and cheese for the sandwiches. So, we bought some. We then were leaving the apartment to go to the gare or train station. So, we get on and I realized I don’t have my discount card and without it my ticket doesn’t work. So, we don’t have time to go get it. I had to buy a new ticket without the discount which sucked. Then, as we were on the train, we realized yet again that we forgot something important...the food. So, eventually we get to Caen and we had to run to the store to get some food for lunch. So, that was fun. But it turned out to be a good day.

Well, Normandy is awesome and Elder Hall is awesome also. We were in the same apartment when I was in Charleroi, so I got to meet him there which was cool. He is cool. He is from St. George, Utah. Cool thing is his mom is French, so he knew some French in the MTC. He only had to stay there for 3 weeks. So, he will have an extra transfer than all of us - but that is pretty cool.
So, yes, the time has come! I have been reminded a lot from my e-mails this week, but yes, the one year mark will be reached tomorrow, NOV. 18! WOW! Where has the time gone? It feels only like yesterday I left for the MTC - WOW.... Well, it only means one thing. Do you know what that is? It is WORKING HARDER!! Oh ya! gooooo wooork!!
Well, family, I love you and hope you have a great week. Things here have been great and things will only get better.

PS - if there is a package sent to the office for Christmas, it needs to be in at the latest before DEC 8. Because DEC 8 is a big mission conference with the whole mission and that is when we should get it. Thank You! TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

More fun Photos

2010-12-02T10:14:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos of: last family home evening in Angers (only the young women showed up. It was kinda weird), and two pictures of our district; I hope you enjoy them.

November 10, 2010

2010-12-02T10:08:00.001-08:00

Hey quick note family I made it to Coutance ok I am just leting you know that here we can not do our e-mails on monday. so we usualy do them tuesday, or Wednesday. mostly wednesday because I guess it takes to long to get back from district meeting on tuesday so it maybe tuesday or wednesday. We dont do it monday because it is closed.

I just wanted you to know for next week. I love you and hope you have a great week I love you and I will have to tell you about my transfer next week I LOVE YOU TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

November 8, 2010

2010-11-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how is it all going? I hope everything is going well. Well, things here have been interesting. Did everyone get the news - I am leaving Angers. I am going to Coutance. Well, the church is in Coutance but we live in St LO and we do all the contacting there also. After, we have a 30 minute drive to our church for Sundays, ya - how fun. Oh well, I have some good CD’s so that is good. Well, life here has been good. Not much has gone on here this past week. Can anyone guess what our stats were for this week? Ya - they were not too good. This had to be one of my worst weeks here according to stats, but stats don’t really matter, so ya. Well, to tell you the truth we got straight ZEROS (0). How fun! No, we did do a lot of contacting and we had appointments but they got sick and couldn’t come, so that was sad.

We also had an investigator this week who called and dropped us because she thinks Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. She says it is too much 18th century. So that was sad also. But, oh well, all you can do is your best and then move on. Things like this happen. We just have to keep working and find the elect. So, how is everyone doing back at home? I have heard that it has been snowing a lot and the worst news is that U OF U lost to TCU! That was a sad day when I found that out.....which happens to be today.......ya..... Well I have heard that it rains a lot in Coutance and it is very cold. Oh ya, I am going to freeze. So, I have found out that it is snowing a lot in Utah, just a sec I will write another e mail in about é min….

Sorry, people were talking with me and I got distracted. So, things here have been doing great. Just really slow but I am excited to go to Coutance with Elder Hall. So, I found out after I learned where I was going about the population. Brussels has about 1.8 million people, Angers 155,000 people and Coutance 9000.....ya it is a very small town. We have a branch of 25 people and only about 15 come. So, I am going to go to a very small town, but, oh well, it is in NORMANDE! OH YA I am so HAPPY. It is also going to take me a long time to get there. I have to go through 3 cities and I have delay stopovers in all of them. So, it is going to be along day. Well, things here are going great. I don’t have much time. I am at the church and we have family home evening about to start, so I have to go. Well, I love you family. Sorry my e mail is not that much this week but hopefully it will be better next week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Here are some photos if you want…

November 6, 2010

2010-11-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

Hey family how is it going? well I got the news about transfers I am Going to Coutances with Elder Gregory Hall Coutances is in the Normandie Zone....I wanted to go to Normandie so bad o ya whoo who well here is my address.

Les missionaries
Elder Christopher Walker
50 route villedieu n°17
50000 ST LO
FRANCE

Hey by the way There is a ^ over the O in ST LO. I can not figure out how to do it on the computer but there is one on the address Well I lvoe you family and I will tell you more on Monday

November 1, 2010

2010-11-08T15:58:00.000-08:00

Hey family, how’s it hangin? I hope things are going great back at home. Things here have been a little fun and a little interesting lately. Well, to start off, Elder Berrett came this week so our companionship of 3 went to two companionships of 2. So, that has been fun. Well, we have done a lot of contacting lately. We contacted for the whole day on some days. One day this week, Thursday or Wednesday, we had to stay in the apartment for most of the day because it was the day of a huge manifestation. So, we had to stay inside for that but we eventually got out because we had to go to English class. So, that was nice to get out of the apartment. We were all happy for that.

Well, Friday is kinda the day when things started to get interesting around here. We had a rendez-vous (appointment) with a investigator who is only 12. Missionaries have been going over for about 2 years now. So, we went over and Elder Brady had a strong feeling that we should teach him a little different than usual. This kid knows that this church is true. He has grown up in this church his whole life and he won’t get baptized. And he doesn’t know why. So, we started to teach him about baptism. Well, we started teaching him and Elder Brady started to use the scripture Mosiah 3:19 “…the natural man is an enemy of god.” Well. Let’s just say we got to the point of the baptism and he was shocked about what was said. Now, the mom was there and she didn’t try to stop us and she seemed like she was supporting this. Well, it comes around to Sunday and we have a meeting with our ward mission leader. He starts getting a little mad with him because I guess the family took the lesson the wrong way and got a little mad at us. So, the mission leader talks to us. Then he had to talk with another member who is a counselor to our president somehow. So, that night President Staheli calls Elder Brady. Ya, so this is why things are a little weird. Well, the member who is the counselor to pres. is also the home teacher of this 12year old boy. He thinks Elder Brady just destroyed the progression they had going for this kid. Well, when president called Elder Brady was pretty scared but he told him he had a strong feeling that is what he needed to hear. And president said if you had that feeling then it was probably good that you said it. He also said that we have been set a part to know what our investigators need and how to teach them. So, it is all good now, just some of the members hate the missionaries, but it is all good. Maybe one day he will reflect on the things we taught and realize that it is what he needed to hear.

So, that is why things have been a little weird here lately but I hope things will work out. Transfers are coming up and Elder Brady doesn’t think he will be staying here. We also all think that Elder Ellis is leaving because he has been here for 3 transfers. President usually doesn’t let people stay for more than 3. They can, but it is rare. Elder Brady thinks I am staying with Elder Barrett and they will close a companionship here. President said he doesn’t know how long they are going to keep four missionaries here because they have to close some companionships next transfer. They are trying to get our mission down to only 100 missionaries. That is a lot of people and companionships they have to close. We have about 160 right now and they are just sending less and less missionaries here. So, it won’t happen for a while but they are working on it. Well, my opinion on whether I stay or go - I don’t know to tell you the truth. I can see me going and I can see me staying. It would be cool to stay or to go somewhere else. It would be cool to go to Normandy or back to Belgium. But we shall find out, I am not sure though. Well, we will find out this Saturday and I will see if I can e-mail you when I get it.

Well, things are going great beside all the fun things that have been happening to us. I love the mission. I have grown so much closer to our Heavenly Father through being here. I love it so much and it has been a great experience for me. Well, family Je vous aime I want you to know that. I am so grateful for everything that you do. I love you and hope you have a great week TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

PS - we also had the chance to see an American football game in France........ya it is not every day that you see that. It wasn’t the same but it was still cool to see American football - oh ya.....

October 25, 2010

2010-10-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

Bonjour famillie vous allez bien. Allors cette semine etait chouette! Nous sommes fair le contacting le port de port, et tout le chose com ça. I have no clue what I was doing. I just wanted to go off talking about nothing for one sentence. So, how are you all doing? Things here have been good. It was a long week and a slow one at that. And, I have to let you know that I hate this country and its stupid grèves (strikes). It is killing the mission work for us. We only have 3 lessons last week and this week. We got a call from the Zone Leaders and they have had to cancel interviews, cancel all the exchanges and all the activities we have. Apparently there is supposed to be a giant strike this week because this is the week when they sign the thing for the retirement. And this week they will be closing everything. Nothing will be open. There will be no trains or anything. So, it looks like we will be spending some time in our apartment. Oh, I got some news. Our companionship of 3 will be over tomorrow. A visa waiter is coming in and he is getting trained in Nevelle, Belgium. Elder Berrett who was in Charleroi the same time I was is coming down here to Angers. So, Elder Ellis and Elder Berrett will be companions and Elder Brady and I will be companions. Good thing we have a 4 man apartment so we have enough room. It will be cool. We are hoping he will be able to make it through tomorrow with the strike going on and that there will be a train to get him here.

Ok, well this week was good. We had to go back to Nantes for Elder Ellis and we got everything worked out for him that day. It was a long day. First we had an exchange with Elder Crump and we had to go to Le Mans to pick up Elder Ellis. Then we had to take a train from Le Mans to Nantes for his legality thing. Then we had to catch another train to Angers. So, we spent the whole day on the trains. We were worried because there may not have been a train with all this going on, but it all worked out. So, we were grateful for that. Oh, this strike thing is so funny. We were on the bus and we drove past a fire station. The firemen were outside painting it. They painted a sign saying, “Non a cette réforme; tous ensemble” (which means “no” to this retirement reform) and all together we just laughed. Then they stormed the beaches of.....wait not the beaches, the Castle of Angers. I was going to say the beaches of Normandy but that was a long time ago. No, they stormed the castle here and they had big signs and banners and they were all freaking out. We all just laughed.

Besides that, there hasn’t been much going on. We didn’t do that hot this week but next week with the strike hopefully over, we are hoping for something better. Well, I am doing good. Everything is going fine, just working hard and staying alive. I do hope this strike is over soon because transfers will be coming up soon. I hope we will all be able to move around with the trains and everything.

Well, here are some pictures of the zoo we visited last week. Oh, and also, when the people stormed the castle. Well, I love ya family! I hope you have a great week. bon journé et je t'aime

LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 18, 2010

2010-10-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is life going for everybody? I hope it is all fine and dandy. Well, things here have been fun and not so fun as well. So, let me tell you about the life of a missionary in Angers.

Well, Monday was good. It was our p-day and we didn’t do much. We went bowling again and had a good time. Then after that we had FHE and the person who was supposed to bring the games was late. It just so happened that I had Phase 10 with me so we had to teach them how to play. It was ok. I went around helping everyone. My companions were playing and since I was helping everyone, I turned them all on my companions, it was great.

Well, Tuesday there was a big Grève (strike) going on because of the retirement age. They raised the age from 60 to 62 and everyone freaked out. Well, that was going on. There were a lot of people walking the street and they were pretty angry. So, we decided to go check it out in normal clothes because they are mad at the government and it wouldn’t be smart to dress up like a government person. So, we checked it out and we decided that we should go back to the apartment because it was bad. So, we had to stay in our apartment all day long. That was so boring.

Wednesday we had nothing special, just district meeting with the zone leaders. That was about it. Now, the best day had to be Thursday. Oh what a day, what a day. We had to go to Nantes for Elder Ellis’ medical visit for his French legality. Well, the strike was still going on. Well, I mean it is still going on even today. Since it was going on we had to catch an early train that got us to Nantes around 9 – 9:30am. Well, we get there and we need to buy stamps for the medical thing. Now theses stamps are expensive (sorry I can’t spell.) Well, they are a lot of money. They cost 340 euro’s which is about 470 dollars.....ya expensive. Well, before that we got pastries and they were very good. Elder Ellis put the wrapper in his pocket and when we got the stamps he put them in his pocket. Well, we were walking to the medical place and there are garbage cans along the way and Elder Ellis throws his pastry wrappers away. But, not just his wrappers, but his stamps as well. We eventually get to the place and we cannot find the stamps. He then realized that he threw them away. So, we went back checking every garbage can we passed along the way. But, they had just emptied them right after we left - so we never found them...... so, we just threw away 340 euro’s worth of stamps. How fun! So we had to call president and it was ok. We told the medical place and now we will just have to go back and get some more to give to them. I think we are planning to go back tomorrow which is Wednesday the 20th. Then, because of the strike there were no trains going back to Angers until 5pm. We spent the whole day in Nantes. It wasn’t bad and we even went to a cool castle that was there. We also did some contacting for the elders there. So, that was a fun day spending the whole day in Nantes - Oh ya.

Friday was a normal day. We did some good missionary work so that was fun. Then Saturday - oh what another day. Along with the strike which was still going on there was another big movement with a lot of people. We had a rendez-vous in the morning so we had to go in non pros clothes. We went in jeans and shirts. He wasn’t there which was disappointing. When we came back we ran into the movement. WOW! Let me tell you, there were thousands of people and we were in the middle of it. There were cars with big speakers yelling, very angry people! We just said, “Well, time to go!” We were trying to run away and get out of that mess. Well, that whole day was also spent in the apartment doing nothing. Ii finished the Book of Mormon again though. I have finished it now on DEC 17, MAY 17 and OCT 17. Every 5 months – fun. I didn’t plan it like that but it turned out that way - cool huh. Well, that is what we did.

Sunday was good - going to the good old church in France. It was fun and I like this ward so I am happy. Now yesterday was also a good day. We took a one hour and a half bus ride to La FLéche to visit the ZOO! It was so cool! They have white lions and white wolves, which are my favorite animal. The Arctic Wolf which is called Loup Blanch. They also had some really cool monkeys and polar bears. The cool part is that you can get so close to the animals. I mean you can get close! I forgot my cord to my camera so I will have to send some pictures next week. They were cool. It was a way cool zoo to go and see.

So, that has been our week. Fun and also not fun with the strike that is STILL going on...yea well, things are great. I love you and hope you have a great week. LOVE ELDER WALKER

October 11, 2010

2010-10-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how are you doing? I hope everything is going great. Well, we had a great week this week. Monday we went bowling and it was very fun. I was about to go and it was my first round of the game. The ground was a little sticky and I am one of those bowlers who puts one leg behind the other when they bowl. Well, the ground was sticky and I went to put my foot behind me when my foot got stuck on the ground. So, now I have no balance. So, I just fell flat on my face and began sliding down the lane because at this point the lane is all slippery. Well, I slid down the lane flat on my face. Fun huh?! But, the good news is I got 9 out of 10 pins, so that was cool - painful but cool.

Well, the other big things that have been going on is the work here in Angers...I mean it is on fire! Last transfer we just contacted all day and now we have rendez-vous everyday and so much other awesome work. We still do contacting and I forgot how weird it was to contact with 3 people. But it is coming back to me. Well, Saturday, just another funny story, we do what we call “ping pong and pancakes.” This is where we play ping pong and eat pancakes if you couldn’t guess. Well, we had a lot of investigators there which was awesome, but we also play basketball. When we were playing I got elbowed in the face and cut my lip open. It was awesome! We were just playing in our pros clothes when the stake president comes out and just looks at me. At this point I was sweating and I didn’t look very good. He just comes up to me and says, “Oh, are these the new sports clothes?” We just laughed, then he took the ball and played with us a little, so that was good.

Well, I don’t have much time on my e-mail. I got a little screwed over with that so, this e-mail will be short. I just wanted to let you know that everything here is going great and that I am still alive and kicking. Not just that but I am hip hop and happening. Well, I love you and hope you all have a good week. I love you. You guys are awesome! I love you so much. Well, take care and TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER
PS - THE GUY IN THE PHOTO IS AN AWESOME RUSSAN DUDE NAMED DIMITRY. HE IS AWESOME

October 4, 2010

2010-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope you all had a great week and a great weekend with conference. I hope you were able to see some of it. I was able to see some of it over here. I saw the Saturday morning session at 6 pm here on Saturday night. Then, Sunday morning we watched the priesthood session and then the Saturday afternoon session. Then we were able to watch the Sunday morning session live at 6 pm. We were not able to watch the Sunday afternoon session because it was from 10pm to midnight. So, we couldn’t watch it. I am actually listing to it right now while I am on the computer at lds.org. It is awesome. It is still not the same as watching it however, and I will not be able to watch it at all. But, oh well, I will just have to wait to read it.

Well, conference was awesome! It talked a lot about following the prophets and trusting the Lord and it just was awesome. I have learned to love conference a lot more then I used to. I took a ton of notes. I will just have to remember to read them and look over them to review what I have learned. It was a very good conference. We were all talking about the 2nd coming just before it started and then we hear all the talks on trusting the Lord and following the prophets. They just didn’t seem like their same old joyful selves. You know, the way they usually do. So, we were there and we were thinking, “something is up, something is going to happen and they are going to ask us to do something.” We were all kinda freaking out. I did get to watch it in English and from my own opinion I think it is a lot better in English than in French. You just don’t have the same voice and their attitudes. I was grateful to watch it in English.

Well, this week has been great. The work here is starting to catch on fire!!!! It is awesome!! We wanted 6 new investigators during the entire last transfer. We got 0. This transfer we have 6 just in 2 to 3 days. Oh ya, and we asked this guy if he would be baptized and he said yes! We didn’t fix a date yet, so the next time we can fix that. But I do have to say that the work here is picking up and it is awesome.

Well, do you remember the guy Joan that we baptized? Yeah, he hasn’t been back to church and wasn’t there the Sunday after his confirmation. He was not there this week either. Sucks! Right? No, life is good! He is just really busy. He already told us he wouldn’t be there and that he won’t be back till the end of October. The reason why is because of his job. He works with guide dogs and they are holding this big huge convention thing. So, it is taking up all his weekends, but we still see him during the week. So, don’t worry too much. It’s all good.

Well, transfers went well. It is a little weird to get back in the motion for contacting with 3 people, but it is all good. We go to a park every once in awhile and we just split up kinda. We stay close but we just go contacting. We will have a Book of Mormon tower and just stand by it. We talk to whoever wants to learn more. It is pretty cool. We have also got this new center for young adults in our ward. It will be good to start working with the young people in our ward.
Well, things have been good here I was going to tell you some stuff about conference but I forgot my notes. I can’t remember it all so next week I will be good with that. I hope you all liked conference and hope you all learned a lot of good things and loved it. It was really good and I am glad I got to watch a little of it. I don’t have much time because we have to be in Centre Ville at 5. So, sorry we don’t have that much time this week. I hope you all have a great day and a great week. I love you and hope you have fun. I am still alive so it is all good! LOVE YA LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 27, 2010

2010-09-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it all going? Well, I got some transfer news and to tell you the truth, Elder Ellis and I did not see this one coming. Well, I am staying in Anger with Elder Ellis but we are also getting a new Elder in our companionship. His name is Elder Brady. He is in our District but is moving from another city. He is in his 3rd transfer, so it will be cool. You have me, in my 7th elder, Ellis in his 5th and Elder Brady in his 3rd. We are the only companionship in the mission with 3 missionaries. We have a lot of missionaries I guess on visa wait to come over. So there are a lot of missionaries that will come in, well, whenever they can. Some missionaries think that we will get one in our companionship and they will just make us into two companionships. That would mean that one of us will be training....fun. Well, that is the transfer news. We have a very young district. We have Elder Crump and I who were in the MTC together in our district. Elder crump is our district leader and he is also training, so fun for him. You then have Elder Ellis in his 5th transfer, Elder Smith in his 4th along with his companion who is in his 4th, and then you have Elder Brady who is in his 3rd and the greeny. So, we have a young district - how fun.

Well, on to this week. Life here has been good. We have been working hard and having fun. We have had a couple of mangez-vous (dinner appointments) with members this week. So, that has been real nice to go over and talk with them. A couple even tried to invite their friends over to have dinner with us. Awesome member referrals! This last Saturday we did a big district activity where our whole district came to Angers and we built a Live de Mormon tower. We then went on our way contacting. It was great. We got some good contacts and people who were really interested in the Book of Mormon and our funny tower that went along with it. Then we also went out to get a kabob for lunch. It is a sandwich and really good. There was someone who they stopped and talked to and we taught him after lunch. During the middle of the lesson some guy comes up and starts as he says; “just talking and sharing ideas” or in other words, trying to bash us and tell us that we are wrong and all the Christians are wrong and everything. The cool part was that guy we were teaching started to defend us and the Book of Mormon. He doesn’t even know us and he was defending us and telling that man what the Book of Mormon was. It was just awesome! We were all in shock, just thinking WOW! We have a rendez-vous with him next Saturday, so that should be awesome.

Well, we also did the same old, same old contacting stuff we do every day. It is something that needs to be done so that’s why you have us. I am now (and I can’t believe I am saying this) but I am officially OLD! I am no longer a teenager. Goodbye teenager childish years and hello to the adult childish years.....I mean you always have to have a child in you somewhere. It was a good day. It does fill weird to think that I am 20 years old but what can you do. It was good. I did some fun missionary work. Also Soeur (sister) Staheli called me, the mission president’s wife, to wish me a happy birthday, so that was cool. Elder Ellis was nice and bought me a pastry for my birthday.

Oh yah - on Tuesday we had a member who works with us, he is way cool, anyway, we go to the church and he had lunch for us. Guess what we ate.....it was a real French meal....we had ESCARGOT or in other words SNAIL.

It wasn’t the first time I had eaten snail. I had some in Utah but I don’t think they are that bad. They taste like chicken, just rubbery and chewy, but they were good. We also had shrimp. One problem, when we left we left some of the stuff in the kitchen. When we came the next day the whole room smelled like fish. So, we had to air out the whole relief society room. It was good though, it did not smell like that at church. So, that is good.

Well, I wanted to thank you all for your wonderful birthday wishes and your hopes that I had a great day - so thank you. And thank you for the wonderful gifts and cake also. I have not made the cake yet, but maybe today I will because I want some American food or dessert. So, thank you! I hope you all have a great week and know that I love ya. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 20, 2010

2010-09-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? This week has been great. We had a baptism! Hooray! Well, it was a great day! We have had a rendez-vous with him all this week. Every night we had a rendez-vous with him and his wife. Then, on Friday, Elder Hass came down from Paris to baptize him on Saturday. That night we all went over to Joan’s house and had dinner with him and his wife. Then we watched “Special Witnesses” with him. Saturday morning we got up and headed over to the church to get everything ready. When we got there, there were people showing up and we didn’t even know who they were. We found out that there was a big stake meeting at the same time as Joan’s baptism. Because we meet in the stake center everyone came here. So, we were freaking out a little because they were here and taking up everything, but eventually it turned out to be ok. Joan showed up and we were able to take pictures with him before the baptism. When the time came Elder Ellis and I were asked to be the witnesses to the baptism, so that was a cool thing to do and the baptism was great! Everything went well the first time and there was a great spirit there in the room. Then, yesterday was his confirmation. He showed up in his wedding suit. He had class and he was looking good for the confirmation. We asked him about it and he said it was a special occasion so he wore that. He was looking good. Then, when the time came for his confirmation, there was a great spirit in the room. It was awesome!!!!!!

So, that was the baptism. It was great. A funny thing happened though when we interviewed him last Wednesday. The interview was great. The zone leaders came down from Nantes do the interview. Then, after the interview, we went to the store across the street to get something to eat. When we came out of the store Elder Ellis said, “Bonjour” to some guy and the next thing we know the guy says, “You fascinate me.” Our zone leader’s face was priceless and I just started to laugh. I could not help it. Good thing the other zone leader was there to cover me. Well, Elder Ellis says, “Sorry sir, I don’t understand. Can we help you with something?” That was the wrong question to ask him. Let’s just say that is when it got weird. He starts going off on how we can help him he said this as he pointed his finger to all of us; “Man, Man, Man and Man. There are four of you and you are always together.” Then he went off on other things. Eventually our zone leader says, “Look, we are not gay.” The guy goes off saying; “That is not a problem is it?” Then he went off on other things that were not good. Well, we told him that we had to go. We got in the car and locked the doors. Then Ellis asked, “Was he hitting on me?” We just all started to laugh. He said he knew it, but he just wouldn’t accept it. He just kept telling himself, “No! This is not happening again!” I guess when he was in his first city and was at his first rendez-vous, it was with a gay guy and he liked him also. Well, we all had a great laugh about that. It was pretty funny.

Oh, and guess what? Last Tuesday, Elder Ellis and I where potato farmers for someone in our ward. They called us up and asked if we could offer some service. We said, “Yes” and when we got there they taught us how to be farmers. We farmed potatoes! It was pretty fun. I liked it. Oh, and yesterday we went to a catholic church. It was weird. I have never been in another church for their services or mass. We stayed for a little bit then we just left. It got a little too weird for us and we didn’t want to stay. It is pretty cool here, they have a lot of old churches and they are really cool to go into and see them.

Well, time is short family. I want you to know that I love you and hope that you will all have a great week. Happy Monday to you all. I love you and TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 13, 2010

2010-09-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, how is it going? je spare tout le monde est bien. Well, this week has been fun. Tuesday there was a strike thing going on so we were stuck in our apartment for a little bit. We headed down in the morning to drop off our car at the shop because it was time for service and other stuff like that. When we got to Centre-ville the roads were closed off and there was a bunch of people. So, we went back to the apartment and headed back down by foot. When we got there we wanted to take pictures off the thing but as we were getting close we both felt like we shouldn’t be there. So, we turned around and we got a little French pastry before reaching our apartment. It was good. Wednesday was one of our most packed days and I also found out some great news about Angers. Well, first of all, we had district meeting then we had a really weird rendez-vous with a person we found going port a port (door to door). It was just weird but we left a live du Mormon avec elle and hopefully she will read it (Book of Mormon) with her. Then we went to a less active family where there was a bunch of construction on the road. So, we ended taking this small one lane country road and luckily it leads us right to their house. Ok, now this is where the good – no! No! No! Not good but GREAT news comes in. We found a GOLF COURSE!!!!! You should have seen my face when the less active members showed us. I was so happy. Big wide eyes, open mouth, couldn’t speak. I felt like I was in heaven. We so wanted to go today but people came to our apartment a couple of days ago and needed us to be home today. They where workers and needed to fix a couple of things. We saw them today and they told us they couldn’t come so we spent a lot of time in the apartment when we could have played golf.

Well, Thursday, we dropped off the car in the morning and I about had 4 heart attacks on the way over. One - Elder Ellis almost side swiped a car, two - this old lady on a bike about ran into us, three - a couple of times we went the wrong way around a roundabout and four - we also used an intersection as a roundabout. But, don’t worry, everything is fine. Then, later that day, different story, we were contacting in Centre-ville when this group of kids came up and two girls asked if they could recite a poem to us. So, we said ok....then they took our hands got down on their knees and started quoting a poem to us. I couldn’t help smiling and Elder Ellis just kept a straight face. Then, after they both got up and gave us both a bisous (a bisous is how they say hello and good bye in French. It is where you kiss someone on the cheek.) The mission has asked for elders not to give or receive these and the sisters can only do it with girls. Well, they both gave us a bisous. Elder Ellis was a little shocked because it was his first time getting bisoused. I was a little shocked thinking what in the world is going on but it was not the first time someone gave me a bisous. Some old black lady, who was really nice, in Brussels gave Elder Caywood and me one. She also took Elder Caywood’s gum from him. We just both laughed.

Now, I don’t want anyone to freak out but I did have some beers on Wednesday. It was over at the less active member’s house. BUT DO NOT WORRY! IT WAS NON ALCOHOLIC BEER. It still tasted horrible. I can’t imagine drinking it all the time.

Well, this past Friday I had a workday or an exchange with Elder Smith. He is the one from the Roods home ward. It was great to talk to him and get to know him. We had a great time together. Then, when we changed back Saturday morning, I had to drive all the way from Cholet to Angers. It was good! Just put in some music, nice, calm music and Elder Ellis fell asleep. I drove home. It was about an hour drive, so it was not too bad.

So, that has been our week in Angers. We don’t have that many amie de l'élise so we are doing a lot of finding. We go here and there doing port to port (door to door) contacting on the street. We still have our baptism date set. It is for this Saturday and we have a rendez-vous with him every day this week. So, hopefully he doesn’t get sick of us but he is so ready. It is so cool and I am so excited for him. His name is Joan and he is awesome. We also want to ask this 12 year old kid who comes to church every week. He has done everything to be baptized. So, we want to ask him why he isn’t baptized. Then, ask if he would like to be. His mom and his brother are already members so; it should be easy, maybe, hopefully! Well, that is pretty much the life of a missionary in Angers. Things seem to be going great. Well, I love you and hope that you have a great week this week and have fun at work or school, where ever you are right now. I love you and hope you all have a great day. LOVE ELDER WALKER

September 6, 2010

2010-09-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope that you have all had a great week. Well, things here are going great. Well, we haven’t been doing much this week....no I take that back, we have done a lot of stuff but it’s all pretty much been contacting. The work here has been a little slow but things are good. Our baptism date is doing awesome. He just got married last Saturday so that is awesome. I am excited for him, it is great. He got married to a member, which is also very nice and now he is going to get baptized Saturday the 18th. It is awesome; he is so ready for the baptism. He has been investigating the church for almost a year and now he is ready. We had a rendezvous with him today which was awesome. We gave him a baptism calendar with days we can see him and what we are going to do when we have a rendezvous with him. He also invited us over for dinner with him and his wife the Friday before the baptism. I am so excited; he is so ready for the baptism.

Well, we got the car back from the other Elders in Cholet so, now we have it. So, guess what? I can drive stick now. It’s all good, no big problems. I haven’t grinded the gears or anything. I have stalled it a couple of times though but practice makes perfect, so I am still practicing on how to get better. But it is coming and I am doing pretty well though. The driving in France, now that is another question. They have weird rules here on who has the right a way or who does this and who does that. It is just very confusing. Well, I would have to say that I was scared out of my mind when I started because I haven’t driven a car in almost 10 months. Now I have to drive a stick and I am in France, so I was a little scared out of my mind but things are good. Now I am not so scared anymore so I am happy about that. It’s cool though, now I can say that I can drive a stick. We got a call from the elders in Cholet and they said they can’t drive it anymore so we would have to come and pick it up. So we headed down by train to Cholet and when we got there they were not home. So we did what every missionary would do, sit around and do nothing. JK JK No, we headed out and did some contacting until we found them. Then we went to a little library and I found this way awesome calligraphy pen and a book to go with it. So I can write in calligraphy. It is fun. I will have to write something and send it to you guys. Ok, so we are in Cholet and the other elders needed help to teach someone because she is a single person. You need someone to go with you if you teach a lady. So, we went but she wasn’t there, but we had a fun time talking. Oh, and guess what? The missionary’s names were Elder Montingé and Elder Smith. Now, I was in the back talking to Elder Smith and I found out he lives in Rood’s ward. His name is Taylor smith and he knows the whole Rood family, even Ben and Wendi. So, that was cool to talk with him and to get to know him. I have a photo of him but I forgot my cord to upload a picture, but it was cool to get to know him and what he does. After we dropped them off and we headed home on a nice country drive. It was cool to see a little bit of France while driving home. I like it. It is very flat though and I do miss the mountains. But, it was still cool to see some of France.

Well, we eventually got home in time for planning then going to bed. It was a fun day though. On Saturday’s we do a cool thing. Every Saturday is called ping pong and pancakes day. This is where you get to come and play ping pong and have real American pancakes made with French stuff. It is cool. My ping pong skills have gotten pretty good, I must say...well at least better than they were. So we do that every Saturday night. It is a good time and fun but, last Saturday we made a ton of pancakes and no one showed up. So, now we have a ton of leftovers. But, all is well, that just means more for us. Well, I do have to say that I think I like Belgium a little better then France so far. The people are a lot nicer there then here. But, it is still very fun. And I do have to say that I miss the Belgie waffles and chocolate and Belgie frites (fries). They were good! Maybe one transfer I will go back but things are good here. I like it I am having fun. And now I have the chance to visit Paris before I go home, which I do have to say that I am stoked for that.

Well, not much else has gone on. We have about 2-3 people who we are teaching and that’s about it. We have been doing a lot of finding though. It’s funny; Saturday morning we have the marché here. This is held in the center of city and there is a bunch of people selling stuff and there is a bunch of people looking around. So, what would a companionship of missionaries do? I would like to call it English Board Contacting. One of us goes around with this board that we wear around our necks. It says: “Practice your English for Free with the Americans.” So, we walk around with that on, and it is funny to see what people do. Here they all read things out loud. So some one reads it and they read it out loud as if they were by themselves. And we are just like “Oh, are you interested?” and they just look at us some weird way and walk off. The same with the name tags. They come up and they stare at your name tag and read it out loud; “L'église de Jésus-Christ des saints des derniers jours.” And the best part is when they look up and realize that you are looking at them. And then you start talking with them, it is so funny. I laugh all the time. Then there are people when you say “hello” that just say “sir” back to you. I love it. Just good times, good times.

So, that is pretty much all of our amies. We decided to work a little bit more with less actives and inactive. So, yesterday we drove pretty much to our boundary to see an inactive family who lives about a 45 min drive away. It was a long time but they where awesome. We have another rendezvous with them this week, so that is cool. Well family, time is running short. It’s been fun talking, but I hope you all have a great day and have fun at work or school. Yes, school has started even here. There are less kids on the street and more in school. Ya, those where the days. Well, I hope you have fun and have a great week. I love ya and TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Sorry last thing here is a picture of Elder Taylor Smith who lives in the Roods ward.

August 30, 2010

2010-09-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it going? It has felt like a long time since the last time we talked. Sorry, I never got back to you last week. We were just really busy. Well, no time to lose. I have to write about two weeks, so you better be ready.

Well, transfer day - what a day! Patrick, the member in Charleroi we work with, came and picked me up and took me to the gare (train station). Before I left he gave me a Belgium comic book called Tin Tin (in English it is pronounced Tan Tan) which was pretty cool. He took me to the gare and waited with me until the other elders came. I said goodbye then I got on the train all by myself to go to Paris. It was a nice train ride, not too bad. When I arrived there were a couple of missionaries there to help me get through Paris. I had to go to another station so they helped me on the metro. We got to the other station and I was by myself again waiting for an hour till my train showed up. Finally my train showed up and it took me forever to get to my car. Then when I did, there was no place to put my luggage. So, I stayed with my luggage for the whole trip down to Angers, which sucked because I had a reserved seat on the train that I didn’t get to use. There was also a mom and a little girl riding where I was. During the train ride the little girl threw up, but luckily nothing got on me. Well, after a long trip down to Angers with my luggage, I found my companion and he took us to the apartment. We had a car so that was nice. We have a car for 1 week then the Cholet elders have it for 2 weeks then we get it back. We switch off like that all the time. So, when we get the car back guess who has to learn how to drive a stick? Well, we then had to take Elder Montiney to the train station to get his companion and on the way over we get a flat tire. So, I took off my tie, rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I eventually got the spare tire on but my hands were pitch black and there was no place to wash them. Oh, and by the way, while I was changing the tire I ripped my pants. So now I am walking around with ripped pants and my hands are black with grease and stuff. Well, we drop off the elder and we get back to the apartment to wash up. We then had to go get food because they didn’t get any on p-day. So, we get out to the car and Elder Ellis forgot the keys to the car and to the apartment. He left them in the apartment. So, now we are locked out of the car and our own apartment.....but don’t worry this gets better. We tried calling everyone we could to see if they have a spare key - but no luck. We had English class that night so we headed to the church. No one was there so we eventually got back to the apartment. A member said he could come over to see if he could break in. He came - but no luck. So, now we are out of options and Elder Ellis decides to kick down or open our door.......ya.....well, he kicks it open and the door was fine but the lock - not so much. So, we found some glue and put it back together and the member took us out for a kabob sandwich just to relax. That was my day - flat tire, ripped pants, black hands, locked out of the apartment and to finish it off, a broken lock.

Well, the next day we got some stuff and put it back together and now it is better then what it was. Oh, some time that week, a “Captain Jack Sparrow” contacted us. He didn’t look like him but he had all the actions. He was drunk and he had all the hand motions and everything. It was a little funny until he touched my face. I didn’t like that - not one bit! But, he was cool - just a little special. On Monday it was p-day and I am sorry for not e-mailing you. It was good though. We had to take the car in to get the tire fixed, so we didn’t have a car. But, oh well, I like walking. We had other Elders come over to spend the day with us and also the night because we had zone conference the next day. They came early and spent p-day with us. We went to a sweet castle, the Chateau d'Angers. There they have a tapestry of the Book of Revelations from the Bible. It was SICK, as we say OR AWESOME, as you would say! I even got a book that had it all in it. It was really cool! After that is when Ii wrote you that little e-mail saying I would write later. Then we went back and got things ready for zone conference. Oh, the Assistants to the President came and slept over with us also. We had 6 elders in the apartment - cool huh! Well, early in the morning we had to leave to go and pick up the car. So we did that and headed over to the church for zone conference. We gave the car to the Cholet elders. Zone conference was awesome! We talked about how the spirit is the best tool we have and how in our mission calls we promised to be obedient to all the rules. Pres. Staheli gave us these formulas on how we can find answers, change behavior and more. I will have to write them next week because I don’t have them all with me. Well, after we had to clean up the church and get everything ready. I also got a package from the ward that was really cool. Tell them thank you!

Well, that has been all the big stuff. We have been doing a lot of contacting and a lot of door to door. Just to let you know, we do have a baptism date for the 18th of September. So, that will be cool. He had been investigating the church for a year now, so that is cool. He is also getting married to a member this Saturday, the 4th, that is also awesome. I am excited for him. He is so cool. We are just going to review the commandments with him and he should be good. Last week he taught us about the atonement of the savoir. It was cool from what I understood. Everything should be good.

Well, not much else has been going on. We have been doing a lot of contacting lately and we have had a couple of appointments here and there. Elder Ellis is really cool. He is a great missionary and speaks French really well, so that is cool. Not much is different being Senior Companion. I do have to do a little more work like filling out reports for the secretary. He needs to know about the credit card expense; for example, the repair on the car, buying tickets for transportation and so forth.

Things here are going great. This is a cool place. It is different than Belgium though. The people here are a lot more up tight, but its good. Their French is a little clearer, so it is easier to understand. Some people can’t understand me, so that is funny. Our apartment is pretty ghetto. Our dining room table stands about a foot and a half off the ground and is held up by 8 Book of Mormons. Our oven was in pretty bad shape so they got a new one last transfer, but the gas thing doesn’t fit. We have the worst shower I have ever seen in my entire life. It is so freaking small, and weirdly shaped. I can’t even explain to you how it is. I guess I will just have to send pictures, so that will be good. Our fan is held together by tape and a chair, so ya, well it’s fun though.

Well, things are great. I hope you are all having a great time and I hope you will have a great day today. I love you all and hope you will have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

P.S. Here is a picture of the castle and a picture of what a missionary does when no one is looking. Love ya!
These last two are of his companion Elder John Ellis.

August 23, 2010

2010-09-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hey family how is it going? well time is short I only got about 10 mins today because life has been busy. But I wanted to let you know everything is great here and I got a lot of fun stories to tell. We are planning to do Our actual e mail tomorrow or the next day but I think tomorrow, we just didnt have a lot of time today we had to get things taken care of and I promis that I will tell you all about it. I just wanted to let you know everything is good and I made it safe here in Angers and I am haveing a great time

Also the email place we usualy do email at is only open between 4-6 pm so You should all get my emails around 8 or 9 am in the U.S. so if the email is not there at 3 AM that is why. Well I love you and hope you all have a great day today on this monday It is probably around 11 o clock there so I hope you have a great rest of the day and Know that I love you and am truly greatfull for all the support you give me I love you and will probably talk to you tommorrw LOVE ELDER WALKER

August 16, 2010

2010-09-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

Transfer note we received on Saturday:

Well, family how is it going? Well, it is transfer time and some sad news - I am leaving Belgium :( No, it is all good! I am going to Angers, France. It is in Nates and I will be with Elder John Ellis. And guess what else - I am SENOIR COMPANION. I think I am a little sick. I mean I didn’t even get to be co-companions with someone. I went from Jr. companion to Sr. I think I am going to be sick. No, I know that the lord will help me and this is where he wants me to be and I will be happy with that. I will serve where ever the lords wants me to serve. Here is my new address:

6 Square Alexandr 1er
49100 Angers
France

Wednesday is going to be fun - moving from Charleroi to Angers, I will probably have to go through Paris to get there.......it is going to be along day!
Well, I love ya and I will write more on Monday on p-day. I love you all and hope you will have a great day. LOVE ELDER WALKER

Monday’s e-mail:

Bonjour tu vas bien? How are things going? I am glad to hear things are going great. Well if you didn’t here, I am leaving Charleroi and I am leaving Belgium. I am going to Angers, France and will be with Elder John Ellis. I found out he will be in his 3rd transfer with me, and I have heard he is pretty funny and he is a hard worker so, I am looking forward to that. However, I am not looking forward to the traveling. I think am I going to go through Paris because Paris is right in the middle between Charleroi and Angers. So, I will probably go to Paris, change trains, then off to Angers.

Well, this week has been a little weird. Not much has happened. When we had more missionaries in Charleroi we had two apartments, but now they are closing one. So, the office called us on Tuesday and said that the other apartment had to be deep cleaned by Thursday morning. So we had to clean the apartment. Well, we had a district meeting on Tuesday which lasted forever. After that we went to the apartment and cleaned for the rest of the day. Then on Wednesday, we spent the whole day cleaning. We had one appointment in the evening, then back to cleaning. Thursday morning we cleaned until about noon when the office elders showed up and check the apartment. The apartment wasn’t that bad but we had to do a deep cleaning and get it ready to close. So, we spent a lot of time cleaning everything up. But the rest of Thursday we had appointments and stuff, so that was good.

On Saturday we had a ward picnic at our church or so we thought. We get there and other people show up. Then they said, “Time to go, everyone in the car.” We thought we were just going to a park, but the park was in Wavre which happens not to be in our zone, but don’t tell pres or the zone leaders. It wasn’t that far away, so we went. It was not bad. I got some cool pictures, so it was cool. Then we got back and that is when we got the news about transfers.
So, that was pretty much my week. Not much went on besides cleaning, but it was good. We had three investigators at church and they loved it and want to come back. So I am happy about that. Our baptism date is still going good. He didn’t come to church yesterday but we have called him and he is still reading the scriptures and praying, so that is good.

Well, not much else is going on - just packing and stuff. Well, things are great here. It is going to be a long train ride on Wednesday, but it should be good. Well, I love you and hope you all have a great week. I will tell you all about Elder Ellis and my trip down to Angers and also about Angers next week. I hope you all have fun and stay safe. LOVE YA, LOVE ELDER WALKER

P.S. Here are a couple of cool pictures from Belgium

Fun Pictures

2010-08-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent photos of Chris. Elder Dungan is his companion and Patrick is a wonderful member in their ward that works with them all the time. He feeds them, teaches with them and takes them to see the sites. He is amazing! Enjoy –

Elder Dungan & Chris

Elder Dungan Birthday

Bernard Nicolas, Chris, Patrick, & Elder Dungan

August 9, 2010

2010-08-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hey family and friends, how is everything going? I hope you all had a great week. For me this week was great. We got a mini Missionary in our companionship for 3 days. A mini missionary is someone who wants to see what the mission world is like before they go on a mission. They go some place and work with the missionaries in that area to see how everything works out. It was awesome. His name is Florent Demeyère and he is from Nivelles, Belgium. We thought he was going to come on the 18th of August, but he called us on Tuesday night and asked what he needed to bring for tomorrow or Wednesday, the next day. We were a little shocked but everything was fine. Wednesday morning we picked him up at the gare (train station) and started to show him what the missionary world is like. It went great. We did everything with him. We had appointments with amies, and with our baptism date, who is doing great. We worked with members and did service for a less active family where our mini cut his hand on a rose bush. It wasn’t his fault though. Elder Prunier and our mini where moving this cabinet and Elder Prunier kind of made him go right into the brush. It was a pretty bad cut, but oh well. We also did some contacting, had a meeting with our ward missionary leader, and to finish off the great 3 day mini mission we ate at a family members house. Then his parents came and picked him up at the house. It was a perfect ending to his mini mission.* I loved having a mini missionary with us. It was cool to show him how thing work and he told us he can’t wait to go on a mission of his own. It was awesome. I will up load a photo of him with this e-mail.

Well, yesterday was the day I had to give another talk in church. I talked on La charité et l'amour (charity and love). It went great! A lot better than the first talk I had to give. A lot of people said I did a good job and they were able to understand me and my message. So I am happy with that. I do know that the lord helped me a lot with it though. Oh ya, I just don’t get it. It is suppose to be vacation time and no one should have been there, but yesterday at church everyone was there; members; inactives, investigators (which is good), friends, everyone and their dog.........ok, maybe not their dog, but there were alot of people. But the talk was good and it went well.

It is pretty cool here in Belgium. They have a dialect of French called Wallon. It is an old language and a dying one also. Really only the old people know it. But we have this one investigator who loves speaking it and Elder Dungan and I are learning a little bit of it. It is pretty cool. It is very close to French but far away from French also. It is kind of an ugly language compared to French, but I love it.

Well, this upcoming Saturday I will find out about transfers because they our next Wednesday, the 18th of August. I will get to see if I am staying or not. I don’t think I will stay because next transfer is Elder Dungan’s last one. We have a lot of missionaries coming in so there will be a good chance I will leave and he will train. But, whatever happens I will be happy. I am here serving the lord and I will go where ever he wants me to go. I will miss this ward though. I love it here in Charleroi. This ward is awesome. The members and the work are awesome also. But Saturday I should find out and I will write a quick e-mail to tell you if I will be leaving or not.
Well, that is pretty much our week. Our investigator with the baptism date is doing great. He has diminish on the smoking alot but he still smokes a few, but he is doing much better. We also have another investigator that is doing great. We gave him a church tour and he loved it and we have an appointment with him on Wednesday, so that will be good. Well, that is my week. I love you and hope you will have a great week and a great time. Stay safe. I love you and am truly grateful for all that you do. I hope you will all have fun. LOVE YA

August 2, 2010

2010-08-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope everything is going good. Well, life here is great. The weather has finally been better. Last month it is was boiling hot. I mean you walk out the door and you started to sweat, it was bad. Now it is down in the low to mid 20’s which is pretty nice, so I am happy for that. Well, this was a great past week. Friday I had a work day or an exchange with the district leader companionship, but with the other elder this time, Elder Berrett. It was fun. He is in his 2nd transfer, so it was fun to be with him for the day. Saturday we didn’t do that much. We had lunch with Patrick then we had three rendezvous (appointments) for the day but they all boaffed us. (Boaffed, Boaffy, boaff = someone who did not show up to an appointment or someone who is lazy.) ha ha funny missionary terms. OK. Well, after that we did our weekly planning since we hadn’t done it yet.

It is kinda cool being here. I have met a ton of people for all around the world. I have seen Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans of course, Americans, Spanish, Mexicans, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Africans and more. It is cool, now I know I probably spelled some of those wrong but, oh well. It is actually cool to get to see people from all over the world and to get to know them and their culture. It is awesome.

Well, French is coming along. I found a cool new thing that has helped me alot and something to do during French study....I am translating the Book of Mormon from French to English. I found a Book of Mormon we cannot give out because it is printed upside down so I took it and started to translate it. It is cool to see how much I know, but also how much I don’t know so, that has been helping me. I just started not too long ago, just like on Saturday, but, oh well, it still helps me alot.

Oh, the other day I saw red paint on the road and it reminded me when we were doing my eagle project and Warren spilled red paint all over the back of his truck and all over the street. It brought back good memories. I laughed at that for some time. I think the paint is still on the road were we spilled it, and I think the back of his truck is still red also. Ha ha good times, good times.

Well, our investigators are doing great. Our baptism date investigator, David, is doing great also. He still has a little problem with smoking but he wants to stop so that is good. UMM we don’t actually have alot of investigators, even after the other companionships gave us their investigators. One other problem is the fact that it is vacation time and no one is home. They’re all on vacation, but there are a couple investigators who have stayed and we are teaching them, so that is good.

Well, that is about all that is going on in the life in Belgium. Things are great and I am loving the mission field and loving the work. I know that heavenly father has been there every step of the way and has helped me out a ton. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Je sais que l'église de Jésus-Christ est vrais. JE T'AIME LOVE ELDER WALKER

Hey, I almost forgot, I wanted to send you this picture. FROME LEFT TO RIGHT - Elder Dungan (my companion), Elder Schmutz (who just went home), me, and Patrick, the member we work with. Well, I love ya.

July 26, 2010

2010-07-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Bonjour famille. Vous-allez bien? J'espère. Well, things have been going great this week. Oh by the way HAPPY 24TH OF JULY! I hope you had a great day! It would have been cool to go to the big parade, but maybe in 2012. Well, things are good. Not much has happened this week. I did have to go to Liege, Belgium on Wednesday for our interviews with President Staheli. It sounds like there is a good chance I might be leaving Charleroi after this transfer, because it is Elder Dungun’s last transfer and we have a lot of missionaries coming in. So, there is a good chance I will be leaving. But, oh well, I will go where ever the lord wants me to go and I will be happy. But transfers are not till the 18th of AUG. so I have a little time.

Well, I have to say that I hate my 1st counselor in the bishopric, he is a great guy, really funny, and I love him to bits, but I hate him. The reason why is because he asked me to give another freakin talk in church. Why must I be tortured? This will be my 3rd time I have to get up and say something. Oh well, it is not till the 8th so I have some time to work on one. Now I am very grateful for the MTC when they made us write a talk every week. So, now I can just take one of those and change it up and make it better. It should be fun. It will help with the French also, so that is good.

It was great, on Friday night and all of Saturday I was on a workday or an exchange with the district leader, who is French and speaks very, very, little English - to no English at all. So, it was great to have a whole day were I didn’t speak any English. It helped me out a lot and I was surprised by how much I could actually say and I could understand him very well. I truly know that Heavenly Father has helped me out a ton with the language, because without Him I don’t think I would be this far along. Then, that Saturday night when we switched back we were in our apartment about 9:45 - 10:00 and we hear a bunch of yelling. We look out the window and there is a big huge riot going on. There were cops everywhere with big shields, cops on horses and big huge trucks. I got a little video on my camera it was pretty cool.

Not much else is going on. Our investigator with a baptism date did come to church again so that is great. He is so cool. The only problem is he needs to stop smoking, but we have a plan with him and we are going to help him, so that is good. He loves church and likes the lessons and wants to stop smoking also. So, I am pretty happy about that.

Well, not much else is going on this week. I have another workday with the district leader, but with the other elder, Elder Berrett. So, I am looking forward to that. Things are going great. I am buying an envelope today right when I am done with e-mails to send my memory card home, so that should be good. Things are going great. Charleroi is awesome! I love it here. It is such a great experience to be here serving the Lord. I have found so much joy being here testifying about the restored gospel. I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Félicitation (congratulations) Abby on the mission call to Russia. That is so cool. You will have a ton of fun on the mission. It’s Awesome!!!!!!!

Hey, I know I am early, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRITT, on the 29th. I hope you will have a great day.

Well, I love ya and hope you will all have a great week and remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to excel. Love ya, LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 19, 2010

2010-07-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Bonjour! How is everything going? I hope everything is going great. Well, things here have been fun. We had a good week. So, that is always good. So, let me tell ya about this week.

We found a new investigator. He is African and speaks English. Cool right. As we were going to the rendezvous I was thinking to myself, “Ya, I got this. It is in English. I got this”....Oh, let me tell ya, I did not have it. After teaching in French for so long then going to English, it was hard. I could not even describe the Book of Mormon. It got better towards the end but at first it was bad for me. I didn’t think it was going to be that difficult switching back to English, but it was. It was really sad. It is all good though and he understood it and we have tried to set up a new rendezvous (appointment) with him. He is having problems with his legality papers but he wants to see us again, so it is good.

Last Sunday Elder Andrew Schmutz came to Charleroi because he was touring the mission with his family, because he is done. So, I got to see him for one last time. I was in the same district as him in Brussels. He was an office elder and we went on workdays with him so it was fun. He also lives in Aunt Ruth’s ward. His mom knew who I was before I could even tell her my name, so it was fun to see him again.

One of the cool things that happened this week was we contacted an old investigator who used to have a baptism date and we went to go see him. His name is Cedrick and guess what? He is a certified NINJA.... I kinda laughed at first when I read the paper but when I went to his house his walls were covered with ninja stuff. He had swords, throwing stars, knifes, air soft guns and other ninja stuff. We taught him about prayer and what it means to have real intention when praying and he said that was his problem, having that real intention. He said he was going to read the Book of Mormon again and pray again, so, that is good. He is way cool. Elder Dungan and I both got a picture with us holding this huge, huge air soft gun and the Book of Mormon together. It is kinda funny.

Well, I got my memory card ready to send home. I just have to get a padded envelop to send it home in. But, in the mean time, I will send you some pictures today in the mail. They are just some pictures that I printed off. I think you will like them, especially the one with the white background. I am not going to say what the picture is but you will be able to tell because the background is all white. The other picture is just a funny saying I found on a building. You have heard of the Nike slogan JUST DO IT. Well this one is JUST DAVE IT. It is pretty funny. There are also descriptions on the back of the pictures as well so don’t forget that.
Ok, ok. I will tell you what the other picture is because I know some of you are thinking why won’t he just tell us. So, I will. It is a picture of a huge spider that we found. Now in the picture the spider looks really big. Now the spider was really big but the picture makes it bigger.........no, wait, now that I think about it, it was that big and disgusting all at the same time.

Well, things here are going good. My stomach has been a little sick this past week but besides that I am doing good. We are teaching one investigator who looks very promising. He has come to church twice and the best part is he doesn’t live to far away from the church, so that is good. His is making some great progress and we have a baptism date with him. Well, more of a baptism goal for him to stop smoking, so that is good, but he is awesome.

Thank you so much everybody for all the love and support you give me while I am on a mission. I really appreciate it. It helps me get through the hard days here. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Have fun on vacation for the summer and just make sure you don’t have too much fun without me, ok. I love ya. LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 12, 2010

2010-07-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, how are things? Things here are great. There are a lot of things that have happened this week. This week as I looked back on it went by fast but it was really, really long. Monday after p-day we had a dinner appointment with a member. That’s all we did there. Tuesday I went with the other companionship to have them pass me there investigators. We went to an Africans house and had African food; it wasn’t the best. It was pretty bad! Then that night we had another dinner appointment with our DMP (ward mission leader) where we had kous kous. I have no clue how to spell it or what in the world it is, but we had it and we ate it. Then we played a little game and went home. Then around 11 o clock at night a fight broke out in front of our apartment and we watched that for a little bit. Wednesday, transfer day, we had to get up at 5:15 to help Elder Simonson get to the train station. And let me tell ya, I was not feeling well after eating the African food and that kous kous or whatever it was. I was sick! After that we dropped Elder Simonson off and then came back. Then, about an hour later, we had to take Elder Broadway to the train station and get him off. Then we went to the sister’s apartment to help them take their stuff from their apartment to the train station also. By the time we got back to the apartment it was only 9 am. Then can you guess what we did? We went back to the train station to pick up my companion, Elder Dungan. We went to get him a bus pass and headed back to the apartment once again. We had a little lunch and helped out Elder Berrett with teaching some people. Can you guess what happened next? We went back to the train station to get Elder Berrett’s companion, Elder Prunier, who is French. So, we went to the train station 5 times that day, 5 times carrying luggage back and forth, back and forth. Oh, what a joy it was and it was really hot, so that did not help one bit.

That was just a fun transfer day. Well Elder Dungan and I had to get a lot of stuff sorted out because we had the other companionships investigator and ours. So, we had to do some planning on that part. OK, OK, get this. We have a 4 man apartment. They are moving the other companionship, Charleroi 1, to the sister’s old apartment. So now we have a 4 man apartment all to ourselves. I have no clue why they did that because now they have to pay for two apartments instead of just one and our apartment is big just for 2 people. I guess it is because there are a lot of missionaries coming in the next transfer, so there is a chance they are going to move back and reopen the other companionship, so they need a place to live.

Well, there has been some cool stuff going on here. Yesterday we were just walking down the road when a car stopped. A man asked if we were the Mormons and did we have a book for him. He said he read some of the Book of Mormon at a friend’s house and wanted to read more and he was way interested. He also has a wife and a kid. So that is hot. Know what else is HOT? We set another baptism date with a guy named David. He is awesome! He is way interested and he wants to come to church and change his life. The date is for September 11, 2010. We tried to set is earlier, but he said he couldn’t stop smoking that fast, but all is well.

A couple of weeks ago I was with Elder Simonson and we helped a member in their ward move to a house shared with a family. The family was renting the top of their house out to a couple of college students, so we helped her move in with this family. A couple of nights ago the member we helped move in called me. She said the family I am staying with really likes you and wants you and your companion over for dinner on Tuesday. I don’t even know this family. I talked to the dad a little bit but we have only seen each other once. It is cool and the best part is they are not members, so we can TEACH AND BAPTIZE them, it’s awesome! The only bad part is they live in Charleroi 1, so we would have to pass them.

Well, everything is going great. I love it here. It is awesome and I am glad to be here on a mission. Well, I love you and hope you all have a great week. Love ya, TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

July 5, 2010

2010-07-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it all going? Well, just to tell ya if you don’t know, transfers have come and gone and I am staying here with Elder Dungan. So far I have heard only good news about him so I am hoping he is a great guy. Well, some news about my old companion, Elder Broadway. This was going to be his last transfer and he would have gone home in August. But, last Wednesday president called and he said "he was just sitting in his office when he had a prompting to call Elder Broadway and give him the chance to go home 6 weeks early and it would be a great blessing to him and his family." His family has been having some problems lately with his sister in law and stuff and Elder Broadway has been having chronic illnesses. So, he is leaving this transfer and going home. SO, as we say in the mission world, “I am killing him.” The person who is sending the missionary home is the one who kills him. Other terms like ,”I was born in Bruxells” and “my fathers are Elder Caywood and Elder Mitchell.” Just some weird terms missionaries use. Then, each mission has their own vocabulary and so forth, like boafy, frére, mook, furgy, stuff like that.

We are also losing a companion ship in Charleroi 2. So, in total with Charleroi 1 and 2 we had 8 missionaries, 6 elders and 2 sisters. Well, the sisters are closing and the other companionship in Charleroi 2 is closing. I am the only one staying in Charleroi 2 and Elder Berrett is the only one staying in Charleroi 1. So, I have been going with the other elders to teach so they can pass me their investigators, because they are leaving. So, that will be fun.

You told me a little about Jake and how he has bugs and mice and other creepy crawly thing in his apartment. I thought that is was funny, but I kinda feel bad for him. I kinda had a similar thing happen to me but they were not crawling on me or anything. Last week on the exchange with Elder Berrett, we taught a lesson and as we were leaving we saw a huge spider on the wall. We found out it was a wolf spider. I got a good picture of it. I will try to send it home. We ended up killing it and after I told him IF I ever saw a spider like that in our apartment I would freak out......That was a bad part on me. I had to open my big mouth. A couple of days later I was taking the garbage to the basement and when I open the door guess what I saw, a HUGH FREAKIN SPIDER! That thing was ugly! I ended up getting a couple of Joseph Smith brochures in a language I have no clue and killed it, but that thing was big and ugly. Well, that was my story about that. I just hope when I wake up one morning I don’t find one on top of me.

We had a chance this week to do some service for someone in our ward. Last Sunday the bishop got up in Priesthood and treated it like a military operation. He said that there is not going to be any honor in what we are about to do. We just go in, do it, leave and never talk about it ever again. Doesn’t sound to good, does it? Well, it was moving a person to another house. On Wednesday, we went over and we ordered a huge garbage bin to throw everything in. I thought they were just joking, but I underestimated them. We go in and it was bad and I mean bad. I have seen garbage dumps cleaner then her house. Stuff everywhere - dirt, old food, everything, if you hit the sink in the kitchen - millions of flies came out. I am sure that 2nd hand smoke was better to breath than what we were breathing in at that house. That day we just cleaned the basement. Then Saturday is the day we moved. It was bad! We got the fridge to the new apartment. The ward mission leader and Elder Winker were carrying it up when it opened. Old, and I mean old, mayonnaise fell on the floor and broke and some other stuff. And the smell, oh mamma mia, the smell was horrible. The 2nd counselor in the bishopric ran out and threw up. Everyone just ran for their life. It was bad! When we finally got the fridge up, the ward mission leader told her to clean the fridge right now because it was horrible. We eventually got done and we are not going back, it was bad. I think I may have lost 10 years of my life due to what I was breathing.

Well, that is my story for the week. Well, I love you and hope you all had a great 4th of July. Have fun and remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed, and egger to excel. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 28, 2010

2010-06-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Well hey, how ya doing? Life here is great. I love it. This week has been great. This week we had two workdays or exchanges with the other elders in our apartment. The first was on Tuesday where I went with Elder Simonson’s “blue” and we contacted all day. He was a great example for me. He basically did all the contacting. Every time when I was about to say something he would cut me off. He is a great guy and an awesome missionary. Oh, by the way, his name is Elder Berrett and he is from Highland, Utah. Then, on Friday, I went with Elder Simonson and we did some service and helped someone in his ward move. On the way over to her new house with all the stuff, I was in the car with her landlord and he was asking about my religion and what we do. Then, Elder Simonson was in the other car and they had to go back and get something that fell off the truck. So, I was all alone with Jean, the landlord, and it was really weird. We got to the house and I was all alone and ya it was way weird. Then we got to go do some contacting and we had a great time.

Saturday, that was a day. We did sports in the morning and it was freakin hot! I don’t get this weather. It is raining, then it is hot and sweat is running down your face. You are thinking to yourself, “I am going to have a heat stroke and it will not be good.” Well, we played soccer or as we call it over here football and I was dying, it was fun. Then, Elder Broadway wasn’t feeling well at all. So, he called Sister Staheli and she told him to get some rest so I spent the whole day in the apartment. I was trying to read Jesus The Christ, but I fell asleep for an hour. Then I made dinner and read some talks out of the church magazine. Then, yesterday Sister Staheli told him to call a doctor and go see him. So, we did that and we are now going to the doctors at some point of time. So that has been fun.

Well, transfers are coming up. We will find out Saturday if I am staying or going. I will probably tell you if I am going or what when we have to check our e-mails on Saturday. I will just leave ya a quick note.

Well, our baptism date - something is wrong because we called him an hour before our rendezvous (appointment) and he was fine with it. Then, he has disappeared. We have not been able to get a hold of him or anything. We think something is wrong because he wants to be baptized and he knows this is the true church but he has just disappeared. So, the date is on hold for the moment.

Everything else seems for the most part to be doing great. Life is good so I am happy. Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY this upcoming Sunday. I hope you will have fun and watch a lot of fireworks for me. I love you all and hope you have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 21, 2010

2010-06-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, how is it all going? Well, guess what? We had another baptism this week. Here is the story. Awhile back, our companionship was teaching this kid Timothy. His mom was less active and her other son also, but we were teaching this kid. Then he moved to Charleroi 1 so we had to pass him. Well, he got baptized this week. It was pretty cool. In the end we ended up teaching 1/2 the lessons and then Charleroi 1 taught the other 1/2. It was awesome. They are from Africa and the mom speaks Lingala. So, Elder Broadway, the mom, a friend and I sang a Lingala song. It was slick. I still have it, so I will have to record it on a memory card and send it. It is pretty cool.

Well, some bad and good news. Our baptism date will not make it for the 3rd but we fixed another date for the 17th. His mom got into a depression and threw herself down the stairs and broke her foot. So, he was over there for the past week, so, we never got to teach him. He didn’t come to church but everything is fine right now, so that is good. And in other news, the member, Patrick, that we go teaching with and have lunch with every Saturday, left to go on vacation. He went to America and he will be there for about 3 weeks. So, if I leave on the next transfer I won’t be able to see him again, but if I stay all is well. So, whatever happens, I will be happy. Life is good.

Well, some corrections on the questions for last week. We had zone conference and I found out that we have the biggest mission in Europe with 183 missionaries. The next biggest is London South mission in England with 140 plus or minus some. And the work here is just on fire. They are calling it the miracle of 2010 or that is what President Staheli is saying. He told us there are 19 baptisms for July 3rd, it is great. The work is just moving on through.

Like I said, we had zone conference this past week in Bruxelles (Brussels). It was great to see that place again, I missed it. It was also great to see the other missionaries there also. They told us another story about 2 more missionaries who almost died of carbon monoxide because they took the batteries out of the detector because it was making a beeping noise. So, we had a talking to on that and to make sure our co2 detectors are working.

Oh yes.... yesterday....... Sunday...... sacrament......the talk.... ya ça va pas. It is one thing to give a talk in your own native language. It is another thing to give one in another language. For example: franças moi je suis pas d'accord. Well, it went ok. People said it was good but let me tell you I was freaking out. My hand was shaking and everything! Oh man! Oh man! But people said it was ok. They were just saying that so I wouldn't feel bad probably.

Well, life is good. Things are going good and everything is F.I.N.E. (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional - Italian Job - good movie) Well, I love ya and hope you have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

June 14, 2010

2010-06-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is everything going? Oh, by the way, BONNE FETE PAPA (happy Fathers Day) yesterday, I hope everyone had a great day yesterday. Well, time for some questions and answers. 1: How many missionaries are in the Mission? I am not a 100 percent sure but I think there is about 160-170 missionaries in the field. 2: How many missionaries are in Charleroi? We have 8 missionaries in Charleroi, 6 Elders and 2 Soeurs (sisters). 3: How many baptisms do you have every month? I am not really sure, but I do know that the work here in Europe is on fire and that we have a lot of baptisms, maybe not as many as in Brazil or the states or anywhere else for that matter, but for Europe, it is just increasing. 4: Have you had zone conference and interviews? Well, President changed it so there are some places that have interviews every other transfer and this transfer we are one of those places. So, we don’t have interviews this transfer. Zone conference; we haven’t had conference yet but it is this Friday and it is in Brussels. So, I get to see Brussels again. Oh YA! I love that city. Well, if I forgot any questions, sorry, and next time when I receive a question I will write it in my planner so I don’t forget. So, if you have questions, feel free to ask.

Well, things are going great here. On Tuesday, last Tuesday, I had a workday or an exchange with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Berlin. He is a great Elder. He is on his last transfer. It was funny. We went to a door and a guy came and he spoke English also. So, we talk to him and he has seen the missionaries before. He asked us a question? Have you ever read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover? We said “yes”. Then he said; "good, so have I. So, you have read the part about the horses on the Moon"....What horses on the moon? No, we have not read about the horses on the moon. I don’t think it is in there. He said; "Oh, they must have taken it out then." Right.....he didn’t believe in the book because you can’t prove it by science and stuff like that, but it was kinda funny.

Well, now is the big world cup for soccer and everyone here is way excited for it. On Saturday America played against England and they tied 1 to 1. But it was big because my companion is from England and I am American, so it was fun. There are games going on everyday and people are always talking about it. Yesterday at church we had stake conference, where it was broad cast throughout Europe. We had Elder Paul V. Johnson of the 70, Sister Cook of the Young women Presidency, Elder David A. Bednar and President Boyd K. Packer speak to us, and it was great.

Well, our baptism date is still going strong. As long as he comes to church these next two weeks, he can be baptized. So, I am hoping and praying for the best. Everything else seems to be going great. My talk on Sunday - I decided to use one of the talks I made in the MTC, but change it a little and make it a little better, also. Well, everything else is going great. France is still pretty bad. No, it’s ok. I am learning more and more every day. I know with time, hard study and help from the Lord, I will learn it. So, I am not too worried about it.

Well, everything here is great and I hope you are all having a great week and a great time. I love you all and hope you all have a great week and have fun. Remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed an egger to excel. Love ya!
LOVE ELDER WALKER

Recent Pictures of Chris

2010-06-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures that Chris sent home in one of his letters. He is still just as funny and random as ever. Ya gotta love him.

June 7, 2010

2010-06-07T11:05:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is it going? Well, this week was great! We set a baptism date with one of our investigators. It is great! We set the date for July 3. It is just awesome! We are planning to set a couple of other baptism dates this week also. Things here are going great and the sisters in Charleroi had another baptism also. Man, things are just on fire.

Well, not much has been going on. I finally got some short sleeve shirts because the long sleeves shirts were killing me in this weather. That’s what I like about Utah, when it says it is going to be 80° it will be 80°. Here, if it says it is 80° what they are really saying is that it is 80° but you have to take into account that you live in a country on the coast and you have 90 percent humidity. So, you have to add the 80° and the 90 percent humidity and you get.....80° but you are going to be boiling hot because it is going to feel like it is really 100° and you are going to be sweating like crazy. So, they may say 80° but they mean 100°.

Well, things here are going good. We have a first councilor like every church. I try to avoid him at all costs. He is way cool but let me tell you why. Because after Priesthood then we have Sunday School and then Sacrament. Well, usually after Priesthood if he needs someone to talk in Sacrament, he comes to the missionaries to ask if we can talk in an hour in Sacrament. That is why I try to avoid him at all costs. Well, after church I thought I was saved anther Sunday. I was out in the foyer talking to some people when someone came up and started to massage my shoulders. I turned around and guess who it was? He said I have a question for you and I was thinking to myself crap, I am in trouble. And sure enough, he asked me to give a talk in Sacrament on the 20th of June. Right when he started talking to me I knew exactly what he wanted. So, now guess who has to give a talk the 20th of June. Ya, you guessed it - ME MYSELF AND I. Great! How fun! Whoo hoo - I am jumping for joy (not really).

Well, that kinda sucks, but oh well, it will all work out and I know that the lord will help me through, so I am glad for that. Well, that is pretty much my week for ya. Not much else went on. Well, I love you all and hope you are going to have a great week and TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 31, 2010

2010-06-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Bonjour ma famille. Comment allez-vous? Vous allez bien! (Direct translation....Hello my family. How goes you? You going well!......normal translation…Hello family. How are you? You going well! very similar.) Well, this week I’m not going to lie to you, SUCKED!!!!!!! Let me explain. Wednesday, the first day of transfer, Elder Broadway gets "sick" and we stayed in the apartment the whole day. Thursday, he is still "sick" so we stayed in the apartment all day. Friday, once again he is "sick" but I went with Elder Winkler and his new companion, his greeny, and we went to go teach someone Then we came back and I spent the rest of the day in the apartment. But I got a lot of studying in. I have been studying Jesus the Christ. It is a very good book. My favorite parts of the book are the notes at the end of the chapters describing some of the stuff he has said. I have to admit the first few chapters were really hard for me to get through but when I started the chapters of Christ’s birth and everything I was fine, but the first chapters were hard.

Well, that is basically the start of my transfer, not much happening. Well, on Saturday, Charleroi 1 had a baptism. Apparently it went very well. For the Charleroi district the year goal was 25 baptisms and we are now at the half way point and we have 14. Well, we did get to teach one of our amies and he came to church for the 3rd time. Things are going great for us. One thing, we have 3 companionships of elders in Charleroi. The Charleroi 1 companionship has to drop some of their amies (sorry amies = investigators.) The other Charleroi 2 companionship gets dropped by some of their investigators and for us, all our investigators disappear off the face of the earth, and no one can get a hold of them. So, we are having some setbacks but everyone has some promising investigators who are really interested in the gospel. So, that is good. Then you have the sisters in Charleroi who are just on fire. They had 2 baptisms last transfer and they are just doing great. Well, that is the work in Charleroi.

Well, that is pretty much all that has happened the last week. But life is good, hard but good. The French is coming along. On Saturday, Elder Simonson and Elder Barrit, his greeny, went on a little workday with us. (Workday is where you change companions for a little bit of the day.) Well, Elder Barrit and I went out and did some contacting, but no one was on the street. So, we went door to door, where we found some lady who told us she was in the religion of love....right. She believes in all the prophets, Noah, Mohammad, Buddha, and Jesus. We get talking and we asked if she had a Bible and she showed us this fifth dimensional book and some other books. She said these are her Bibles. It was funny. Well, we had to go and she was so nice to us, it was awesome.

Well, that was my week. I love you and thank you. Thank you so much for the support you give me. It helps me out a lot. Well, JE T'AIME LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 24, 2010

2010-05-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hey family, I don’t have a lot of time right now because I am in Namur Belgium. We went to go see some castle/citadel thing. It was really cool! The member, Patrick, is going to post pictures and tag me in them on Facebook, so, you should be able to see them. Well, I am still in Namur. The train leaves in about 25 minutes so I don’t have that much time. I think I have about 12 minutes I can write. Well, today was great. I took a ton of pictures to they are pretty cool. I should be sending them home soon because I have a ton of pictures, so that will be good.

Well, just to let you know, Namur is so beautiful. It is so clean and nicer then Charleroi. Charleroi is like the ghetto of Belgium, but it is still pretty fun in Charleroi. Well, I am staying for another transfer here with Elder Broadway. So, that is good, another transfer here, it is fun. Last week Elder Crump, Elder Receveur and I went bowling and had a goaf match (goaf is a waffle) ((can’t spell sorry)) where if you lose you owe the other two a goaf. Well, we played 3 games. We all won one and all lost one. That means we owe each other 2 goafs. It was way fun.

Then this past week we did a district finding activity in Namur on Tuesday. It was fun. We all go to one place with a box of Book of Mormons and go talking away. I started talking to this one guy and he was speaking with a Romanian and an Italian accent. I was glad Elder McQuay was there because as we say here, “J´ai rein compri” (I did not understand). Half the time he was speaking Italian not French, but it was fun. It was great to do a big group activity like that, it was fun.

On Saturday we had some Joseph Smith fireside where we took an investigator to it. After, he told us that he made up his mind and that he was going to get baptized. It was awesome! The Charleroi 1 elders had an investigator there too and he wants to be baptized also. He is only 14. He is one of the smartest 14 year old kids I have seen. He was reading in the Book of Mormon in Ether where the brother of Jarrod saw the finger of God and the veil was taken off. He asked how we can be like the brother of Jarrod and have that faith to have the veil taking off from our eyes. Man this kid is cool!

Well, I’ve got to go but I love you all and have fun with the snow you are still getting, when I am here dying of heat. Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 17, 2010

2010-05-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it going? I hope you have all had a great week. This past week has been good. I have a funny story. I can now say that I have had a devil cast out of me by some evangelic pastor (or however you spell that). We went over to his house and then we said we are children of our Heavenly Father... that is as far as we got. After he starts going on like. “you are children of the devil and kissing someone before marriage is of the devil and against the law of chastity,” and all that kind of stuff. He was asking us if we can kiss someone and we said yes. Then he is like, “you are children of the devil.” He goes off for awhile, then we said, “can we leave with a prayer?” So, he said, “I will pray, then you can pray after.” So we said ok.......bad mistake on our part! He stands up and starts bouncing up and down and starts saying, “Cast these devils out of these two people. Make them see the light and have these devils cast out.” He also starts mumbling and chanting away. There were two others in the room, his friend and his wife, and they start chanting and mumbling also......at this point I can say me and my companion were afraid that he was going to hit us with the bible or something trying to get devils out of us. But he didn’t. After, we said a nice prayer and asked the spirit to be with us and after that they didn’t say a word. They were expecting us to try and do the same thing with them. We can now say that we will not be going back, but I can say I have had a devil cast out of me now.

Well, that is my funny story for the week. On a happy and good note, this week has been great. We haven’t been able to see our investigator, the one we wanted to set a baptism date with, but we have a rendezvous (appointment) with him this week, so that will be good. Oh, we also have another pastor that we are teaching, but don’t worry, he is awesome! Every time we go over there he starts off saying that we should pray and he offers it. He asks if the people we meet will open there hearts to the spirit and that the spirit can testify of what we say. He then asks if they can have their spirits burn within them and he asks that we may be blessed. It is awesome! The best part is he prays in the name of Jesus Christ, it is so cool. He is one of the coolest people we are teaching. We went over to teach him the plan de salut (for you English speaking people, the Plan of Salvation) and he basically taught himself. It was sweet!

Did anyone ever watch the movie BIG FISH? Well, if you did, do you remember the part when the main person goes through the woods and finds a little town that was hidden. Well, I think I found that place, kinda. We took this road with trees on both sides (it looked like a nature walk) and it ended up in this little town that was hidden from the world, it was pretty cool.

One question, have you ever seen someone walk a cat? I mean I have seen people walk dogs and stuff but I saw someone walking a cat with a leach and all. It was pretty cool I guess. I thought it was pretty funny.

Well, that was our week. Oh, before I forget, we also had interviews this week. He didn’t say if we were staying or going. But we will find out this Saturday if we go or if we stay and if we are going to have the same companion and all that stuff. Well, whatever happens, I will go were ever the Lord wants me to go.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week and thanks for all your love and support. JE T'AIME (I love you in French or you can say JE VOUS AIME. It means the same thing but the je vous aime is more formal. Je t'aime is for friends, family and people who are close. Well, JE T'AIME! LOVE, ELDER WALKER

May 10, 2010

2010-05-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it all going? It was great to get to talk to you yesterday for Mother’s Day. It really made my day....well; it made more of my evening, because I was talking to you at night here. Well, life here is good. It is going great. The work is going great also. We are planning to set a couple of baptisms dates this week with two of our investigators. So, I hope that goes well. The sister missionaries in Charleroi have a baptism this coming Sunday, so that will be great. There are baptisms happening all over the mission. It is great.

Well, the French is coming along, slowly, but it is coming. When I was in Brussels I don’t think learned that much because half of the appointments we had were in English. And then church was in English and French also. Then when I got here EVERTHING is in French and I just realized not too long ago I can’t understand that much. So, I was kinda freaking out. I am like “I can’t understand a word you are saying.” Maybe, it is because they have a different accent than in Brussels. But, oh well, I know that with the lords help the language will come. So, I am not too worried about that, so it is all good.

It was funny, on Wednesday we went to a rendezvous (appointment) were at the end we played a game called rage. Well, it was my first time playing and I was playing with two Africans and my British companion. I ended up winning and I kinda beat them pretty bad. I was a head like 20 some odd points and after Sister Mopia, the person we are teaching, was going off saying “the American won! They always win! She kept going off about that. Then, her son called and she told him that she was playing a game with the missionaries and guess what, the American won. So, we set up another rendezvous (appointment) for this last Saturday. She told us to bring the game back because she wanted a rematch against the American. So, we brought it back and all 3 of them, Sister Mopia, Timothy Mopia, her son, and my companion all teamed up against the poor old American. I lost, but it was all good and we all had a fun time.

It is also pretty funny. My nickname is Walker Texas Ranger, just like in the show with Chuck Norris. Everyone here has like seen that show. So, now when I introduce myself I say, “Hi. I am Elder Walker, as in Walker Texas Ranger. They always laugh and have a good time. It is a great way to connect to them the first time you meet them, so it is not too weird.

Well, everything else is going great. The work is great, the French not as great as I thought but it is getting there. I am having a great time serving the Lord. I have found great joy. I am so glad I am here serving. Oh, before I forget, every once in awhile we go bowling on p-days, so that is pretty fun also. Well, the mission is a great place to be. I love it here and am having a great time. Thank you for all of your love and support. I hope you all have a great week and you also have a fun week at that. Well, I love you all and am truly grateful for your love and support. Have fun and remember, stay bright eyed, bushy tailed, and egger to excel. Love ya! LOVE ELDER WALKER TEXAS RANGER

May 3, 2010

2010-05-03T14:20:00.001-07:00

Hey, how is it all going? I hope everything is going great for everybody. Well, the weather is not too bad. It’s been pretty nice. It has been like a high of 27°, isn’t that just awesome! It is so nice we haven’t been wearing our coats or suit jackets for some time now. Oh, just to tell you so you don’t think I am crazy, it is 27°C not °F, so it is in the high 70’s and low 80’s in °F. So, it is pretty nice here. Well, things here are going good. We never set up the baptism dates for our other two investigators because they were too busy this week and we never got to go teach them.

Well, things seem to be going good. The French is coming along. It is way hard, but I will eventually get the hang of it. Well, you know how you play slug bug if you see a Volkswagen Beatle, you yell slug bug. Well, they have it here but they play it with Mini Coopers. We were on the bus and these two girls were telling us a story. They were just talking away when one just yelled out MINI and hit the other person on the arm. So, that was pretty funny.

Ok, a funny story for you. I was on a work day with Elder Simonson and we go to a door to knock on it. So we did and a guy comes out and said he was not interested. So, Elder Simonson said “you are not interested in our ties?” Well, he comes out of the house, closed the door and was like “listen! I am into Satanism. The devil is my Master and I serve him.” We are like, ok, He goes off for a little more. Then he said, “I know there is going to be a great battle between Satan and God.” We said “yes there will be and I guess we will see you on the battle field.” He is like “I am like you guys. You serve your master and you will fight for him too. The same goes for me. But if I see you on the battle field I WILL KILL YOU.” We tried not to laugh and we said “ok then I guess we will see each other on the battle field” and we said our goodbyes. Right when we got around the corner Elder Simonson just started laughing way hard. It was a funny experience.

Another story, there always seems to be an Ice Cream truck following the missionaries around. One day we were with a member working with him when an ice cream truck pulls up next to us in the car. Elder Broadway rolls down the window and yells, “hey stop following us...” Well, the ice cream truck driver heard and rolled down his window. At this point I was like, “you have done it now Elder.” Well, the guy just looks at us and Elder Broadway rolls back down the window and was like, “Hi, how are you doing today?” acting like nothing happened. It was a pretty funny experience also.

Well, those are a couple of things happening here in Charleroi. Life is good. I am having a fun and great time serving the Lord. Oh, it was way funny. One of the mornings this week, Elder Simonson and I did a work out. We did lunges, where you work out your legs. We did 351! Afterward our legs hurt so bad we couldn’t even walk. Then the next day it was the same thing. It was pretty funny, we couldn’t even sit down. My legs are still a little sore still but it’s all good.

Well, I hope everything is going great. The mission is great and I love being here. Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week and I will talk to you next week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

April 26, 2010

2010-04-26T11:48:00.001-07:00

Hey family, how is it going? It is going great here in Charleroi. Well, these past couple of weeks have been great. And guess what, we have a baptism date for May 29 and we are also setting two more baptism dates this week. It is awesome. Well, the work here has been great. It was funny, my first Sunday in church I was sitting there having a good time. Church was almost over and we had sacrament last. It was almost over when the first councilor gets up and says “we have a new missionary in our ward and his name is Elder Walker.” At this point I knew exactly what he was thinking and I was like oh no! This is not good. He asked me to come up and introduce myself. I was thinking to myself, yep I was right. I knew exactly what he was thinking. Well, I got up and I introduced myself and I bore my testimony. It was all good in the end though, so I was happy about that.

Well, my French is coming along. I am able to understand more and more everyday and I know that the Lord is helping me with that, because without Him, there is no way. Ok, maybe there would be a way, but it would take FOREVER! Oh well, I will take the help where ever I can get it. Well, everything is going great; I am almost done with the Book of Mormon again. I finished it December 17, 2009 and now I am in 3rd Nephi, so I am getting there. I have also started reading the New Testament, and that is a pretty good book also, it is great.

Well, this past week was good. We had ZONE CONFERENCE. Charleroi usually goes up to Brussels for the conference but this time all of us went to LILLE, FRANCE for our conference. We had one of our area 70’s come and talk to us, it was a great meeting. After, we just came back to Charleroi and got to work. It is awesome. We have an investigator who is just awesome. He is going to get baptized. He committed himself to read and pray. We come to visit him and he has questions, and they are good questions. When we teach him he loves it and he keeps reading. He is just elect. We are also teaching a leader of a church, like a pastor, ( I don’t know how to spell it, so don’t laugh.) Oh well, it is awesome. He wanted to know about the Book of Mormon, so he just starts reading it, and as missionary’s, we are ok with that. We asked him what time his church was and it is the same time as ours, so we were a little sad about that. But he said he could have another teacher cover for him and he is coming to our church next week. It is so sweet.
Well, I hope everything is going great for you all and hope you are having an awesome week. Just remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed and eager to excel. Oh, and another thing, DON’T BE A RUM DUMB as grandma Condie said.

Well, I love you all and have a great week LOVE ELDER WALKER THE BELGIUM/PARIS MISSIONARY

Photo's

2010-04-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some photo's from the cave they went to and the tour that they took with the member. His name is Patrick Natus and he loves to work with the missionaries. He loves taking them out to different site all around Belgium.

April 29, 2010

2010-04-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hey family, how is it going? I hope it is going great. Well, Charleroi is great. I miss Brussels though, that was a great city, but I am sure I will grow to love Charleroi. Well, my new companion is great. He has been out for a long time. He goes home in about 2 1/2 transfers in August. He is cool though. We have six elders in the same apartment but there is a twist. Two of the elders live down stairs in one apartment and 4 elders live in the top floor apartment. I live on the top floor with Elder Siminson, Elder Receiver, Elder Broadway, and me, myself and I. It is pretty cool.

Well, not much has gone on here. We have been doing a lot of area book work because it was a big mess. On Sunday, yesterday, I had to bear my testimony in church because I was the new missionary in the ward. It was pretty fun going up there with the little French I know. It went good though. People liked it, so that is good. There is a member here in Charleroi who was baptized about 5 years ago and he loves the missionaries. He works with the missionaries like every day. He works with different companionships. It is way awesome. He is an awesome member. In fact, he took us, Elder Broadway, Elder Winkler (pronounced VanClair), Elder Crump and I, and we went to go see a cave and take a tour. Then we went around and looked at a lot of cool things in Belgium.

So, that is what we did today. It is awesome. We have zone conference this week. It is down in Lille, France so we are going to have to go down there. Well, it is more of a mission conference and half of the mission is going down there and the other half is going to Paris, France. We are going to have one of the area 70’s come and talk to us about some things. I am looking forward to it. So that has been my life the last week. I packed and moved to Charleroi. It was really weird, I was on the train all by myself to go down to Charleroi but I got here safe so that is good. We then did some pass backs and area book work. It is kinda funny, Elder Broadway is a Paris missionary and I am a Belgie missionary. It is funny to see all the different things each mission did. They have their ways and we had our ways and some of them are clashing together, but it is all good.
Well, the mission work is going great. The French is coming along slowly but surely. I can understand a lot more then when I first got here, so that is always good. The work is great! I love it out here serving the lord, it is a blast. This transfer is going to be fun, being in a new area and it is going to be great.

Well, I hope everyone is doing great. I love you and hope you have a great week and a great time with work and school. I love you all and remember to stay bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to excel. Love ya tons TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER