France 5

Bonjour tout la monde! Comment été votre journée? Bien J'espère.  Things are going really good here, and hopefully getting even better!  First I would like to respond to all the questions... No, first I would like to say thank you to all who sent me a quick email,  even if it is just a quick sentence or two, I appreciate it!  Now questions:
    Do I like the mission president?  President and sister Murdoch are really some of the nicest people in the world.  He is really not a number-based leader, which I like, and is apparently just about the opposite of Elder Bell's last mission president.
Elder Bell is originally from the Toulouse mission. 
    How is Elder Bell?  He is doing fine.  It did take us a couple weeks to find our rythym, but we get along well and are working together well.  One thing I really like about him is he knows how to do missionary work very effectively.  To be honest, we have done very little contacting this last week which is something we need to improve on, but we have had pleanty of lessons every day and we are still finding new amis (last week we found four).  "But Elder Crossman, how do you find people to teach without contacting?"  That is done by the miracle of coordonnées (refferals) given to us by the ward.  President Hinkley himself has said that working through the ward is much more effective than knocking on hundreds doors.  I have come to see that that is very true.  Our goal is to teach 21 lessons a week, and we have almost got there (we got 17 last week)  This leads into one of the questions Dad asked: Do you have a ward or a branch, how many people?  I was pretty sure I answered this, but maybe it was in the email that got erased last week.  The Eccully ward is the biggest ward in France with approximatly 120ish members who come every week.  It is a real blessing that makes getting member coordonnées much easier, however it presents a special problem of not being easy to get members to come teach with us.  You would think that that wouldn't be a problem, but there is kind of the mentality that someone else will do it so it is pretty hard to get them to help us sometimes, but we are working on that!

Snow in Lyon?  It has snowed here once since I have been here, and only about 2cm.  It has mostly all melted now.  Snow is a pretty rare thing here so I am told, but this week winter decided to kick in.  I believe last week it didn't go above -5°C, and once the sun goes down it goes to about -13ish.  Also the humidity cuts through all of your clothes, but the worst part is the wind.  It will just howl some times and kill any piece of flesh that isn't covered.  During the Day it isn't too bad, but at night it gets pretty cold.  I know that it is probably nothing compared to where Travis is, but I will say I have never been somewhere so cold.

Bichon Frisés? Yes they are pretty common here, but they are all scraggly and kind of gross looking.  I did find out why there are so many dogs. It is because the government pays you to have them, like they would if you had a child (not as much money I hope)! So all the bums will walk around with like 5 chiens ha ha.

Have I seen MTC Friends?  Sœur Buchannan is in my district, and I usually see her once a week, sometimes more, then Sœur Klingaman is in my zone, so I see her on zone conference, which is once a mutation (6 weeks), but other than that no.
 
Well what else?  I feel like my French is getting a lot better, that is probably because I have actually been using it this week.  Suddenly all our amis who speak English have either moved, been dropped, or been baptized, so I am back to speaking almost only French toute la journée.  I always am wanting to improve though. 

Bright was confirmed yesterday, he asked us if he should dress up because he noticed everyone does at church.  Until then he had just been coming in jeans and a sweater, and we told him we are asked to wear our nicest clothes like a suit to show our respect etc etc, so he came yesterday in a shining blue suit that he was married in!  Bright is so cool ha ha! He really has a strong testimony and one very nice suit.

Today might be the first day we actually get a real P-day. the past two weeks we have been really busy and only had time for emails on Monday, but we are planning to go to a free art exhibit thing this afternoon, and have Dinner with Ted.  It will be nice to get a couple hours off.  Well, not off, but not full of meetings and lessons and the usual stuff.

OH! yesterday We had dinner at la famille Kussling's house.  It was my first classic mission experience where they just force you to eat and eat and eat.  I tried to tell them that I wasn't hungry anymore, but if you weren't talking, you should be eating, and I still am not good enough at French to fill three hours of conversation.  I was incredibly sick when we got home... So there is a motivater to learn to talk because they invited us to dinner next week.  Don't worry though mother, I am still loosing weight.  In fact, I am wearing that suit Ted gave me that was too tight a couple weeks ago.  It fits nicely now.

Well I think that is all.  Give Monte and Max a belly rub from me and tell them they are special.  Everyone is still welcome to send me a letter or an email if you want.  I love you all, and I just checked an hour ago, and the church is still true!  Have a wonderful week! 

ADIOS...wait that doesn't sound right...