I hope you're all enjoying Spring Break back at home. :) It's always a good chance to catch up on things and maybe relax a little in between all of that.
Well, lets see if I can summarize all the high points of this week. It was a pretty good one overall, culminating in the awesome general conference yesterday. :)
Tuesday was a regular unique day, if that makes any sense. I'd say we've got regular days as missionaries, and then "unique days" that we have so many of that they kind of become normally unique. Then there are more unique days and just generally crazy experiences that happen too to spice it all up. :) So, anyway, Tuesday was supposed to start off with a lesson with our recent convert Mehdi, but he ended up being late, then not answering his phone, then not showing up at all. Kind of a bummer, but it happens. Afterwards, and after lunch, we made a whole bunch of calls from our ward list, really trying to find some families, or even just people to reactivate. It's pretty sad to see how many less active people there are on our ward list, and we'd like to fix that a little. The evening was spent out porting, which was pretty fun actually. Elder Perry and I are starting to be pretty good friends, and we work really well together. He's really an awesome missionary already, although he never seems to believe me when I tell him... We were able to teach a lesson to a lady who was smoking, just leaning out her window. It was kind of goofy, but fun. :) We stopped off quick at the McDo we found while out and about and got little ice cream cones, saw an Audi R8 on the way out, and finished the night up.
Wednesday was district meeting, where we played conference jeopardy and, due to a late train time, were able to just talk to some other missionaries about sports and mission stories and stuff for a while. By the time we got back, we had barely enough time for a little bit of porting.
Thursday, not much happened, Elder Perry was feeling pretty sick. I went running that morning with Elder Baldwin, which is always nice. It really just starts the day off well to get moving like that.
Friday was a pretty normal day, with some good planning and all that. It got exciting however after dinner when we went to visit David, our recent convert. His son has recently decided to live with his dad instead of his mom, so he's now there when we teach, although not really in the room exactly. During our lesson, David informed us that he was going with us after the lesson to the mangez-vous we had planned with the Savasta's (two somewhat-older sisters in our ward). AND, he was bringing his son! So, off we go after teaching about prophets and general conference. His son, during the evening, made a few interesting comments. I don't really remember much; as far as French goes, I was having kind of an off night and didn't really get as much as I usually do. Anyway, first he pointed out how usually he's pretty shy and that it was weird that he was able to talk so openly with us. Second, he said that he kind of listens in to our lessons when we come over, and then proceeded to tell us what we had talked about that night (woooohoo!). He also told his dad that he wanted to come to church with him on Sunday so he could hear what these prophet guys were gonna talk about! Oh, and he's 15. So, in summary, that was awesome! The food and all that was good too, but seeing a youth be interested like that was just super sweet.
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| Elder Perry and Elder Bigler Birthday Dinner for Elder Tidwell at "The Sixties" |
Saturday was another great day! It was Elder Tidwell's birthday, so we went to this pretty fancy restaurant here in Calais called "The Sixties" which claims to be authentically American. And aside from the prices, the fine wines on the menu, and all the people around us speaking French, it kind of was! The burgers were super good, and big, and we had some good times there. And of course, we're full time missionaries, so we got to talk to this SUPER nice family sitting next to us, with, believe me, the happiest mom I have seen in all of Calais, possibly all of France. We all wanted them to have the Gospel so bad, they were just awesome. So before we left we gave them a plan of salvation brochure and our card, which the husband kindly accepted.
Then the day gets even better than American burgers and missionary work...FOOTBALL!!! BUT, the European one! Our DMP's son, Matthieu, had helped us set up a chance to go play football with some of his friends. Super awesome of him, actually doing some missionary work as he prepares for his mission. Turned out though that only one of his friends was able to come, named Nicolas. But that was fine, we got to play 3 on 3 soccer for a little, and then taught them how to play American football too, which...they honestly were not very good at. :) About halfway through, six other guys came up and asked if we wanted to play against them. Kind of terrifying, considering that they had bags and cleats and shinguards and all that, but we said yes. Let me tell you, SO MUCH FUN to play soccer again. It's been a while. Believe it or not, we actually held our own for most of our little game. Unfortunately however, they had to leave really quick at the end, so we weren't able to teach any of them or really even talk much at all. But, Nicolas was hanging around and we were able to teach him a little bit before heading home. He didn't really say yes or no yet to the lessons, but he'll be coming to the Soirée Orientale we're having at our church this week, so we'll get to talk to him again. Once we finally made it back to our apartment, a bunch of stiff, out of shape missionaries, we changed quick, not even having time to shower, and went to the church to watch conference.
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| Watching General Conference |
So, to answer some questions, we watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions live. All the others are rebroadcasts, and I haven't had a chance to watch the Sunday afternoon session yet. It was really good from what we did get to see though. Some really good quotes and promptings came out of it. Elder Uchtdorf's talks were some of my favorites. He's just awesome. I could go through all my notes and tell you about what I liked, but that would take a little while.
Sunday pretty much consisted of conference. 3 sessions of Conference+Missionaries means that there are about as many snacks and side commentaries as in a football game. It's really pretty fun to watch conference with those guys. We had the Elders from Saint Omer over at our church too cause their branch is too small and they don't show conference at the church. It was like a spiritual, respectful party, if those words can go together. A really good day overall, and a great way to end a great week. :)
I hope my letter wasn't too long this week, I feel like I typed a whole lot. I just had a lot to say. :) I love you all and love hearing about and seeing you. I appreciate all the emails, prayers, and love sent my way. Have a good spring break and don't pick too many weeds/shovel too much snow; I never know what to say for Utah. :) Until next week!
Elder Adam Bigler
P.S. Today marks 8 months, 1/3 of my mission!
P.P.S. No, we still don't have iPads, unfortunately, that was just my April Fool's joke for you all. :)
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