Email Issues? Only Email is a Reply to Dad

NOTE: This email was the only one we received September 30. It was a reply to my email from Sunday night. At the end of his it mentions starting his "main email". We don't know what happened to that email - maybe wrong email address. This will have to do for now. Adam's response is first. Dad's letter follows.

So, first off, that was only a district meeting. Zone conference is this Friday (or Thursday night for you guys). And yeah, the transportation system isn't too bad. Supposedly the best in the world. We ride trains and buses almost every day. It's lots of fun, if you ask me. :)

It is a pretty nice area actually. We live kind of in the middle of a shopping center sort of thing, so we have lots of people to talk to. It's awesome. A pretty nice apartment, I hear. (By the way, you guys are getting a serious deal only paying $400 a month. We get 282 euros a month for food and transportation, which is about $370. Plus our apartment is. . .well, somewhere around double that. More like 2.4 times. I thought you'd like that being a banker and all) We are on the second floor, which is certainly nice when you have all your luggage and there's no elevator.

I'll try to send some pictures of the apartment when I can (and when we've cleaned up). Cooking is mostly just making some pasta with all sorts of different sauce on it (Ratatouille is good stuff), or throwing something in the oven. We buy baguettes a lot (I'm eating one right now actually) and use them for sandwiches and stuff. Money is pretty simple. We have a card, they give us 175 euros a month for food, then about 107 for our monthly passes. Everything else is payed for through the mission office. We can pretty much eat whatever, but if we run out of money, we have to use our own to eat. We do a lot of contacting and porting (door to door stuff) when we're not teaching lessons. I'll talk more about that as time goes by. French church is pretty much the same, and that's the point, except that it's in French, which makes it REALLY hard to stay awake. The people here are great! The Muslim people are definitely generally the nicest, and as a general rule, people who have moved to France are nicer than those who are from here. But not many are really mean, they're usually just honest and tell you if they aren't interested or don't have time to talk to you. And I'll cover places and things in a minute. :)

Conference will be good. We'll be able to see all of it except the sunday afternoon this weekend, two sessions live (the morning sessions at 6 pm) and the others slightly delayed. We'll be watching in English at the church. They also play it in French and Spanish at the church. 

Love the pictures! Holy cow the band looks SOOOO cool with that red out there on the green with the band. Oh man, it's so sweet. I couldn't find Tyler in there, but I found Kevin.... :)

Food's looking good for the dance there! And my companion is jealous of Tyler's date...

Anyway, I'm starting to get low on time, so I hope I can cover all of the stuff that happened this week in my main email....

Keep writing! I love it. :)

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 7:23 AM, <big5af@aol.com> wrote:

Hey Elder!

Just trying out my new fangled Wang Word Processor.  Oops! Sorry. That was a letter from my Dad many years ago. 

Things have improved quite a bit in the last few decades. Most of all this email thing - no two week delay between letters. In fact, probably only a few hours from when I wrote this until when you get it. Pretty slick.  There is also that Facebook thing. Instant satisfaction for parents to see their kids on missions. We saw photos from your Zone Conference and there were a few more of you.  Looking good and even a smile or two on your face. Keep sitting in the front row and photo bombing any chance you get. Mom likes to see you as often as possible.

Kind of a quick turn around to have the Zone Conference so soon after getting to Paris. Should help get a little more used to the transportation system. I used to love Zone Conferences. I spent a good portion of my mission in out lying areas and it was always good to get the spiritual boost from the other missionaries. And to see some other faces besides my companion's. I hope you enjoyed the meetings and training. Always good information to take out to the field.

After getting your email last week I did quickly Google Map stalk you. That is also a wonderful tool for missionary parents to have. Looks like a fairly nice and clean area. I don't know if you are on the second floor or not but the Google Map picture has what looks like a missionary cleaning the small window veranda. Possible anyway. I am sure you will give us some updates on daily life now you have settled in a bit - apartment, cooking, money, missionary activities, French Church, people, places and things. I look forward to hearing that when you get the chance. I love all that information because it takes me back to my mission.

Do you know what you get to do for General Conference next week? I hope you get to see a session or two. My mission we only got the Ensign a month or two later. They did announce that for the first time the Priesthood session will be televised at home over LDS.org or through BYUtv. I think that is nice and convenient for many parts of the world. Here at home, still going to the Stake Center. For this time it will be the traditional post band competition delayed broadcast with the AF Band.  I like that.  I do hope you get to see some of it live - even in French would be cool.

Well, I want to keep this kind of brief so you don't have too much to read. Mom will be sending you a letter as well with more details. I have attached a few pictures. They are from Tyler's Homecoming Date and from the Mt. Nebo band competition last Saturday.  I'll try to include a few each week for just for a quick look at home. (I'm still working on getting the SD Card functional for you.)

Take care of yourself. Work hard and love the people you meet. I am so happy for you serving. I think of you often and try to imagine what you might be doing. It is a wonderful work you are involved in and will bring you and others happiness. 

I love you,

Dad