Livin' on a prayer!

Bonjour tout le monde!

       Half way through the MTC! Sorry you got sick mom, hope you feel better! As much as the kids have complained about their trip to Mt. Rushmore, I can't say I'm glad I missed it, it sounds fun to me. It's weird the things you notice missing when you can't do them anymore, like driving, listening to music, following the news, and watching football. Go Utes!

       Also, I noticed that in your questions that I didn't explain things that great. First off, after our first full week, and the email I sent then, we had our first lesson with our second teacher, Frere Nadault. He's awesome. He went to Lyon France for his mission, and actually was companions with Frere Barnes for 4 months. But now it gets confusing. This last week we had a district leave, (I'll tell more below) and they were going to change Frere Barnes to pick up the new district coming in, and because they want each district to have a Brother and Sister teacher, we got a new teacher, Soeur Jensen. BUT, then when the new district came in, it was only 4 people, so they combined it with another district, and Frere Barnes isn't teaching them, so we actually have three teachers. 

       Second off, our "investigators" are our teachers. Jean-Baptiste (our first investigator) was Frere Nadault, (that was a surprise when we walked into class and saw him) and is now being Alexis. Frere Barnes is guy named Allie, and Soeur Jensen is an old lady named Sophie. They are all acting as people they taught on their mission, so that's kinda cool. We also teach real members once a week, it's called TRC, and basically we teach people being themselves. It's a few native French people who moved here, some are here for school, others for work, and there are a bunch of RMs at BYU who went to a French speaking mission who will volunteer to be taught. It's really awesome, it's probably one of the highlights of my week.

       Late night shenanigans? Yes and no. One really cool thing that the French district guys do is we sing French hymns (cantiques) every night. Its really really cool, we'll sing a hymn, share a spiritual thought, say a prayer in French, and be done. But we share our building with some other districts, and I don't think they understand what "quiet time" means. They have pillow fights, stand in the showers screaming, duck tape people up and leave them on the floor, its pretty bad. It was really sad too, President Martino talked about it this fast sunday in our mission conference, got really choked up about it, and people totally ignored it. But everyone has their agency, so there's not much I can do. Also, I got Jonas's first email, don't know if he sent another one yet. 

       Yes mom, my suits fit. Yes mom, I'm eating healthy. I've actually been losing weight here. Enough said?

       I started typing up a bunch of my thoughts on devotionals, lessons, my personal scripture study, etc... on my iPad. I'm going to send it all from their later today. I had started writing it on paper, but so much happens that I ended up just adding more and more because if I sent it, I'd miss something. I promise to send it. 

       Anyway, I've had an awesome week! We've done a lot of teaching, and our teachers are saying we are doing a really good job. Every class we learn more French grammar too, Futur prose, passé composé avec Avoir et Étre, direct and indirect pronouns, directive pronouns, its a lot to take in, but I think I'm doing ok. This Sunday was fast Sunday, and a lot of the Barbados missionaries in our district were bearing their testimonies, it was really good. We had a big mission conference instead of lunch, where president Gilbert and his wife talked, and President Martino and his wife did as well. I'm kinda ashamed to admit it, but I fell asleep in Pres. Gilbert's talk, but woke up for the Martino's, and they were incredible. Talked a lot about the Gospel of Christ. For Sunday devotional we didn't have anyone come from outside, it was President Weidmann and his wife, but they actually were awesome. But Tuesday devotional, we had Elder Oaks come and speak to us. It was really cool, although he really freaked everyone out when he started out, he said,"Elders and Sisters, we are going to dearly miss our beloved prophet, President Monson," and continued to talk about him in the past tense for 2 minutes that felt like an eternity! Everyone was really freaking out, because they thought he had come to tell us that Pres. Monson had died. Finally he said something in the present tense, and everyone visibly sighed! I'll tell you more about what he said in my other email. 

       Also, one more thing to say, I had a really cool experience with the district. Whenever a district leaves for the mission, we get together and sing Souvien-toi, one of the unique-to-French hymns. It's really beautiful, and everyone was crying. The meaning is really beautiful too, look up the words when you get the chance. I decided that I want one of my kids to sing it at my funeral. Our roommates are leaving this Tuesday, so we'll do it again Monday. 

       Love you all, have a good week, keep my dog alive,

Elder Marsh