September 17th Avignon 12

Hello all, great week.  questions:
Since I didn't start training Elder Arrington, I wouldn't say that he is my son... it is more like I am the fun uncle he goes to live with or something.

I had a pastèque (watermelon) last week that wasn't all that good. The melons are looking like it is the end of the season, but I have had almost all incredibly good melons!

It has rained a couple times, but not a lot.  The temperature has really lowered this week.  It is more around 28 ish during the hottest part of the day (that is in celsius, you can do the conversion).  Fall is coming, and i am welcoming it, it was so hot during the summer ha ha.  I bet I will be transfered to switzerland this winter so I'll pass the summer in one of the hottest places in the mission, and winter in the coldest place.

We do live by lots of cats.  We actually have an ami who has six cats. In fact, this morning right before we did emails, we helped her put a collar on one of her cats to keep him from licking a sore on his side. Fun stuff.

We call greenies blues because in France the army uniform is blue (their dress uniform) so in the french army the new guys are called bleus.

I don't think reading in French will make it hard to remember in English.  I guess I know what the scripture is in French, but I still know the reference or the place in the book of mormon, so I'll be able to find it in english.

Day-to-day
Monday:  Went to Montpellier to drop-off Elder Call and pick up Elder Arrington.  Montpellier is in a place where lots of missionaries were passing through, so I got to see a bunch of missionaries I knew like Elder Hamilton who got transfered to Toulouse, and Elder Smedley who was going home, and Elder Tromeur who knows Will West because Will served in his ward in Milan Italy.  Could you tell Will that Elder Tromeur is doing well, and says bonjourno? That was really it.

Tuesday:  Taught Dawn (the woman with six cats) she is an old ami that we picked up again.  THen we helped her clean her apartement which is really small and disorganized.  Then we saw Olivier a less active member, and Sylvain an active member (who is now our new branch mission leader)

Wednesday:  We got somebody's address in a tiny ville called Saze (right of the river by avignon if you want to mark it, but I don't know if it will be there because it is tiny tiny tiiny)  There is only one bus during the day that goes there and none that come back. We figured we could take the bus there and walk to a close city that does have buses to take us back.  However, there are only two roads exiting
Saze, and they are highways with no room on the side to walk.  We got stuck there for about four hours before a member was able to come pick us up ha ha.  The guy wasn't there either, it looked like he was gone on vacation, so we'll pass again in a few days.  Then we taught english class and Quansah who is still doing amazing!

Thursday:  Went to Vedène to pass another address we got.  IT was also out in the middle of nowhere, but we got a member from the start to take us there and back.  Once again the people were not at home... too bad.  Then we went to villeneuve and knocked on some rich people's houses until one of them got mad at us and said they would call the
cops even though we weren't breaking any laws.

Friday:  Went to Lyon for Bleus conference!  It was pretty much the same as the last one, but more smooth and fine tuned I feel.  It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces, and I think it really motivated Elder Arrington even more, so now we are rockin avignon!

Saturday:  Saw Dawn again, had a lesson, and helped her clean more (I think she mostly just wants us there to clean her apartement ha ha)
Then we worked in the Pontet, not a lot of sucess, so we came back to Avignon and started looking for this old ami who lived in Centre ville.  We didn't find him, but the person living at his address is an awesome black guy from Ghana named Prince.  He let us in and we had a great lesson.  He doesn't speak French, and his english is not great, so it is a little difficult to teach him, but he is so nice and just so ready for the gospel!

Sunday:  Good day at church, Did studies and went to see Prince again. He had made us some tastey african rice and stew, and we had a good lesson about the restoration.  Because of the language barrier, we have to go slowly but he is understanding well.  He also doesn't know how to read, so we are going to teach him.  He is really really cool!

That is really all.  I like to hear about what is happening back home. I love your emails.  BY the way, I think I forgot to tell you this. Our fridge broke... two weeks ago.  So we have been living off of canned and dry food the past two weeks.  Our new fridge should be coming tomorrow though, so there is nothing to fear.  I thought we killed all the cockroaches in our apartement, but I saw one today.  I poisoned the crap out of it, and it ran behind the counter where I can't get him, so I hope he dies and infects all of his friends too.
I hate roaches.

We are Making Big plays here in Avignon!  All we need to do is change the way France thinks about itself and then we'll be in the money. Does that make any sense?  Not really, but I have to go now.  
Je vous aime!  JJ, va sortir avec une petite fille!  Il faut que tu aies une copine avant que je rente!  J'ai hâte de me marrer avec mes potes.  Un an est presque déjà passé, je ne peux le comprendre!  D'accord, bin, à la semaine prochain alors!  ciao!