Il Fait Froid Maintenant! (It's Cold Now!)

Well, hey everybody! Everything's going great here, despite finally starting to get cold. it's not too bad though, for now. I hope everything's going well, getting ready for nationals and all. It's gonna be nuts. You guys will be blown away at some of the bands, Tyler and Kevin.

Now, I've gotta jump into my email.

Monday turned out alright after I emailed. I got a little down, realizing how much I miss you guys, but Elder Evans and I were able to have a good talk and I felt better.

Tuesday we had our District Meeting and interviews with President, so we ended up just hanging out at St. Merri for most of the day. Sœur Posnanski complemented my French accent, and I learned about those couple rules I explained earlier from President. It was just a good day, getting some positive feedback on my French. I've felt really confident with it overall this week. I understand a lot more than when I got here, and I can almost hold my own with speaking.

Wednesday was a quick exchange with Elders Tryon and Sughroue. We did some really good contacting with them, and I was able to practice being without Elder Evans a little. 

(i'm rushing through this to get to the good part)

Thursday and Friday were kind of bland.

Saturday was windy! My umbrella is currently broken...working on getting a new one.

Now Sunday...that's where it all happened. 

We passed a scary looking guy, and said bonsoir, but he kept going past. for whatever reason, Elder Evans turned around and decided to contact him, which I thought was pretty awkward. But he did and the guy came up to us rather toughly and just pulled off his hood. Elder Evans said that he was here in France to tell him that God was there and that he loves him. After he said that, this big tough man just said "Really?" kind of shocked, and Elder Evans said yes and repeated it. At this, this man pulled his shirt collar down and showed us his crazy tattoos and just said "really" again. Elder Evans said "Really." and the guy looked at us and started to cry.

He went on to tell us that his wife has left him and that he's trying to get over his alcoholism and just his life is just REALLY hard. Elder Evans asked if we could say a prayer with him right htere and he agreed. After the prayer he was crying again. As Elder Evans got a BoM out of his bag, Joffrey (that was his name) said something about how he didn't believe in miracles, but we had to be sent from God. We explained the Book of Mormon to him and he went to offer us money for it, because he wanted it so badly he said. Of course, we gave it to him free of charge and set up a rendez-vous with him. We gave him hugs as we left. It was a truly powerful, powerful experience. Just seeing how the Spirit led us to be there at that moment. The person who we had intended to contact last night wasn't even there. Joffrey was why we needed to be there. It's really hard to explain all at once like this, but he needed us last night. And we were there.

Amazing stuff, being a missionary. 

Good luck at nationals guys! Don't win too many trophies! :)

Elder Bigler

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Other tidbits of information and answers to questions shared during some real time email exchanges.

Adam was featured with his companion, Elder Evans, in a video on his Mission's Facebook page. He wrote of the experience last week. They reported of the great experience being lead to a family that invited them to dinner and all were blessed by the visit. The video is on Facebook - France Paris Mission Poznanski. Here is the link - Elder Bigler and Elder Evans Share a Wonderful Experience during Zone Conference

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Got my haircut this week, free from one of the members, Jerome Kusseling. It actually turned out really good! I'm not really sure why his shirt is inside out...
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Are you technically not in Paris?

I'm in Paris, but I'm not. It's confusing. "Paris" itself is technically just west of us. But the city has outgrown its boundaries and has essentially engulfed all the surrounding cities. The Parisienne area goes a ways past us. So, you could argue that we're in the city of Nogent in the Paris area, or in Paris in the Nogent area. It's all one massive, 12 million people strong area, that's not really one city or multiple cities.

Do you guys have phones?  Are you going to get iPads?  We have heard talk about that.

Yeah, we have phones. They're VERY useful as missionaries. Nothing said about iPads yet. And no Facebook, at this point.

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ADAM: We did a lot of cleaning today, cause we found out that we're swapping apartments with the Sisters?

MOM: Why are you trading apartments with the sisters? Will you still be in the same area-ish? You never sent us a picture of your apartment.  You better take a couple if you want pictures of all the places you live during your mission. When are you moving?  

ADAM: There was a new area opened up/split so there are some Elders who need a place to live. We're not totally sure how it's all going down, but we just know that apparently trading with them is the easiest way to do it. Same sector, just kind of across town sort of thing.I'll get you some pictures, don't worry. :) And we think it might be this weekend, but it could also be next weekend. We're not sure yet. We'll pretty much get the call and have to be out in a day.

MOM: Nice of you to clean things up for the sisters. 
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MOM: You seem to be emailing about this same time lately.  Do you think you will continue to do that?  Even after you move?  It's a pretty good time since we can talk a bit but we worry about taking up your letter writing time.

ADAM: We usually email at the end of the day if we aren't going to Paris to check anything out. The next few weeks are probably going to be used checking out stuff, since Elder Evans will probably be leaving in about a month, so I'll probably be on earlier. So, for the next while, probably not. If you really wanted to talk, I could send an email text to your phone to wake you up, but I figure you guys need your sleep. And we actually found out this week that with the changes of missionary happening, not only do we not have to wear our suit jackets all the time, but we're allowed to email as long as we want on P-day! There's no time limit. Except that P-day ends at 6, so I've got about 50 minutes left. Plenty of time to write my stuff this week.
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MOM: Do you ever get to watch tv or read the news so you know what's going on in the world?

ADAM: Nope. I really have no idea. I heard from a newer Elder that the government shut down for a while again and stuff, but that's pretty much all the news I've heard, other than from you guys.
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