October 17, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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