Sunday, May 30, 2010
Homecoming
Michael made it home on Thursday May 27, 2010. He flew in to the Idaho Falls Airport at 10:35pm.
He spoke in church on that Sunday May 30, 2010 and did a great job.
WELCOME HOME MICHAEL !!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010
hey family!
well...i have a week left... and not much too say. preparation day got changed to tuesday so thats why i'm writing today... its kind of silly though because i it changes for no reason and i'm sick of it... good thing i'm not going to be here for very long.
i dont exactly know how to express the feelings that i have been having lately. it seems kind of like yesterday, that i went said goodbye to you and went into the MTC... and now here we are two weeks later (years i know...) and i only have a day left. it sucks... i mean im way excited to see you again but i love the mission... i've gotten really comfortable here.
it's been kind of funny trying to think of what to talk about at church when i get home... like 3000 things have gone through my head and i cant pick... i've learned and grown so much! i feel really privileged to have served the lord for so long. if there is one thing that i have learned for sure in being here...one thing that has been anchored into my soul... is that God loves us. More than we could ever imagine! i've been privileged to feel that love and to help spread it with those around me! it hurts, a LOT, to know that there are people that dont know that. that when lifes trials destroy their lives they have no where to turn, and no one to lean on. people that use the simple things in life... technology that allows us to communicate on the other side of the world with the ones we love, and fail to realize the relationship that we can have with a perfectly loving heavenly father! who, though i imagine it pained him greatly, allowed his firstborn son to come to this earth and suffer unexplainable pain of the worst kind so that we, sinners...infideles...but most importantly,his children, to return and live with Him and the people that we have grown to love for time and all eternity. its so great! he loves us so much! 1 nephi 11:17 has become one of my favorite scriptures.
i love you so much! umm... I love you because of the examples that you show me, your diligence, your faith in the face of adversity, and because of your love. thanks for all of your support and all of your greatness! the work of the lord will continue! even in france! LoveYOu!
Elder Michael Laws
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
May 11, 2010
hey family! hows it going!?
well it has been a pretty good week this week. umm since last time we havent really done too much exciting. last week was a really cool week and i'll explain why. we fixed a lot of goals because on an average we dont find that many new investigators per companionship per week. so all last week we did some sacrificing in order to find more people to teach. some of the different things including only taking half the time for dinner, finding at least 4 hours per day, speaking only french all week etc. and in doing that we were able to triple the amount of people found per companionship that week. which is really cool.
one of the people we added was a lady that contacted us and we went to her house... but! we only had her first name so we didnt know which name to ring in the building... because it was by last names. so we just rang at one... and it was her! haha so cool. then umm the other person we added was pretty cool too because we just ported a building that we hadnt yet and the second door we knocked on this little girl answered and then went to get her dad but he just told her to let us in.. so we went in and he was just like wait for a second i'll be right with you.. anyways he turned out to be this really cool guy who was taught in the past by different missionaries but he moved. and now we refound him.. which is pretty cool.
umm.. then lets see. on saturay we went and played soccer and then the ladies that we helped move called us and we helped them put up an new bed. and then just had some rendezvous and stuff. then on sunday we went to church. after church we went with a family and one of our investigators to eat lunch and teach him. and well we ate lunch, which was really good! and then at 15h00 i called the parents! crazy huh! it was mothers day! i actually feel really bad because i wasnt at all in the mood to talk or anything... probably because i really like it here and i'm going to have to leave soon.. but thats okay i'll get over it probably! just know that if i'm depressed at all when i get home its not your fault... anyways so it was good to talk and i got to talk to keshia a little too... and your voice sounds different to me... (must be that you matured a little... thats probably it...) which was fun. umm ya...
then on another day that i cant remember i ya...idk whats next. i hope that you have a great week! Love you!
Elder Laws
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
May 05, 2010
hey FAMILY!!!
how is everyone doing?!?!?!? i'm doing really good... cold but good. we played soccer in this little handball court today.. but it was raining cats and dogs quoi!!! so now i'm all wet but thats ok...
um this weeke has been pretty good. we havent had any really crazy experiences or anything cool but it was fun anyways. On saturday it was may 1st which is "le fete du travail" work day... anyways they celebrate by not working! there was like no one out except the people manifesting... walking in the streets for a cause.... i dont know how to say that!!! haha! anyways it was for the political parties... communist and socialist... lame! anyways there was no form of public transportation whatsoever so we had to walk everywhere... and lYon is a HUGe city! but ya so also on saturday we had Interviews with President... it is SOO weird! ugh... just like your going home soon stuff... then sister Murdock when they were leaving "See you in a couple weeks!" not funny! but ya it was really good.
We did a fun finding activity on Monday by the Institute. We gave out cookies to people and had pamphlets on the table and stuff... it was really good. they loved the cookies haha! they're american cookies what can you expect! anyways we had a lot of success and the sister missionaries taught one of the people that we talked to yesterday... which is way cool.umm oh and on sunday we passed these people and it was a family from french polynesia and turns out the dad is a member;.. less active... and the rest of the family isnt... they were way nice though and really cooL. i was like ya... my dad sold Noni... and they were like thats good stuff! it was funny! umm
and ya thats about all for me this week!
love you all!
Elder Laws
how is everyone doing?!?!?!? i'm doing really good... cold but good. we played soccer in this little handball court today.. but it was raining cats and dogs quoi!!! so now i'm all wet but thats ok...
um this weeke has been pretty good. we havent had any really crazy experiences or anything cool but it was fun anyways. On saturday it was may 1st which is "le fete du travail" work day... anyways they celebrate by not working! there was like no one out except the people manifesting... walking in the streets for a cause.... i dont know how to say that!!! haha! anyways it was for the political parties... communist and socialist... lame! anyways there was no form of public transportation whatsoever so we had to walk everywhere... and lYon is a HUGe city! but ya so also on saturday we had Interviews with President... it is SOO weird! ugh... just like your going home soon stuff... then sister Murdock when they were leaving "See you in a couple weeks!" not funny! but ya it was really good.
We did a fun finding activity on Monday by the Institute. We gave out cookies to people and had pamphlets on the table and stuff... it was really good. they loved the cookies haha! they're american cookies what can you expect! anyways we had a lot of success and the sister missionaries taught one of the people that we talked to yesterday... which is way cool.umm oh and on sunday we passed these people and it was a family from french polynesia and turns out the dad is a member;.. less active... and the rest of the family isnt... they were way nice though and really cooL. i was like ya... my dad sold Noni... and they were like thats good stuff! it was funny! umm
and ya thats about all for me this week!
love you all!
Elder Laws
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Apr. 28, 2010
Hey family how is everyone doing?
Well this has been a pretty exciting week. on wednesday we went to this museum.. of fine arts... or in english fine arts museum... anyways it was fun i guess i took some pictures that i wanted to send you but i dont have my camera or my sd card so thats too bad! then we had to leave a little early because we had a rendezvous that night with a member family. it was great!. umm so then the next day... thursday we had zone conference...my last... weird... anyways it was really good and we talked about The week of consecration that we are going to have next week. its going to be pretty cool i guess, and hard. we are only going to take half our dinner time and do at least 4 hours of finding every day which is going to be hard but we are going to have SOO many miracles. its going to be great!
we kind of tested a little bit the 4 hours of finding already and we had some good miracles... one that we had.. well ok so we were in this building looking for a guy and trying to decide what we were going to do, because he wasnt there, and so we decided to knock on the doors in the building which didnt really produce anything there wasnt anyone there but then when we got out of the building this guy like stopped us and asked us who we were and he was this 19 year old kid that was way cool. so ya... and then later we were deciding what we should do we only had like 15 minutes left and so we decided to pass a lady.. and it turned out there were these other people moving into the building... it was a mom and her daughter... and so we were like can we help you? and we helped them get like the bed frame in and up some of the stairs and realized that we had to dismantle it and so we ran to our apartment (it was like 5 minutes away) got some tools and came back!!! and it was broken!!! la HONTE! soo anyways we offered our services for the next day because they werent finished and they said ok that works... so the next day we came and helped them finish and it was us the mom the daughter and her boyfriend... so like at the end the mom was like thank you so much for everything like if it werent for you we would still be moving in like 2 days, its like God sent you! ... he did! it was way cool and this week they said that they were going to come to church and ya! thats so great! that was a sweet miracle! anyways other than that nothing way exciting has happened except that today we played sports including basketball! come to find out i cant jump as high anymore! but it still made me miss it way bad! anyways love you all hope you have a great week!
Elder Michael Laws
Well this has been a pretty exciting week. on wednesday we went to this museum.. of fine arts... or in english fine arts museum... anyways it was fun i guess i took some pictures that i wanted to send you but i dont have my camera or my sd card so thats too bad! then we had to leave a little early because we had a rendezvous that night with a member family. it was great!. umm so then the next day... thursday we had zone conference...my last... weird... anyways it was really good and we talked about The week of consecration that we are going to have next week. its going to be pretty cool i guess, and hard. we are only going to take half our dinner time and do at least 4 hours of finding every day which is going to be hard but we are going to have SOO many miracles. its going to be great!
we kind of tested a little bit the 4 hours of finding already and we had some good miracles... one that we had.. well ok so we were in this building looking for a guy and trying to decide what we were going to do, because he wasnt there, and so we decided to knock on the doors in the building which didnt really produce anything there wasnt anyone there but then when we got out of the building this guy like stopped us and asked us who we were and he was this 19 year old kid that was way cool. so ya... and then later we were deciding what we should do we only had like 15 minutes left and so we decided to pass a lady.. and it turned out there were these other people moving into the building... it was a mom and her daughter... and so we were like can we help you? and we helped them get like the bed frame in and up some of the stairs and realized that we had to dismantle it and so we ran to our apartment (it was like 5 minutes away) got some tools and came back!!! and it was broken!!! la HONTE! soo anyways we offered our services for the next day because they werent finished and they said ok that works... so the next day we came and helped them finish and it was us the mom the daughter and her boyfriend... so like at the end the mom was like thank you so much for everything like if it werent for you we would still be moving in like 2 days, its like God sent you! ... he did! it was way cool and this week they said that they were going to come to church and ya! thats so great! that was a sweet miracle! anyways other than that nothing way exciting has happened except that today we played sports including basketball! come to find out i cant jump as high anymore! but it still made me miss it way bad! anyways love you all hope you have a great week!
Elder Michael Laws
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Apr. 21, 2010
hey family!!!
at lot of cool stuff happened this week for you thats sweet! congratulations JESSE!! thats way cool. finally one of my sisters gives me another nephew.... that took long enough! there are definately enough girls already in the family! anyways! its been a great week.
well... i guess that being sick (constipated... :(..) for like 5 days wasnt that much fun, or my companion rolling his ankle... but it was still a great week!
on tuesday (preparation day) we went bowling again... it wasnt as good as last time but it was fun anyways. this week we arent going to go though... i guess since we're in france we might as well visit stuff. anyways after that we went and visited one of my favorite families here. they have a couple girls that are like 12 that arent very interested but since elder liechty and elder lepretre and me have been here they have started to change a lot. its pretty cool. oh and that morning we went or i guess like at noon we went and passed the guy whos way into indian stuff etc.. and a bunch of his friends were over which is cool.
on wednesday well i was sick and so we did a little exchange with the Zone leaders because we had a rendezvous to help our ward mission leader get a fridge etc... so i just sat around for a while reading the scriptures(turns out that they got in an accident! which is funny to me... but really sad) and then since it took them a lot longer than it should have i went with Elder Wery (hes from belguim) to the gare to buy some tickets for some missionaries that had got transfered and then we went to the institute because elder wery had to translate for this couple into french because these ladies from germany (americans) came to do some training... so basicallly i sat around. for the rest of the day. thursday we had district meeting with our new district! (no one changed haha!) we added another companionship to our district though because the other sister companionship in lyon got closed down. so now there is only one district in lyon. and i'm the district leader of the biggest district in the mission! WOW... (all that means is i have to call more people...which i hate doing!) anyways then we had our DMP meeting... which is with our ward mission leader anyways it was good but since i wasnt feeling that well we went back to the apart for the rest of the day until we went to our rendezvous that night. It was with Mathilde who is way cool and reads the book of mormon everyday and prays and stuff it was great!
friday we had a couple of rendezvous that went really well but nothing way exciting happend. one of the people we taught asked why churches (in general) baptized in the name of the father the son and the holy ghost.... and not just in christs name... because in the bible it says multiple times to baptize in the name of Jesus christ... i think its funny because i had no idea... i dont study other churches. just ours... so i told her why we do it! anyways that was kind of a silly story.
saturday morning we played soccer and thats when elder Liechty decided to roll his ankle. (it wasnt really a decision that he made but he did it anyways... weirdo). then that night we had a ward activity that like maybe 20 people came to (two of which amis) and a guy that we play soccer with came so that is sweet! anyways we played this game like 4 times thats called werewolf and basically i think that its just the same as mofia but with a some more charactors etc... (if any of you know what that game is haha!) it was fun even with only a little bit of people...
sunday was good we had our mission president come to our meeting and give a talk which was good. (sorry that i didnt give you any information for your talk dad... i failed to realize that it was so soon.) anyways after church we went with a family and our amis to their house and we ate lunch... STEAK! it was SOOOO good. oh man... it was good.. i'm starting to drool so i'm going to stop thinking about it but it was good and fun... and then because of a strike thats been going on for a while (which had ruined SO many of our plans) we didnt get home until late. anyways things have been going really well! and its been a great week! i love you and hope you have great weeks!
Elder Michael Laws
Je vous aime tous!
oh the picture of the little green guy came from me getting bored... and distracted! he's a rockstar though!
at lot of cool stuff happened this week for you thats sweet! congratulations JESSE!! thats way cool. finally one of my sisters gives me another nephew.... that took long enough! there are definately enough girls already in the family! anyways! its been a great week.
well... i guess that being sick (constipated... :(..) for like 5 days wasnt that much fun, or my companion rolling his ankle... but it was still a great week!
on tuesday (preparation day) we went bowling again... it wasnt as good as last time but it was fun anyways. this week we arent going to go though... i guess since we're in france we might as well visit stuff. anyways after that we went and visited one of my favorite families here. they have a couple girls that are like 12 that arent very interested but since elder liechty and elder lepretre and me have been here they have started to change a lot. its pretty cool. oh and that morning we went or i guess like at noon we went and passed the guy whos way into indian stuff etc.. and a bunch of his friends were over which is cool.
on wednesday well i was sick and so we did a little exchange with the Zone leaders because we had a rendezvous to help our ward mission leader get a fridge etc... so i just sat around for a while reading the scriptures(turns out that they got in an accident! which is funny to me... but really sad) and then since it took them a lot longer than it should have i went with Elder Wery (hes from belguim) to the gare to buy some tickets for some missionaries that had got transfered and then we went to the institute because elder wery had to translate for this couple into french because these ladies from germany (americans) came to do some training... so basicallly i sat around. for the rest of the day. thursday we had district meeting with our new district! (no one changed haha!) we added another companionship to our district though because the other sister companionship in lyon got closed down. so now there is only one district in lyon. and i'm the district leader of the biggest district in the mission! WOW... (all that means is i have to call more people...which i hate doing!) anyways then we had our DMP meeting... which is with our ward mission leader anyways it was good but since i wasnt feeling that well we went back to the apart for the rest of the day until we went to our rendezvous that night. It was with Mathilde who is way cool and reads the book of mormon everyday and prays and stuff it was great!
friday we had a couple of rendezvous that went really well but nothing way exciting happend. one of the people we taught asked why churches (in general) baptized in the name of the father the son and the holy ghost.... and not just in christs name... because in the bible it says multiple times to baptize in the name of Jesus christ... i think its funny because i had no idea... i dont study other churches. just ours... so i told her why we do it! anyways that was kind of a silly story.
saturday morning we played soccer and thats when elder Liechty decided to roll his ankle. (it wasnt really a decision that he made but he did it anyways... weirdo). then that night we had a ward activity that like maybe 20 people came to (two of which amis) and a guy that we play soccer with came so that is sweet! anyways we played this game like 4 times thats called werewolf and basically i think that its just the same as mofia but with a some more charactors etc... (if any of you know what that game is haha!) it was fun even with only a little bit of people...
sunday was good we had our mission president come to our meeting and give a talk which was good. (sorry that i didnt give you any information for your talk dad... i failed to realize that it was so soon.) anyways after church we went with a family and our amis to their house and we ate lunch... STEAK! it was SOOOO good. oh man... it was good.. i'm starting to drool so i'm going to stop thinking about it but it was good and fun... and then because of a strike thats been going on for a while (which had ruined SO many of our plans) we didnt get home until late. anyways things have been going really well! and its been a great week! i love you and hope you have great weeks!
Elder Michael Laws
Je vous aime tous!
oh the picture of the little green guy came from me getting bored... and distracted! he's a rockstar though!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Apr. 13, 2010
Hey Family!
HOw are you guys doing?!
its been a fun week. i decided that since the last couple of emails were... uneventful that i better write down what happened so that i wouldnt forget.
On wednesday, preparation day that is, we went bowling! it was fun, and i got the highest score of the day with 175! it was good. also something that i havent ever had happen was all of us on our lane one game got over 100. pretty cool.
umm alright. so then on thursday something cool that happend was that i was able to give a baptismal interview for one of the Sisters amis who got baptized saturday; it was a good experience. so then on saturday was the baptism and me and my comp. made some cookies for it... no bake cookies... UMMMM!!!! they were so good! oh and elder Liechty was asked to perform the baptism so thats cool for him.
on Friday we also made some cookies and went around and passed them to our investigators but also to people that were taught in the past and it was fun. one of the families that we passed has at least 15 peopel living in the same apartment! thats so crazy! and way too many people. while we were passing people this lady came up to us and was like hi elders... and of course we didnt know who she was and it turns out that she used to be a member in congo and she decided to go back to being catholic;... its wierd for me to see people that do that and other stuff like it... i dont like it... but it happens... its that dang moral agency thing...
we also went and saw this man who is from venezuela and has this thing for american indian culture. he was way nice. it was just weird because while we were talking he put on this indian music. it was funny. after that we got a phone call from president. he was making sure that we focused on keeping the rules that go with the institute because i guess that a missionary got sent home because of something that happened. its pretty sad because he was a great missionary and had changed a lot during his mission but i guess that no one can overcome temptation when they put themselves in a position to be tempted....
then that night we had a nice rendezvous with the bishop and his family... nice people those members of that mormon church...
so then on saturday we went and played soccer which was fun... i scrapped up my knee because we were playing on dirt, which hurt after when i thought that it would be smart for some reason to use a alcohol wipe... (not smart) then we went to the baptism... it was a good little meeting and i played the piano for a musical number... yikes! only messed up once at the end at least... (not bad for learning the song this week). so that was fun... then there was like a bazillion things to eat after. then on the way home this guy came to talk to us and he started to ask us a bunch of crazy questions... it was weird at first but after it was actually a really good conversation...
Then on sunday on our way to church this guy talked at us for a little while... its kind of annoying when people do that... i dont know if you've ever experienced it but ya.. its weird. but then church was good and we just passed some people etc..
then on monday we went to this little city 20 minutes away to visit a member but the thing is that there is a strike for the trains (like usual) and we went to the trainstation a little early, and there was a train that was 25 minutes late so we got on it and got to our rendezvous... which was pretty crazy. then we went and visited this less active who is deaf which is an interesting experience... he reads lips really well so it was good. then we walked like a billion miles to pass another member...who wasnt there!! sad... umm and thats about it for the week. except last night we had a little rendezvous with the people in the apartment of 15.. it was good. there were people coming in and out going here and there it was kind of funny but it was good. then on the way home some kids threw some rocks at us but missed pretty bad so no big deal... thats whats fun is that everyone here plays soccer and not baseball.. (thats for sure!!)
hope you have a great week!
Elder MIchael Laws
HOw are you guys doing?!
its been a fun week. i decided that since the last couple of emails were... uneventful that i better write down what happened so that i wouldnt forget.
On wednesday, preparation day that is, we went bowling! it was fun, and i got the highest score of the day with 175! it was good. also something that i havent ever had happen was all of us on our lane one game got over 100. pretty cool.
umm alright. so then on thursday something cool that happend was that i was able to give a baptismal interview for one of the Sisters amis who got baptized saturday; it was a good experience. so then on saturday was the baptism and me and my comp. made some cookies for it... no bake cookies... UMMMM!!!! they were so good! oh and elder Liechty was asked to perform the baptism so thats cool for him.
on Friday we also made some cookies and went around and passed them to our investigators but also to people that were taught in the past and it was fun. one of the families that we passed has at least 15 peopel living in the same apartment! thats so crazy! and way too many people. while we were passing people this lady came up to us and was like hi elders... and of course we didnt know who she was and it turns out that she used to be a member in congo and she decided to go back to being catholic;... its wierd for me to see people that do that and other stuff like it... i dont like it... but it happens... its that dang moral agency thing...
we also went and saw this man who is from venezuela and has this thing for american indian culture. he was way nice. it was just weird because while we were talking he put on this indian music. it was funny. after that we got a phone call from president. he was making sure that we focused on keeping the rules that go with the institute because i guess that a missionary got sent home because of something that happened. its pretty sad because he was a great missionary and had changed a lot during his mission but i guess that no one can overcome temptation when they put themselves in a position to be tempted....
then that night we had a nice rendezvous with the bishop and his family... nice people those members of that mormon church...
so then on saturday we went and played soccer which was fun... i scrapped up my knee because we were playing on dirt, which hurt after when i thought that it would be smart for some reason to use a alcohol wipe... (not smart) then we went to the baptism... it was a good little meeting and i played the piano for a musical number... yikes! only messed up once at the end at least... (not bad for learning the song this week). so that was fun... then there was like a bazillion things to eat after. then on the way home this guy came to talk to us and he started to ask us a bunch of crazy questions... it was weird at first but after it was actually a really good conversation...
Then on sunday on our way to church this guy talked at us for a little while... its kind of annoying when people do that... i dont know if you've ever experienced it but ya.. its weird. but then church was good and we just passed some people etc..
then on monday we went to this little city 20 minutes away to visit a member but the thing is that there is a strike for the trains (like usual) and we went to the trainstation a little early, and there was a train that was 25 minutes late so we got on it and got to our rendezvous... which was pretty crazy. then we went and visited this less active who is deaf which is an interesting experience... he reads lips really well so it was good. then we walked like a billion miles to pass another member...who wasnt there!! sad... umm and thats about it for the week. except last night we had a little rendezvous with the people in the apartment of 15.. it was good. there were people coming in and out going here and there it was kind of funny but it was good. then on the way home some kids threw some rocks at us but missed pretty bad so no big deal... thats whats fun is that everyone here plays soccer and not baseball.. (thats for sure!!)
hope you have a great week!
Elder MIchael Laws
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