Yverdon 4

Hello everybody, there are lots of questions for this week, so lets cut to the chase:

No I have not heard from Elder Graham, well not directly, I must have written his email down wrong because I was not able to send him anything.  I heard he cut his foot really bad, but that was like 7 months ago, he is still on his mission.  He is also in the Congo Kinshasa mission, no Idea how to spell that.

Yes Bienne has a car, didn't I tell you? I guess not.  Elder Ihalmo hates it, ha ha.  You need to know him to think that's funny, he's just such a cute little angry Finnish guy ha ha.

Yes I got the package, thank you very much!  The pants are gorgeous, and I do fit in them believe it or not.  Sorry I said 32 before, but what I meant to write was 38x32, so you got the right size.  I could probably squeeze into a 36, but that wouldn't be very missionary looking, but very European =P 
I also enjoy the peanut butter.

Gas is really really expensive here.  Luckily,  they give us a magic card (different from our normal ones) to pay for it.  Gas is 1.93ish franks for one liter.  The conversion is about 7.73 per gallon, and that is franks, so more like 9 dollars a gallon.  How would you like to pay that?  These little potato cars get really good milage though.  We only fill up maybe once a week, we could probably go two weeks without filling up, and it costs us about 95 franks to fill the tank. 

Another fun fact about Switzerland, you have to buy special trash bags here, and to force everyone to recycle, the bags are really expensive.  We just bought a roll of 20 bags or so for 40 franks!  fun fun fun

This week is still Spanish, but I'll talk about that later in the day to day, which might be kinda short this week sorry.

Exercize is doing good, Elder Puairau and I are running every other day.  about 2km each time.  We are also eating lots of rice dishes because I mentioned that I liked rice, which made him very happy because apparently his last few collegues have not liked eating rice.  Usually we eat rice with shredded carrots, sliced peppers, onions, egg, and a little sausage or something, anyways it's really good.

Elder Puairau is the driver, but we talked to president and he doesn't really care if I drive even though I cough cough may not be legal cough.  did I tell you that I am not even legal in the country?  I mean, I am totally legal I have only been here for 50 days, and am therefore still considered a tourist.  I have 90 days, my legality didn't get renewed, and after I complained to the office a lot they finally just told me to tell people I live in France and am visiting if anyone starts asking questions.  Boy I hope no government people are reading this.  But like I said, for the moment I am legal.  There are no plans to renew my visa here either, because they figure I don't have enough time left on the mission to make it worth it.  that is a little depressing, but whatever, I am in Swiss and I am happy about it.  Especially because the past few days have been beautiful and sunny, only this week is supposed to be a little rainy.

Our car is an OPEL (drum roll please) Meriva, I'll see about sending photos of it today.

Yes I get the monthly or so letters from the stake, and also the monthly ward news letter.  I love it, because it is the only mail I get that isn't from you wonderful parents!  It reminds me of the mash episodes when Hawkeye gets the paper from his hometown and reads it to the camp.  I don't know why, but that's what I envision every time I get one.  I read it out loud of course to my colleagues as if they knew the people in our ward etc...

Am I an elder who sets rdvs on pdays?  I do not like to personally, if I don't get at least a little bit of time to sit and stare at the wall then I have headaches and tiredness the whole week.  Of course, these people are more important than my personal comfort, so if they cannot do another time other than Monday during the day, I'll go ahead and fix the rdv.

I have not been to Dijon, We went to besançon for the conference, thing and took the dijon elders back to Yverdon with us.  It is a shame, but the elders tell me even the missionaries who do not like mustard, end up enjoying the dijon mustard.

Yes it is me and elder Puairau who conduct the Zone traning meeting for three hours.  The first hour is a meeting with the district leaders, which is more only like a half hour, and then the next two hours are with the zone.  We do do practices and other things, so it is not just us talking the whole time, but still it takes a decent amount of preparation.  Normally we organize things with the Zone conference as well, but we are combining zones for this transfer with the Geneva and Lausanne zones, so I think we dodged a bullet there.

Lundi:  DId haircuts (I'll be honest, mine doesn't look the best, but hey, I don't need to impress anyone) then went to Neuchatel to play soccer, and I stayed there for an exchange

Mardi:  exchange in Neuchatel.  In the evening we switched back, and we had some meetings with the ward and stake council etc.  That evening we left for Geneva, and stayed the night with the Geneva Elders.

Mercredi:  Took the train to Lyon, then Lyon to St Etienne, we had lunch with the Elders there (Jackson (from the MTC) and Arrington( who I served with in Avignon)) It was really fun, and good to catch up on what was happening in St Etienne.  The ward and the converts are doing well for the most part, except for David, I don't know if you remember him.  Well he is having a bought of depression and is acting violently so the Elders have been told to avoid him.  It is a shame.  So I went to the Prefecture at 2h40 for my rdv, and was out by 2h50.  It was really lame they just asked me for my birth certificate and my prints, and then said I was good.  Well I am now at least legal in part of our mission.  then Because of late trains and long distances, we ended up having to stay with the Geneva elders again.

Jeudi:   Got home and saw some less actives, went to St Croix, a pretty little city on the mountain with a great view, to go see some peoples.  Then we taught Léo and Mari the spanish couple.  We brought a member with us to translate.  It was a really good rdv.  These people seem pretty lost and have nothing left, so they are trying God.  I was reminded of the verse in Alma 32 where Alma talks about how the people are blessed because they have been forced to be humble.  This is kinda like this couple.  Pretty much everything bad has happened to them.  It should be cool because if they are really sincere, we should see the biggest changes with them.  Then went to bed, first night's sleep in my own bed that week.

Vendredi:  Only real thing of note is we saw Fabian the German punk, who was pretty interested in the plan of salvation.  I find him rather funny, I am still not sure if he is really interested, but he keeps on seeing us and reading, so we keep on teaching him.

Samedi:  Lots of dinner appointments, we worked at the farm, then had raclette for lunch with them (i'll show you when I get back)  Then we had a rdv with a member family who gave us not a meal, but some good orderves.  Then we passed an ami who was actually having a BBQ at the moment, they are a Brazilian family, so of course they made us join them and we ate with them, and were able to teach all the Brazilians in Yverdon.  That was fun.  Then not long after we went to our pre scheduled eating appointment with the family Rochat, a recent convert family.  I was stuffed by the end of the day and glad that I wasn't called to Tahiti where it is like that every day.  But the food was soo good!

Dimanche: Good time at church, five amis came including a couple who just saw the church and decided to check it out.  Really a great week.  We taught FHE and then saw some other member families.  Gereat week again.

SO I need to get going, The travel agenda for this week is Geneva and Neuchatel again, it should be a good week.  I love being a missionary, Have a wonderful week, the gospel is true, and it works.  You are the best love you and thank you for the emailses!