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

September 5, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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