Zone conference

Well, this last week has been pretty cool.  Two big things have happened.  This last Friday I was able to go to Zone conference and we were able to have a guest speaker there.  His name is Elder Kopischka.  He is German and he is serving in the Quorum of the 70.  He also served a mission as a mission president in Germany before.  He talked to us about how we can really touch the lives of others out here in France.  And also that miracles will never stop.  That is something that we have discussed multiple times so far during my mission.  Along with President Staheli and Sister Staheli, It was a great zone conference and I think I have learned many things since then on teaching others the Gospel.  Then, two days later we were able to Stake Conference in Versailles, which was awesome because We were able to hear many speakers and also that the Stake President asked that the Elders in the Stake perform a couple songs for the Conference.  We sang "For the beauty of the earth" and also "Praise to the man" (in French of course).  But it was awesome!!  It was a little hard to hear because we were sitting on the stand the whole time so the echo of the speaker was kind of hard to hear.  But anyways, yesterday was our Paris P-day, when we can go around Paris and look at different sites.  This is what I did:  First we went to the eiffel tower and went up it, which was awesome.  Then, we went to le sacré coeur, which is a big church on top of a hill in Paris.  Then we went from that to the front of the Louvre and took some pics.  While being there, we met 2 members from Provo who wanted a pic with us so we took one with them.  After that, we went down to the Arc de Triomphe, which is just soo cool.  I'm gonna try to put as many pics up as I can today.  Anyways, pretty tired right now from yesterday and little sick but thats what happens.  Anyways, ciao
-Love
-Elder Jex

Back to Saint Nazaire

Well, you're probably wondering why I have this title.  Well, I heard that my titre de séjour (the document that says I'm legal) came in finally at Saint Nazaire so I got permission to go back there and pick it up.  It took practically the whole day because it took about 3 hours going there and coming back so it was pretty intense.  I got to see some of the members there because I asked to missionaries there to set something up.  I actually ended up doing to spiritual thought because the members asked that I would do it.  We had a raclette fete if anyone knows what that is.  I know Marshall and Terina do.  Anyways, Hopefully I can get those pics up this time.  I don't know but we'll see.  This last week has been just a bunch of finding.  We do have a hand full of investigators but lately we have received over 6 references of people that live in our area so basically all that my companion and I have done has been finding these new people to get a hold of and see if they would like to start taking the lessons.  So far we have been successful.  We found one person that we were able to set a rendez-vous with and hopefully we'll be able to start teaching his parents also.  Well, I got some more pics to send so I will add one to this and then add a couple others with another e-mail.
-Love
-Elder Jex

New Transfer

Well, it's a new transfer and I have another new companion. His name is Elder Mendenhall. He's from Las Vegas and he actually has a beach house on Newport beach so we have a lot in common. Plus he plays basketball. I've just met him today so we'll see how everything goes. This last week hasn't had too many things happen. We just found out one of our investigators was moving to Canada so that's a bummer but we challenged him to find the missionaries in Calgary when he gets there. I'm finally going to put a picture up. It is actually from the zone activity and one from a huge park that is right next to where we live. For our Zone activity, we had the the olympics but different events of course. Other events happening. OUr stake conference here in the Paris stake is having 2 area seventies come talk to us so that will be really cool plus they will be at our zone conference also. We, as missionaries, were invited to make a missionary choir for the stake so this friday we'll be practicing some songs. Well, thats about it for this week, here are the pics.

1st transfer in antony done

Bonjour tout le monde, I figured I could start typing a little bit in French so the people reading this can learn a little bit for themselves. Alors, cette semaine est bien passé, On a fait beaucoup de chose comme l'activité de la zone ecetera. Yeah, anyways, the zone acitivity was pretty fun, we got to do a bunch of stuff along with doing some good contacting activities around our area. This sunday, the transfer will be finished and there will be many changes in the mission (companion wise) because a lot of missionaries left early to go to school and also another group is leaving at the end of the transfer. All of us in the apartment now think that my comp will be leaving because this is his third transfer in Antony and hs thinks he is done with his time in Antony. Some cool news for the future, this next zone conference that I will be going to will have to 70's that will be there to talk to us about the work here in Paris and in the mission. I think it will be a great experience that I will have to hear from these men. Anyways, the work is going well here and sorry that I haven't posted any pics up lately on the blog, I've been transferring all my photos to a USB drive to store them so I don't have to buy more memory cards for my camera. Anyways, à plus alors.
-Elder Jex

1st Transfer practically done in Antony

Well, I haven't really written lately but honestly not to much has happened in the mission. This last couple weeks, I have had both zone conference and interviews. At zone conference, we were able to talk about strategies that help us understand what people need. We learned the mirroring method, which is basically repeating what the person just told you so that you fully understood and also by asking questions so that the investigator will be able to answer their own questions. I haven't seen to many people these last weeks. We met one man that is actually Muslim. he works at La Défence and he's pretty young. We met with him a little bit and he is interested in listening to our message so thats great!! This last couple weeks, I just realized that I have finished 1/3 of my mission already. It doesn't even feel like I've been out that long but anyways. We also received a new elder in our apartment, he isn't my comp. but he's really cool. His name is Elder Schroeder. He's actually from Germany and he's awesome. I had the proviledge to be in the same room as him in the MTC and to be in the same district. It was kind of a reunion when he came because we haven't really seen eachother for a while since the MTC but anyways. All is going well, not much more to tell. The work is going slowly here in Antony but it's going. Paris is great. It's pretty cool seeing the Eiffel tower almost everyday. See y'all next week.

-Elder Jex

Antony

So far here in Antony, everything has been going well. We have a ward here so it's a little bigger than what I have seen so far on my mission but in some cases, i'd rather still be in a Branch if it was my choice. branches are so united and are alot nicer to the missionaries. Right now we have a african investigator who in my opinion is on the verge of getting baptized. he says he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet. So i think we just need to extend the invitation to get baptized. Other news here, I'm am living in a 4 man apartment. Now I'm living with a missionary from Belgium. he does not speak english at all but thats good, I can really improve my french by speaking with him a lot. My new Companion's name is Elder Chase. He is from West Jordan Utah, what a surprise. So I've either had a foreign comp or a comp from Utah. Oh well, hopefully I get some French person or a missionary from Spain next time. Anyways, all is going well here. Not much more to say other than Paris is awesome. I've been there about 10 times since i've been in my new area. It's cool playing sports when you can see the eiffel tower within walking distance. Anyways, gotta go
-Elder Jex