December 11, 2007

Bonjour from Vitrolles!

It's pretty great here, it's so much bigger than Carcassonne it's weird. I never took a bus around town in Carcassonne, but here we're always on the bus, it's quite different. Vitrolles is fairly close to Aix en Provence and somewhat close to Marseilles. The people are great here, they seem a bit more willing to talk, not really listen too much or learn more, but definately more willing to talk, which is fun. The members here are pretty sweet as well, they're all super nice and are good member-missionaries.

So let me explain my living conditions, let's just say that they're not typical missionary conditions and it's a little different...I live in a house! A real full-size house like all of you. No it's not a basement apartment, we live upstairs where there are three bedrooms two baths a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room! It's so weird to live in a house! It's pretty exciting. We do live with members who actually live downstairs because it's easier for them with travel and health, they are sweet people! Soeur Bacci is the coolest elderly woman, she's 70 but has the energy of Alexis Wahlquist! It's a lot of fun.

So Sunday was really awesome! Of course it was great to meet all the members, but it was what happened after. So a member brought her boyfriend to church for the second time and afterwards the members father came up to us with the boyfriend and said, "We want you to teach him and he has some questions." so of course we agreed, then he said, "right now would be good;" Okay sure. We went into a room and began to teach him the Restoration, and the Spirit was super strong, probably the strongest that I've felt in a lesson. He was telling us that this has already touched him and he can't deny that it's true and that it was helping him when he didn't know he needed help. He already had a Book of Mormon of his own and said he just opens it up to anywhere after he prays and gets answers! Towards the end we opened up to Moroni's promise and he already had it marked, he looked at us and said, "oh I love this phrase" and then read it. It was an amazing lesson and at the end he was so happy. In fact we talked about it and he's planning to be baptized on January 12, 2008! It was a good Sunday.

On Saturday night we went to the Catholic Church to support some of our amis, their daughters were singing in some competition, and thay can sing! It was a lot of fun, especially whenever we were walking around everyone was looking at us and trying to read our badges, so we got to talk to a lot of people, it was sweet. At the end one of the groups sang a lot of songs in English including the one from "O, brother where art thou?" and it was done very well, even with their French accents.

So I'm loving it here and it's a great town! I'm very excited for Christmas, thanks again to everyone for all your love and support.

Love,

Miles

p.s. My companion is named Elder Osborne from Idaho Falls, he's a nice guy