Elder Laws

Homecoming

2010-05-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

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 !!

May 18, 2010

2010-05-18T23:37:00.001-07:00

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

May 11, 2010

2010-05-12T02:29:00.000-07:00

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

ps thats the district that i'm in now! weirdos...

May 05, 2010

2010-05-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

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

Apr. 28, 2010

2010-04-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

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

Apr. 21, 2010

2010-04-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

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!

Apr. 13, 2010

2010-04-13T07:01:00.000-07:00

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

Apr. 07, 2010

2010-04-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!
How are you all doing!?
well it has been a great week for me. mostly because we had general conference.
Like i said last week we are back down to two elders which was kind of weird at first but its been really good. We have had some really fun times. nothing specific i guess but its been great.
umm on wednesday we went and visited this family that we see pretty often and it was fun as usual. We taught about the gospel (faith repentance baptism gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end) using an egg and a bottle. Its fun to do and maybe i'll show it to you some time. afterwards they fed us some meat and potatos... so good.
then after that the most exciting thing that we did i think was on saturday where we had General confernece but we also played soccer that morning. its great because we're starting to see that people recognize us and that we're different even. maybe less serious is the right word, nice, or i dont know... but its fun.
Now general Conference was just GREAT! it was just a feast... i could have sat there for another 10 hours listening to our leaders! we got to see saturday morning and afternoon, priesthood, and sunday morning session. i think that we are going to listen to some of the talks today from the last session while we eat lunch. idk how to explain exactly why i liked it it was just good. thats all...i got a lot of ideas for the future which is nice and also for the present.
On monday we had district meeting which, with the departure of elder Lepretre, means that i taught. it was good i think. the spirit was there and we got to talk a little bit about repentance and love of god etc... it was nice.
aside from that stuff we have been looking for more people to teach; be that talking to people on the road or passing people that have been taught in the past. we already have a lot of great amis, the difficulty that we have is that we cant really see them as often as i would like. but tahts life i guess. they have to work and go to school and take care of their families and all that so i guess that we cant ask them to see us all the time!!! oh well...
oh we did have a ward council and i think they talked about tacos for our ward party for like 15 minutes.... (count your blessings!) bref...
umm we also had interviews... which is something that i did forget about. it was good to see President and Sister Murdock. they brought me my package too which is good. they appreciated the fact that i opened it and shared! thanks mom! you can send more cadbury eggs if you want!
umm... other things... the 30th of march works for the homecoming talk thingy... if they want me to talk about a specific topic that would be cool to have before then! umm... any prospects for work would be welcome too.
that is all!

have a great week! Love you!

Elder Laws

that is just a picture at the institute here with some of the people that attend... its fun!

Love you!
Elder Laws

Mar. 31, 2010

2010-03-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Hey Famsily!
how is everybody doing?
well i'd just like to report that this week has been really good! the end!
Elder Michael Laws

APRIL FOOLS?
oh man i'm weird...
well it has been a great week. we just have the greatest members and investigators ever!!!
its so much fun to be a missionary. its like... awesome.

other than teaching and visiting ridiculously awesome people we have had a couple of other fun things. On saturday we went and played soccer with some members and nonmembers which was really fun. (and really tiring as usual). then we went to this (are you ready? ) young men/young women activity with a couple of our amis. it was interesting to say the least. they did a bunch of little games including some gross eating things. and also a reach your hand into grossness thing. it was funny to watch. (for some reason they didnt let us participate.... haha). but ya so that was fun. Then on sunday there was a baptism for a young member of the ward. he's eight so ya. it was great... baptisms are great! and the spirit rocks.

so that was fun. Then on monday we went and visited some people that lived really far away but since we had no other way to get there we borrowed the senior couples car. it was way fun to drive around in the french country side. the place we went actually was this town in the middle of no where and there were a lot of really big houses and i think i saw 3 castles haha. it was way cool. a lot of fun and everything is starting to get really green so it was great. we also almost got lost... about 10 times but thats no big deal right?

umm other than that lets see. this morning we went to the gare and dropped off elder lepretre who is leaving us. hes going home a little early because he is going to go to school at BYU for a semester. so now its me and elder leichty. we spent our first preparation day together alone with other missionaries haha! we went to this park that is kind of like a zoo. there were some animals that i had never seen before, quite a few monkeys, some meercats or however you spell that, some giraffes, and a lion. he stood up while we were watching paced around then started to "roar" a little. it was fun. then we played some football which was fun... i'm out of shape haha! and then we went shopping and we both got new suits! and now we're doing emails... umm and thats about it. idk if there is anything else that i want to tell you.

oh... haha... well with my comp going home it has been hard not to think about home and the fact that i'm going home soon so if you could maybe lay off on the i cant believe your coming home soon stuff, and i met your replacements and all that, that would be really nice... a little doesnt hurt.. but try not to do it too much! thanks for everything!

I love you have a great week!

Elder Laws

Mar. 24, 2009

2010-03-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

hey family!
How is everyone doing this week?
its been a good week but i dont have a ton of stories.
The biggest event of this week is that I have been sick the last 5 days! its been absolutely everything! sore throat, stuffy nose, headache, runny nose, cough, even pink eye . and i am just not happy. but we have been working every day and i have been really clean and stuff so that i dont get people sick so everything is ok. what is really cool is that we just keep getting references from people.
On Thursday we had a rendezvous with Mathilde and her half sister, and they invited 2 of there friends too! it was crazy! there was 8 people in this little apartment around this table eating and stuff it was great.
umm... we also taught just about all our investigators but nothing crazy is going on. idk...
been kind of an uneventful week...
The reason that we are in a threesome right now is because elder lepretre is going to go home halfway through the transfer.... in a week... for school. so after that we'll just be two.
oh and since i've been sick i've been wearing my glasses around which is really weird.
we played soccer again. it was pretty normal though. it feels good to run around though.
So its kind of weird that keshia is sick too. its probably her that got me sick... dang twin ties...
i feel like this is the most ridiculous email that i have sent you guys...
oh on sunday we went to a members house and they had singstar disney in french and we played a little and it was hard.... it was really hard because it was in french.

well thats all for me. LOVE YOU

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
Elder Laws

Mar. 17, 2010

2010-03-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!

Well... this week has been amazing! i'll start out with a couple of fun stories and things like that.

The other day we were looking for an amis that was taught a few monthes ago by the elders and all we had was an address and a first name. so we went to the address and it just so happened to be a building of about 70 doors. and the front door was locked. we decided to make sure that it was the right building and wait to see if someone would come out so they could let us in and while elder Leichty was sitting by the door it just clicked and opened by itself... it was weird. so we went in and then looked at all the mailboxes that there were downstairs and there was lastnames and first initials... which means that when we are looking for franklin ______ that makes it not easy to find. but there were a couple of names on the mailbox that started with F. so we went to the top and decided to check all the "f" names etc. we said a prayer before we started to be able to find this man because we felt like we needed to. so we knocked at all the doors with F initials and couldnt find him. we got down to the bottom floor and we hadnt found him but Elder Leichty decided for some reason, i dont know why, to knock at a door that didnt have an F seemed japonese or something weird like that and elder Lepretre was like oh come on we dont have time to waste etc. the man opened the door and we said we were looking for a man named franklin do you know him, and he said Cest moi (thats me). It was the guy we were looking for so we went in and talked to him and his mom etc. it was way cool!

umm... then, well this week was full of activities for church and stuff and after one of these activities we were getting on the metro and this guy who was WAY drunk came and asked if we had a lighter or something so that he could smoke and we were like no its not good to smoke and we explained a little to him then we got on the metro (elder lepretre had already left the conversation at this point) the guy followed us and started talking to elder leichty because he has such a big accent. meanwhile everyone on the tram is watching this drunk guy talking up a storm to elder leichty and me (until i snuck away because i was laughing to much) and was laughing and i dont know it was just really funny in the moment.

then well we were going to a members home and it was kind of through this corridor with some pillar type things and then the buildings on the other side (i dont know if i explained that very well but oh well) anyways it was night time and so elder Leichty decided that he should play SWAT team or something so hes running down this thing stopping at every pillar and "shooting" "people" and stuff and without noticing runs past this entry way where a family is coming out and they walked out and gave him the weirdest look, and he didnt want it to be really weird so he decided to just keep going like he was crazy or something idont know. it was SOO funny.

umm other than that on friday night we had another ward activity where it was kind of like a carnival with different booths and just like little games to play and get prizes etc. well one of those booths was a arm wrestling thing. so just to get it over with i arm wrestled Elder Leichty first.... he's wrestled for the last 10 years of his life or something so he pretty much destroyed me haha. but then after that i did it against a bunch of people one of which was an investigator who is our age and like neither of us could finish it so it was so long and took forever and my arm was sore forever. but i won a DDR competition or something and got some sweet sunglasses! it was a fun night. then on saturday there was another activity but it was for the Young adults. We went because we had a few investigators who went and there were quite a few non members it was cool. we left before the dance 1) because we are supposed to and 2) because someone asked us to. I guess that 5 more guys means more competition for them with the girls or something... (us and another companionship.) I personally was there to talk to non members but i guess that doesnt mean anything.

ummm what else. Oh so we are teaching a few really strong potential baptisms all of which are referrals from members. theres one family we are teaching that came to church sunday and really liked it, the parents and the two girls. another one is a young girl (18) who thanks to her friend wants to continue to see us, reads the BOM every night and came to church sunday too. The last is the young guy that came to the activity. the only thing stopping him from getting baptized is that he hasnt told his family. but everything should go well for them. way cool.

so another weird thing that happend is that on sunday a member came from one of the wards that i already served in (valence). i saw his daughter and i was like oh she hasnt changed that much etc.. what i forgot is that they have 2 kids and the one i was looking at used to be in a stroller, and is now walking around all by herself and stuff... AHHH!!! thats soo weird!

then what else. oh we had a sweet zone conference tuesday also. it was great! it was weird though because the missionaries that are going home this transfer and the ones that came into the mission just before me... which means that i'm next... i'm getting even more sad every day... its so unreal.

well i think thats about all the time i have love you!
Elder Michael Laws

Mar. 10, 2010

2010-03-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

Hey family!

How has everyone been doing?

Things have been going great here and it has been fun to be in this new area. Its really crazy because there are a lot of missionaries here and we see them pretty often. which is something that i havent experienced for a while.

So i guess that i can start with wednesday. it was the day that i said goodbye to Renens and got on a train to Lyon. On the way over there were a couple of delays but i got here safe and sound. but sadly both of my companions decided that it would be fun to visit paris that day for some legality stuff or something but i got to go with the zone leaders and eat at a members house so its okay. .

when i finally got to see my companions again it was already thursday night at around 5h30. after that we went to a rendezvous that we had with this member girl and some of her friends. It was weird but also cool because we dont often teach people our age and its a TON easier to connect and then teach them. it was great!

and since then we have just been teaching. the members seem to be really motivated and we have taught our amis only 2 times outside of a members home. which is awesome! the spirit is so much easier to feel in members homes... its easy to not feel the spirit as members when its always there but for me after teaching in amis homes for a long time teaching in members homes is SOOO refreshing. its crazy.

our investigators here are really cool too! we seem to be teaching either young adults or a family. and they are all great. One of the Young guys came to church and actually wanted to bear his testimony during fast and testimony meeting but there wasnt enough time. its sweet though.

On saturday night we had a Ward activity that was way cool. we played games ate cheese and bread, and watched wallace and gromit. then there is also an institute that we kind of take care of and so we have like english class and Family Home Evenings and stuff.. its way fun, and way hectic. its crazy. but fun.

Also the other day it was crazy because we were on an exchange and contacting and so instead of like scaring people with 3 people i went on the other side of the road and there was like no one until this girl came out of this door and was walking kind of beside me/behind me and i was like no way... not doing it (because she was cute and its weird to talk to people when they are like behind you and next to you) anyways so then next thing i know i'm talking to this girl!!!! it was weird, and definately wasnt me that did it... anyways i invited her to the institute so we'll see what happens i guess. and idk why i told you that but oh well! oh i know sometimes the spirit makes you do things you dont want to but you gotta do them.

so one of the pictures was last week

and the other is with a member family and my companions and the young guy is one of our amis! the end!

I think thats about it LVOe YOU

Elder Laws

Mar. 02, 2010

2010-03-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

hey family!
How is everyone?
well i guess that i can start out by saying that this week has actually been quite eventful. the most recent news is transfers! well it seems that my stay in Renens has come to an end and that i will be leaving tomorrow for Lyon. I'm going to be serving in the Gerland ward, with Elder LePretre and Elder Leichty (a threesome weird!!). It was actually interesting for me to hear and i was kind of confused, because well Elder Lepretre is a transfer older than me and is going home in 4 weeks time but it should be way cool and i have already had a spiritual confirmation of this change which is sweet.

It seems like the lord uses us in the most Unexpected ways. I imagine that you have heard about the Earthquake that happened in Chili. there are members here that used to live there and have family there. We decided to visit them before we even had heard anything. and i imagine that it did them a lot of good to have us there to talk to at least. We also decided last night to go visit a family (mostly because i wanted to say goodbye) who is going through a hard time. but the mere fact that we were there really helped them. and was an amazing confirmation to me of the love of God for every one of his children. If i didnt get transfered we probably would have done something else... it being a monday night , FHE etc.. but in the lords grand "scheme" (plan) he doesnt forget a single one of his many children(many many many!).

What else happend this week... we had a RDV with a less active member and his wife and it was way good. He was very straight forward, which is way nice, but not in a mean way. He used to be a photographer and he said he took a really cool picture of a square cloud... that i'm not going to get to see because i'm leaving!!! its terrible... it always happens like that. we meet some Really cool people and then we get transfered. The same thing happened to elder Lozano :P(one of the elders we live with, he's leaving too.).

Sunday was pretty good too. We went to church (on the way we picked up an amis) and had some really good meetings. after the first one the Executive Secretary came up to me and was like... you have a talk ready for today.. and i said... uhh what? and he said well you have 1 hour to get ready! it was funny... i guess that the bishop has just said that if someone that is supposed to give a talk cant show up then ask the Missionaries they're always ready! So i gave a talk! it was fun... (right...?)
other than that.... i cant remember anything that has really stood out to me. nope!

i love you have a great week!
Elder Laws

Feb. 24, 2010

2010-02-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!
How are you all doing?
well so this week has been a lot of fun. we actually havent done anything way crazy or way fun but we did manage to play basketball again. sadly one of the elders sprained his ankle so we only had three people but we got around it, and played for a little longer.

we've done a couple of exchanges the last week because of the accident that happened for rendezvous etc. which has been a little crazy. on thursday i went with Elder Zarate to a couple of their rendezvous and then he had a dentist appointment so i got to sit in a little room by myself forever it was terrible! (it was only 45 minutes too!). ugh it brought back old memories and stuff, no i'm just kidding but it wasnt fun at all. luckily we had some ensigns with us so i got to read a couple of talks. idk... it was fine. (never want to have to do that again though)..

We have still been teaching a few people, no one is really progressing way quickly but things are going good. Most everyone understands (with the accent and everything haha) but the hard thing is getting people to act. which i guess isnt something we can make people do haha... (curse you agency!!!). We have also been working quite a bit with members. Its really cool to see that there are members that really want to share the gospel with everyone they know. its great!

we had a funny experience yesterday porting. we knocked on this guys door and he came out and said he didnt want to talk to us and we simply asked why and he started to talk a lot and he repeated himself a lot and said that the reason that we were there was to convert people and that he didnt want to waste our time etc. when in fact he took like 20 minutes of our time. it was funny, i just kept saying ok ok ok.... and those little letters just got him going even more. it was funny... anyways a lot of people think that the reason that we are here is because we are just trying to convert people to our beliefs etc. when really all we are doing is trying to share and present things that have blessed our lives enormously. its hard to get people to understand that.

other than that people have been telling us to come back other times and all that so things are going well and we have a lot of good stuff going on. its exciting!

umm... thats all for me. hope you have great weeks! love you all!

Elder Laws

Feb. 17, 2010

2010-02-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

hello family!
so this has been a fairly good week! we have been mostly focusing of finding people to teach and teaching and etc.. so it has been really good because we have found quite a few people lately that want to see us.

We actually had a really good Miracle that happened this week. we were porting and we got down to the first floor and this younger looking guy answered the door. When we started to tell him who we were and why we were there he stopped us and said we cant talk about that stuff out here come on in. so we did of course. then when we got in and sat down he said that he had seen our book before and that a friend had given him one actually without explaining anything. so we said thats why we were there and started to explain it and joseph smith and all that when he had to leave really fast because someone came to pick him up. but he asked whether we could see each other again and we said yes, we'll come get you tomorrow for church and we'll be able to talk there. so then the next day comes around. we get to his building go up the elevator, and his door is opening and he was waiting for us, because he saw us outside he came out to meet us. which is really cool. then when we got to church everyone went and talked with him, helped him out and all, it was great. after that when we were trying to find a time that we could see him again a member came over and invited him with us over to dinner the next day and so ya. that was a great miracle.

i absolutely LOVE our ward. the members here are sweet.

umm other than that on yesterday... haha. we had an exchange with the assistants that went really well. I was with elder Howell who was in the MTC with me. it was a lot of fun. we actually got let in to teach a couple people and had a lot of really good conversations.

anyways thats about all that i really have to say about me this week.
valentines came and went without and valentines... (which is probably a good thing haha). (not probably, it is a good thing).
anyways i hope you all have a great week and i LOVe you!
Elder Laws
ps good luck keshia! looking forward to hearing from you!

Feb. 10, 2010

2010-02-10T09:25:00.001-08:00

Hey Family! How are you doing?

Well, this week was good. it was good.

On wednesday we went to the ping pong museum with a couple other missionaries. it was fun, its pretty cool too. Then! the greatest thing ever! we played basketball! yay! oh man... it was sooo nice. i felt right at home... it was good. i cant say anything else... haha it was good. nice weather. no wind... playing basketball. it was perfect.

Then on thursday we had Zone Conference. i thought it went really well, and the spirit was really strong the whole time.sadly i didnt get any mail though... hmm wonder what thats all about...

umm other than that we have had some great coupole of days. we had a cool miracle. we wanted to do a little exchange with the Elders from lausanne(they wanted to do it with us) because they are teaching some spanish speaking investigators that live in our ward boundaries. so they wanted to get a little integration going and all that. but they said, but after that we have to change back right away at 4h30. but i was like well what happens when we get let in at 4h25? so we decided to just make the exchange a little longer which was good. now we met at like 4h00, changed companions and then at like 4h25 we were only like a block away from where they were. and we werent porting or anything, BUT at about 4h45 we got let in porting and taught a couple the restoration which was way cool.

during zone conference we talked a little about how our the lord grants unto men according to their desires. well since then i've seen so many scriptures and things that talk about desires and all that so i set this goal, and i'm sticking to it, doing everything that i can. and so far, the lord is blessing us enormously. its cool.
umm then yesterday we did an exchange in Fribourg and sadly i didnt take my camera because it is a really cool city. anyways i went with elder Walton who is from Denver, and well it was pretty good. some of our plans didnt work out exactly but we still have good oppurtunities to teach, to find and all that so it was a good overall exchange.

umm...i think thats about it for me. umm lets see if anyone asked questions?

NOpE i'M dOnE

Love YOu
ELder LaWS

Feb. 03, 2010

2010-02-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hey!
How is everyone doing?
Its been a pretty good week. we've had a lot of fun! the end...
no i'm just kidding.

So actually let's see. this week has been a little weird because we seem to have been late to EVERYTHING.... kind of annoying if you ask me. i guess we need to work on our planning or something but it's been ok.. we've been working with a lot of members and trying to help them get into the missionary spirit which has been very successful.
We went and ate with this older lady and a younger recent convert and she is really cool (and cooks good) so it was great. the recent convert is a younger guy from the Ivory Coast. its funny because everyone's getting excited for the world cup.. and the ivory coast made it in so he's excited. elder Zarate is the most excited of all i think and its not for a couple months and he wont even be able to watch it! thats ok though because i told him i'd watch a couple games for him :P.
other than seeing members we have a couple of amis that are pretty cool. One is this guy that is from bern (speaks like 5 languages perfectly...including english). I dont know why but everyone speaks english here (a lot of people) so i have to keep on top of the french or it will disappear! (not really but that would be sad.) anyways this guy is way way intellectual and anyways its good. then like a couple of people we are working with have already seen the missionaries before and were pretty close to being baptized which is cool because they still have good feelings towards the church and we're looking forward to working with them.
Yesterday we went on an Exchange with the elders from Dijon. They came here and i went with elder Ellis. He is like 6'5" and it was funny because everyone was like scared when they opened the door, and the members that we saw were like...YOU ARE HUGE!!! and stuff like that. it was funny. and fun because he's a way good sport and a cool elder.
we had a great exchange and actually it was the best exchange that elder Ellis has had on his mission i guess. so i was pretty happy. other than that tomorrow is zone conference so we've been working on what we are supposed to teach and like hopeing it goes well.
and thats about it for me i guess thanks for all your emails!

lets see if there are any questions...
well i'd rather not talk about school stuff but... i dont really remember what schools i applied for, i know i got accepted to SUU and BYU. umm oh and to get scholarships for BYU you have to apply for them i believe... also uhh... i wouldnt mind going to a school in idaho if i get a scholarship, boise state would be cool. but thats the only one i would want to (good football team!) oh sorry they didnt have any kleenex for you Kesh. thats too bad...

i dunno how alma knows about the questions that coriantumr has... very likely that it was the gift of discernment though.. or the spirit. (he was pretty good that alma guy...)

i'm good!

you can let me know what happens in the super bowl... :P
(this is me answering questions if you dont remember...in case you were lost)
oh this one isnt a question but i hear that bien venue chez les ch'tis is a pretty good movie...of course the jokes will be in french... so that would be hard but if you want you should check it out...

ok no more questions! love you have a great week!
Elder Laws

Jan. 27, 2010

2010-01-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

Family FAmily FAMily FAMILY!!!!
Hi everyone. How are you all doing? SO this has been a pretty good week i would say. Picked up Elder Sones on Wednesday (and got my package thanks mom!) from the gare. then we went and did some work which is pretty normal. In the mission we have really decided to start focusing more on getting members to fulfill their role as Missionaries also. So thats what we are doing. we've been doing a lot of finding and other things also. just normal missionary work.
other than that on saturday we went to Geneva for a meeting with President Murdock, the Assistants, and the other Zone Leaders where we discuss different focuses for the Transfer, Zone conferences, etc. and it was way good.
i guess that on monday was my birthday..... we didnt do much to celebrate though. I went to the bathroom during studies and when i came back my companions sang happy birthday to me haha... but thats about all! it was a good day though and we went and ate at a members house (luckily they didnt know it was my birthday!) and as usual it was amazing! umm... ya also we played lotr Risk... which is fun!
Then On yesterday (ya thats not really english) we went to Martigny to do exchanges with the Elders there. it was fun...cold... and not a lot of success but it was good anyways. I went with elder Tracy who is from Georgia...which by the way we have 3 elders in our district from the south... and there is only 4 in the mission... anyways it was fun.
umm other than that i dont have much to say so lets see if we have any unanswered questions...
ummm nope! (i'm going to give the card to them this sunday mom.) and thats all! have a great week! Love you!

Elder Michael Laws!

Jan. 19, 2010

2010-01-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!
Hows everyone doing? thanks for all the emails this week i feel really spoiled!
i dont really know what to start talking about haha. so this week on preparation day we went to the church with us and the lausanne elders and the martigny elders and we went to the church and played ping pong and other stuff all day and it was fun. kind of crazy because while we were doing it it was just snowing and snowing and snowing.... (more snow than i've seen in my life at least...) so that was pretty intense. but other than that we have been just working and finding people to teach.
as of right now... the snow is all melted and it is really nice. it's easier to be enthousiastic about going and talking to people when its a bright and shiny day. so thats good.
Sunday was the only day that really is worth especially talking about. (the other days were good too!) Starting with Church it was really funny. We start with priesthood and then sunday school then Sacrament meeting. In Priesthood, we talked about the plan of salvation, how we're all brothers and sisters, how we have free agency etc... which was good. Then in Sunday school (gospel principles) I got to teach the lesson and it was on the Creation and how everything that god does for us shows that he loves us. Then LUCKILY!!! THe subject for the talk that i was supposed to give was on The importance of free agency in the plan of salvation... it felt kind of like i didnt need to even give it at all! it was great fun.. Oh and in Gospel principles(you know basic doctrine) i think that someone mentionned how god lived a life as a man, and i think we also talked about where god is supposed to live (not in depth at all!) and about kolob and it was fun... probably the worst lesson that i've ever taught in my life haha!!! it was great! glad all we have to really understand is the plan of salvation, faith repentance baptism, gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end... its great!
umm anyways so then that night there was a baptism of one of the SIsters Investigators. she's really cool adn she gave an amazing testimony during the service... better than some members even! it amazing to me to see how much of an impact the gospel can have on people. She was so happy!
Also just yesterday we got transfer calls and i'm receiving a new companion. Elder Sones, he's from mississippi and it should be fun. (idk why i get to serve with all the mississippians...haha) so that also means i'll be here in renens for at least 6 more weeks probably more.
well that's all for me! umm.... wait was there any questions...
My Favorite Muppet is the Cookie Monster
I like Renens and the French, i might learn spanish at least a little because the other elders in the apartment both speak!
Oh the Talk went well according to my companion.. it was good.

ummm i guess the Main idea was that we're here to learn to make the choices that God would make in our place and that we can tell which choices those are by Moroni 7:12-13 umm ya basically that. so thats why agency is important because if we were always forced we wouldnt learn which choices were good for us but would be forced to do it.
so thats it for me! Love you all have a great week!
Elder Laws

Jan. 13, 2010

2010-01-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

Hey family how are you!?

so this week has been farely good. we've been working a lot on trying to find out whether we know all the people on our member list and where they live and stuff and we have been able to pretty much figure everyone out which is great. its nice to be able to say that i'm not really lost anymore!

Yesterday we had an exchange with the elders in Martigny. I went with ELder Schmidt who was one of my old companions so it was a blast! we had a lot of fun and one way sweet rendezvous.

We called up this old amis in our area book and fixed a rendezvous. it turns out that this guy like basically grew up in the church and wasnt ever baptized. so like we asked him about what he remembered about joseph smith and he like told the whole story quoting James 1:5 and like it was cool. Then elder Schimdt was like here let me show you a scripture (in his like triple combination) i really like and he opened up to it and it was marked and the guy just kept talking about WE as in the members of the church and like how he defended the church back in Ghana and like all this stuff. He was like basically a member but not it was SO cool. so that was fun.

hmm other than that we have found a couple people but like not been able to teach them more that once which is a bummer but its alright. i dont have a ton to say this week. so ya.

for studies i've been reading the book of mormon everyday for like 20 minutes i guess and i realized this morning that if i didnt start with that my studies werent that good. so i read some and then i worked on this talk that i'm supposed to give sunday at church. The topic is Le libre arbitre est important au plan du salut, or Moral Agency is important to the Plan of Salvation. i really like the topic and i've had some really good insights that i cant remember right now haha! too bad i guess. anyways so ya.

Oh ya another thing that we did is, well to give a little backround. We have this Amis who is from Pittsburgh. He has been here for about 6 years and he is in charge of the Museum at the ITTF head quarters (international table tennis federation). anyways so a little while ago we had a church activity at the museum and it was way good. this last week we went and did service for him and we moved a bunch of boxes of coaching manuels for him. it took forever but the best part was that he made Cinnamon rolls.... THEY WERE SOOOO GOOD!!! haha... it was great!

oh and this past week it has just decided to snow and snow and snow..... the bus we took this morning jackknifed as it pulled up and almost crashed, they've got good drivers though so its ok.

well any other random things...??? i dont think so... oh well! have a great week! LOve you!

Elder Laws

Jan. 06, 2010

2010-01-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

Hello Family!

well to start out, i'll answer some questions.

I really like the Mp3 player that i got for christmas, it works perfectly. I mostly wanted it to get the songs off of the Mission Office computer which has been done already so thats all good.

More like atheletic socks would work best! but either way is fine for me. you can send both if you would like! :P

ok, so this week has been pretty good. While in Geneva we went and played soccer. it was way fun. it had rained a TON and was still raining so everyone was slipping around and like falling everywhere. We got really Muddy and ya it was a blast. The next day was the Ward New years party so that night (wednesday still) we went and helped the members decorate the chapel for a little bit.

Thursday we actually had a couple of rendezvous with members and so that was a good replacement for trying to talk to people all day on a holiday (they dont really like that). That Night we went to the NEw years party for a little bit and then went home and hung out with the other Elders till the NEw Year! it was good.

After that we just did missionary work and talked with some cool people.

On monday we went to DIjon, in france, to do our exchange with the missionaries there. I went with Elder Leichty who ive served around so it was fun. We went and taught this guy and it was way good. after that we passed members and shared messages with them. Its really nice to be able to teach. I love it!

but.... the end was pretty crazy. we had to catch a train at like 5h38 and it was pretty close to then... we were supposed to meet up at 5 at the appartment but that didnt really happen because we were 20 minutes late... then, when we finally got there, our companions werent even there!!!! so basically what ends up happening is that we have to get all our stuff run down to the bus stop take the bus to the Trainstation. where our companions were with tickets etc... but we got "there", to the bus stop by the gare, with like 5 minutes maybe before the train left, had to run up this hill to the gare to the voie where the train was and barely got into the train before it closed up.... it was intense haha!
luckily we didnt get checked for passports crossing the borders either because we forgot them... oh and we got to ride TGV's which are like some of the fastest trains in the world i believe... not the fastest. but really fast.
so now we are safe and sound chez-nous... yay!
Hope you had a great week and i LOVe YOU!
Elder MIchael Laws

Dec. 30, 2009

2009-12-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

hello family!

well it was good to talk to you, those that i didnt talk to i really really wanted to but that would have been presque (almost) impossible (i thought about it and we should have just stayed on the call all together...), and congratulations to Keshia for your call. thats way cool!

well so basically this week has been fairly fun. like i dont know what all to really tell you because like... nevermind. well so what happened is that last week was Christmas! on christmas eve we went to the Family Jacquet's home. (thats who called mom, and it was my companion that translated for her) anyways so we hung out there and had hamburgers and sandwiches and stuff for dinner. then we went and played a little down stairs where they had a rock climbing wall (just a little one) on two of their walls in their garage thing. then we went and sang and they gave us some presents which were like swiss things and it was a lot of fun.

so then the next day we were at home for the morning and we played risk and then went to the church and were kind of having a little party with some of the single people in the ward but basically all of them were not available and only one came! so we played some ping pong, uno, and some other games. then that night we went to the Family Coutino's house and ate and thats where we called home and stuff. so all and all it was a pretty good christmas.

umm so after that we have just been finding and passing people and so on. we have actually found a couple of people the last week to teach which is cool. and then like the other thing that has happened is that we are actually in Geneva right now because we had an Exchange Yesterday with the Assistants. It was with elder Sorenson, who i've gone on a bunch of other exchanges with so it was fun. we had a good time and all.

so today we were playing ping pong here at the Mission Home and well what happened was that i won, decided to do my victory dance on the wet grass, and on the first step i slipped and thats what that one picture is... so ya. basically i got owned..
ummm like other than that i could not tell you what i'm going to be doing and ya... so hope that you have a great week! and love you!

Elder Laws

Dec. 24, 2009

2009-12-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

Hey yo! how's the Family doing?

So this week has been pretty fun BUT... i'm not going to explain everything because i guess that i'll be talking to you. now i wont have a ton of time to talk to my sisters... sorry!!! but i think that i'll be calling around 6h30 ish at night which should be 10h30 ish in the morning chez les parents. and i guess calling Amelias house it'll probably be around like 1ish so ya.

Anyways so this week was Zone conference and it was way good. me and my companion had to teach a little but it wasnt anything stressful haha! so i'll survive. anyways so we talked about Christ and our favorite Prophecies of his birth etc. and i really dont have a favorite but i really like Mosiah 3:5-11.

Oh and on Sunday we went to a little city about 15 minutes away and while we were walking and passing people it started to Snow... and it snowed and snowed and snowed... it was fun i guess. then we went back to renens where it was also snowing, we spent dinner with a Family, it was good (horse meat... dont hate me i had no choice, its really good though). then after that we went and were passing a less active and on the way out the building we get a call. so were just standing there in the staircase and i look out the window and this fox goes running by. it was so cool. and since it had just snowed... and it was sunday, it left its tracks forever! and we followed them, it was pretty cool. way fun.

Anyways as for the pictures the first 2 are of us after we had been walking around in the snow, without hats or umbrellas. the third is of the ward Christmas party i think, the fourth is a church we saw thats up on the hill. umm then the last one was at Zone conference and its a picture of me and like all my companions that are still in the mission field. pretty cool stuff (oh and i didnt ask them to pose like that....)

other than that i guess we'll talk to you tomorrow! Love you all!

Elder Laws

Dec. 16, 2009

2009-12-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!
this week has been pretty fun! so of course i am in a new area right now. with a new companion. Renens is a really nice place, and its got a ward of about 100 people so its quite different from my last area haha... (branch of 25). My new companion is elder Trejo. He is from Austin Texas and has 6 siblings. he's a pretty cool guy and we have been having a lot of fun.
So basically saying goodbye to all my newmade friends was a bummer... but i'm excited for the next little while that i'll be here. we have seen a couple of really cool miracles actually. the first or maybe not first... one of the days we went porting and this lady opened her door and didnt really speak french but she got her son, and the first thing he says is come in. then the next thing he says is what church are you from, then the next thing is ok cool i'll come sunday... way cool. so he came sunday to our church with his friend and they invited us to come to theres... which... well it was a brazilian evangelical church... so it was a new experience i guess is the best way to put it haha...
it was out of control, but i learned a great lesson... that is that our church is true haha! its just so hard to feel the spirit when someone is yelling the word of god and when their hymns are like Rock songs with a full band, 3 guitars, a bass, drum set, back up singers, etc.... it was just weird.
so that was fun haha.
ummm what else happened this week. oh we were in line at a store and this guy was in line too and he said he wanted to come to our church and that he was going to once and he lost the address. haha pretty crazy. just like random people telling us to come by or that they want to come to church. not something that is very common here so its pretty cool.
umm... so i guess other than that. oh ye had zone leader council which was saturday. which is basically just a meeting where we talk about what we need to focus on in the different zones and share ideas etc. it was a great meeting. i've heard a lot of different people say that its there favorite meeting on their missions so what a treat for us. its funny though because it honestly does not feel any different being a zone leader, we basically are just missionaries but weirdly it feels like we never have time to relax...kind of stressful.
so right now, we are acutally in Yverdon on an exchange. i went, yesterday, with Elder Borges and it was pretty good. we had a couple rendezvous with some members and they were pretty good. we also were porting and this guy let us in and he gave us some water, which I then proceeded to knock all over myself... turning a freezing cold day into well... a freezing cold day with water all over myself... which was just peachy....
It just so happens that in this area it likes to be really cold and windy, and its right on a lake and so its terrible... its been "snowing" the last week (just a little) so i'm not looking forward to these next couple of months. a car would be nice, but the transportation is really good here so ya no problem there. ummm but i think that thats all for me.... ya... thats it, have a great week! Love you!
Elder Laws
ps if you could get me phone numbers that would be sweet! and also Congratulations to Kelsey i would imagine that she told everyone but if she hasnt then you can ask her yourself!!

Dec. 08, 2009

2009-12-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

Dear Family!

How are you all doing? Well so this week.... i got one email from you guys!!! whats going on? just because its christmas does not mean that i dont want to hear from you! it actually means that i would like to hear from you more!!!

This has been a pretty weird week for the most part. we had District Meeting on THursday and then did our exchange with Annemasse. Which was fun. I went with elder Williams who is actually a different elder williams than the last one i went on an exchange with and he's a cool Elder so it was fun. Then!

Sadly we both got sick with the Flu or something like that and were both miserable for a day! thought that i might sneak through the holiday season without being sick... guess not! anyways so then on saturday we went to Bellegarde and visited a member that lives there (an hour away from annecy) and then went to Geneva for Stake Conference. We got (were forced :P) to sing in the first session that night. Oh and Elder Kopishke was the Presiding authority there. Pretty cool stuff. He gave some great talks. It was cool.

Then sunday we had stake conference and then came back to Annecy and did some Finding that night and finished off the day like that.

Monday morning! was transfer calls... and i'm leaving annecy. And going to Renens in Switzerland, Which is right next to Lausanne. which is on Lake Geneva. so ya. Pretty cool. oh and i get to stress out more because i'm going to be Zone LEader. No i'm not really stressed, not yet at least haha! i'm excited though, it will be a great experience. so yesterday was spent packing a little and visiting people to say goodbye. it was good. I guess we dont really realize how much we love something until its gone right! I really enjoyed my time here in Annecy. I feel like i've grown a TON! which is great!

umm so i guess that is all. I'll be leaving Tomorrow so i guess next week i'll let you know how things go! Love you all!

Elder Laws

Dec. 02, 2009

2009-12-02T07:17:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

This has been a pretty good week and it was alot of fun too.

Last preparation day we just relaxed and stayed in Annecy and it was much Needed haha. After that we just went to work and got to teach a lot.

On thursday we taught a lady at the church that we have been teaching for a while. She has been coming to church for the last like 4 monthes and she really needs the gospel in her life. She doesnt want to commit to baptism though because she wants it to be her choice and she wants to decide. I think that a lot of times people dont understand why we are here. They think that we are trying to force them or that we are asking them to become members of our church when really all we do is invite them to follow Christ.

anyways lately we have been writing notes to the members to get them thinking about missionary work more often. so we go around and put them in their mailboxes and also share spiritual thoughts with them so that has occupied part of our time this week. we were invited to eat with the Branch president and his family. they're way cool they have 4 kids all younger than 11 but not like babies and so its funny. they are really outgoing kids and well they do funny stuff. we also went and did service.

There hasnt been any way cool break throughs. but its been good to just teach people about the gospel. I love it! one of the greatest feelings in the world is to have the spirit working through you touching the hearts of others. it makes it all worth it.

Lately I have been thinking about Graditude! Thanksgiving was last week! we didnt really get to celebrate it but it was a good time to just think of things we were grateful for. During interviews last week Sr. Murdock asked us to share something we were grateful for, this next District Meeting is on graditude. When we are grateful to the lord and realize his hand in our lives we are SOO blessed and cant be prideful... its like impossible.

haha that last paragraph doesnt make a ton of sense but i think you get what i'm trying to say.

One of our investigators that we have been working with for a little while has started to read the Book of Mormon. its really cool to see how much happier she is now and how much she has already started to grow. We can tell that she is "feasting upon the words of christ". Now its her thats asking US if theres someone that can come pick her up and take her to church! It's amazing how the spirit can work in someone. She even has started to defend our beliefs! its way cool!

Well so thats all i have for now. hope you have a great week!

Love YOU all
Elder Laws

still have some time left today.

This was Lunch!
Love You
Elder Laws

Nov. 25, 2009

2009-11-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!
It was good to hear from all of you and to know that everything is going good!
Also the fact that I'm going to have another nephew is pretty cool. (no more of this niece stuff k?) Congratulations Jesse!
This week has been great and the weather is slightly cooperating. It has rained I think for the last Month like every day. But so far no snow which is apparently not normal so i guess we're lucky, because my companion is from Southern California, and i'm from St. George...(it doesnt get too cold either place.) transfers are the Ninth of December so hopefully i'll stay more towards the south (or go back to valence haha) for winter... and out of the mountains.
If i havent told everyone my nose isnt that bad now swellings down and no bruising and its straight and i can breath so all is well. Although there is part of my nose that is moving that i dont think it should but it doesnt hurt so i'm not going to worry about it. Just the thought of another surgery makes me say that its fine no matter what shape it would be in right now. haha.
I'm glad that Those mission papers are finally on their way otherwise i'd probably call up the bishop myself :). no i'm just kidding but that's cool that he finally got around to it. i'm glad that he maybe didnt have the easiest time, we dont get callings because we are qualified for them but to help us grow and learn. Just like why we are here now!
Anyways so this last week has been good. after playing soccer in geneva again (which i'm officially sick of) we had a great activity in Annemasse with the Young Men there. We taught them and then they taught us something from Preach My Gospel. Its kind of interesting to think that i probably acted about how they did... completely "uninterested" or more interested in other things. haha. i wasnt like that was I? Then the next morning we all went to Annecy (all seven of us, i'll explain that next) and we went and did service at the place we go to every week. We brought everyone because we were loading a Semi-truck with sacks full of clothes and it was a ton of work and a ton of fun. Anyways when we showed up they had already started and been working for a little while so they were taking a coffee break... and there was like 6 of them... there was a TON of bags.. so they asked how many we were and we said 7 and the look of like relief in their eyes was priceless. It was way cool.
After that we had DIstrict meeting which went well but at the same time we were all SOOO tired so it wasnt the best but ya.
So back to the reason why there were seven missionaries. On tuesday night we went up to Annemasse to stay over night then spend preparation day with them and like they were supposed to pick us up (they have a car) and take us to the apartement but they were way late. And when they show up it was 2 completely different missionaries and so we were really confused. It turns out that one of the missionaries had some family/ personal stuff to take care of so he went home..
So now we have Elder Asay (who i we were with in Geneva) elder Williams (who was already there) and Elder Anderson (who got into the mission field the same day and if from Norway) in annemasse. Its really cool and fun.
anyways so this weekend we got to see some of our investigators and it was great, some came to church which was way cool because we hadnt seen her for a little while. then monday we had a great day and some good miracles. We taught this lady who is the mother of 2 kids and you could really tell that she felt the spirit which was great and then we had an exchange with the Elders IN chambery. Which was good. We went and ate at a members house. it was SUCH good food haha. so anyways. Then Yesterday we had interviews with president murdock and it was really good. and ya... thats about it!
Hope you have a great week!
Love you!
Elder Laws

Nov. 18, 2009

2009-11-18T07:59:00.000-08:00

Hello All!
how is everyone doing today? how was everyones weeks?

so this has been an alright week for us. turns out my nose isnt too badly injured haha but i had to ice it for a little bit and ya. i think its broken still but its straight and i can breath so all is well.
We have been having a hard time seeing our amis lately because a lot of them have been sick and i think that one of them might have got the Grippe A... or just a normal Grippe (the grippe A is swineflu grippe is just like flu i guess... not completely sure though). so like its been tough but on sunday night we actually taught this couple that we had contacted a while ago and it went really well. they are way nice and we got the fact that we are polygamist cleared up for them haha. it was fun.
Then like yesterday or the day before we had this great contact with this italian guy that had lived in colorado for 4 years and he just loved everything we told him and like was really impressed that we are here to invite and not like tell them how it is sort of thing. sadly he is from italy so we arent going to get to teach him but thats ok.
ummm other stuff... idk if there is anything else thats going on really. we are in geneva again today to play sports... hopefully not just soccer because i am getting really bored of it haha. never really been my forte. my companion tries to tell me that i am good (i think its just in the effort to try and get me to play more haha).
Other than that the language is good, its starting to get cold in annecy, (mountains and all) and the branch is doing good.
Hope you have a great week! love you all!
Elder Laws
ps i need your addresses

Nov. 11, 2009

2009-11-11T09:34:00.001-08:00

Hello Family!
So this week has been great! so i guess that we can start with wednesday we just like hung out and played piano and stuff. then thursday we had the opportunity to do service at this place that we go to every week. its great and a ton of work which is a good switch from like walking and stuff haha. we also tried to find some places to do some porting but basically we didnt so it was alright but could have been better.
on friday we do our Weekly Planning session, set goals and stuff, figure out what we are working for etc and then we went and passed this less active member. a couple of weeks ago he actually stopped drinking and so he has a ton of energy (i told you that already i think) and so its hard to even like share anything with him but we manage to. he's a great guy and they always give us a ton of food when we go over.
Saturday was a pretty good day and we got to do some great things. we saw our investigator and he's doing good. Not especially progressing but recently he got jumped and they broke his nose... oh and he's in a wheelchair.. pretty messed up huh?
We also got to see some of our Members and we ate with one of them. Its a family with 3 kids and he is the ward mission leader. its fun to be with them and see that our family wasnt the only one with fights teasing disobedience great parents etc.sunday was alright but like all of our rendezvous fell. it was good though. ummm ya. and lately i've been having to practice the piano because i got a call from one of the assistants who wanted me to play the piano for Zone conference haha!
now since monday is no longer preparation day we had an exchange with the zone leaders it was way good. i went with elder brady and elder mason went with elder lepretre. we both had a lot of good conversations and found some people who said that we could pass by again. after that we went up to geneva for the rest of the exchange and because the next day was zone conference. It was SOOO good haha! i felt that spirit way strongly and well got a bunch of good ideas of what we should do.
we did one activity where we took a map and both members of the companionship picked roads according to the spirit..(thats like way french english haha) and then we compared the list that we made individually (5-10) and we had roads in common yay! so this thursday we are going to go check it out! and to add onto that elder mason got a package and he got fortune cookies, and one of them said be on the lookout thursday for a special opportunity. so it should be cool.
that brings us to today... which is preparation day. we came up to geneva to play some sports and we played soccer and well it was fun... and halfway through i like got my nose blasted.... its not sure that its broken or not but i think that it is possible haha. we'll see. i will keep you updated haha! i just got a head to the nose but anyways it was fun except that like all the french/spanish soccer player people were on the same team and then started to get way too cocky.... and then we scored like 5 goals in a row haha! it was funny... anyways (pride cycle anyone?) sorry... that wasnt very appropriate. umm so ya. but thats all for me! so i hope that you have a great week!
and i Love you!
Elder Laws

Nov. 04, 2009

2009-11-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!!!
So this has been a LONG 9 day week since i heard from you haha.... well actually i was just fine, pretty normal stuff going on.
umm so one monday we went up and played soccer in Geneva and it was way fun i guess.... i decided that i would just play with a good attitude and stuff and i slayed everyone.... not really but the WORLD WILL REMEMBER MY NAME!!! hahah... dunno where that came from! it was fun...
so then on Tuesday we just had basic like missionary stuff going on and we got to see one of our investigators. her name is Michele and she speaks english and is way funny... we've seen her a couple of times since then and watched the restoration with her and normally she likes to talk a lot(ton) but during the film she didnt say a word... she was really touched and she said that she would read every day from the Book of mormon! Which we have been trying to get her to do all along haha! she is also quiting smoking right now because she got brochitus and could easily have died.
Then we have been working with members and visiting them and its been fun i really like them! they are way too nice to us sometimes! oh and i'm still district leader so yesterday we've had 2 meetings and they went well. this last one we were talking about how we could speak better french and we invited some of the members to help us and it was really good! its always nice to have people that are from the country because they have different mindsets... and they speak the language haha!
We visited this lessactive member that is like the favorite person of all the missionaries who serve here and he used to be kind of a big drinker so it was kind of funny when we went there... but now he is stopping... and he has so much more energy its ridiculous. it was hard to get a few words in before but now its impossible haha (10 points to the Word of Wisdom testimony haha!)
On sunday we did some porting and a man let us in and we were talking about the restoration and like then he asked us how long we were here and like about our families and stuff and he said to tell our parents that On November 1, 2009 at 5:45 that Didier (52 rue de l'agouleme) said that. vos parents pourrait etre fier de vous (our parents could be proud of us) haha! He was a way nice guy and we're going to stop by and see him again pretty soon. he told us to tell our parents that! i'm not trying to be prideful or anything....
Umm... other than that this last little while i've been reading Jesus the Christ a ton and the Book of mormon too and i was just overcome with...sadness. The complete unrighteousness and illegality of the Trial and Crucifixion is completely ridiculous! the Jews acted against practically every law that they were so scrutinously protecting, and charged him of something that he DIDNT EVEN SAY or do!!! I love how talmage says it... they accused the one person on this earth that could not blaspheme of blasphemy.... or something like that... It really maybe so much more appreciative of the sacrifice that christ made for us. (10 points to atonement testimony!)
Anyways it was a great week... And i hope that you all have a great week, and I love you!
Elder Laws

Oct. 26, 2009

2009-10-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hello Family
so basically i dont have much time because we are going to geneva pretty soon so hopefully i'll be quick.
Today was transfer call day and we didnt get one so we're staying together which is sweet! i love it here so thats cool. Sadly it seems like the rest of the world this weekend both me and my companion we sick and didnt want to get our investigators sick so we just stayed inside and slept and stuff. but other than that the week was great!
on tuesday there was a train strike so we had district meeting then did another exchange with the elders in Chambery and it was great. i was with elder Williams who actually started his mission here in Annecy so we went and saw a few people that he taught and it was cool. Day went really well.
other than that we have just been hanging out (not really) and talking to everyone. Trying to see investigators and members and just like teach them the gospel. We saw a less active member this week who actually stpped drinking recently and had TONS more energy (imagine that.. :) ). it was way cool. Follow the commandments and get bless... odd concept no?
Well so basically today we are going to play sports in geneva which is way exciting! i miss beign able to play basketball so often.. hhaa
ummm... oh someone asked me for a christmas list so here goes.
- New Scriptures
- Ipod/Music
- absolutely NO CANDY haha...(i guess you can send traditional stuff)
- Letters!
- Church Books
- Oil Vial (last one got lost)
- Piano Music
- Photo Frame (electronic one...)
Basically i dont need any of this stuff but it would be cool... i realized when i was thinking of all this stuff that i really dont need anything (its a great feeling!).
i also need your addresses and if someone could send me a picture of the entire family (or as many people as possible) that would be sweet
ANyways i gotta go hope you have a great week!
Love YOU!
Elder Laws

Oct. 19, 2009

2009-10-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hello people....!
how is everyone doing?
so basically this week has been a lot of fun!
on tuesday we went to chambery for an exchange and i went with elder Walch and we actually had a sweet miracle. this lady stopped in her car and called us over (as we were contacting) and she just asked us what it was all about so we explained the restoration quickly and then she asked if we had a church in Chambery and we were like ya and so we gave her the address and the times and stuff and she was like cool i'll see you sunday then and then left. so thats cool (sadly she didnt go but ya)
so then we went and ate lunch and stuff we had a rendezvous with a less active then went to this little town called aix les bains in their area. and worked there for the rest of the day. It was fun because well my companion doesnt really care about sports and he likes sports and stuff and so we talked all day about it it was fun (sadly he's a new england patriots fan so i had to put him in his place but we quickly got past that conflict and got the spirit back haha!)
but it was fun. The next day we came back to annecy and had our district meeting that morning. it was good and i hope that it helped out the district.
Other than that we've just been teaching people. On sunday we had church and there were a few visitors from the stake and things like that and after church we had le repas de branche (ward meal) they do it every 3rd sunday of the month. (which was really good because we didnt go shopping this week and had like NO food haha... a little but ya...) after that we had a rendezvous with this family from nigeria. Mom and dad and two kids. it was fun and we are going to see them next sunday and show them the restoration. oh and they speak english which is pretty cool. i prefer to teach the gospel in french now but it should be fun anyways!
its been a great experience to be here in annecy and i LOve the people here (even when some of them arent nice...) all of our amis are great and the members here rock!
oh ya and so like... our ward mission leader wanted us to show this film to one of our investigators (the mediator) but he didnt know where it was and we didnt have a dvd player and all that jazz but then we were at the church one day looking at the videos that were there to see if we could use any in teaching (because there isnt a dvd player there) and we found the mediator so we were like cool lets try it out to make sure it works (it was an old video cassette so you never know right?) so we go to make sure put it in rewind it a little push play and its working so were like cool lets try to find the video we want to see (because there was more than one little video on it) so we were rewinding it and pressed play and then it broke... and so now there is a vhs... stuck in the vcr and its kind of annoying... it doesnt work... it wont eject... it wont do anything... so we opened it up (the back) and couldnt figure out how to get it to work... its still all wound through the machine but its just doesnt realize there is a video in there.... something always happens...
But so ya... the end of that has not yet been established...so i'll keep you updated.
ummm other than that i'm doing really well and its been good to hear from you all!
Love you and have a great week!
Elder Laws

Oct. 12, 2009

2009-10-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hi Family!
How is everybody doing?
This week was just a little bit crazy...thats all. It started out with being in geneva for preparation day. We went and played soccer (thumbs down...) which was fun (even though i would have preferred basketball). and also after that we went back to the mission home and played Risk which was pretty uneventful and i think that i pretty much lost... even though we didnt finish... it was still fun though. After that we had an exchange with the zone leaders that started that night and went until tuesday. I was with Elder LePretre who is from Paris. It was a lot of fun and we had some cool miracles where we found this family that they could teach and also we taught this guy who was WAY cool. it was a lot of fun. After that we FINALLY got back to annecy haha. but we couldnt get too confortable because on thursday we had Interviews in Annemasse... and then did an exchange with the Elders there. IT was good and fun. so basically that means that we were in our area for a grand total of 3 whole days yay!!! haha... but yesterday when we were porting we found this family that said that we could come back next week and talked to a TON of really nice people. Also Church was way good and we talked about JOseph Smith and what he was to each one of us... The evidences (physical and spiritual) are just WAYY too overwhelming to deny the fact that he was someone special. The book of mormon in itself is too crazy for someone that was only a young uneducated farmboy to have written. Its hard to think that people dont believe.. if they took even 1 hour to just study his life and works there is NO way that they could think that he was just a really smart young kid... Anyways i had a really great week and thanks everyone for writing me! I love YOu and have a good day and week!
Elder Laws
ps Congratulations Amelia!

Oct. 05, 2009

2009-10-06T10:26:00.001-07:00

Hello family!
so this week has been interesting and great at the same time! we basically had no time in our area which was kind of bad but we were able to see most of our investigators so its cool! but other than that we came to geneva on thursday for legality stuff and we were supposed to have an exchange with our Zone leaders but then there was a bunch of confusion and stuff and we didnt do it so like thats going to be tonight so on saturday we went to a city called bellegarde which is on its way to geneva and visited a couple of members family! it was fun and we went from there to general conference.
the schedule is a little different here in switzerland because well when its 10 there is 6 at night here. so like thats when the first session is saturday. then the next day they show priesthood session at 11 o clock and then saturday afternoon session at 2. after that they have sunday morning at 6 and then sunday afternoon at 10 To 12 so normally we dont get to watch that one BUT... we were staying at the mission home here in geneva with like the office elders and assistants and president murdock let us come over to his side of the mission home and watch in their basement! so it was WAYYY good!
I loved the talk by elder Holland because lately we've just been focusing on getting our investigators to read the book of mormon. so its way cool. and i also really enjoyed elder Scotts talk a bunch. it was a lot of fun and i went with a question and got the answer like right away. idk if you've ever tried just having a question whenever you go to church or watch conference but its really a great experience. When i was talking to one of the Missionaries in my district (did i tell you i was district leader again?) last night for weekly calls he told me that he had like 20 questions written down and that he got an answer to ALL of them... cool stuff. anyways so we are actually still in geneva because we have the exchange with the zone leaders so we are going to play soccer and basketball with like the entire zone so it should be TONS of fun.
Sorry that i havent sent any pictures in a while but my battery charger was left in neuchatel and i called and asked them to get it to the mission president so he could get it to me but they have just forgotten every time i guess... so i havent had my camera the last 2 transfers...; way sad.. anyways once i get it i will get you some pictures so ya! I love you all and thanks for all your examples! have a great week!
Elder Laws

Sep. 28, 2009

2009-09-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

So HELLO all!
This week has been good but also a little slow as well. Most of our investigators have been like.... not there this week. but we still got to see a few people so thats cool.
Umm... We've been really trying to get people to Read the book of mormon this last week. Its amazing how little of an effort that would take but how hard it is for people to just do it. In Preach My Gospel it says to do everything that you can to get your investigators to read the book of mormon, and that the Book of mormon is the most powerful tool for conversion that we have. so like we have this one family that we have been teaching and its a 2 sisters and their Kids and then this guy and like we really just focused our last rendezvous on getting them to read.. so the next time we went one of the Sisters had read and she was SOOO excited to tell us what she learned and she really paid attention to what she was reading and basically told us the story of when Nephi goes and gets the pLates and it was way cool. and she was like ca ma fait du bien (....that me did some good... directly translated haha...you get the point) just like you said it would and so she's going to keep reading and we are SOO excited. it was funny because she told her sister that she had to read some and like it just reminded me of when Lehi sees the vision of the tree of life and he partakes of the fruit he just wants to share it with his family and its like exactly what happened with her!!! so cool.. they invited us to come eat with them this next week (they are from Maurice island... by madagascar) so we're excited. I Know that the Book of Mormon can change lives and i LOVE IT!!! this last little while its just been SOOO good to read i feel like i've learned like a Zillion things in the past week, its sometimes exhausting haha! (maybe thats just waking up every morning at 6h30...maybe thats it..)
ALso this last week was Zone Conference and it was WAY GOOD! and so ya... not really anything specific that stands out to me at this instant but it was great! and its always good to see missionaries together... this spirits always so strong.
umm but I think thats it for me!
I love you all! Have a great week!
ELder Laws

Sep. 21, 2009

2009-09-21T07:31:00.001-07:00

so.... HELLO!!!!!
Hows everybody doing this week? i had another great week! so here we go...
umm on monday, basically what happened is that we hung out and Elder Walker packed... BORING!!! anyways so then the next day (tuesday) we went and passed a bunch of people so that elder Walker could say goodbye and stuff. we had a few rendezvous and we were able to teach Louis, Stefanie, Moses and Marie and also see our Branch President and his Family before he left.
So Louis is this great African man that has had a lot of crazy experiences this last little while. A year ago he was in a coma and the doctors said he had less than a one percent chance to live and wanted to just pull the plug but the family wouldnt let him and he came out of the coma, BUT he was blind, deaf, and weighed 30 kilos, which is like 70 pounds or so... anyways so NOW he can see, hear, and he's the Buffest person i've seen in my life... its crazy, he has such a strong testimony of prayer because he knows thats what saved him and has given him back his life.. HE's a great guy. anyways so he has told us his little workout program thing that he did after his coma to become the way he is, and basically it involved him doing pushups until he was doing about 1000 a day.... so i think i'm going to do that!!! sounds like fun huh? haha...
umm but so like we have some great Investigators that have strong desires to understand god better and its way cool.
So then on Wednesday elder Walker left to LYON. I went with him until Chambery because i had to wait with the elders there until my companion got to annecy because he Was in LUxembourg and well... it took him 11 hours to get down here... yikes! so that was our wednesday...
My new companion is named Elder Mason and he's from Huntington Beach, California and is probably the FUnniest companion that i've had. He likes to play soccer and he's a Pole Vaulter and ya its just been way fun to be around him this last little bit. Especially since we have been able to teach so much lately and just been blessed with SOOO many miracles. so its been fun.
umm Yesterday was probably the best day that we have had this week. We went to church and we had 4 amis there and we taught the GOspel principles class on Prayer and it was a great lesson. Then after that and church the ward had prepared a little luncheon thing (they do it after every 3rd Sunday) so we got to eat with them. Then after that we went and started to pass some people because we really wanted to get new amis and to teach people so we passed by some of our amis and stuff and nothing was really going on well so we decided to do some porting and this Old Man let us in and accepted the Book of Mormon and said he'd read it and that we could come back so that was GREAT!!! after that we talked to quite a cool people but then we went and had DInner and we were still a little lower than our goals, so we went out and passed like a bunch of people, one of them this guy that again accepted the book of mormon and said he'd read and that we could pass by again (it was actually his wife that we were going to pass and she said we could come by another time but if he wanted us too come by too that works!) then we passed by Marie again to share a quick spiritual thought on the way to another persons house and her, her sister, and this other guy that lives there were all excited to see us and ALL pulled out their book of Mormons and asked great questions and stuff it was great!!! They're so cool! and like we just felt like we got SO much accomplished on Sunday it was great and now today we are SOOO tired... its great. preparation day always comes with perfect timing haha!
Well so thats about it for me, thanks for writing me! its great to here from you all! Love You!
Elder Laws*
ps have a great week!

Sep. 14, 2009

2009-09-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!
So i just was writing this email and everything got erased somehow so i will just start again and sorry that it wont be as specific... on monday we had an exchange with another companionship and so they came down during preparation day so we played a little basketball and it was fun. Then that night Elder Sheilds (a new missionary) and I had a couple of rendezvous scheduled and one of the went really well but the other one Got cancelled so we ended up just contacting and talked to this guy, asked him if we could teach him right then and went to his house and saw him.. it was really good and we have seen him a couple of times since then and he came to church so thats really cool.
Another cool thing that happened during the exchange is that we ported into this Lady that we are now teaching and shes really nice.
Then they went home and we were able to teach a ton of other people this week.
The best thing that has happened i would say is that for one of our rendezvous we had a member who brought pizza to share with us and the investigator. We decided to just leave her there with the Investigator and her family and she was there for like 2 hours just talking to them answering questions and stuff. anyways she came to church and liked it and while we were in a meeting they talked and she expressed a desire to be baptized and so like we're going to see her tuesday and we'll see what happens so it should be cool.
Ummm other than that transfers are this week and i'm getting a new companion so i'll let you know how that goes. its too bad because we have had so much going on but Elder Walker like has been here for 6 monthes so thats probably why its changing. But it should be fun.
Anyways I have to go
Love you all
Have a Wonderful Week!!
Elder Laws

P.S. Pass "Happy Birthday" to Grandma Laws for me!
How's she doing?
Hope you have a great week love you!
Elder Laws

Sep. 07, 2009

2009-09-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Bonjour à tous!
this week was amazing.... we were SOO blessed. like i thought that last week was great but this week was even better! we had so many miracles.
We've focused on teaching and so we havent had tons of time to like find people but we still found a ton of people willing to talk and stuff.
On our way to one of our rendez vous we contacted like 4 people of which one wasnt very nice... the others we got there numbers and one of them we have taught like 3 times now and is a way cool way spiritual guy just looking for truths. Just trying to find God. he's awesome. This week we had an Exchange with the Assistants to the President and i was with Elder Sorenson, who just so happens to be one of my best friends so far on my mission and it was great! we had a bunch of rendezvous for both companionships and it was my first time driving a car on my mission! (they drove down) it was fun!
umm.... lets see... also like yesterday (sunday) the first time that we had like really scheduled some finding we talked to a lot of really cool people and stuff and in like the last building of the night we got let in to this families house from Kosovo and they are way cool. They have like 4 kids and its just a way cool family, way nice. and we're going to see them again tomorrow. umm... ya...
like its hard to think of specific things that happened because we had so many miracles, and we were just teaching all week! we are teaching this one African man from Guana and we showed up at his house and he had like some friends over, one of which from England, he was cool adn spoke with an accent. said stuff like brilliant, smashing... it was funny. anyways so his other friend as we were leaving was like i got your book (we had given him le livre de mormon) and he was pretty happy about it. man it was great.
This other lady that we are teaching had her friend over for one of the rendezvous and we saw the lady and she said her friend had started to read in the book of Mormon a little and like after that the problems that she had started to work out a little better and like she wanted to see us again! just so many unexplainable miracles happened this week and neither of us understand because we are just like missionaries basically we do nothing just try and get people to feel the spirit and once that happens its like GAME OVER... but instead of losing you WIN! haha! i'm having a blast.
Also umm..we had an amazing district meeting. the spirit was way strong... it was great....
umm... running out of time... ummm... i know i had something else i wanted to say but i dont remember anymore...
Well i guess thats all for me... Love YOU have a great week.
Elder Laws
ps Congratulations to JESSE!!!

August 31, 2009

2009-08-31T08:28:00.001-07:00

Bonjour bonjour bonjour. la famille. comment ça va?

so this week has been SOO good. we had a ton of miracles and we also got to have a zone conference with elder Kopischke of the Seventy. so thats way cool.

He came and talked to us for a long time. like 6 hours. and we talked about all sorts of aspects of the work, finding, getting amis to church, etc. He promised us that if we had 20 lessons, 3-5 new investigators, and 2-5 amis at Church every week that we would baptize monthly. So me and my companion took that counsel very seriously. and we went back to our area and ALMOST succeeded. we only had 19 lessons this week (which is more than i have ever had in a week of my mission) We were SOOO blessed. we can really see the blessings of the lord as we follow his guidance and are obedient. as we do our best the lord makes up the difference. and so like we were SOO Blessed it was a great week.

We had a rendezvous scheduled with this woman and she ended up inviting her neighbor over while we were there. It was a great rendezvous and her neighbor was very open and was very happy to seeing us again. it was great!

We also passed by this man that was a formal investigator and he wanted to see us every day of the week. We have seen a slow change come over him that has been really good. before he had been in a depression for about a year, and slowly i'm seeing him be a little bit less pecimistic, and unhappy, and more open to the gospel. the spirit can work mighty changes is the hearts and minds of people.

Its all around just been a great week. it seems like this week we did more of what we are supposed to do as missionaries and that is TEACH! it is really motivating too. idk if i'm making much sense but yeah. i feel like sometimes i speak french in english. (grammar and stuff) anyways. uhhh... idk what else to say, Congrats to Amelia of course. and yup thats about it... have a great one!

LOVE YOU ALL
ELder Laws

August 24, 2009

2009-08-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

hey the family... hows it going?
So this last week has been fairly eventful. We went to Annemasse on Tuesday for our interviews with the president and it was pretty good. we talked about finding families to teach and also about being a better companion. i realized something and that is that like as companions we have to lift each other up and sometimes in a companionship we have hard times or one of the companions cant speak the language as well or something, but like we are all weak. and we cant leave each other behind. like Christ is the only person to come to this earth and he was strong, just imagine what would happen if he left us behind!!! that would be terrible. so like ya, we should always lift our companions up. (mission and eternal).
anyways so the next day we had to go to Geneva for Zone Meeting (which i had to conduct apparently, no one let me know that haha!) and it was way good (i miss geneva haha) we talked a lot about baptism, and finding families to teach again. good stuff.
Then on wednesday we went out to a city in our area called Bellegarde thats like an hour away and there are like 2 buses a day and like 1 train or something anyways we got to visit some members out there and it was a lot of fun. one of the members worked for the church for like 20 years and so he has like a TON of cool church books including a second edition book of mormon in french... way old, way cool. and that was a lot of fun. so like the last week i felt like all we did was travel it was rough. way tiring. ummm lets see. cool stuff that has happened this week.
the other week when we were porting this lady told us that we could pass by another day. So on THursday we went by a few people living in that building with our DMB, Branche mission leader, and we passed this lady and it Turns out, small world, that their kids go to the same school and they know each other. thats way too cool. so like we were able to teach her this past week and we'll see her again this week.
Also we went saw a few other members and it was a lot of fun. It seems like we are always really blessed sundays. We went to church and then after church we passed by this Lady that we are teaching and it just so happened that she wasnt there but 2 of her friends were and we were able to teach them a little spiritual thought and then we went with them to her old apartment where she was and we talked and it was good. Then we went out to the other side of town and we passed a Member (before another rendezvous that we had) and it was really good. he has a way strong testimony and some cool stories.
Then we went to our rendezvous which was with our DMB and his family and we ate crepes and talked and its was way fun. then like we went back to the Amis apartement talked a little bit then we had to get home on time so we rain like all the way accross town and it was fun.
so like my companion has got me eating a lot healthier so i have a lot more energy its awesome. i mean i eat like broccoli and stuff (should make you proud mom haha) its great. umm and then other than that i dont know... what else to say.
Oh, haha i gave a talk this sunday, they asked me like Thursday so idk if it made a whole lot of sense to them but thats what they get i guess... I talked about faith and how its a principle of action, power, and growth. it made sense to me and thats all (well not all, but ya) that matters.
umm... lets see. thats it LOVE YOU have a great week
Elder Laws

August 17, 2009

2009-08-17T09:59:00.001-07:00

Hey Family!!!
apparently i need to apologize for last week. i guess you guys didnt get the email that i wrote, and thought i sent. oh well hopefully you get this one.
so this last couple of weeks have been a lot of fun. i got here safe and sound and we went straight to work. we are teaching a few people but sadly most of them have been on vacation so its been kind of slow.umm so ya. BUT it has still been really fun.
i guess i can start off telling you a little bit about my New companion Elder Walker. He is from arizona or ogden depending on who he is talking to and he is about 6'4" or 6'5" i guess and has blond hair. He has been on his mission a little more than 6 monthes(the same as elder diffrient) and he is 19 years old. Ummm Other than that we are both pretty, not that talkative, but its not because we hate each other its just because thats our personalities (we talked about it already). When he was in school he ran cross country and also started the Chess club and the Comic book club with one of his friends, but he doesnt really look like thats what he would be interested in. um other than that idk what to tell you about him... :-) ummm so this last week we had a couple of cool miracles that i thought id share with you. ummm firstly we have run into like 3 member families on vacation that wanted to know the times and address for church, way cool. so like one of these times we were at a bus stop waiting for the bus and twice like the bus was supposed to come and didnt, so we ended up sitting there way longer than we wanted and it was just way annoying. then this man and woman comes up to us asks if were the missionaries and for like the times and address for church. so we give it to them and i swear not like 2 minutes later our bus shows up... that really strengthened my testimony that God really looks out for all of his children and that he knows what is important for us and what we need. so like, God was able to bless the life of this member family, through us, it was way cool.
Other things that happened is like this whole week we just ported and ported and called people, and everyone was on vacation so we just proselyted (contacting porting) all week, and it was really hard, but this sunday we reaped the benefits of our hard work and were able to teach like 3 lessons, have a few amis at church, and it was great. we also found a new amis so its really cool. She is a really nice old lady, who has just been looking for truths, and really just likes to talk about god. its been really good.
Umm as for the Members here annecy is a small branch of 20 active members, and they are all really great as far as i've been able to tell. all willing to help and very spiritual people. its awesome, a little different because, like there are such a little amount of people but at the same time its cool.
ummmm oh another experience that we had is that we went out to this little town like an hour by bus away to try and track down this member family that moved in. anyways this place is Ugine. and uhh... we ended up missing our bus back and had to like stay there for like 2 more hours, it was rough. and its hard too because like we cant go out there too often so if we find people that are interested like they live an hour away and the buses are not that often so it would be tough to teach and hard to get them to church. thats why we need to spread the gospel even more. so that like theres missionaries and chapels in every one of those villes. that would be nice.
thats all for me.
love you
Elder Laws

August 3, 2009

2009-08-05T09:19:00.001-07:00

Bonjour à tous!
how is everyone doing? so this last week has been pretty full of cool things. Starting on monday...idk if i told you that we went to Yverdon and we spent the day at the beach! it was fun, we rode bikes around and played catch.. we also took some time to catch frogs and it was a blast. way cool.
Other cooll things that we did this last week was that on Saturday we went down to the lake on one of the like "boardwalks", if thats the right word, and we drew the Plan of salvation with sidewalk chalk. it was fun and it worked pretty well. Considering that it was the Swiss national holiday, we talked to quite a few people that were nice enough. Probably wasnt as effective as it could have been but it was a fun experience.
Also on saturday, it being the Swiss national holiday, they lit off fireworks. We had asked our Mission president if it would be ok to stay out later and watch them with members and he said it was ok so we went to The Psota families house. They live in an apartment building up on the hill so we got to see like everything it was great. They shot the fireworks off in the lake off barges and there were SOO many boats in the lake too. just a bunch of little lights everywhere on the lake it was cool. before the fireworks started we played some games and also the Family Psota sang for us, in swiss german, the national anthem of switzerland i guess. it was cool. they were both raised swiss german so thats why they speak it. ummm also we could see like all the other little towns accross the lake shooting off fireworks too it was a lot of fun.
also this week we decided to make these cookies and give them to a bunch of members and so we did... they are oreo cookies i guess. but they are way good!
let me see if i can remember the recipe....
mix:
250 grams of butter melted
4 tablespoons of Cocoa
then add into bowl with:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
Mix and add
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
bake at 350 degrees fareinheit (as cookies) for 8-10 minutes.
cream filling:
200 g cream cheese
2 tsp vanilla
4 tblsp butter
3-4 cups powdered sugar
then you just like put the cream in between the cookies and voila oreos... ish its way good though. just thought id share.
anyways when we got to church sunday everyone that we gave them to like made such a HUGE deal about it it was incredible....people like threatened us to not be able to come over without the recipe and stuff like that it was funny... but they had a good enough reason i think haha! they were good cookies!
well other than that the most exciting thing is that transfers are this week. we just got out calls like an hour ago and i'm leaving neuchatel... :(! i'm going to be going to Annecy, which, if i remember right, it the most beautiful city in the mission according to President Peterson... maybe i'm mistaken but i think thats it... oh well... it should be fun.. i'll tell you about elder Walker(my next companion) next week!
Love you! have a great week
Elder Laws

July 27, 2009

2009-07-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

bonjour à tous!
How is everyone doing?
Well so this passed week has been not bad. monday we played football with some members for a little while and well it was fun but also silly. because they're swiss haha... it was a lot of fun. then we went to the church and played a little ping pong and well this kid from Nigeria who's a recent convert and like 17 beat me... we had some good games though it was fun.
on Wednesday...or Tuesday, tuesday we went on exchanges with elder uhh... our zone leaders. (i'm really scattered brain you'll have to excuse my horrible English.) and i went with elder Nelson. He's a great Elder and a cool guy too. we had a great time. the NExt day was Zone Conference. We went just stayed where we were because i went to Yverdon on my exchange so it was a nice set up for wake up not earlier than normal and not have to take a train and all that good stuff haha. it was really good and really fun because a lot of my old companions were there and elder Jensen, who just went home this week was there and i got to see him one last time it was cool. (i served with elder jensen in valence..) we had some great teachings from our Zone leaders, assistants to the president, and President and Sr. Murdock. They were all good. a lot of review stuff but its normal i think when theres a new mission president.
umm... still just truckin along, vacation time has come so a lot of people are not around but we are still doing alright. hopefully things go good this week.
but uhh... aside from that i dont have much to say. uhh oh wait. haha. forgot. this sunday we also went on a little exchange with the other elders here in neuchatel and it went way well.. i went with Elder Chapman who is going to be going home soon and whose plans all fell...(sad..) but it went well anyways. we went porting and talked to some way cool people and a few told us we could come back so thats cool stuff.
umm now i think i'm done...ya, i am. haha love you all have a great week!
Elder Laws
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July 20, 2009

2009-07-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hello hello hello!
hows everyone doing?
hope all is going well!
so this week has been better than the last... i also forgot that we had some stuff that was fun we did and i dont remember if i told you so i'll do that now... this would be...two weeks ago. We helped this family in the ward move and i'll tell you its way different than in Utah.. haha.. point A) there arent 70 members of the elders quorum that come help B) they live in apartment buildings and C) well... stairs arent fun climbing haha. but it was still a good time, and its always fun to do service! that same night we went over to our neighbors house and helped her put together some like shoe cabinet or something and it was way good. brought back some good memories of work! i really enjoy putting stuff together and it almost went too fast... but at the end of the day we were exhausted so thats great.
so this past week has been alright. elder diffrient was sick monday and tuesday and then we had Interviews Wednesday. It was good to meet the New Mission President and his wife they are really nice people and are excited to be here. They are nothing like President and Sister Peterson so it will be an adjustment but i think that everything should be okay since its a calling from the lord. He knows what he's doing!
Other than that we've just been trying to find new people. On Thursday(To continue the week) we did exchanges with The Elders Serving in Bienne (or biel in german). It was fun i went out there with an Elder Named Elder Whatcott. He's from oklahoma and proud of it. it was a lot of fun and we talked with some cool people. also some people that didnt speak french it was great. i guess thats pretty normal there because there are more people that speak german there than french. there are actually Missionaries there from the Zurich Switzerland mission so its pretty cool. it was fun, we were going to do exchanges (exchange in the exchange weird huh?) with the German Elders but they actually couldnt for some reason or another but it was fun just the same.
Well for those who dont remember my companion is still Elder Diffrient and he's from Mississippi. Hes about as short as keshia, and he's got a funny accent haha. i'll send a picture so you can see.
umm... aside from that other weird things that happened.. we had a conversation with an elder that was asleep for about an hour and a half.. it was fun/also weird and he said some funny things.. the best part was that he spoke in french the whole time and this is his first transfer. way cool stuff. its awesome.
i think thats about all that has happened this week. i hope you have a great week! love you all!
Elder Laws
ps in the picture elder diffrient is on the right love you!

July 13, 2009

2009-07-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hey family!
Hope you are all doing well.
This week has been basically basic. Just doing the same things, finding, visiting members and trying not to go too crazy haha! its been fun.
This sunday a member invited one of his friends to church but sadly she wasnt too interested past that. she was really nice though. Sundays are always great though because the spirit is just so strong and the members are great.
Other than that today we are all alone here in Neuchatel. The other companionship went to fribourg for the day but we had other things to do so we couldnt. oh well! we should have some fun anyways, doing i dont know what. yay!
umm.... its kind of hard to have much to write about this week because my companion was a little sick the whole time so yeah. we were in and out but it was still an okay week. hopefully we'll be able to get out a little more this week so that my email isnt so bad next time haha! there are other reasons too of course! ummm....
I dont know what else to say SORRY!!
have a great week! Love you all! congratulations Austin, and HAppy Birthday NYah! have a great week!
Elder Laws

July 06, 2009

2009-07-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

Hello Family!
how is everyone doing? i hope good.
This week has been basically the same as all the others haha. just trying to keep busy. We saw a lot of members and they are awesome! its a lot of fun to be in the homes of people who are living the gospel and love it. We had a couple rendezvous that we ate in and the food is still good here haha! Another rendezvous that we had we werent really expecting to eat but we got over and the Member had invited a couple of New members, another Member, and a friend of his. It is really cool to see that the ward is trying to strengthen each other, and help others to see find the Truth, and love and joy we have. (he might be trying to find a wife too haha! but thats not important)
The Fourth of July was this weekend too! it was a lot of fun and we started off the celebration with a little football throwing in the morning for exercises. after that we had French Toast (a TON) for breakfast and then Pizza for Lunch. Of course we worked and stuff in the inbetween time, but we also sang all the Patriotic songs in the Hymn book and did all sorts of stuff like that. For dinner we had a FEAST! it was great. We had Hamburgers, Potato Salad, Deviled eggs, doritos, these scone things that our neighbor gave us, and Sprite and Fantas. It was great. .... then i got sick haha! which i guess you could say ended the Night off with fireworks.. (that wasnt very funny i know...) I guess that when you eat so many eggs in one day your likely to get food poisoning (thats what we figured it was at least). Anyways so i got up like 6 or 7 times during the night to use the bathroom and throw up and stuff it was fun... Which kind of made it so i wasnt feeling so good so i had to stay in the apartment all day sunday. (i guess i could have gone out, but that would have been risky you know?) so it was fun. i'm okay now though, i got to eat a little last night and i didnt have to wake up in the middle of the night for anything so i think its all done.
Thats basically been the week. My fellow missionaries tell me that i talk a lot in my sleep and so i was wondering if you ever noticed me doing that before or if its something i picked up on the Mission. I wouldnt be suprised... Just kind of weird.
Lets see. I Think thats about it... no wait i forgot another interesting detail about our Holiday celebration. we decided to see who could gain the most weight in the one day because we knew that we'd be eating a LOT that day. so in the morning we weighed ourselves.... I was at 181 i believe anyways. so at the end of the night right after diner (before i got sick) we weighed in and we basically all tied (except elder Diffrient) and we all gain 5 pounds. so i was at 186... the next morning when i woke up...well the last time at least. i decided that i would weigh myself and i was at 178.... crazy huh? i thought it was funny...
So one thing that i learned this week from studying the Book of Mormon is that Nephi is SOOO cool. I mean, I knew that already, but still it is just great to read and see the confidence that Nephi has in the Lord, and the Strength that the Lord gives him because of it. Its really cool.
Also i read a few of the conference talks (i got the ensign you sent), oh side note, enseigner is the verb in french meaning to teach, cool huh?, anyways I know that the leaders of the church are inspired greatly and that each of the messages given during conference can apply to us. Its such a comfort to know that there are people on the earth that are receiving revelation for us all and better yet, that God is giving it to us. I know that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
I love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Michael Laws

July 01, 2009

2009-07-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Family!
so the reason that i am writing today is because well the churches email site wasnt working very well on monday so yeah... this is the first time that we've really have been able to get over here again so yup.
Umm other than that the week has been really good. Elder Chapman and Elder Leichty got here safe and sound, and its really fun to have them around. Elder Leichty is on his First transfer so its kind of fun to "be the example" and to have some fun. its crazy though because he reminds me a TON of Kollin haha. looks, personality, everything... its bizarre.
well so i dont know if you remember me telling you about a couple that we talked to that said that they were going to come to church well they showed up at church this sunday its way cool. They live in Brazil and are just Visiting for a while but its way cool. We got their number and we are going to see them sometime this week. other than that we have just been trying to visit members less actives amis, finding people to teach and sleepign haha.
this past week when i hit almost 190 pounds (it was only one day...) i decided that it was about time to take that exercise time that they give us a little more seriously and i'm back down to what i usually am. Also sore! haha. Elder Diffrient might get sick of it one of these days but as long as i can i'm going to make him go running with me haha.
umm. so the other day we were all officially completely out of money it was kind of funny because the other missionaries got here and had to buy bus passes and they had no money. thats ok though because we got through it. it was really funny actually. its mostly my fault because i hadnt sent in reimbursements for a while... and yeah... but thats taken care of now. yay! money haha.
umm but other than that i cant think of anything else. like it was a good week and i gotta go so have a good one! LOVE YOU!
Elder Laws

Jun 22, 2009

2009-06-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

so hello!
umm so this week has been pretty fun. mostly been doing the same things as always but today we found out transfers. But nothing is happening with me and elder Diffrient. but the other companionship is changing to 2 new missionaries. 1 of which already served there and will be training the other one. cool stuff.
umm lets see. so this week we actually did an exchange with the other elders and it was a lot of fun. umm nothing too crazy different because we are serving in the same city but its still cool. I was with elder terry who at times is a little wierd but at the same time cool.
i really dont have anything to talk about that much... umm on tuesday we had our last presidents interviews with President Peterson. He will shortly be replaced in July and so it was really sad. but it was good because we got some little presents for them and Sr. Peterson was going to cry because we waved goodbye to them as they drove by and everything so sad for them. and me. i really Love them theyre great. hopefully President and Sister Murdock are good replacements... that would be sad if they werent. (of course they will be)
umm other than that like i dont have much to say. we've found a couple of people to teach, one of which i've never seen (they found her on the exchange haha..) and the other is really hard to see. The first ones name is Mme Vuilliomenet which is funny because in the ward there is a Vuilliomenet family and there son is Elder Vuilliomenet in our mission. and they dont live very far away from them so its funny. the Dad is a little less active so we are actually going to try to get him to help us with rendezvous which should be fun. we'll see what happens.
umm i think thats about it. I love you, and hope you have a great week.
Elder Laws

Jun 15, 2009

2009-06-15T08:05:00.001-07:00

hey family! how is everyone?
well so this week has been pretty good. we have had a quite a few rendezvous with members this past week its been fun. and there has been a LOT of good food. i havent eaten so well in a while. They just stuff you like crazy! its yummy though so i'm all for it. (kind of making me fat though... haha.)
so umm.. well this week i went on an exchange with our Zone leaders. its was way fun and it started off way cool. We started after our Zone meeting so me and Elder Sorenson (he's one of my favorite, if not my favorite, missionary) went to the trainstation to catch a train to Yverdon. while we were waiting in the trainstation for the train a man walked up to us and asked us to explain a little so we did and he then proceeded to tell us he'd like to learn more. so we fixed a rendezvous and we saw him Thursday afternoon and it was really good. we'll see him again this week.
umm.. anyways so we get to yverdon and go to their apartment and drop my stuff off. Then we go, and since in Yverdon the bus system isnt very good they walk everywhere. and we had a long ways to walk. haha. so we start going and we get into the "downtown" area and then this guy and his friend stops us, and speaks to us in english and says they want to meet with us. haha. cool stuff. He was from Guatemala and had seen the Temple and knew a little and so ya thats way cool.
anyways so other than that things have been basically pretty routine. its been a lot of fun but also sometimes hard. we uhh.. also got another cool miracle yesterday after church. it was great.
we were porting in a little city about 15 minutes train ride from Neuchatel. We got done with the buildings we were at so we went to the trainstation to wait for the next train back to neuchatel and we were just sitting on a bench. then a man and a woman walked up to us and the man asked us if we were the mormons. we replied yes and he then went on to explain that he was from neuchatel but that he had been in brasil for the last couple years and that there were a LOT of churchs there. and then he asked us where the church was in neuchatel. the woman didnt speak french (portuguese... from brasil i'd imagine) but he said that they went to church all the time in brasil and that his friend told him that when he left that he had to come to church here so thats WAY cool. we just happened to be in the right place at the right time (well i mean not just happened but you get the point.) they said they'd come this coming sunday so thats way awesome. The lord is really full of love for his children and knows when his missionaries need a little miracle haha! so cool.
basically other than that nothing too cool has been happening so thats all for me. Hope you all have a great week. Love you!
Elder Laws
ps. i'll find some shoes here so i should be alright dad thanks for the offer though!

Jun 08, 2009

2009-06-08T07:13:00.001-07:00

hello family!
how is everyone doing?
well so this week has been alright. we started out by having preperation day which i already told you about but then by having the next day a day long trip to Lyon for elder Diffrients legality. so like that ended up being all day long because we got to the Trainstation and like 2 minutes before the train got there i was like... i dont have my passport.. so we had to go back and get my passport and then go and catch the next train which left an hour later which also made us miss the connecting train in Geneva but there was another one and we ended up getting there just fine and on time for his appointment.
now when we got to the gare the elders in Lyon met us there because one of them had to do legality too. so we did that and then got a patisserie to eat and well we missed our train home that night and ended up on an Exchange with those elders and yeah. so then we came home the next morning and everything was good. Other than that we have just been trying to find people to teach. Yesterday we talked with a lot of really nice people (none were interested...) and we also at church set up a lot of rendezvous with members because its kind of hard to do 8 hours of finding every day without things to break it up a little. so its cool. and i think this week will be the best week of the transfer so far for us. exciting...
umm so like dad asked how it all worked for us so like we dont have to pay any like rent or anything, they give us some money for food mostly and like travel and stuff. but like anything else is basically paid by us, clothes toys etc haha... but ya its nice, i guess like in the passed you had to pay for your own lodging? is that right? but its cool. its nice having a lot of elders because then you dont have to worry so much about spending all of your money because you can get enough for less money per person.
so the picture is of a little valley north of Neuchatel named Val-de-Ruz and it was like the First week that i got here that i took it but i havent been able to send it so i thought that i would since i can. Other than that we have a few recent converts that we are working with, just trying to get them integrated etc. fun stuff. so uhh.... yeah... i think thats about it for me and i dont know if i have anything else or if you had any other questions so yeah.
Have a great week Love you all
Elder Laws

Jun 01, 2009

2009-06-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Family again!
so i'm sorry but this week i wont be able to send pictures either, hopefully next week though because i want you to see this place before i leave it haha. (if i leave it too) umm.. so i guess we can just start uhh at today... Well it started with us getting up and doing laundry. then we played a little spades (which the other missionaries taught me how to play, fun game.) then at 11 we got on the train and headed to Bienne, which is like 20 minutes away because we were going to play Football...soccer.. with the Missionaries serving in the Zurich, Switzerland Mission. and its because they have missionaries in bienne, or biel in german, and we have missionaries there too and so we are both within our mission boundaries anyways it was a lot of fun. and i'm sooo tired. that pretty much took up our day. until now. i also cramped up and almost fell on my face but thats ok, i guess that happens when you play for 3 hours after not playing for a yearish... haha. umm... i dont even like soccer. haha. but it was still fun anyways.
umm then yesterday church was good. they had a little lesson on member missionary work (which idk if you knew but those are the most spiritual lessons usually, not even just because of my biased opinion, but really) because this ward has had a lot of baptisms recently and they need to make sure and retain people. and then like after church i was just like hey i like your tie, to the bishop and hey was like can i offer it to you and i was like ya sure so we exchanged ties, so i have a neuchatel bishop tie haha! its a cool tie.
umm then other than that the work is going ok... been seeing a lot of the Recent converts lately and also doing a LOT of porting. (we dont have any amis they all got baptised i guess...) the Lake here is beautiful and the last couple of days we've tried to contact by it but its too distracting because there are a bunch of sail boats and like people riding sail boards and all this crazy stuff and the lake has these huge cool waves and so i dont think its very effective because, its easy to just look at the lake. and i'd send a picture but i dont have enough time and i also yeah there isnt a usb plug in this thing either so i'll have to do it next week.
Other Things... well i think thats about it but i hope that you have a great week and i LOVE YOU ALL!!!
ELder Laws
Je vous aime, et on se verra dans un an... je crois..

May 25, 2009

2009-05-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

so uhh HI
hows everyone doing?
this last little bit has been really good and i dont think i told you but this weekend we had a baptism. I got here and everything was basically set up and yeah. thats that. I thought that maybe i would send you a picture but i cant, this comps not working. So the ladies name is Sr. Cappadona and shes from Maurice Island... by Madagascar, shes like 70 and way nice. it was a good service and the Member that gave us to her as a referal baptised her so we have officially lost our best amis, and other than that we have no one really to teach so yay finding!
umm other than that not much else is going on. there are a lot of people here that speak english though. its kind of cool. weird too though. also a lot of german speakers, and aparently portugeuse also. so yeah. ummm lets see.
we ate at this Member families house and they fed us Porkchops... yum.. those are the first in a LONG time. it was good. and theyre a cool family (old man and old woman haha). other than that i dont really have anything to talk about. aparently there has been a lot of crazy stuff going on with my friends (for info ask mom) and yeah... its crazy how much can change in a couple years...
well umm... thats about it. sorry that the email isnt very good this week but yeah. thats all for me. have a great week.
Elder Laws
LOVE YOU ALL

May 18, 2009

2009-05-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

hello the family!
how is everyone?
well so this week has been a lot of fun. on monday we went and played laser tag and it was terrible.... the equipment just was terrible so like when i would normally do good it was really bad.... oh well
then we have on the same day we went up to Mount Saleve that was way cool because we got to see ALL of Geneva. with a nice view of the lake and everything. there was also 8 missionaries in the same vehicle (a van) and so the trip wasnt that bad either. Then the rest of monday and most of Tuesday was spent finding stuff, doing laundry, and packing stuff. we also had our Missionary Coordination meeting (that took me like a minute to think of) and got to say bye to some of the members. there wasnt really anyone who like i was really close to but just the same.
umm then on wednesday My companion and i woke up at 6ish and got ready and went to the Gare... train station. He went to Nancy and we i came here. My new companion and the other missionaries who are here met me at the gare and we took my stuff home etc. got all unpacked (that packing things annoying when its only in the suitcase for a dayish and then you have to take it all out, we need to invent teleporters.... that would work very nicely). and then we went out and worked... this city, is SOO Beautiful, our area, SOO beautiful. its great. and i forgot my camera so i cant send you pictures but next week for sure. We've spent most of our time just knocking on doors but umm i guess last week they had 2 baptisms. and in a week we are supposed to have another so we have spent some time with them the last little while. One is this old Italian man and talking to him (he has a crazy accent but i can mostly understand) makes me wish that i was in Italy right now he is really cool and really nice. the lady who is supposed to get baptized is from by madagascar, and is old too but shes so nice and has a great desire to get baptized so its cool.
My companion is Elder Diffrient and he is from Mississippi. He's cool (a little shorter than me haha 5'3"-5'5") and we get along really well. its fun. This is only his Second Transfer so it should be cool. the other missionaries are Elder Terry, who is one transfer older than me, who is from Plano Texas, and Elder Jolley, who is from Fresno California. suprising that theres only one missionary from Utah and thats only partially true since the parents live in Idaho... haha. its a TON of fun being in the same apartment as another Companionship and for some reason everyone thinks i'm REALLY funny... I dont even do anything and they laugh... its great because we have such a happy fun time.
so last thursday was my first district meeting that i've taught and it was fun but i ran out of things to talk about haha... so yeah haha... i kind of made it up as i went/ i'm almost positive the spirit helped. so that was fun. and since then i'm pretty sure that the rest of the interesting things would have to be only church. although last night we went porting and then missed the bus back to Neuchatel and ended up walking for about 6 km, or 3 1/2 milesish... and we ended up at a members house (recent convert) who we shared a little spiritual thought with, and was kind enough to take us home. it was fun.
ummm..... i think thats about it for me. Hope you all have a great week! Love You!
Elder Laws

May 11, 2009

2009-05-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

hey the family hows everyone doing?
i hope that everyone had a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!! mom, mothers, future mothers etc...
this week has been pretty good and to sum things up we've been finding people to teach yay! we've talked to a lot of cool people and the other day i got hugged by this "crazy" man in the Park. its been fun haha.
Today we got transfer calls and i'm out of Geneva. I'll be going to Neuchatel in switzerland. its a cool place from what i hear and i'm excited to be able to go. theres also going to be another companionship in the apartment so that should be fun. I'll be serving with elder Diffrient (something like that) and i know nothing about him except that he is on his Second Transfer so it should be fun. President Peterson also told me that i'd be the District Leader. should be fun. i'm excited to see the other places in the mission and this will be the farthest north that i've been so thats cool. (sends me south in the winter north in the summer, Good man... :) )
Aside from that uhh... idk last preparation day was basically spent doing nothing... sad. this week should make up for it, we are planning on going to play Laser tag (yay) also to go to Mount Saleve, which overlooks Geneva. then to the United Nations to take pictures so it should be a fun day.
This week i also went on an Exchange with elder Bergia (whos french) and it was way fun. Thats when i got hugged, and we talked to a lot of cool people. so it was good. We also passed by this less active member who just happend to be at his house when we came by. Then He came to Church yesterday so thats way cool. He said that he wanted to get his life in order because lately he has had a lot going with school and stuff but that should be finished soon. so thats really cool.
umm lets see it think thats about it for me. it was good to talk to the parents yesterday, even though mom forgot... just kidding that made it even better. ummm so yeah.
hope you have a great week.
Love You all!
Elder Laws

May 04, 2009

2009-05-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!
i dont know if i have a lot to say this week...
umm we have been spending most of our time looking for people to teach and its been mostly fruitless but we have talked to a lot of really cool people. umm lately we have been going to the park to talk with people, trying to overcome fears of talking to people that we normally wouldnt so we go to the park and say ok... who wouldnt i talk to... and then we go talk to them. its been way fun.
this last week we talked to a couple of people who had instruments, mostly younger ages, and we've had our own personal concerts.. haha. we just ask if they'll play something for us and they do so its cool. it also makes it a lot more interesting to contact people.
umm and well so hows everything there... they are making a big deal about the Bird Flu over here. They say that they're on a level 5 of 6. the other elders went to a members house recently who works for the UN and he said that if they go to a Level 6 that the Grocery stores would close down (here in switzerland). crazy huh? guess that we should get some food storage or something. haha.
ummm...well shoot... i have to search really hard to find something to talk to you about. its been raining the last couple of days and its kind of depressing. it kind of zaps all energy... oh well.. i'll get over it.
also lets think... we had Interviews this week with president peterson and he basically told me that i wont be in Geneva for another Transfer and that i'm going to be going senior companion also... I guess the days of going along for the ride are over huh? haha just kidding i'm excited it should be fun.
well i dont have much else to say. hope you all have a great week Love You Elder Laws

Apr. 27, 2009

2009-04-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

hello family!
hows ya'll doin? haha i cant believe i just typed that haha!
well so this last week has been pretty fun. our Preparation day last week was spent just like shopping for ties and clothes and a camera for one of the other elders. we also played ping pong and it was way fun. my companion is a tennis player so he's good and we have some good battles! (matches...rounds...you get the picture right? my english vocabulary is going down i think...so yeah..)
its good to here that you are all doing good and i hope that i didnt umm... erase any of your emails that you sent before i read them... because i think i might have.... i'm not sure... because i had to delete a couple emails that just said that my mailbox was almost full... so i hope i didnt but yeah. anyways.... that was a good side track...
ummm. we basically havent had anyone to teach really this last week soo... yeah. but the week has gone really well and we talked to a LOT of people that were really cool and nice. We went on an Exchange with our Zone Leaders this past week and it was fun. Elder Chan, who i was with, is from China... hong kong. but he's funny and it was fun. right when we started the Exchange we went and talked to this guy from Eygpt and then we were like we have an Institute just right here if you have a couple of minutes to talk. and so we went and we taught him and it was good. and the rest of the day we talked to cool person after cool person. it was great! and since then it has been the same and so this next week should be good because we have a couple rendezvous fixed and yeah. it should be good.
one of which was this lady that we talked to and she was like talking about her kids that were going to catholic school and how her son wasnt interested in church now and she was soo amazed at how we were interested at such a young age. and the fact that we were doing it for TWO whole years was just incredible to her. so we were like well can we come over to your house and talk about this message with you and she was like yeah i think that would be a good idea. so yeah. just a little miracle and we see what will become of it. its so FUN being a missionary, except in the times when no one listens... but other than that its great haha!
ummm lets see what else. oh this sunday i taught the gospel principles class and it was a lot of fun. at first i was like okay people its time to wake up and start talking back... haha but after a few minutes we had a good discussion going. the Theme was Honesty... it was honestly fun... haha.
what else... well so right now its pretty cloudy and its raining a little bit. me and my companion got up this morning and for our morning exercises we went and threw a football around this little field thats across the street. it was fun and i fell and it was wet... its been a long time haha! it felt good! i miss hanging out with friends and playing football and basketball... and getting all dirty. i also miss a mommy who does my laundry too because i have to do it now!!!! (its been a couple years since mom did my laundry..)
oh and yesterday we got to drive a car..haha, well my companion drove and i was in the passenger seat. its an interesting story actually... we were going to have this thing at the Mission Home last night and it was for the Recent Converts of the past year or something. so we were going to meet ours there. but when everyone else showed up he did not. so we called him and he was like well can you meet me at the church so we were like ok. and so we took the Office elders car and went to the church....got lost on the way, but we got there anyways. then we waited for him and he came and we went back to the Mission Home and we were like late and only got part of the things but it was good. the food was good and there actually just happens to be a Belgian office Elder right now and he made some Belgian waffles.. he called them gallettes because they were thinner but they were waffles... and they were good. cool stuff.
another thing... i think that this week we talked to people that spoke: russian, french, english, spanish, german, korean, chinese, slovakian, and umm.... i think some others... its crazy how diverse geneva is. its cool
and umm yeah.
Hope you have a great week!
Love You!
Elder Laws

Apr. 20, 2009

2009-04-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
how are your lives going?
Congratulations to Amelia for the baby girl who will be shortly with you. Congratulations to Keshia who's almost done with this school year. Congratulations to Kelsey who is still alive and still manages to keep up with her kids. Congratulations to Mom and Dad who will be celebrating 30 years tomorrow! and Congratulations to Jesse and Justin who will be celebrating 2.
you guys have a lot of cool stuff going on! haha
well my life has been a basic missionary life these last few days. get up eat work eat work eat sleep... haha umm and also yeah. We still dont have very many people to teach but we just have to keep working to find them i guess. we are teaching this one guy. he doesnt really understand or remeber things but he is a way nice person and so hopefully we can find ways to get him to understand better. what else has happened this week... i cant really remember anything way exciting or special for me personnally, but there was a baptism on sunday. so i guess that is special haha!
i was asked to play the piano (i guess people just force you to use your talents sometimes) so i had to practice a little bit and learn the songs. we also (we being my companion and me) were asked to give a little teaching while they changed out of there wet clothes. i thought it went well the spirit was definately present and yeah it was great.
oh another thing, we had umm... Zone Conference this week too. it was really good and President Peterson taught us about obedience as a means to receive blessings (baptisms) for the mission and how we are blessed as a mission, for the collective effort of each missionary. Also how obedience is the first law in heaven, how when we are able to be obedient to the rules that we have we are given new commandments to live by to strengthen us, and when we can live by those we get new ones and so on and so on. we follow the rules already and are sent on missions where we get new commandments not a few (d&c 59: 4-5). anyways it was great.
time running out i'll write another email to finish k?
love you
Elder laws
　
hopefully you got the first part of this email. sorry my time was going to run out and yeah it was complicated but here i go to finish it... its like this. as a mission the last couple of quarters of a year we have had a goal that was to have 45 baptisms, one in each companionship. but because the lord will bless us on our collective efforts, we have a goal for this quarter to have 45 baptisms in the mission. if that makes sense. so that makes it a unified effort. so thats really cool!
umm well as far as i'm concerned i think thats about all for me. i hope you guys have a great week! love you
Elder Laws

Apr. 14, 2009

2009-04-14T12:35:00.001-07:00

hey family! so this is tuesday.
i couldnt write yesterday because everything else was closed so yeah! i hope that everything is going well for you.
i guess i can start telling you about Geneva now...
basically we didnt have any amis.. so we have done a lot of finding in the last week and have managed to have a couple of rendezvous and a couple more scheduled so thats way cool. there are a lot of missionaries here in geneva with the four of Us in our apartment, the zone leaders, 2 sister equipes, the assistants to the president, the office elders, like 4 senior couples, and well President and Sister Peterson... so we see a lot of people. there is also an institute where we go quite often for rendezvous and meetings and actually the couple that works there is Elder and Sister Jones from Blanding, Utah. Who actually is the Brother of Cory Jones (dads old basketball coach)... and coached a baseball team with asa and hart on it.
so thats cool... ummmm other than that...
i'm in a ward that is full of spanish speakers so every other talk that is given is in spanish, just throwing another rock in the path is all haha.... it is fun though i have to say. we had a ward activity that was "organized" by the high priest group leader, a man who speaks only spanish, and it turned out that apparently us as the missionaries were supposed to do everything idk.... all i remember is 6 missionaries running around trying to get everything worked out haha.
it was fun
lets see... so then yesterday we went and did a lot of stuff for preparation day. we went to this park that has all sorts of cool stuff, then went to the jet d'eau, and well it was cool and you should have pictures so yeah...
um idk what else to talk about... oh i got the package mom thanks! and it was only one day late for easter. from now on i think it will just be better to send anything to the Mission Home because we never know whats going to happen.
well i guess i dont really have anything else to say... its been a lot of fun so far here and i'm excited for the coming weeks...

Love You!
Elder Laws

Apr. 06, 2009

2009-04-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

hey family!
hows everyone doing?
well so this week was crazy....
basically i was running around all day for the first couple of days to get the apartment ready for the new elders. the start was monday when i received the call from president peterson. it must be said that i will be highlighting things other than cleaning the apartment but it must be known also that all freetime was spent, cleaning the apartment and packing the bags.
so Monday we were in a little town called Crest for the beginning. in crest there is the largest donjon or tower in france so that was way cool to see. but it opened at 2 o clock and we got there at around 11 o clock so we had some time to kill so we did emails (in a bar haha!) and then found some food and then went up there, so thats great. after which we had to run down to the gare to catch a bus or be stuck there until 4:30 ish. we got it and so then went home. that night we went and passed by a little family home evening to say goodbye to some members and that was good, they invited us to eat lunch the next day so thats the next BIG event... it was a good meal as always and was followed (that afternoon) by a trip to Parnans, to say goodbye to Agnes, which was not easy but was really good. ummm after that we went and saw the Meloens because they are sooo cool, we visited a little with them and then said goodbye.(idk if you know but goodbyes arent fun) and that just about wrapped up the night. ummm so yeah next morning we left at 6:22 on a train to lyon, then geneva. and here i am... we only have a small part of Geneva, but it is the down town part so thats nice. the ward that i am in is mostly spanish speaking so that means that next time i am in church i probably wont understand much but thats ok. My companions name is elder schmidt and hes from the salt lake area. hes a transfer older than me so it should be fun. we are in an apartment with 2 other elders so its cool. Elder bergia is from the paris area (yes that makes him french...) and elder Asay is from texas, dallas. (his uncle is the owner of Tahitian Noni).
we dont really have any amis so basically all we've done is finding. we do have a really cool bishop though who is willing to help us with whatever. which is nice. this weekend we got to watch all but one session of general conference (the sunday afternoon one). i really liked elder Hollands talk, and elder Hales, and elder Uchtdorf, and elder Ballards, and just about all of them which is cool. i'm excited to study and look at them more in depth.
Today i think we are going to do some cool things so i guess that i'll you know about them next time.
I Love ya, have a great week!
Elder Laws
　
　

Mar. 30, 2009

2009-03-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

hey the family
how is everyone doing???
well so this week was somewhat kind of crazy. haha. we were in Lyon for Monday and Tuesday, including our superbowl, porting and a zone meeting. so that was good.
Then we are teaching a young girl who is a members daughter. She is Nine years old now and so we get to teach her. we fixed a baptismal date with her for the 26th April. so that should be cool for her. its a little difficult to figure out whether she understands things but i think her mom tries to explain things better for her after the fact so thats good. they live a ways away so that takes care of wednesday. then tuesday we just worked and i dont remember what all we did haha!
then friday we worked and then went to Grenoble because Elder Weight needed to do a Baptismal Interview for our Zone Leaders. it went really well and they called us Saturday night after the baptism and told us that it went really well and he got up and said hi my name is erwen, and i'm a member of the church of jesus christ. so thats really cool. its the guy that, idk if you remember but a while ago i went on an exchange with elder murragara and we went to there house and had an AMAZING rendezvous so yeah.. really cool!
So then on saturday we worked it went ok... i guess, it rained and stuff so it was a little hard but yeah. then on Sunday we went to church and Agnes was there, shes doing really well still. umm and church was good. then there is um.... after church we went to the Ardeche because one of the People we normally visit was in the hospital. (shes like 90 years old) so we went and visited her, gave her the Sacrament, and gave her a blessing. She's a really nice lady and she always knits little coats for the like children in the ward etc... its really cool to see that even when she cant really come to church she is sooo strongly tied to her lord and savior. its great!
Well so today is Preparation day and well also transfer calls day so president called us and told elder weight he's going home and i am going to Geneva..... not at all expected.... so thats pretty crazy.... so i'll be in geneva for General Conference... its so crazy, nobody even thought that would ever happen but i'm excited to serve in geneva, but i really kind of wanted to stay.... oh well, the lord knows whats best... so sorry if you guys sent stuff to my address there because i said it would be better, umm i think from now on it will just be easier to send everything to the mission home... oh well.
well thats about all the exciting news hope you have a great week! let me know how you are doing!
Love You!
Elder laws
　

Mar. 23, 2009

2009-03-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hey family
how is everybody doing?
well this week has been really good. the highlight being the Baptism of Agnès. So basically this week comprised of a few rendezvous, a lot of preparation and it was really good! We had the baptism this past friday at about 5 oclock. well thats when it was scheduled at least. it became like 5 30, 6ish. because Agnès was late because of traffic.
we had to do it in Lyon because Valence doesnt have a baptismal font. so basically thats that... we just had to start a little late no big deal! so i guess because mom asked for "details" that means i have to give them. we started out singing o j'ai besoin de toi, i had to play the piano.... so yeah. then elder Weight gave the opening prayer. after which we had a little musical thing, just a song that agnes wanted played during it. it was "ces mains" or these hands. idk if yoyu know that song but someone did it in French so yeah. it was really good. then Sr. Bevilacqua gave a talk (sr bevilacqua is the ex-sister-in-law to agnes and her husband is the Stake President of Nice.) then we had the Service of the Baptism. Fr. Bevilacqua baptized agnes and me and elder Weight were Witnesses.... then while they changed clothes Elder Weight and I (to get my english grammar correct) gave a little teaching until they came back. then Agnes bore her testimony, and then a member who had helped us with the Rendezvous bore his. and that was that. it was good!

ummm lets see what else....
apart from that nothing way too exciting going on.

we are in lyon today for SUPER BOWL II haha... we played football against the other zone today, it was a lot of fun! and now i'm dead...

ummm lets see idk if i have anything else for you...

well our teaching (during the baptism) was on Alma 32. and how Faith is like a Seed and you have to try it, to grow the tree, to see if the fruit is good. so you have to follow the commandments to get a testimony of it for yourself. we also compared that to how, this is kind of what i've thought of since then, this tree that we grow is like the Tree in the Vision of the Tree of life. and so like the actual tree is the Love of god, so in growing our faith, we grow closer to god. and the fruit is Eternal life, so, these things we do, grow this tree which will produce the fruit that will give us eternal life... we also talked about how Christ said there will be many prophets after me (true and false), so you can judge them by their fruits. their actions. so, we know what Christ's fruit is because we can use it every day(the atonement), and thus we can know that he was the Son of God. we also talked about how 'The Book of Mormon' is Joseph Smiths "Fruits". and how we can know if the church is true and that he's a prophet by fulfilling the Promise at the end of the Book. (moroni 10:4-5) so yeah... that was cool.
and yeah well i hope you guys have a great week! i Love you!
Elder laws

Mar. 16, 2009

2009-03-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hey Family how are you?
well this week was another interesting one too! last week of course we were in Grenoble for Preperation day and we got to play basketball and football which was extremely fun (suprised them all in basketball). and then we had Interviews with President Peterson the next day. it was a lot of fun and i Love the Petersons! (i'm sad that they are leaving this summer) its also good to get some 1 on 1 time with president peterson. They are great people! after that this week has been full of finding people. which actually went alright. we didnt have any way Grand experiences but we talked with some nice people. and we have some new potential amis.
Agnés is doing really well and her baptism is this friday. we'll see her wednesday, thursday is the interview, and DUN DUN DUN! friday is the baptism! yay! hopefully nothing goes wrong...
also lets see..... this sunday we had ward conference here and it was really good. The Stake Presidency is top notch and we filled up our little building. the first talk was given by the primary president Sr. Meloen and she was talking about how important it was to teach the gospel to the youth and how primary helped that and yeah. i wrote down a quote from hers that i really liked. she said "if you wait until they are old enough to understand everything, they'll understand nothing." i'm glad that i was born 'in the church" and had the oppurtunity to be taught in my youth. (like nephi, moroni, 2000 stripling warriors, etc.). Elder Bednar when he came told us to make sure that we did it too, he said that a 4 year old kid could have questions about the gospel. idk i really liked that is all.
i really appreciate all of you and all of your support. (and letters and packages, which can be sent to valence still.. i probably wont be leaving for a while, my companion is going home then i'll have at least another transfer so that makes about 8 weeks...)(amelia i got your package a week ago friday i believe i just forgot to let you know so yeah.)
umm i love you!
Elder Laws

Mar. 09, 2009

2009-03-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

hey my family!
How are you guys doing?
well this week has been a little crazy.. and i'll explain why.
Starting out with monday and tuesday me and my companion were ill. meaning that well we were either sleeping our sitting around for basically 2 days. although we did get better yay!
Then on wednesday we did some work in the morning and afternoon, but then at 3 o clock we got on a train and headed for geneva for a Zone Conference. that night we stayed with the elders of Annemasse (my trainer elder Eaton haha), which is not too far from geneva, in fact its basically almost the same place. just different countries i would guess. anyways so the reason that we went to Geneva for Zone Conference is because Elder Paya.... if thats how its spelled, of the area presidency (quorum of the seventy i think) came for a mission tour. it was good but it was wayyyyyyy hard because we didnt get a whole lot of sleep that night. but it was good, it went late so we missed our train back to valence so instead we went and stayed with the elders in Lyon. oh yeah at Zone Conferences they have the missionaries who are going home at the end of the transfer give their dieing testimonies (dieing just means going home, when we get to the field we're born, our trainers our dad, etc...), so my companion and a few others gave there testimonies and its was really good. so wise and experienced! haha.
so then we got home friday and actually started to work... kind of, fridays are pretty packed here in valence. starting with studies in the morning until 10, then we do weekly planning from 10-12, then we do lunch and french study, then this week we went and saw Agnes (elle va bien) and so that took up basically our afternoon, then at 6 we have an english class we do, and then we have meeting and so basically we had like 1 hour to actually try and find people... it was kind of nice haha!
so then we had a lot of work to do saturday which we didnt really get to do because we had this rendezvous with an african man who just so happened to have been kicked out of the apartment he was staying in, seemed drunk, (said he wasnt), but its kind of cold so like we had the rendezvous scheduled for 3, he's african so he was late by an hour, (every time we called him he said j'arrive, i'm coming), then we had the rendezvous. then we had another rendezvous and right at the end he called us again and was like je vais mourrir de la froid (i'm going to die from the cold), can we go to your church so i can warm up. so we did that, i feel really bad for him but like.... theres really nothing that we can do... i wish there was but there isnt.
then sunday was good, church was good, then we went and ate at the Family Meloens house, and they are such a cool family i dont know if i've said anything about them yet i think so but they are so cool! and they made us like an american meal with chicken, fries, green beans, ice cream. it was great!! haha! and then we went and worked, did some contacting, and then we went and packed. we went to Grenoble last night, so we are there right now, we're going to go play basketball and football. it should be fun!
today i studied about Revelation and the Light of Christ. in alma 17:3 it talks about the importance of prayer, and fasting in order to obtain the spirit of prophecy and revelation, in order to be able to Preach with Power and Authority. i thought it was a great scripture. then about the Light of Christ it talks about how we all have the light of christ in us, everyone in the world, it helps us know between good and evil, kind of like a conscience.(idk if thats how you spell it) and the further our knowledge of the gospel grows, the more succeptable we are to the promptings of the Light of Christ, or the Holy Ghost through the Light of Christ, because before we are given the Gift of the Holy Ghost, he touches us through the Light of Christ. anyways just a cool insight. and whats cool is that for us, showing the example will help others fill the light of christ and bring them closer to christ. its great!
Well i love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Laws
ps
i've noticed on some letters that i got the your guys put
2 rue de chabeuil...
i guess i told you wrong because its
2 Ave. de Chabeuil
so i hope that you guys havent gotten anything back because of that... love ya!

Mar. 02, 2009

2009-03-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

well i'm going to start with an answer to a pretty common question that was had.. the numbers in the picture from last week are the Transfers that we are on. so that was taken when i was on my 5th transfer or like 2 weeks ago. we have 16 transfers on the mission so yeah. this is my 6th. its actually really weird to me because when i served with Elder Lemich he was on his 6th-7th transfers... and so now i'm there and its really crazy weird! it seems like just yesterday ahh!!!!
Anyways how was everyones weeks? it was a pretty good week for us. starting out with Teaching our newest amis on Monday night. his name is Carlos and he's from Portugal. It was cool how we found him because just before we had tried to pass by a potential amis but he wasnt there so we prayed and walked a little bit and elder weight was like hey come here and we knocked on carlos' door and voila. he's a cool guy. and i lied it was wednesday Night haha! anyways he said he would read and pray so its looking good eh? thats the key.
we also saw Agnes a couple of times this week. she's doing really well and has Stopped smoking as of Friday. and she got sick so she couldnt go to church sunday but its really cool to see the changes someone who knows its true is willing to make.
On Thursday we went to Grenoble for a Zone Meeting and also for an exchange with the Zone Leaders. which went really well. i was with Elder Murragara. we started off by trying to pass by this guy that wasnt there but we decided to port his building and we talked with a lot of really nice and open people. fixed a rendezvous for them for the next day and yeah it was good. then we went to pass a man to try to invite him to a baptism they were having in grenoble the Next day and he wasnt there so we ported his builidng and when we were on the last door we had this pretty too long conversation and then here comes the guy walking behind us. cool stuff so we ended our conversation with the lady we were talking to, it was going no where, and ran upstairs(because we were going to be late for our next rendezvous which we were...) and invited the guy, he said he'd come and yeah tender mercies.... then we ran got on the bus... the wrong bus... and ended up somewhere then we walked and finally got to where we were going. then i had one of the most Spiritual Rendez-vous, if not the most spiritual rendezvous of my mission... it was just so cool! it was with an amis whose wife is a member and he's been meeting with the missionaries for a couple of years. he wants to be baptized this year but he wants to be ready... it was an amazing experience... everyone was crying and wow... it was awesome.
this sunday we were with the members a lot... we went (after church) to eat at a members house. they live in Roman-sur-Isere which is like a 20 minute drive from Valence. and they are italien... so we got to eat Lasagna... LE VRAI!! haha it was sooo good! then we probably spent to much time there but we played with them and the older couple that was there Chinese Checkers which was funny just because it was a couple of old married couples who have just So much love for each other. then after that we went and visited a less active, which we were late for and also after there wasnt any buses for us.(and we had a rendez-vous in 3 minutes and were a 45 minute walk away!) so we called a member and he came and picked us up. he's the coolest guy in the world haha! you'd have to meet him to understand but ya! he's just so goofy and nice, and its awesome! (he also served his mission in England, and he LOVES the missionaries) him and his wife have 4 kids and the littlest is the cutest little girl in the world. she's like 2 years old i think and she Loves us (the missionaries in general) and she just runs around FOREVER!!! haha!
sweet family!
anyways so then we went to our rendezvous 20 minutes late, and he wasnt expecting us (carlos) so we rescheduled for today and then we went and ate at another members house... and now i feel fat, and something we ate made me a little sick... and i have gross burps... umm and that was about all the exciting things this week. hope you have a great week and love you all!
Elder laws

Feb. 23, 2009

2009-02-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

Bonjour la Famille!
comment allez-vous? vous avez passé une bonne semaine?
cette semaine etait bien. on avait quelque rendez-vous avec nos amis et on a parlé avec pas mal du monde. il y avait pas des grandes miracles mais on avait 2 amis de l'église à l'église ce dimanche. et Agnés, le dame qui va se faire baptiser le 20 mars va bien. elle nous a dit qu'elle allait arreter de fumer au jourd'hui! c'est chouette de voir les personne qui sont prêts à donner tous pour le seigneur. i'm going to stop writing in french so that it doesnt take you 50 hours to read my email. We talked about Sacrifices in our Class for the Amis/recent converts(gospel principles), and it was a great lesson. basically everyone participated and i think that had a lot to do with agnes' desire to stop smoking.
we had some other cool things that i dont know if i told you about happen recently. we were infact, just walking down the road to the church and this guy like stopped us and was like "hey are you the men of god? i want to talk to you guys?" so we were like okay when ya know, because that doesnt happen often. and so we fixed a rendez-vous for that night and he wasnt there... so we waited like 20-30 minutes. and he shows up.. (he was a little drunk) he said okay just give me a second k? and so we waited and waited and another 20-30 minutes goes by and so we're like we're outta here we'll see him another time.
so. then the other day we were walking home and we walked by his building (its not too far from our apartment) and elder Weight is like lets go in here (the door being open) and so we went in and as soon as we got in the door, here comes this guy that contacted us down the stairs.... so we got his number and he said ya i'll call you and we're going to call him so thats just a cool miracle.
umm also we're teaching this guy who was an old amis, and we didnt know about him but he contacted us in the road and he told us that he wanted to talk to us. so we were like okay that works. so we've been teaching him the last couple weeks which is cool.
we've also had just some other great experiences that have really helped build my faith and i hope the faith of the Members. its been really fun these last couple weeks. the work is starting (ever so slowly) to progress and we've been way blessed. right now in our mission every companionship, other than like 2, has a baptismal date and the spirit is just sooo strong here its amazing. its great to be a missionary!
I know that god lives and that he loves us and i know that as we give all our time and talents to the lord he will bless us far beyond that which we can earn on our own. I know that Christ is our savior and our redeemer and that he loves us and knows us personnally. i know that through his atonement that we will be purified if we want to be. God loves us. and he wants us to be happy. i love you all and wish you a very good week!
Elder Laws

Feb. 16, 2009

2009-02-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

hey family how is everyone?
well this week has been a fairly good week. it started with tuesday where we had an exchange with the elders of Grenoble and i was in Valence again with elder Baiemonte... something like that. it was a good exchange and we got to see agnes. she's doing really well and is really working towards her baptismal date of the 20th of March. its pretty cool! i'm way excited about all that. (especially since we will both be there for it(me and elder weight). it was transfer calls day and well we didnt get one so we are staying together.) so yeah its been a lot of fun!
ummm.. .then we went about our week and yeah just normal stuff but then Friday came around... now i'm pretty sure i told you this was going to happen but friday Elder Bednar, and Elder Kopishke, came and visited our Mission and so there was a special "mission conference" (elder bednar called it a revelatory gathering or something like that) in Geneve and we all got to go there! it was way amazing because he basically taught us that we didnt need an Apostle or a Seventy to answer our questions, but taht with each other and the SPIRIT! we can get the answers to all our questions. and just taught us the best process to go about getting the spirit and learning was found in d&c 88:122 so yeah... cool stuff! thats not all he taught us but i dont really feel the need to share more sorry. but it has been really fun experimenting with this new process. so its great.
umm other than that nothing else to say oh wait he also said if we come out of lessons saying what a good job we did and good lesson we gave that that was priestcraft.... because we're blocking the spirit from guiding us. basically. haha! he said some way profound things.... but it was amazing!
umm.... lets see.... thats about all i think. love ya! and have a great week!
Elder Laws
congratulations Amelia!

Feb. 09, 2009

2009-02-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

hey family.
well sorry this wont be very long but we had a great week this week!
we uhh set a baptismal date for march 20th with our amis who wanted to be baptised and it should be fun to see her growth over the next couple of weeks!
also this week we went out to the ardeche. and visited a couple of families. and i got to tell you about this kid in one of them. the family is from honduras and has been living here for about 5 years. this kid is named Léhi and his is 7 years old.. we went and took them the sacrament and had a little service and then he was asked to say the prayer to finish... the kid prayers like a prophet! he asked for things like to help us avoid temptations and just crazy stuff like that. his mom told us that he struggles to find words in french and that its better in spanish. way cool.
that was a good trip and sadly i didnt take my camera but oh well. things have been going good and there have been a couple people lately who have come up to us and asked if we were "the men who preach the good words of christ" or something like that and yeah! its been an exciting week.(that never happens). umm what else... idk its just been a fun way weird week because we didnt have as much time to find people so its weird. umm yeah. hope you have a great week and love ya!
Elder Laws

Feb. 02, 2009

2009-02-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

hey family how are you guys doing?
well so this week has been not to bad i guess, we've talked to a lot of, unhappy, people, and a lot of really nice ones so basically about average, comme week.
lets see exciting stuff.... umm so this week there was a greive. or strike in english(idk how to spell it), in which all of france was a part of. there were like 10-15 thousand people in valence who yeah, walked the street, it was crazy we were there and then left for like about and hour and went back and there were still people... so yeah basically just a normal thing here to happen.
umm yeah.
also this week we had an exchange with the elders of grenoble st. martin d'heres. which was good i stayed here in valence and had a frenchie companion for the day which was good. we had a rendezvous with the lady who wants to be baptized and she got us all confused by saying that it would be cool if it was around may 27th that she got baptized and then we saw her at church and she said that she thought that was too far away so we will talked to her this wednesday to see whats going on haha!
umm also we saw this other older lady who everytime we go over there has incense burning and weird monk chanting playing and yeah... she basically told us she had a "revelation" that she was told that she didnt have to join any churchs but she could if she wanted and the mormons were the closest thing to the truth so we'll uhhh see where that goes i guess...
other than that we're just trying to find new amis because we need them, its kind of boring like this but thats okay...
ummmmmmmmmmm love you guys!
Elder Laws
ps sorry i dont have more to say!

Jan. 26, 2009

2009-01-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

hey family!
hows everyone doing?
well so i was in the middle of writing an email for like 30 minutes and it decided to be stupid and erase it so this isnt going to be very good, especially because it put me in a horrible mood really fast....
well thanks for all of you who remembered my birthday it was really good.... nothign special, and nothing like home but we had some cake and elder weight sang happy birthday to me so it was good. (happy birthday keshia! haha)
umm... then lets see last week we went to lyon and played (american) football. it was fun, then the next day we had zone conference where we talked about a new... plan to work with members and also alma 26:22 which is a great scriptue that i applicable to everyone! (those 2 things dont really have anything in common though.)
umm... lets see... also this last week we got the good news that Elder Bednar is coming to visit our mission so basically i guess i'm going to see an apostle! which is really cool! he might be changing mission boundaries because apparently someone somebodty knows got called to the geneva italian speaking mission so yeah we'll see what happens. oh and that will be the 13th of february.
umm.... also lets see. the other day when we were walking down this road we saw this building that was like smoking....(on fire) so we were like we should call someone... so we called the pompiers (firefighters) and while we were waiting elder weight was like "its kind of funny how theres no smoke coming out of the chimney." which was probably just more funny at the time... but yeah they came and got it all taken care of and we just went on with the rest of our day so ya... it was good.
umm what else... oh dad i lied to you.
the ch in french is mostly said sh... but when its words that arent based french like christ its said k... i looked in the dictionary and the words that go chr at the beginning are all said k, and some words with cho, but for the most part ch=sh so ya...
umm i think thats about it.... it probably wasnt but now i dont remember and i gotta go love ya!
ciao!
Elder Laws

Jan. 19, 2009

2009-01-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

Hey Family how is it going?
so this week has been kinda fun i guess....?
umm we went and saw the lady who wants to get baptized and it looks pretty good, we dont think that she understands everything perfectly but we're of course going to work on it so it's all good! and if all goes according to plan then she'll probably be baptized in february sometime.
other than that we haven't had a whole lot going on. we went with the bishop this sunday to montelimar to visit a less-active that is too far away to come to church and it was good.
umm also the other day we were porting and this guy let us in and he was kind of crazy and i couldnt understand everything he said because he's from the north. and they have a weird accent up there its called ch'tis... or something like that haha! anyways he told us he wasnt really interested in religion but that he wasnt not going to be hospitable... so he let us in offered us a coffee then water and started to talk... he talked about all sorts of things like how he was a mercernary, he showed us his knife and other weapons, told us that this one time he was in africa and there were 150 blacks coming for us and it was me and 5 other guys and we won.... ummm... yeah so thats kind of interesting i guess.
also lets see.... we also had a couple of mangez-vous sunday... like so we're basically stuffed solid and sick today haha! but its okay because we're going to lyon today to play football with a bunch of other missionaries and then work up there tonight. and tomorrow is our zone conference so anything that has been sent probably before the last couple of weeks should be there and i'll get it. i also got the birthday package this.... friday i think.. so yeah thanks!!! i have some pictures i will probably send next week so yeah. umm lets see., oh zone conference i'm conducting aparently i found out yesterday night and its in french so we'll see how that goes haha. umm. well, thats about it for me have a great day love you all!
Elder laws

Jan. 12, 2009

2009-01-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

Chateau Crussol:

Hey family how is it going!?
well, i've got a couple interesting cool things to tell you, i believe.
firstly i got my new companion Elder Weight on wednesday and he's a way nice guy. the work is going well here and yeah its cool. he's from kerns utah and has 3 sisters(he's the oldest) and his parents... ummm... likes tennis, sports... he's way chill. and almost finished with his mission!! haha he's got until april 1.... or maybe 2, who knows.
then first things first. i forgot to tell you, but a couple of weeks ago we went up to chateau Crussol. its an old ruined castle and its sweet. hopefully the pictures work so you can see too. but ya that was fun. a nice little hike.
umm what else... oh yeah so like we went and ate with this member last night and he made me try roquefort cheese.... it was kind of as bad as i thought it would be but not in the same way.... idk it tastes weird.
et puis sweet miracle that we've had. a member invited us to their house and when we got there he was like well i have a reference for you from the stake president in Nice and he said thats its a friend of his wifes (they've been talking about the church with her for like 20 years or something) who lives in our area etc. and she called them the other week or day or something and said "i want to be baptized" so he was like well its not that simple etc. you have to talk to the missionaries and etc etc etc... so she was like k send me the missionaries. so we got everything , called her she seems way interested and we're going to see her probably wednesday so cool stuff. let you know how it goes!
and yeah so love you guys! have a great week!
Elder laws

Jan. 05, 2009

2009-01-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

hey family!
hows everyone doing?
well this week has been pretty mellow. (however we spell that in english) umm it was new years though and thats really weird because apparently last year was 2008 and not 2007... hmm. time is weird. (and is flying) this week makes another transfer (6 weeks) done. and i'm getting a new companion. and staying here. elder jensen is going up to yverdon and i'm getting elder.. weight, who's been in annemasse. which is just outside of france. thats about all i know of that so yeah.
umm yeah. so back to new years, the ward had a party that night (there was no alcohol either so yeah for parties haha!) we went and stayed til about 10ish. President Peterson tells us a reasonable hour for new years and stuff so yeah. its mostly because my companion doesnt really like the members here so its good that he's leaving i guess. it was weird though a bunch of old members playing what had to have been like 70s-80s french music... it was very silly. very silly. but yeah fun too and food and stuff so yay! (oh and i tried escargot and it tastes like dirt... at least the ones i tasted did, so not too bad.)
also just for your information i eat just about everything now. i guess i just stopped caring and deciding to be way picky and i eat like onions and peppers and stuff... its really depressing because it just means i'm getting old and my taste buds are dying...dieing...dead. (cant spell!)
umm... lets see. well thats about all for me!
hope you guys are doing good and have a great week!
Elder laws
ps.. bishop was sick this week so he wasnt at church... which means next week when me and my new companion come to church should be very interesting... :) LOVE YOU!

Dec. 29, 2008

2008-12-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!
hows everyone doing?
it was good to hear everyones voices (jesse i heard yours on your answering machine, a couple times before the real you but that works too haha) it sounds like everyone is doing really good and had a pretty good first couple hours of christmas! haha how was the rest?
well i had this whole list of things that i was going to talk about with you but i somewhat forgot to bring it so i'll see how well i can do.
first off this week has been pretty ok. we had our bible class about the life of christ and it was mostly just reading a couple scriptures in the Book of Mormon (which one of the people there asked if it was the bible like 5 times) and sang songs and everything. it was good. then on wednesday night and thursday afternoon we went to the members house who lives right next door to us for dinner and lunch christmas eve and christmas. it was good but like i said, it was a little weird. (as well as weird french people and not my family haha.) but that was good so ya.
then lets see. nothing too exciting happened since then. on sunday i went to chruch with my glasses on, and when the bishop said hi to us he said "ahh un nouveux missionaire" (ah a new missionary) and i was just thinking oh funny guy, yep i'm wearing glasses so i look different, and i kept walking and i turned and looked and he kind of gave me a strange look... so i went and i sat down and a few seconds later he walks over to me and i was like oh no here it comes (laughing in my head), and he asks, "vous venez de quelle parroise?" (your from which ward) and me being all ready for it said well "ca fait 4 semaine que je suis ici" (its been 4 weeks since i've been here) ididnt say it in a mean way just oh its just been four weeks since i've been here, i've been to your house a couple times ya know stuff like that haha!!! it was funny, he felt way stupid but i try to compound on it at all. (the first counselor did that, he burst out in laughter, it was his house we went to for christmas) anyways funny story. so i'm going to wear contacts next week and wear my different suit and a different tie and do my hair different to see what happens! haha.
umm but ya other than that nothing much is going on.
love you guys have a great week!
Elder Laws

Dec. 25, 2008

2008-12-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

HEY FAMILY!!!!! LOVE YOU!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Dec. 22, 2008

2008-12-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

ok hey guys, i dont really have time because this isn't our preparation day this week, its on wednesday (christmas eve), just to let you know, so i will write back then. (also on the mission blogspot on christmas eve there will be a special slideshow, so if you want to see that, and dont know the site let me know, and i'll let you know too!) love you guys
Elder laws

Dec. 15, 2008

2008-12-15T07:47:00.000-08:00

hey family once again its preparation day.
So this week like last wasnt that exciting. also because my companion was a little sick. but yesterday was good.
we went to church and then afterward we went with the bishop and his wife and the relief society president to the bishops house and ate food. (kinda weird, some weird vegetable idk...) then we went to go visit less actives that live a long ways away from the church. (like 2 hours or something) so anyway we start our trip and its taking a while and (aparantly also you have to pay to use the freeways ugh...) we end up in the mountains and its snowing like crazy and we're moving like a half a mile an hour and yeah... just taking a long time but we finally get to the places that we're going and its really cool because you could tell that if the people could come to church they would. so the spirit was really strong and yeah..; just a great experience.
thats all for me though really
love ya!
Elder Laws
ps i promise that i'll get you my number by christmas, and also address is:
2 rue de chabeuil
26000 Valence
France

Dec. 08, 2008

2008-12-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

hey family/friends.
hows everything going?
i decided to send this too everyone because well its not that special this week so nothing big. we've just been doing a bunch of work so no big stories for you guys this week. sorry! love you all and have a great week.
Elder Laws

Dec. 01, 2008

2008-12-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

hey family! hows everyone doing!?
well i'm in valence now ugh! haha just kidding its actually a really nice town but its a lot smaller than st. Etienne and theres only 60000 people living here. umm and i think i told you about all i know about it haha so ya. Oh well its pretty nice here and i'm with Elder Jensen which is cool because we already knew each other and we get along just fine. he's from up north like farmington area and has 3 sisters and 1 brother hes the middle child.... uhhhh what else idk he's got 8 monthes left on his mission, like video games and stuff so we get along great! haha jk. but at the same time not.
so far its been really nice, the members are nice here and we've had 3 mangez-vous already (not really french but us missionaries use it for rendezvous where we eat... haha verb manger=eat) havent really met a lot of amis yet but ya not a bad week. got all settled in and stuff. nothing too exciting. this week we have a bible class (kind of for Christmas) just the life of christ and stuff. ummm and thats all really for me here... sorry i dont have more have a great week though!

Nov. 24, 2008

2008-11-24T20:50:00.000-08:00

Hey Family!!!
Newest News as of this Morning, I'm headed out of my home.... sad huh? i'm going to Valence and am going to be with Elder Jensen (idk if i've ever said anything about him but he was my district leader my...2nd Transfer) so it should be FUN! but i'm really sad to leave. if you were planning on sending anything to me in the next week send it to the mission home until i can get my new address figured out.
Elder Laws
8 chemin william barbey
ch-1292 chambesy (GE)
Suisse
umm so this week we kind of fell apart.... well not necessarily us, but our amis sure did... last week we had our Zone Meeting, and then after that we had to go to Grenoble for elder Lemichs Legality, and we stayed there that night ( and i ran into one of the elders from the MTC who happened to be there for exchanges so we decided to go work some together it was fun, as always) so then we got back to St. Etienne on wednesday and idk what happened but one of our amis who had a baptismal date ciao'd us (said dont come see me anymore) and idk we just couldnt get any rendez-vous it was a hard week... and now i'm leaving how sad... i just ugh oh well new city! haha i love it here though!
Well i guess, hmmm thats about all i can think of for now sorry... happy thanksgiving! and have a great week all!
Elder Laws

Nov. 17, 2008

2008-11-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

Hello!
hows everyone doing?
well this week has been pretty cool, although nothing way new and exciting... oh well we had a rendezvous with this guy named Junior, he's from the Congo, and it went way well. the last rendezvous was the First lesson, the Restoration, and we gave him the book of mormon and asked him to read... so he did a little bit and when we got there all that we did was answer questions it seemed like. first we started off with asking whether he had read and prayed to know whether it was true... and as soon as we asked that you could just see in his eyes that he had had his answer it was really amazing and the spirit was soo strong there... it was amazing.
we had a lot of other rendezvous that went alright this week and even our finding went okay... yesterday we decided to contact on both sides of the road so i was all by myself talking to French speakers haha(it was also raining so there wasnt very many). and while i'm not that good of a speaker yet they understood for the most part and it went really well... (at least i think and thats all that matters...) other than that we've just been having rendezvous with a lot of people and i think that we have so AMAZING amis right now... they have great questions and me and Elder Lemich answer them as best we can. and when we cant the member with us can, which there usually is.
We have an amazing DMP here (ward mission leader) his name is frere professo and he just gets it done... he really likes us, which means he puts the trust in us and its really amazing. we're really blessed here and we'll be the first to tell you that its not us but the members here. (its what all the leaders have been trying to tell people.) anyways its going well and thanks for all your support and emails! loves ya much Elder Laws
ps, time is flying, 6 monthes this week AHH!

Nov. 10, 2008

2008-11-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Well hello there!!
Hows everyone doing!?
Well this week has been amazing!!! yaya!
starting with last sunday we fixed a baptismal date with mme damoizet then had a couple days of good stuff then on wednesday we had exchanges with the elders from clermont! its was way cool and effective. i was with Elder Sorenson who just so happens is one Transfer "younger" than me haha. we went and saw mme damoizet and it was really good. then we went to Interviews with President Peterson because they were this week and that went really well... (not much to say about it sry) THEN.... me and elder sorenson went and met our Chinese amis at a tram stop and talked a little bit and since we didnt have anything scheduled for after word we walked him home and he invited us to come sit down a little bit so we did and we ended up teaching him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ!!! and we invited him to be baptised the same (well i say we invited him but i did everything in my power practically to not listen to the spirit before i did... mistake i know) and he said yes yay!!! so his date is the same as Mme Damoizet which will be the 20th of December! Cool stuff.... then ya the week has just kind of been good... its really cool!
time is just flying
umm yeah just a lot of fun....
hope you guys have a great week!!!
Love ya
Elder Laws

Nov. 3, 2008

2008-11-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

hey family how are you?!
well everythings going good here and we had an alright week starting with last preparation day and then right on into our Zone Conference for the Transfer! it was really good and inspiring, and we got a lot of great ideas for our area! Right now we're studying alma 26:22 piece by piece every conference and this one was about exercising faith. right now we have a goal for the mission to have every =C3=A9quipe with a baptism this quarter and we talked about how it will take the faith of every missionary to accomplish this goal. and President Peterson talked about how faith has 2 components. 1st belief.... and 2nd Power. so ya, if we have the faith we can accomplish this goal so it should be sweet when we do it.
then just this week has been kind of weird. we didnt have as many rendez-vous this week but it didnt go really slow like normal it was nice. we talked with a lot of people who were really nice and well only a couple really interested... but thats okay because i felt like it was a great week. and to end it off we fixed a baptismal date with Mme Damoizet if you remember who that is. we already fixed a date with her before but she hasnt come to church so we refixed the date with her for december 20th MERRY CHRISTMAS haha!
ummm ya other than that not too much out of the norm is going on here... thanks for all you who asked if there was anything they could do to help...maybe i would ask you but i believe that we arent really allowed to ask for your help with amis and stuff sorry!! thanks though! you can always just pray for me and that should suffice. (because if i have the spirit then me and my companion will be able to help them with everything. well at least what we can) anyways ya...
umm yah have a great week!
Elder Laws

Oct. 27, 2008

2008-10-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

hey family!
well so i little birdie told me in my ear that all the women in the family were getting upset because i wasnt answering any of there questions so i'll try and see what i can do k? (with all the love in the world :P !!!) Mom i dont have my package yet but it will probably be tomorrow because we have zone conference then so ya. ummm, its hard to remember the questions so i will answer the ones i do remember... Halloween, i dont know what its like here because i havent been through one but i here its not really the same, they do celebrate it but... ya dunno tell you, next week i guess. ummm any other questions, well keshia told me to tell everything that happened during the week but that requires too much detail so thats not going to happen, haha! (love you babes) ummm..... well i hope your okay with that...
lets see what has happened cool this week... well yesterday was the Lyon Stakes, Stake Conference, and Elder Robert C. Oaks spoke to us, its pretty cool because well him, and another guy came in not knowing anybody and chose the person, and he chose his counselors without really knowing them. The Church isnt led by men but by God. and he knows whats up haha!
we have some cool new, amis that have a lot of potential... and one a girl from albania who, doesnt speak very good french or english but we got her a BOM in albanian and well that should be enough right???
umm... well the other day we were walking down to the Gare (train station) and we walked by a bar called Bar d'enfer, or in other words, hells bar, and well we thought it was funny because it burned down, at least on the inside :) i'll get a picture dont worry!
umm lets see i guess thats about it for me... i cant think of anything else exciting that happened really...
Love you tons
Elder Laws

Oct. 20, 2008

2008-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!
Hows everything going?
well this week, lets see.
This is the week that i would have got transfered but didnt so thats cool. then on well, on tuesday, we had a really crappy day... yup, we were going to our district meeting because well it was tuesday, and we have to take a train for almost 3 hours there, well, i just have to say that it ended up being a 5 hour train ride.... that should be sufficient. but, then we got there had our district meeting, and we had a conference call with President Peterson (and the rest of the mission) which was really good and then since we didnt have a train for like 2 1/2 hours we had a little bit of time to do exchanges, so while me and well our district leader (who was moving) stayed in the apartment, our companions went to have a rendez-vous which turned out to be really, well bad i guess, also because we missed our train home so we decided to just stay the night there with ended up being not a bad decision because me and Elder Sorenson (whos one transfer younger than me in the mission) decided to go play basketball with some guys as kind of a finding technique, which i guess would have been a lot better if we weren't in our proselyting clothes. but it was fun and i broke one of my shoes pretty good, but i'm in the middle of fixing it so its okay! haha!
then we came home and all was good.
then lets see, basically this week has not held any crazy things, just basic rendez-vous, and proselyting.
umm lets see other stuff i forgot to tell you about a while ago. ummm we had some rocks thrown at us, and we didnt get hit so i guess that means we're samuel the lamanites. also Guillaume, one of the members here, who i've already mentioned before i think, he got his mission call to San Francisco, so me and Elder Lemich decided that we are going to go visit him once we get back :) he leaves december 30th so ya. cool stuff.
also wanted to ask if theres something going on in Sri Lanka, or India right now because we have a less active member here from there and the other night he was somewhat drunk, but also saying stuff like theres a war there or something?
also, oh ya this was this week and actually last night but i thought it was funny so we had contacted this lady, and we were talking and this old guy walked by who we had talked to before a little bit, anyways he joined the conversation and then we ended up walking with him for a bit and he asked us if we wanted to get a drink with him... too bad huh? haha well... i think thats about it for me have a great week and i love you!
Elder Laws

Oct. 13, 2008

2008-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hey Family how are you doing!?!?
this week has been pretty good and we had a lot better time of things than last week so it was cool.
we talked to a lot of very nice, but very not interested people but thats okay because they will always remember when they see us and thats the goal, to get them thinking about it.
all of our amis are doing great, we dont have any baptismal dates yet but i'm expecting at least one in the next.. week i guess.
our Chinese family here in the ward are AMAZING haha. we tell them member missionary work is part of being a member and the next week we have a new chinese amis whos cool, and they're already like testifying and helping teach and helping him understand and oh man its cool. its even cooler because thats the promise that members are givin, that if you introduce people to the work, help teach them testify and be their support they'll get baptised and we're totally going to baptise him its awesome!!! (oh and frere cheng, the father, is definately going to become like a seventy or something haha theyre soo cool!!) the most recent news is, and i dont know if you are keeping track of time but, transfer calls were today. and I get to stay here for another 6 weeks with elder Lemich!! yay!! i love it here the members are sweet and oh man, its just awesome! its going to be a great!!! great!! transfer!!!
lets see what else... bahh i think thats about it.
have a great week and i love ya!

Oct. 06, 2008

2008-10-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

hey family!
how are you guys doing today?
well, in fact this week was kind of crazy and not very effective at all.
we were in clermont until wednesday and came back to st etienne after that. after which we had during the week a couple of rendezvous fall through and not very good success finding. oh well i guess. but, we did have a great experience saturday night watching conference (the saturday morning session haha). we went to our recent convert families home ( the Chengs ) and ate some good food with them, another member, and a couple of non members, (all of which were chinese so the food was way yummy) then we watched a session of conference, and that session rocked yay! it was so much fun, basically like home :) then on sunday we went to lyon because they don't have it set up to play conference in St etienne. and spent the day there listening to the prophets, i didnt get to see the sunday afternoon session and so i'm hopeing that it was way cool and all that but at the same time not because i missed it ahhh! anyways now we're in st etienne and are going to our bishops house out in the country today. anyways thanks for everything have a great week!
Elder Laws

Sep. 29, 2008

2008-09-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

hi family how is everyone doing?
well so this week was way weird but at the same time really good i guess.
to start off, we, well, i guess instead of going day by day i'll go all at once haha Our amis Mme Damoizet is probably not going to be baptised for a while because, while she is way accepting of everything and understands about everything too, she cant get herself to church, BECAUSE, her parents are against, basically other religions and shes scared to tell them or ask them if she can go to church (opposed to spending sundays with them). she had a depression a while ago and so she lives in a hospital apartment but should get out and find her own apartment sometime in january, so maybe it will have to wait til then, but we're trying to just help her find strength in herself, but all and all shes doing very well.
on saturday we had a way bizarre day. we went to the church at 10 for samedi sportif and didn't leave until 4 in the afternoon because after samedi sportif we had a rendezvous with and amis who was there, then we ate with members and then helped a member with some stuff. it was crazy. samedi sportif (if you dont know what that means its just like our time during the week to go play sports) was sweet! one of the recent converts in the ward, frere cheng, brought a friend (both chinese) and we had us also and nicholas and we played ping pong, then basketball, then like 45 minutes straight of ping-pong with me Elder Lemich, frere cheng, and Shuyang (whos an amis)it was awesome haha soooo good! (im getting way good too). anyways next time we get to see him we will probably ask him to be baptised which should again be cool.
hmm, well today we're in clermont ferand with the rest of our district for p-day and we're going to have an exchange tonight and tomorrow. anyways so this morning we went to a castle! haha it was awesome. we didnt get to go inside but i did almost buy a knife! haha that looked like a sword (sting from lotrs) but i didnt.
this weekend we're going to be in lyon for General Conference, they have a room where they show it in english so i'll be able to understand yay!!! it should be cool.
well so far ive seen a lot of great miracles and just want to let you know that there are no hard missions, if you ever tell someone where i am and they say that tell them that just because we dont baptise 100 people a month we dont have a goal for 200 baptisms a month (which some places do) and a lot of people in france couldn't care less and we get a lot of persecution and so on and so on, tell them theyre crazy!!! haha, i've met some of the strongest members, the strongest member missionaries in the world!! the rest of europes baptisms are going down yearly but we are reversing the trend, and thats what matters, because one day, the work will explode here, we're just laying the groundwork :)
love you all!!
a la prochaine
Elder Laws

Sep. 22, 2008

2008-09-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Hey Family How Are You?

well this week was GREAT!!! yay!!!
it was an awesome time so i guess i'll start from the beginning which was monday!
last pday, well wasnt the greatest and we didnt really do much but that doesnt matter too much.

then tuesday we took a train to lyon and had our zone meeting there and we stayed in lyon for exchanges with our zone leaders. which was really good for a couple reasons, one, the elder i was with is from Paris, thus speaking french and another because its good to see how different people do things here and so ya, it helped a lot which is the point.

so then we got up and came back wednesday morning at which point we went porting, (which our finding this week was absolutely ineffective) then we had a rendezvous (appointment) with mme damoizet, in which we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ. and the importance of repentance baptism faith gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end, and in the end we invited her to be baptised and she was worried at first but we got her to understand the importance (the spirirt got her to understand) of doing these ordinances by the right authority and she accepted it was sweet!

then we had another rendezvous with this way nice, but also way crazy (i use the word crazy here lightly, because well theres a lot of crazy people here) and ya, it was a good night.

so then on thursday we had to go to lyon for a legality check for me, health check, and i'm kind of suprised i passed because one of the things they ask for is the immunization record and i dont know if i've told you yet but i didnt finish my immunizations in the MTC because i had to leave so early but anyways i passed and so on to the next step sometime! haha! then we came back and visited a crazy less active lady in our ward but shes nice and didnt take up 2 hours of our time like last time haha! then tried to find people which we weren't very successful at doing like i said earlier.

friday we had our planning session and set goals and stuff which was relatively painless as far as that goes, and tried to find people then we had a rendezvous with mme damoizet again but she wasnt there!!!! nooo!!! haha, not that funny though. bah, so then we went and saw mme nercessian ( the crazy lady ) and had a good chat with her. the end.
Saturday yay! first we had samedi sportif and our sweet recent convert chinese family came and brought a friend who we're now teaching! yay! and we had a good time there, then latter we went back to the church and had a member visit which was really good, then ya went and tried to find people/ see mme damoizet (wasnt there again!!) so ya we had an ok day.

SUNDAY!!!! we rocked sunday man amazing. we got up and went to church and had 3 amis there it was sweet! we taught 2 seperate lessons during sunday school because well the chinese guy speaks english but not french and the other amis were french. so i got to teach in english yay!!! haha! i was actually useful haha! so we had a good time at church then after church we went to a members house for lunch and then straight to the famille chengs apartment (recent convert chinese family) and taught them a lesson and then their friend came and we taught him a lesson then we had another rendezvous with mme nercessian then after we went to check if mme damoizet was home and she was yay!! and that got us home barely on time at 930 haha!
it was a sweet week and the savior blessed us sooo much. thanks for all your support and have a great week!

a la prochaine

Sep. 15, 2008

2008-09-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

hello all!
hows everyone doing?
well first off i guess, the weather has been way weird here... its been kinda cold actually haha! well what can you do i guess? we had some weird fog rain stuff going on the other day, way bizarre. haha.
umm so my Companion is from Rawlings Wyoming he is a big guy, not tall but big and we get along really well, and so far we are doing some pretty good work. i told you about that lady we found and now we've taught her 2 times and soon to be 3, and this next rendezvous we are planning on asking her to be baptised, and ya it should be good.
umm mom i have got your emails the last couple of weeks and i'll be alright so stop worrying, we got all sorts of food, and when i need it i'll get some rain clothes. haha!
umm, so the french is coming along really well, and by that i mean i can understand most of whats being said haha, but its getting better and it should be cool when i can actually speak!
umm ya... thats about it for now, we had a great week just nothing that stands out sorry. idk if you know where the mission blog spot is but if you find out there should be slideshows from the mission, theyre pretty cool haha. well have a great week!
Elder Laws

Sep. 08, 2008

2008-09-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!!!
hows everyone doing? some of you are slacking whats going on!?!?!? haha jk
well this week has been kind of crazy, first we found out that i was getting a new companion so Elder Eaton was outta there, we went and stayed with our Zone Leaders Tuesday night and hung out with some of the other missionaries in Lyon until my new companion came in.
His name is Elder Lemich and he's from Wyoming, although his family lives in Cedar City now (sounds kind of familiar to me hmm..) umm and so far we're doing some good work, which we'll tell you about later. anywayz so we got back to St. Etienne, wednesday and got unpacked and then went and visited a Less active, etc, just doing work, thursday was work, until thursday night when we had to go to lyon because we had a bus from there at 6 in the morning to Geneva for our mission conference in which Elder Malm an area authority or something cool like that came and spoke to us. so we got to lyon at like 7:30 that night and we had to walk from the gare (Train station) to the Gerland (a part of lyon) elders apartment, which took us like 1 hour ugh... haha. then we woke up the next morning and got on our bus and drove to geneva where we had the conference (i got the package mom THANKS!!) then took a train at 6 at night to lyon and then a train to st. etienne! yay home! haha.
then on saturday we basically ported like ALL day. ugh, but it was actually not that bad, and we had a great experience, the first door we knocked on was this lady who we have a rendez-vous with tonight. cool stuff. so then yesterday we had church and stuff and then we visited the famille cheng who is a recent convert family from china who don't speak a word of french... cool huh? then we got done there and we had about 2 hours before we were supposed to be in and we still needed 4 finding lessons for goal (a finding lesson is where you contact somebody, you teach, testify and invite [either to repentance, or like another meeting time etc]) and so we started to port and we got 1, then we knocked on this ladies door who was like from France but lived in Florida for 3 years and spoke english and stuff and her husband was american, a lot of cool stuff like that and we taught her the first lesson, then we went and got the other 3 finding lessons that we needed and went home, it was way cool that we were able to do that i think... this is going to be a great transfer and we're going to see a lot of miracles so stay tuned haha!
i love you guys so much! thanks for supporting me in everything!
Elder Laws

Sept. 1, 2008

2008-09-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

hello family!
hows everyone doing?
ummm haha, well we got transfer calls today and my companion, as of wednesday is no longer my companion and he's going to be in the office! i'm still going to be in st. etienne, but with an elder lemich or something like that so ya, we'll update you next week on that. umm. ya nothing crazy special to tell you this week sorry. but that this week is going to be crazy. its... yeah thats all... umm ya if you have any questions shoot away and i'll try to answer them k? i love you guys and thanks for being such a great example to me!
Elder Laws

August 25, 2008

2008-08-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!
how's everything going for you?
i'm here in france... weird huh? haha
so... lets see. this week was interesting. we had an Exchange with the Elders from clermont, (exchange is where we switch companions for a 24 hour period..) we were in our ville so nothing much changed but it was a fun time. we basically did our normal thing this week but yesterday we went to Lyon to a baptism. It was an investigator from one of elder eatons old villes. he plays basketball for the team there and was like twice the size of him... funny stuff. it was way good though.
St. Etienne is actually not one of the most beautiful places in the world... haha... but its alright.
on p-day we don't really do much except for emails, shop, and chill around, every once in a while we go play ping pong but ya... we're not really allowed to take pictures of... much at all sorry.. religious things government places, etc. and thats what all the cool buildings and stuff are so ya....
oh yeah... the other day we went to a french cemetary, if you want to see weird....then ya... its just abnormal idk...cemetaries are weird...., but french ones are even more weird.... uhhh lets see...
not much else to say....um... oh yeah.. we had kind of a cool miracle yesterday on the train.
we were sitting next to a member who was going somewhere... i don't remember but ya... and my comp and the member were talking and i was sitting across the aisle...but then ya.. the member fell asleep and this lady was like... this in english... you're from america, and speak english...ya... you don't mind if i speak english with you? no... so they had a nice conversation and talked a lot about the church, and so she's probably going to come to our english class on tuesday, idk it should be cool... but ya... i think thats it.
so Je Vous aime
- Elder Laws

August 18, 2008

2008-08-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

i hate to inform any of you who have already sent me a letter but if you're planning on doing it or like a package ( haha :) ) its probably important to put les missionaires on it...
thus address would look comme ca

Elder Michael Laws
Les Missionaires
14 rue de terrenoire
St. Etienne, F-42000
France

or however it really is haha....but ya sorry if you sent letters already you might get some back yup.
Elder Laws

hmmm... HEY FAMILY!! haha
how is everyone doing? sorry for the address thing if that messes anybody up...i just thought about it and our mailbox doesn't say elder laws...it says les missionaires... anywayz ya.. sorry.
Well since a couple of you have asked me to tell you what it's like here i will.
The weather here is really weird... in fact, way weird. haha. one day its hot the next raining like crazy but all in all its good, and starting to cool down.
The Members of the ward are way great, i've made 2 pretty good friends in the ward, Nicolas(he's from martinique) and Guilloume, and basically if we have an activity, like FHE or samedi sportif they're mostly there so its been fun.
right now a lot of our ami's are out of town but we have got to teach a couple of people more consistently and have found some pretty good potential ami's (amis are investigators) the city i think has 200,000 people...buses everywhere, and a couple trams. it's not necessarily a clean city but not way dirty, it's kind of an inbetween area.... like theres poor spots and rich spots, a lot of stores, and idk it's hard to describe. quite a few of the restaurants are eat out side style....like the serving areas across the street sort of thing. ummm... there's a lot of Arabic people here and i guess it's like the arab capital of the mission or something...idk just a lot of them.
the last couple of weeks we've ate pretty well, mostly the same things but it's been good, pasta, rice, hamburgers, pizza's, cheese, bread, sandwhichs... (idk how to spell sandwhichhse now haha) another thing that apparently i can do is cook a little...i've made some good tasting hamburgers haha. and other good stuff. so ya, who knew?
we live in quite a big apartment, like there could be 4 elders in it... we have a good sized kitchen, a bathroom, a room for the toilette, 2 big closets, 3 rooms, 1 an office, the biggest our bedroom, and the other....for whatever... its like way big for 2 people it's nice.
everymorning we wake up and i exercise in the kitchen and we have a balcony, so every sunrise i get to see and there's some wayyy good ones, its awesome... so after i exercise i shower and then eat breakfast sometimes out on the balcony, its nice...i like it a lot.
outside off the balcony is a pretty nice view but also a little ways a way they've been taking down this HUGE apartment building little by little and i've been taking pictures of the results after every day or so... which is really fun.
me and my comp elder eaton get along fairly well.
uhh i think thats all i can really think of for area...if you have more specific questions that would work a lot better for me... (i'm suprised you ahven't figured taht out yet) haha.
soo let's see...
yesterday was a great day.
we got to church and a member had brought one of her friends so we taught him..., it turns out that he's from another ville in our mission but thats okay because he seems way interested. i almost had to talk in church haha... then, let's see, elder eaton got a phone call that said that one of his former investigators in another ville was going to get baptised (he's from idaho) and he wants him to do it so we're going to lyon next sunday i think. then the other missionaries in our district set a baptismal date for in a couple weeks but.... its with a guy that just randomly showed up at church, about 2 weeks ago or something cool stuff. now we're with them because it's p-day today, and then tomorrow we're doing an exchange which should be fun...but ya... uhhh i can't think of anything else, but there's miracles everywhere.
ummm ya... have a great week. and ya. Love ya -Elder Laws

August 11, 2008

2008-08-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hey fam!
not much to update..
we work a lot, and don't have to many ami's around, because apparently in france in august you get like 3 weeks of vacation, but we teach maybe 3-4 lessons to non-members so ya cool stuff. we don't knock doors much its less effective i guess but we contact whenever we don't have rendezvous going on. i guess ya... idk i'll maybe send a letter home with my memory card this week or maybe next, i haven't taken too many pics but that can change.
anywayz thats about all for now. have a great week love you guys!

so i thought of something else that i could talk about. one of our investigators (ami's) is a basketball player for the team here in St. Etienne. he's from sudan and a pretty cool guy, i guess that i'm going to have to try to get a game in with some big shots just to see where i really stand eh? haha well i think thats about it..all i can think of at least have a good one Elder Laws

August 4, 2008

2008-08-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hey Family how are you doing?!
Thanks for writing i love you guys! The work just keeps going on here. We don't have many investigators and we both kind of have a hard time in opening up but thats going to change and we'll get people. We've been working a lot with less-active members and people that had a baptismal date but for some reason didn't get baptised and i think that what we have planned should work out pretty well. plus there's always finding new people.
Being with the same person so much could be a lot worse, luckily My companion is an ok guy. although he's not really someone i'd ever hang out with other than on a mission... but we're getting along nicely and i know that we can get someone to have a baptismal date soon... (even though no ones very close)
The ward here is really awesome. everyone has way strong testimonies and is always way open to help the missionaries if they can. there's probably only about 50 people here weekly at church but, right now is vacation time in france apparently haha (everyone here gets like 2 months of vacation time, something that america should really think about doing :) )
There's a couple of guys around our age that always come to soiree familial, something like that, (FHE) and samedi sportif and stuff like that and i'm building pretty good relationships with them. Guilloume is 19 and about to turn in his mission papers, way exciting. and Nicolas.. is a little crazy, He's from martinique and is hilarious.
The language is coming along i can understand most of what people say, but just can't say all of what i want to. i taught FHE last monday by myself about the Plan de Salut. i was able to say all that i wanted to so i'm ok. anywayz i think thats all for now.

thanks for everything, love you
-Elder Laws-

July 28, 2008

2008-07-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hey Family!
everythings going well in France i suppose... the church is true here too haha. well i dont' really know what to write because so far not too much has gone on.
Like i said last time my comp. is Elder Eaton, and he's a lot different from my friends so i'm kinda starting to get a little homesick but don't worry, i'll be fine.
probably the biggest thing for me right now would be that it doesn't seem like we're doing as much as we can, and i use the excuse that i don't speak french but i know enough to start the conversations and turn them over to him, oh well, always have to be progressing.
on saturday was samedi sportif and we played some ping pong and basketball... only 2 members were there, Guillome who is preparing his papers for his mission, and Nicolas who is kind of...crazy haha. but ya, i won... :)
i'm starting to understand french quite a bit better, but its hard for me to find opportunities to speak because i don't know if i know what they're saying....its kind of confusing but i understand. haha
well thats about all i can think of to write have a good week!
-Elder Laws-
oh, we went porting (knocking doors) and i carried on an entire conversation by myself, just keep improving. yay!

Geneva Switzerland Mission Letter

2008-07-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

Laws Family,

We are writing you to inform you that Elder Laws arrived safely in Geneva, spent a great couple of weeks with us and is now in his first area in St. Etienne, France with his trainer Elder Eaton.
We will try to take good care of this great son of yours. Weekly we hear from them through letters, and every three weeks we see them in either personal interviews or in a Zone conference training session. In between, we try to keep in touch with phone calls -- especially with our newest missionaries in the work. More important than all these efforts, we join our prayers with yours for these dear young people morning, noon, and night. We have learned that our Heavenly Father protects and guides the missionaries in a truly miraculous way as they strive to be obedient and faithful.

Switzerland Geneva Mission

Mission Photos

2008-07-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Michael, his Mission President and wife, and the Geneva Zone Leaders that he spent the first few days with.

Here is a picture of all of Michael's group after they arrived in Switzerland.

Here is a picture of Michael with his new companion Elder Eaton. Michael's Trainer.

July 23, 2008

2008-07-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

hello family!
how's everything going?
thanks for the emails they rock haha.. (my preparation day is going to be changed from now on to monday so ya... just so you know) well on tuesday i got to go into the mission home and see all my buds from the MTC, and now i'm in St. Etienne in france with my trainer elder Eaton...je pense...haha just a sec, yup... good companion i am haha. well so i guess that this means that i have 16 transfers left.... haha. i've had some really good experiences already, and some not so new ones but i know that the work will always go forward and that with the lord on our side we'll succeed.
its good to hear from you all.
love you-
Elder Laws

My Address out here is:
Elder Laws (of course)
14 Rue Terrenoire
F-42000 St. Etienne
France

July 16, 2008

2008-07-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

Hey family how's everything going?
i arrived here safe and sound and got to work. President Peterson and his wife, and the Zoneleaders in Geneva Picked me up.
I'm with the Zone leaders now until the rest of my group comes next week. way cool. They're way nice, Elder Wain is from England, Leeds area. and he has only like 1 Month left crazy huh? Elder Vogelsberg is from bountiful utah, or New York depending on who he's talking to. they're showing me the ropes pretty nicely. so far i've had good days and bad ones (although there aren't really bad days) the first day i had porting went pretty good. we found 3 new amis (investigators), and ya went pretty good. right now a lot of the focus is getting members involved in the process and i think it's working idk... we've made a bunch of member visits and everything is going pretty well. the next day porting was not so good though haha... we ported for six hours finding 0 people. oh well. this place is way awesome so i wish that i got to serve here the WHOLE time haha.. its way awesome... an incredible change.

french... haha... well i can understand most of what is said...not necessarily the whole thing but at least the jist. and i can't speak that well but umm my companions say that i'm better off than they were and they are speaking french now. haha so i have high hopes. but ya. ummm thats all i can think of right now so have a sweet day.

E'Laws