April 20, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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