Christmas

Bonjour and Merry Christmas! 

This past week was incredible. The festivities started on Wednesday with a Christmas Conference in Versailles. We had Bishop Cause come to the event so that was really cool. All throughout the week elder Pande and I had to buy metro tickets for the whole mission to get to Versailles. We would meet the missionaries at the train station in the morning and then meet them when they went home. It took a lot of time and money. Haha. 

On Christmas Eve we had an activity with the district. We got together lots of food and handed it out to homeless people. It turned out to be a huge success. That evening we had dinner with a Chinese member named Joe. He is super cool. It was definitely an interesting evening with him speaking Mandarin the whole time but it was fun anyway. On Christmas we went to church, ate lunch with a member, Skyped the family, and ate dinner with another member. All in all we had a wonderful Christmas weekend filled with joy and laughter. 

Have a terrific week. God Bless. 

Elder Hein

Survived a trampling!

Bonjour! 

This past week was another fun one. It started off on pday with a fun game of soccer. We played with Elder Nagloo (my MTC companion) and a few other missionaries just at a local field. It was a lot of fun. 

Tuesday we traveled out to Rouen and then Caen to attend their district meetings. Rouen was super cool. It is known in France for having the most cathedrals out of any city and it definitely lived up to that reputation. It was like Mormon churches in Utah, one on every corner. 

Wednesday we were suppose to go to a district meeting in Versailles but somehow we got roped into cleaning out the old Assistant's apartment. Super dirty. 

Thursday evening we had one of our many visitors center shifts, but during this one some guy came in and talked to me for 3 hours straight about Armageddon and his 2 year adventure in the forest. I literally said 4 words. Bonjour, Oui, Au Revoir. Haha. 

Friday was the best day of the week because we got to go to Brussels to pick up Elder Pande's Belgian legality. It was so great to be in that city again and to meet up with a lot of the young adults I hadn't seen for a while. We ate lots of waffles and fries. There isn't a lot of other noteworthy stuff that happened this past week other than the fact that I almost got trampled to death on the metro. Basically the pollution is getting "really bad" (I am breathing perfectly fine) so Paris has the genius idea of making all public transport free, which I am all on board for, but all the metros are always so packed now. It's pretty crazy. We were stampeding onto the B with about a quadrillion other people and somehow I found myself on the floor trying to get back up. It was crazy but amusing look back at it now. Anyways, have a terrific week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Soccer

Brussels

Feed the Birds

Bonjour! 

This past week was another stellar one. Tuesday we got to do a thing called mothering. Basically missionaries in Paris go to the office and meet the new missionaries who just walked off the plane. Then we take them out contacting for a few hours. It's just to give them a little taste of what is to come for the next two years. Haha. It was a lot of fun. 

Wednesday was Transfer day. I had put myself in charge of the northern train station. I got there at about 8:45 am and immediately we had some problems. All the trains coming in to the eastern train station got delayed two hours. This caused some major problems seeing as how we had set up a perfect intricate plan that was now destroyed. Needless to say I was on the phone for the next couple of hours figuring out how to escort people to different train stations, buying new train tickets, and communicating with the other train station leaders. It was hectic but fun. After that little dilemma I thought everything was going to go smoothly but nope, it didn't. Basically at the northern train station someone cut 200 meters worth of electric wire just outside the train station, which meant no trains could leave or come in until it was fixed. What was suppose to be an 8:45 to 1:00 shift turned into 8:45 to 6 pm shift. Haha 9 hours of standing in the same spot. I started to go a little crazy. Haha. 

Thursday we went to go feed the seagulls. So last week I explained the Christmas thing that we are doing during the month, well this past Thursday we were invited to feed the birds. Elder Pande and I bought a lot of baguettes and the seagulls came. A lot of seagulls came. It was absolutely crazy. 

Friday we had mission council. President relayed to us the new vision for the transfer. In short, we are preparing for our goal of 2017 which is 80% success for people who have baptismal dates actually getting baptized. It will be hard but we can do it. Well those are the big highlights of the week. We also got fed by some German members, had our ward Christmas party, and played soccer on pday. It was a good week. 

Have a terrific week. God Bless

Elder Hein

The Birds

Elder Pande and I

Life in Paris is always 1000 MPH

Bonjour! 

Christmas in Paris

This past week was stellar. Life in Paris is always 1000mph. We had so much to do this past week and this upcoming week it is nothing short of incredible. It's like having finals week, every week. I'm so happy I have this opportunity to go hard everyday for God. 

This past week we had a lot of administrative work to do. On Tuesday we spent a really good portion of the day creating an iPad and tablet Rubric for the mission. President wants there to be a document with all the rules for each application on it. So guess who he gives that duty to? That's right... your very own Paris elders. Haha. In reality it was actually a lot of fun.

 Thursday, Elder Pande and I had to throw on our soccer mom hats again and organize a big activity for all the new missionaries that was going to happen the next day. Basically all the missionaries who came into the country during the last transfer have to go to a doctor in Paris for legality stuff. Us Elders have to buy food, buy metro tickets, set up chairs, etc for the event. Friday the event actually happened. All went well other than one kid who forgot his passport. Oh well. 

I got to go contacting with my MTC companion elder Lamothe that day! It was super fun and we were able to see a lot of success. 

Saturday we went out to Caen to do a finding day with that district. Caen is not the most beautiful city but I definitely had a terrific time. Caen is found up in the Normandy region. A lot of the citizens there really respect us for what happened there 70 years ago. 

Sunday we had another terrible choir practice. I think I am going to jump ship. Haha. 

Elder Pande and I are also tasked with creating the instructions for transfer day on Wednesday. Basically what this entails is giving separate instructions to 130 missionaries who are coming into Paris to get transferred or get a new companion. The catch is we can't meet all in one place because the police doesn't let us. So we have to do a lot number crunching and logistics to get this puppy off the ground. After about 6 hours of work we finished. I loved it. Logistics are so fun.

 

Have a wonderful week. God Bless Go Cowboys

Cody 

We are doing this 25 days of Christmas thing with the mission. Basically we have to do a nice thing everyday and send in a photo of it. The first day was making breakfast for your companion. 

Enjoying a crumbly baguette

1200 euros

Bonjour!

This past week was another hectic one in Paris. 

On Tuesday, our trio companionship got turned back into two as Elder Harris left for California. We were able to have a wonderful goodbye lunch with all the young adults at a Chinese buffet. 

Wednesday through Friday a member of the area 70 came to visit our mission. On each of those days there was a combined zone conference. Elder Pande and I were in charge of all the logistics for the all the conferences. We had to buy Subway, buy plates, buy plastic forks, buy drinks, set up for the event, take down the event, clean up the event, organize metro travel, etc. It was absolutely incredible. Over those 3 days I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 euros for the food and stuff. We had absolutely no time to do actual missionary work. Haha. It was so much fun though. We got to see all the missionaries in the mission and feed them pumpkin pie. So fun. 

The conference itself went really well though. It lasted about 5 hours and he really stressed the importance of simplifying the gospel of Jesus Christ. He also held a council for all the zone leaders where he discussed the mental health of the missionaries. We are going to try and make sure everyone is happy, especially around this wonderful Christmas season. 

Speaking of Christmas, Paris is becoming real Christmasy. It's super fun. Christmas lights and tress are everywhere! 

Oh yeah, somehow Pande and I got roped into the ward choir for this years Christmas program. We had practice on Sunday and it was terrible. Haha. We are going to have to put some real good work in. In my opinion, there just was not enough Christmas cookies there to help us sing better. Haha. 

Have a wonderful week. God Bless and Go Cowboys

Elder Hein

Arc de Triumph

Goodbye Elder Harris

The Seine

Quite Eventful

Bonjour!

I hope everyone is doing well! The past week was quite eventful. On
Wednesday we got a call from some Americans that were at the airport
and needed to talk to us. Well we rushed over there and turns out they
were just a couple of missionaries who were flying to Sierra Leon and
had a lay over in Paris. They thought that we would be willing to give
them a tour. Haha. What a joke. So we took them out contacting. Haha.

Wednesday night we got woken up at around midnight to help some
sisters in our zone talk with the police about a domestic violence
case. It was quite exciting. We also had 3 exchanges this week
including one with the assistants in Versailles. That was really fun.
I was actually able to find a lady from Madagascar who was baptized
there a long time ago and didn't know where the church was in France.
She was super cool, and when I started dropping names of cities in
Madagascar (thanks jessey) she was really impressed. Haha. 

On Saturday we had 5 people get baptized. It was a wonderful experience. Ill
attach pictures. Sunday night we had dinner at a member's house right
below the Eiffel Tower. It was so sick. Life is incredible right now.
Have a wonderful week, eat lots of Turkey, and play lots of Football.


God Bless and Go Cowboys

Cody

Elders Kwok and Pande

La Défense Christmas Market

Busy Week!

Bonjour! 

Another stellar week has passed in the city of Paris. This week was highlighted by 3 different exchanges spread out through the week. 

To summarize the week: 

Tuesday the elders from Cergy came and worked with us, Wednesday we worked with the Chinese elders, Thursday we had a zone activity, Friday we had exchanges with the Mantes Elders, Saturday was a lot of baptismal interviews, and Sunday was a day of planning. (I know that was a really bad run on sentence). Needless to say we were super busy all the time. The baptismal interviews all went well, meaning this next Saturday the Sti Lankan family and the Mba family will get baptized. It will be such a terrific day. 

Another cool thing we did this past week is we had the oppurtunity to play basketball with one of our recent converts and some other french homies at a gym. We had five missionaries come so we made a team and ran the court. No one could stop us. It was a lot of fun balling up again. 

The zone activity went really well on Thursday. We had some work shops in the morning followed by contacting in the afternoon. We had about 30 missionaries come and participate. It was a lot of fun. 

The trio companionship has been superb. We have been getting so much work done and at the same time cracking each other up. We get along really well and the Lord has been blessing us with crazy amounts of work. Life is so A1 right now. 

Not a whole lot more to say. France is a little on edge right now just because yesterday was a year since the Paris attacks. It's crazy to think its already been a year. 

I love yall. Thanks for the emails. God Bless and go cowboys. 

Elder Hein

This man was painting on seran-wrap

Pompidou Center

A random arch in the city

Snow

Bonjour! 

Another crazy week has passed here in Paris. It's unbelievable the amount of work that I have been blessed to come into. This past week we spent a lot of time going to 4 different district meeting in our zone. It was really fun. We were able to go to Rouen, Caen, Cergy, and our own in Paris. It was really cool to see the west of France, an area I have yet to see. 

The trio is doing really well. We had a couple of hours to go contacting this week and we found 15 new investigators. It was absolutely incredible. I have never had this much success on my mission. The key to success I have found is hard work and prayers. I think that can be applied to anything in life. 

It started snowing today! Word on the street is it will be the coldest winter in a very long time. Im not terribly excited for that. Haha. 

Our investigators are doing really well. We have been teaching them all the time and we hope they will be ready for their interviews on Saturday. 

One of our most promising new investigators is named Simon. We found him on the street next to the metro and he is super cool. In the first lesson he came to the realization that God needs to call another prophet and then we were like "He did" and he was so happy. Haha. It was really funny to see. 

Sundays are really interesting. At church we have about 170 people at church but half of them are American tourists. It's always so hard to figure out who is an investigator and who isn't. Haha. 

Thanks for all your emails and support. 

Have a wonderful week. God Bless

(Also the cubs won the World Series? What? Haha)

Hein, Pande, Harris

"Paris Life" is Incredible!

Bonjour!

Paris life is incredible. I have never been busier on my mission. The week started off on Tuesday in Charleville. It was a great day. I got to say goodbye to a lot of members and the "regulars" we see on the street. Haha. Wednesday rolled around and I arrived in Paris with a lot of work to do right off the bat. What I have learned over the past few days is Paris ZLs do all the dirty work for the APs. So on Wednesday, we were in charge of getting all the missionaries to and from different train stations around Paris, with their luggage, to find their new companions. It was a lot of fun but extremely tiring.

Thursday we were in charge of buying lunch and setting up for mission council the next day. Friday we went to mission council all day. Saturday we had a meeting with all the district leaders in our Zone. Sunday was church. We also had 3, 3 hour visitor center shifts, and multiple appointments spread out around the weekend. It was super crazy but I couldn't be happier.

My companions are so much fun. We are having a lot of fun together. The mission has a joke that Elder Harris is the cat in the hat and Pande and I are Thing 1 and 2 respectively. 

A little about our investigators (the ones I met): So we have 5 baptismal dates spread between 2 families, and a lot of other solid investigators. Martin and Rosa is an older couple from Equatorial Guinea. They are currently living in an embassy right next to the Arc de Triumph because he is getting some medical work done here. I got to teach them Friday night and they are super solid. The other family comes from Sri Lanka. They are super legit. I was able to meet them at church but we haven't visited them yet. All of the baptisms are in 4 weeks. 

The best thing about Paris is the shower we have in the apartment. It's so nice. It has jets that shoot out from the wall, a magic wand, and the shower head is the kind that is like rain fall. Idk how well of a description that is but in any case it's real nice. 

We were on the metro the other night and some ladies told us that our costumes were really good. They thought we were dressing up as Mormon missionaries for Halloween. Haha. It was really funny. 

Just a quick announcement, because I am in Paris P-Days have become a lot more interesting. This means I will not have as much time to do emails so I apologize if my email quality goes down over the next few months. I will still respond, they might just be a lot shorter. Thanks for the understanding. 

Love y'all. Have a great week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Mission Council

Lunch at Mission Council

On to Paris!

Bonjour!

I hope everyone had a stellar week. My week was pretty A1. Tuesday we had my final district meeting with my small but incredible district. It was a good end to a fun 3 transfers. We found a man later in the day who stopped us as we were crossing the street. He wondered what school we go to so we told him that we were missionaries. He was interested and gave us his card. He actually works with the mayor of Charleville as a cabinet member. He said he "wants to see us in his office for lunch one day". Elder Silva and I work with only the most famous people in Charleville. Haha. 

Wednesday and Thursday flew by, and on Friday we were in Reims for a small finding day with the sisters and a baptismal interview. It was a really fun day finished by a district meal at a boulangerie. Sister Tuahine said that it is Tahitian tradition to make/buy a big meal for the departing leader so she treated us really nice. Saturday we got transfer news and then headed down to Meaux's sector for a big zone finding day. It wasn't nearly as well planned as our finding day in Charleville but it was still fun. I was with Elder Mansfield for the day. We were assigned to work in a tiny village called Coulommiers. I always complain about Charleville but there was no one on the streets haha. Although, we did end up finding this really nice lady who had given her numbers to missionaries in the past but they never called her. She was really interested and listened to us teach her all three of the first lessons on a park bench. We have her number to the Meaux elders so hopefully they contact her in the near future. Meaux is also where DisneyLand Paris is located. We got to see the village for a brief moment before we left for Coulommiers and it brought back good Disney childhood memories.

On Monday I had a goodbye dinner with the Biver family. I consider them to be the "rock" family of our small branch. They are there for everything and are always trying to help the missionaries.

So now for transfer news. I got transferred to be the Paris Zone Leader. It is going to be so much fun! My new companions are Elder Harris and Elder Pande. It will be a trio for the first four weeks or so and then Elder Harris will depart for home. We live right in the heart of Paris with the Chinese Elders. There are so many things to look forward to. I couldn't be happier to be in a big city. Brussels treated me really nice and I'm sure Paris will be the same. 

Have a wonderful week. God Bless 

District (numbers are how many transfers we have been out for)

Charleville by night

Final District Meal

River Family minus the mother and brother

Train or be Trained

Charleville

Bonjour!

Another stellar week here in the Charleville-Mezieres. I only got one more week here in this small but kind of beautiful city, so I am going to try and make it count.

Elder Silva and I spent a lot of time this past week re-contacting people who had been contacted during our big zone activity last week. Most everyone we tried to meet with again were not indicatively interested in our message, but there was one lady who Elder Silva and I think will go far in the gospel. Her name is Laticia. She has a young family and a husband, and she would really like to become more religious in her life. We taught the first lesson, gave her a Book of Mormon, and set up a return meeting. It is really exciting for me because I have never been able to teach a full family on my mission, and that is something I have always wanted to do. 

Emmanuel was in Reims all week so we did not get to see him at all. We got to see Landry again but it was not as great as the first time. He seems to have trouble with the concept of authority. To me, it just makes sense that God's church should have His authority, but it is a classic discussion that comes up at least once with all of our investigators. 

"Silva take the wheel!!!! *in my best Carrie Underwood voice* Was the phrase of this past week and the week to come. I decided that since I will most likely be leaving I should start letting him make all the decisions. Basically, I become the trainee for two weeks while he becomes the trainer. He has been doing a very good job. I didn't expect much less from him. He comes from a great mission father. Haha. 

I get amazed every week at the different scenarios the mission puts me in. This week was highlighted by a strange first lesson with two gay men, who were drunk, and rolling joints. Never in a million years did I think I would ever be put in a situation like that, and I am glad I have a sense of direction from God in my life to prevent me from reaching a point like that in my life. Elder Silva and I had a good laugh about it afterwards but it made me realize that I am so lucky to be blessed with a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and a wonderful God. 

Have a fantastic week. God Bless and Go Cowboys!!!!!!

Elder Hein