Hello again! How is everything going back home? Swimmingly I hope!
Well mom I'm still doing fine, no need to worry haha. Though, I have to
admit I couldn't feel less clean or heathy for that matter right now if I
tried. We have to type all our emails at this sketchy internet café...
its not the most sanitary place. I cringe everytime I put my hands to
the keyboard...
This week went by quicker than the last two... the time is starting
to speed up like the MTC. I can't imagine what it will be like once I
can actually speak the language! So we did exchanges this week. I went
up to Perigueux and worked with E. Bonnet for the day. He's a character.
Things are done a lot different up there. Notably they do a lot more
contacting, since they have less rendez vous, and a lor more people in
their ville. So we spend pretty much the whole day talking to people and
knocking doors. Most the people live in apartments that have one door
at the bottom. So you sit at the bottom qnd call people on the interom
like thing. I rang one house that had an interesting plaque. The other
side answered and I started talking, it was quiet for a second then they
started ranting Bereber (a north african dialect), assuming it was them
being mad at us we waited to call the next room. But then they unlocked
the door. Confused we looked at each other and decided to try and speak
to them in french again. more ranting continued so we decided just to
go inside and port the other doors since we had got in. a couple seconds
later we heard panic and yelling from upstairs, so we went to
investigate. A Nigerian man accompanied by his whole family was standing
at the top of one of the stair cases. He looked like he was staring
into the face of his worst nightmare. He started talking again, but he
didnt know a lick of french. so we tried english, same result. meanwhile
he's spouting out commands to his small army of children. I reached
into my bag and pulled out a livre de mormon and flipped to the picture
of Christ to show him. After this he settled down a bit and called
someone and handed us the phone. Confused E. Bonnet started talking to
the man on the otherline. basically this guy and his family thought we
were the government coming to ship them back to nigeria. The kids
started coming out with duffle bugs filled with their belongings, it was
pretty funny. Finally we cleared everything up; but like we already
could tell he was muslim so there wasnt much for us to do there.
We did a déménagement for this lady last week and she agreed to
hear our message. She was born muslim, but converted témoigne jehovah,
better known as tj (jehovah witness). She is very religiously confused
haha. we shared the message of the restoration with her and the spirit
was super powerful. we'll see what happens with her, as for now we're
gonna help her move again later this week.
Jean-charles, our ami en progès, is doing really well. He reminds
me a ton of Tom. anyways he's changed so much since the first time we
met him, its cool to see. He's got a small library in his apartement.
its incredible, and he's read every book. I'd say 80 percent of it is
all about Christianity. He knows more about the apostacy than most
church members. Anyways its super cool teaching him because everything
we teach him he'll be excited to hear because through his oan research
of Christianity and religion, he has the same conclusion. Also he agrees
with the word of wisdom and law of chastity, even though he has a
couple problems with them. I think its awesome when people know word of
wisom and law of chastity is important, just through the light of
Christ. Because everybody had that knowledge until society corrupts us.
Well Jean is great but he's wanting to be super sure this is the right
thing to do. We have faith that he'll get his answer. hopefully he'll
have the courage to do it once he gets there. In a perfect world we'll
have a baptismal date with him by the end of the month.
Président Roney is in France, and we'll be seeing him this friday
in Bordeaux for zone conference. He seems pretty legit. haha in first
edition of the L'étendard (basically an email of all the mission news
and announcments) with him in charge, he gave us our first cassé. (you
could call a cassé a straightening out, correction, or chewing out in
the states). Soeur Roney said a few nice lines to start the email then
Président ripped into us. haha I'm sure there are gonna be some Elders
that will be kind of offended by it. His bleuville was Bergerac too back
in 1977, so we got that en common!
Bergerac is a fun little town, its tough though finding people that
havent already spoken with the missionaries. In fact E. Wilcox and I
were looking through the old carnet de secteurs and found an elder that
served here for 9 months. he had gone pretty mad being here for so long,
he made in depth charts and info about every member in the branch and
every potential or ami, new or old. He ported every door in the town.
And probably talked to every person in the ville, including plenty of
tourists. Bless his heart.
I hope this email is a little better than the last 2. I love
hearing from everybody though! Reading your emails is so awesome. Well
keep up the faith! I love you all! The church is true, and God bless
America!
Forever Love
Elder Benjamin Gruber
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