Birthday Package Received - one month later

Bonjour à Tous,

Hello everyone! This week has been kind of a slow one, because all of our amis just dropped off the face of the earth and for a couple of days, we didn't have any amis. All that means is lots of contacting, out in the street, door to door, everywhere. We manage successfully contact 4 people over the week, 2 of them fruged us (arrange a meeting and then don't show up) 2 others agreed to come to church this Sunday. The last guy is actually really cool, apparently he was contacted by the sister missionaries in February and then he had to go out of country for something. He came to church on Sunday just wondering if he was still welcome. He agreed to meet with us on Wednesday! Super awesome!

Also, our only progressing ami, Eddy, stopped answering our calls and we have no idea what happened to him. We stopped by his apartment and left a good note for him. But at church on Sunday, one guy came up to us and was wondering about Eddy, apparently he is a good friend of Eddy and told us that he will call him this week and try to set up a meet with Eddy again but this time the friend wants to help us teach him. 

All I can say this week is that Heavenly Father provides for his children. e are super excited to teach the new ami and hopefully invite Eddy to be baptized!

In other news, I have discovered that the french don't have grape jelly, and we contacted a Catholic priest and got invited to attend an ordination this Sunday after church, Pres. Babin said it's okay so we will go to that and I will tell you guys how it went next week!

In the pictures this week! Drum role please...

First we have a couple of pictures of the package from my family! The general condition of it was good, the brownies were all smushed but still delicious! Second, there is the pirate ship just down the street from our apartment, it was there for some sort of event.

Sincerely,
Elder Payne


According to Google Translate: amis = friends

Short e-mail with pictures

Hi everyone!

I have had some pretty awesome experiences this week. We got asked to go dedicate a tomb in Saint Jean de Monts. Which is a little town right on the beach. A really beautiful town. Turns out the funeral was not an LDS funeral, and it was very interesting. We ended up giving the dedication in front of about 40 people who are not members of the church. So mass teaching! We went to see the beach, of course we didn't actually go on the beach, but it was the best one I've seen yet.

Here are some pictures.

So the first pic is of a castle we went to on P-day that is about 3 blocks from where I live. It's called Château Duke de Bretagne. The second is a pic of the amazing beach in Saint Jean de Monts, we were there to consecrate a tomb at a catholic funeral. The next is one of the biggest attractions of Nantes, it is a gaint robotic Elephant that moves around the island in the middle of Nantes. The next is a pic of the inside of the castle. And the next is a cool building that is not far from our apartment. For the next week, I will make sure to take a picture of the pirate ship close to our apartment and the naval battle ship.

Nantes is an awesome!

Well have a good week.

Sincerely,

Elder Payne

A castle we went to on P-day that is about 3 blocks from where I live.

This is a picture of the yard inside of the castle.

Here is a picture of the amazing beach in Saint Jean de Monts

A giant robotic Elephant that moves around.

'cool building that is not far from our apartment'

More exchanges and trips to the coast

Dear Everyone!

Hello! How is everyone! The work here is going great! And I am starting to get the hang of everything! Thank goodness.

This week was pretty interesting, I went on exchanges to Saint Nazaire, another city right on the beach. The companionship there is awesome! They are so much fun! We did some contacting and I discovered that contacting jeune filles (young women) is very interesting. Because half of the time they think that we are just flirting with them and then we whip out a 
Book of Mormon or pamphlet and they will either reject us nicely or totally catch on and be awesome. But it definitely is an adventure! 

After exchanges I accidentally left our apartment keys in Saint Nazaire. That turned out to be an interesting day. I'm starting to really get the hang of french, now I just need to work on my confidense in talking to people in french.

I have been learning a lot about cleaning this week, we have some apartment inspectors coming to our apartment tomorrow so we had to do a ton of cleaning this morning. We have hardwood floors which means that we have to sweep all the time or we get crumbs and stuff on our feet, which is my equivalent to Dad getting socks wet walking in the kitchen.

I have to keep it really short this week because my time to email is already over. Everyone have a good week and passé bon journée!

Sincerely,
Elder Payne

Must be the door to the church

Coast off of Saint Nazaire

Working in Nantes

Dear Everyone!

Hello, how is everyone? I'm just gonna keep bugging people who haven't emailed me yet! Karl, Lonny, Morgan, Kristen (I know you can, you just keep forgetting), and everyone else that I mentioned in the last email.

So this week has actually been very eventful. We went on exchanges in La Rochelle, which is a smaller town below Nantes, and it is literally a city on the Beach. So I got to see the beach and I took a picture! I also got a shell for home, nothing super cool, just a shell. 

I encountered the most DISGUSTING thing this week! So after exchanges in La Rochelle, we came home after a long day of tracting and porting(door to door). And in our apartment we have a small little mini fridge in the corner and we never investigated it because there is a sign on the door that says "Abandon all hope ye who enter here". So we didn't open it. Well we get home and find this brown goop leaking out of the fridge and onto the floor. We were standing there just like, what should we do? I decided we had to open it and take care of whatever is going on. So I opened it and the most disgusting, pungent smell filled the entire apartment. Me and my companion start gagging and grab towels for gas masks. And I just told him, "give me some bleach and a towel, I'm going in" then he started cooking dinner. I opened the fridge all the way with bleach ready in hand, and there was more brown goop all over the inside. I opened the ice box where all of the goop was coming from, and inside is a box of Steak Hâche (ground beef), a bag of chicken, and a ziplock bag of fish. All of which are rancid. The brown goop is literally melting meat. So after bleaching the crap out the fridge and Fabreezing the entire apartment and throwing the old meat in the dumpster downstairs, I left bleach inside the Fridge to take care of the smell. My comp was impressed though how I just dove in and started cleaning. I think my nose has PTSD.

So that was interesting. Anyway I am slowly but surely getting the hang of French. And slowly understanding what I should be doing.

Have a good week everyone.

Jay sent a few more pictures.  Some were from Paris on his first day in France that I missed last time.