New Schedule

January 30th, 2017

Bonjour,

This week has been well.

As a matter of fact we did have our Zone Conference this last week in Lille, and it went well. The big announcement was the schedule change for missionaries. So now lunch is 30 minutes, instead of an hour, and our study are slotted in the day which best fits each situation. So now what President Babin wants is for us to study until 10:00 leave, have lunch at 1:00, then comp study, then language study, leave, have dinner at 6:00, then leave until 9:00 at night. It definitely makes more sense, and we'll be able to do more with that schedule now. P-days now are 2 hours longer, since studies in the morning have been reduced. So good news for us.

This week we were able to get a couple of rendezvous in! The first one was a guy we met on the street, named Pierre. He's a young guy in his 20's. He was really nice when we approached him on the street, and so we had a good feeling about him afterwards. On Saturday we were able to meet with him again, we had a pretty nice discussion on a bench sitting in the park and he had a lot of good questions all prepared for us. He's a very sincere guy. He's agnostic, but he's willing to listen and to read the Book of Mormon.

The other guy we met with was someone we actually met on the street on Wednesday, and he told us to go to his house on Sunday, and we were able to do so. His name's Alain and is a really nice middle-aged Frenchie. He believes in God but thinks religion is bad. He believes more in doing good for people than in going to church. He has a lot of good views about life and is open to our message. I see good potential working with him. He also has a really big dog that's super friendly. I felt like I was at home when we were in his place with his huge dog all over us.

T'was all the noteworthy. Looks like the Warriors are doing fantastic. And let's hope the Patriots lose so we can finally get rid of Brady and bring in someone else new. If Tim Duncan is done, Tom Brady has no business still playing. The man's gotta retire at some point...

New year, new goals, new schedule. It's looking like a good one.

See ya next time.

Love,

Elder Aburto

Zone Conference in Lille

January 27th, 2017

Getting a Bleu

January 23rd, 2017

Bonjour,

It's been a really nice first week as a trainer. I can say it's definitely different from what I've done before. A lot of thoughts go through my head as I'm having this experience. Because I remember when I was a "Bleu". Life is not easy when you're starting a mission, but so far so good with my "son", Elder Langley. He's from Mesa, Arizona, and is 18. His French is not the best... but he definitely tries and is constantly making an effort to learn the language. We're getting along fairly well as well. He has a good sense of humour and seems to have his head on straight. It'll do my job to make sure he begins his mission in an environment of love, obedience, and of course, hard work. Being a trainer feels a little like being a French teacher. He asks me like a hundred questions a day pertaining to French, which is a good thing. I'm also at a point now on my mission where I'm thinking the least about myself. The things that occupy my head now are working the ville, members, and taking care of my Bleu.

A wise ol' missionary once told me back when I was a Bleu that the most important leadership position in the mission is not District Leader, STL, Zone Leader or Assistant, but is in fact Trainer, because if we have good trainers, then we'll have good missionaries. I think that's really interesting to think about.

This week was lots of finding, but we did manage to fix a couple of follow-up rendezvous, so we're pretty excited about that. And Maximilien finally got baptised yesterday!! The service was simple, and had a good spirit.

The members here are really looking out for us. Everyone treated Langley really well yesterday at church, we get fed like three times a week. And they feel almost like family. So don't worry about us up here. Everything is fine.

For some reason, President has called for an early Zone Conference for this Friday in Lille. I find that kind of odd, but we'll see why, I guess.

Donc, À la prochaine!!!

Sincèrement,

Elder Aburto

New Companion!

January 18th, 2017

Elder Langley and Elder Aburto in St Omer, France.

Transfer News

January 16th, 2017

Hello, Hello,

Well, let's get to business. The transfer finished yesterday, so the repertoire came out on Saturday, and guess what... I'm training a Bleu!! Elder Loya's on his way out to Cherbourg. This Wednesday we'll go to Paris so I can go pick up the new guy. I'm super excited. Everyone talks about the power of "Bleu Fire", which is the big desire to work and see miracles that the new ones have when they get off the airplane. It's a very real thing, and I'm so glad I'll get this opportunity. I can't wait and I know we'll do lots of good. I hear that there's one Hispanic Bleu coming in this transfer, so I could get him.

This week has been slower in terms of progressing work in our area, but interestingly enough, we had a Finding Day up in Dunkerque with the whole district and the ZL's. And we saw lots of success. I went on exchange with Elder Farnworth, and the first guy we stopped on the road started talking to us for a good while, and then he brought us into his apartment and we talked for a little while there. We had a pretty good conversation with the guy, Jonathan, and some of his friends, he told us we could pass by again and he gave us his Facebook information. At the end of the day, we all contributed to get Dunkerque lots of new Amis and new people to teach. It was a lot of fun.

Life is good. I'm now heading into my last six transfers, so better make the best of the opportunity, right?

Oh yeah, so, the church released the names of the new mission presidents coming in this summer, and our new president will be Mr. Paul J. Sorensen. If you know anything about him, please let me know.

Remember how awesome the Lord is, and how much you'd like to be in France right now.

Je vous aime,

Elder Aburto

Flying Through the Transfer

January 9, 2017

Hello!

We're already done with the first week of the year, wow. And this week is already the last week of the transfer, wow. Time truly does fly by when you're being annoyed.

It was a pretty nice week. One of our Amis, Rhode, the African lady, needed a lot of help to move into her new place, so we spent a good amount of time for three days in helping her move from her old apartment to her new house. She has two kids who are hilarious. One of them is eight and the other one is like three and they're a lot of fun. When we went to their apartment for the first time, her eight year old son answered the door and asked, "Who are you?" And then he read our plaques and figured out very quickly and then yelled to his mom, "Mom, the Mormons are here!" They're a lot of fun to be around.

We also had a Finding Day here in Friday with the District and the STL's. It was pretty fun. We got a few phone numbers and a couple of new Amis, as well. Loya and I went all out on the meal that day and made pozole again. It turned out ok. It's impossible to find the right peppers here in France, but I actually didn't turn out all that bad.

We were also able to meet with Patricia, found a week before. We had a pretty nice rendezvous with her and her son and daughter-in law. The thing with Patricia is that she's very hesitant and she's atheist. So we're planning on taking things slow with her. We see good potential in her.

Outside of that, there's not much else to add. We're feeling good about the direction things are going here and what we'll have up ahead. I hope everyone has a good week.

Love,

Elder Aburto

2017 Déjà?

January 2^nd, 2017

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's already 2017 when 2016 just started a few days ago...

It's been a week full of eating and eating. We spent Christmas Day eating all day at a member’s house.

And then Tuesday, we were able to meet with an old ami who hadn't been kept in contact with us for a few years. Her name is Alexandra and she's African. So you can tell it went pretty well. She was super happy to see us and we had a great discussion. She's going through a hard time in her life right now, but open to everything. We hope to be able to work with her a lot after the fêtes die down this week. That night, we ate like mad at the famille Clabaux's home. We had something that I don't know the name for it, but it's a young rooster we had for dinner. It was pretty good.

On Wednesday we did service for the neighbor of some members. We raked up some leaves for a couple hours, then the member family fed us very well for lunch. That evening, we went to Severine and Maximilian's apartment. And there we had a nice lesson with them and we again ate like mad.

On Friday night we were porting, and we had a nice discussion with this guy who believes, but doesn't really practice. He was super nice and accepted us to come back again another time. He has a pretty nice house too and lives in a really nice neighborhood. I've noticed a lot here that people are super nice to us even when they don't want to talk with us.

Saturday we had a Finding Day in Calais. It went pretty well. What happened was that we had four équipes there: Calais, St. Omer, Dunkerque, et V'DAscq STL's. When we went to the gare to get on our way home, we saw that our train would be an hour late, it was kind of frustrating because we had to cancel our rendezvous that night, but the STL's were able to get us a new ami in that time. Her name is Patricia and she's had a hard life but she's a strong person and sensitive to the spirit. 

Yesterday we had church at 10:00 and then had a nice meal at the Famille Ergamont's house. We ate a lot.

It's been a surprisingly productive week for the holiday season, and we know we'll be busier each week. So we're feeling good.

Another year gone, another one comes in, I hope 2017 will be a good one for us all.

Love,

Elder Aburto