May 17, 2011

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.

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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 10, 2011

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.
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TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

May 3, 2011

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

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

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