First week in Charleville!

Bonjour! 

This week went really well. It started out tough because I
had to say goodbye to all the friends in Tours but change is good. 

I arrived in Charleville on Wednesday night and ever since I have been
seeing some crazy miracles. My new companion is named Elder Asato. He
is from Kearns, Utah. He is the first companion I have had that is
younger than me so forcibly I have been doing the majority of talking
in lessons and contacting. I can already tell my French is becoming
perfected. God has just been helping me so much. Whenever I open my
mouth to speak the French just flows right out. It might just be all
those years of taking French in school or it could be some divine
help. By the end of this six weeks I'll be speaking better than most
locals. Haha. 

On Friday some guy stopped us on the street and ask us
if we were Mormons. After responding affirmatively, he was like "I
have been reading about the restoration, that's what you call it right?
And I want to know more". So we sat right down and taught him about
Joseph Smith. It was great. The best part about it is he even showed
up to church! 

Saturday we were in Paris so that I could have a meeting
with the Zone Leaders about the mission vision. It went well. 

Sunday, we set a baptismal date with a man named Rene for July 24. He is the
husband of a very strong member and about a year ago he started taking
lessons. We also got to teach a man named Stephane and when we showed
up to the appointment he brought two friends. They were both
interested so we handed out some Book of Mormons and set up some
return appointments. It would be safe to say that my first few days in
Charleville have been nothing short of incredible.

As far as the town goes, it is absolutely tiny. Smallest city I have
been in for sure. About a year ago they had only 6 members going to
church. Well, after receiving elders for the first time in years, the
city just exploded with missionary work. After only one year, there
are now 27 people coming to church. I just hope I can keep the trend
going. The wonderful part is all the members love the missionaries and
give us people to teach. There are a few Nigerian refugees that got
baptized and they invite all there friends to church. It's so great.
They are going to teach me how to speak pigeon.


Every time I change cities I just regain the desire to go hard when it
comes to missionary work. I love what I am doing and am so excited to
what the next few weeks will bring. I love y'all. God bless.

Elder Hein

Charleville!!

Bonjour! 

Well I am just going to drop the big news first....I am getting transferred to CHARLEVILLE! It's a small city up north on the Belgian border. My new companion is Elder Asato. He is only 3 months into his mission so it would be safe to say that my French abilities will severely increase within the next transfer. In addition, I am becoming a district leader. It will be a fun next few transfers.

The Missionaries and Frere (Brother) Mayima, Branch President.

The sad thing about transfers is there will be no elders to replace us in Tours. Apparently not enough elders have been coming into the mission so that had to cut our companionship. All of our awesome investigators will be going to the sister missionaries here. When we told all the members the news they were all really sad. Thirty years ago there use to be 8 elders in this branch and now here will be none. t's sad but God has a reason for everything.

Other than that the week went well. Elder Johnson and I have been seeing a lot of success. It's great to see all our hard work payoff. On Thursday we were in Le Mans for a finding day with the whole district. I got to spend sometime with my old companion Elder Kendrick. It was fun to reminisce on old times back in Liege.

Elder Branchflower's lung collapsed again so he was in the hospital for along time. We went and visited him. He is doing fine.  They needed to do more extensive surgery and it went well. He left the hospital today.


We fixed a baptismal date with Xuantao and finished teaching him all the lessons. The date is July 2nd. He is committed to go through with it this time. It's incredible to see what happens to someone as soon as they have that spiritual click.

Herve is doing so great. We committed him to baptism and he said he will when he gets his answer from God and quits smoking. He has already made so much progress. His mother bought us some really nice ties to thank us for all we did.

We had one last night with Maxime at KFC on Friday. He is always making progress. Slowly but surely. One day he will get baptized, I know it.

On Monday we were able to have one final family home evening with all of our friends here. It was really fun. We played basketball (I dominated the court like always) and had a big flan cake. It has been sad saying goodbye to all the friends and investigators we have here. I really enjoyed my time, and I have made friends for a lifetime. The gospel brings people together. It's so wonderful.


Have a wonderful week. God Bless.
Because of the news I have a lot of pictures this week:

Elder Hein

Tours Team (who is the hottie on the left - haha)

Our Tours Branch Mission Leader, Frere Kehli

Family Home Evening - from left to right (Herve, Xuantao, me, Maxime, Felix, Elder Johnson)

Elder Kendrick and I taking a selfie with a famous boxer (apparently)

Elder Kendrick and I contacting the famous boxer

Another week in France

Bonjour! 

Well this past week was crazy to say the least. On Tuesday we

got a call from Elder Branchflower, who is our district leader in

Alencon, saying that he is in the hospital because of a collapsed

lung. Wednesday morning, the zone leaders called telling us we need to

get to Alencon as soon as possible to be with his companion Elder

Clegg. So we get the soonest ticket headed for Alencon but thanks to

these ongoing train strikes, what should have been a 2 hour trip

turned into a 5 hour trip. Haha. Our train just decided to stop in Le

Mans rather than going all the way to Alencon. So we were stuck in Le

Mans for two hours until we found a bus that took us to Alencon. That

bus stopped in every small village imaginable therefore adding another

two hours onto our travel time. It was quite the disaster, haha. The

only consolation is that Elder Branchflower is doing great and was

released from the hospital on Saturday. Apparently a collapsed lung

can happen to anyone just randomly. Weird. Anyways we slept in Alencon

Wednesday night and took Elder Clegg back to Tours for Thursday

through Saturday.

Our investigators are doing great. We saw Herve 4 times this week and

helped him garden a couple times. He continues to make great progress

towards baptism. He reads and prays every day, we just need to help

him stop smoking and he will be baptized. We didn't see Peti all week

but we have been in touch. He had some big things going on at his work

so he couldn't see us but he said next week he will be available.

Maxime is doing great. He feels bad for us that he doesn't feel ready

for baptism so he is trying to help us as much as possible to teach

our other investigators. On Friday he took Xuantao and us out for a

burger at a fast food restaurant. He helped us teach Xuantao about the

gospel. He was bearing testimonies he doesn't even know he has. Haha.

It was good stuff. Speaking of Xuantao, on Sunday he asked to speak

with us during sacrament meeting. He looked really distraught so

Johnson and I thought for sure he was going to drop us but it turns

out he has been really thinking about life and he wants to get

baptized! We hadn't seen him for weeks prior to Friday so we thought

he wasn't interested anymore but apparently not. So if all goes well

he will be baptized on July 2nd. It was quite the miracle.

A couple other random things happened this week. We found this nice L

shaped couch in our trash room. So we hauled it upstairs, cleaned it

up, and it has a made a great addition to our apartment. Studies in

the morning have become a lot more comfortable. Haha. It was missing a

couple legs but luckily we have a lot of extra church magazines

sitting around in the apartment. They make great replacement legs.

Haha.

While in Alencon I got to drive their car because Branchflower

couldn't. After not having driven for 8 months I was a little nervous

but it just like riding a bike. It brought back good memories of

driving the Camry.

Have a wonderful week. Love y'all. God bless

Elder Hein

Euro cup and more strikes

Bonjour! 

 Hope everyone had a great week! 

In France everyone seems to have there eyes set towards the Euro Cup that starts Friday night.
There have been so many ads, banners, and other various propaganda hung up throughout the city in the past couple weeks. It is getting really exciting! 

France has been facing some trials as of late though that could impede the logistics of the big tournament. First of all, this past week has rained so much that rivers are overflowing, trains are being shut down, and streets are being flooded. In Tours the city is built pretty high above the river so we should be safe, but it has almost engulfed the entire first line of trees. There are some missionaries in other cities who may have to evacuate their apartments soon if things don't get better. 

The second problem is ever since the new work law has been proposed there have been so many strikes, especially with the trains. The company who pretty much owns the railway system, SNCF, is striking about pretty much every other day. That basically means that they choose random trains and decide to cancel them. It has been a pain in the neck for missionary work and I can only imagine the disaster it might cause for the Euro Cup. Strikes have also been affecting gas stations and electricity. 

Lastly there is always a threat of another terrorist attack but France have heightened the security a lot in anticipation so if everything goes well that shouldn't be a big problem.

This is the little forest in front of the church.

Missionary work didn't go too well the past week. Bouchaïb seemed to be sailing smoothly towards baptism but last time we saw him he said he wants to ask his family what they think about it. His family has a heavy Muslim background, so they may prohibit him from getting baptized. Xuantao left on vacation and seems to be losing interest, and we didn't get to see Peti at all last week. Herve is the one bright spot! We have finished the missionary lessons with him and now we are just preparing for baptism.

We spent a day in Alencon this week on exchanges with the other elders in our district. That was a lot of fun. Elder Branchflower and I found ourselves sitting on a park bench commentating on a men's Bocci ball game. It was quite amusing and the old men playing loved it so much they started trash talking each other and making jokes. It was a really good time.

My view in the bus

Love y'all. God Bless

Elder Hein

Protests slow the buses

Bonjour! 

I hope everyone is doing well. I think this past week can be described using the word "protest". 

In France, when people are upset, they get the urge to gather in large groups and walk down main streets and protest about what they don't like. Well this past week there was a ton of them and it gets quite annoying when the public transport system gets shut down for a little bit because of them.  I read a stat the other day, and I don't have it with me right now, but it was something like 250+ protests in just the Tours area alone, in 2015. One of the protests this week was held by students in the communist party.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Despite the annoying protests we got some solid work done this week.

Made these for Mother's Day for the women in our ward.

All of our investigators are progressing really well. We got through all the missionary lessons with Hervé! It's amazing how quick someone can soak up the gospel. We started teaching him May 1 and then got through all the lessons by the 25th. So we will continue to visit him and help strengthen his testimony till he is ready to be baptized. He reads the scriptures and prays so I have no doubt his answer will come. We saw Peti one time this week and he is doing amazing. He said he wants to get baptized but before that he just wants to know all that is required of him to be a true disciple of Christ. So we went through the baptismal interview questions with him and he was cool with the all! Hopefully it is now just a matter of time before he becomes baptized. Bouchaïb is just classic Bouchaïb. We helped him understand the importance of Thomas S Monson, repentance, and church attendance this week. He is making progress and will be ready by June 18th  for baptism. Xuantao took his final test ever this week and we got to see him on Sunday. He is doing really well. Now that school is over he will have a lot more time for us (hopefully).

Have a wonderful week! Love y'all! God bless

Elder Hein