26 February 2008

It's good to be lost!

I don't remember if I told you about what happened on the 17th of February. On this Sunday we had planned to walk to a ville about an hour away from hour apartment. After about 40 minutes a couple stopped to offer us a ride, the woman was someone that I had spoken to about a week before but didn't get a number, well they gave us a ride and we exchanged numbers.

In trying to return home from this ville later that day, we were lost and quite some distance away from way when a random 20 year-old guy pulled over and gave us a ride. We have seen Thomas three times since then and he has also introduced to his girlfriend, form Sweden, who already knows about the church. He has expressed a desire to be baptized, there is still some work to do, but he's one of the nicest and most sincere people I've ever met. It's also quite odd considering he is in everyway Keven Johnson's long lost French brother.

Back to the other ride we were blessed with, Jacques and Mawuena are engaged and are quite believing. Jacques is a professional basketball player from Camaroon and he loves us. We're seeing them this evening for the third time and they have told us they we HAVE to eat with them every visit, no complaints, she's an amazing cook. They love the Book of Mormon and are very very interested in the message, they can't stop asking questions, good questions too.

Elder Coull and I are quite grateful for the blessing of the Lord on that Sunday when we were lost and far from home and twice people were placed in our path that are very excited about the Gospel.

Much love,

Elder Marsala

PS-I'm told that Tiger is amazing, quelle suprise

19 February 2008

Bonjour my most cherished people,

today I write you from a keyboard that is in Arab. It is something that I've never seen before and I think it's pretty cool, I expected it to be a lot more complicated looking, but that's only because I'm a weirdo. Don't worry there is a Latin alphabet arranged in the typical French keyboard fashion, I'm not very good in Arab...yet.

So I was blessed to see three baptisms on Saturday! It was awesome. All three people were from Brive and they came to Périgueux because Brive is yet to have a baptismal font. There was an 8 year-old baptized, a 13 year-old, and a woman in her 40s. The latter was probably the neatest story, she's been an ami for ten years and has wanted to be baptized but couldn't due to her husbands not being in agreement, but his heart was softened and she was baptized. To top it off, the original missionary that taught her 10 years ago lives in Heber City, he flew here with his mother, his wife, and his four children(the 7 soon to be 8 year old Lexie being the oldest and the 8 month-old being the youngest)to baptize her, it takes approximately 20 seconds once the baptism starts and they came all the way here just for that, I thought that was pretty special and pretty cool.

I hope you all have had a great week, much love and thanks.

Elder Miles Marsala

12 February 2008

Hello everybody,
How is everyone? I hope that your all doing just wonderful. So we've found some amis from the islands. Two from Tonga and one from Fiji. They're about the nicest people you could meet and they're so sincere,it's incredible. Another thing about them that I love is their humility and willingness to both credit and thank the Lord for absolutely everything. They are all here playing professional rugby and they all give all the credit to God. Whenever they do something good the first thing I hear them say is, "I just thank God you know, for blessing me with this opportunity and the skills that He gave me." It's like that with everything, their families, their homes, their talents, their health, their happiness, the other day one of them was lost trying to get home from Toulouse and in the prayer Ralulu(Fiji) prayed that Samo would find his way home, and when it happened, He thanked the Lord.
I've learned a lot from these men. They work very very hard, they exercise at a high level, they trian daily, all this to become stronger, faster, and better. And once they accomplish a goal that they've set out and they've developped to be stronger, faster, and better they avoid the natural man-who would give themselves credit for working hard, or maybe just thank the trainers who did tests and studies to see what worked the best for them, the first thing they do is give credit and thanks to God for having blessed them.
I hope that one day I can humble myself as they have themselves and find a way to give more gratitude for all that God has given me. For afterall, He has giving me everything and does give me everything.
I love you all very much and know that I am grateful for you.

Love,
Elder Miles Marsala

5 February, 2008

So at Zone Conference this last Thursday we spoke about President Hinckley, authority, and how President Monson would become the next Prophet. It was a fun discussion that was mostly a refresher which thankfully we don't have to do to often. There was a bit of exciting news that President Merrell announced, he mentioned that if you lived in Bayonne or Périgueux you could go watch the funeral services on Saturday night, I was thrilled! I felt so lucky to be in my ville, not too many of us got to watch it and I felt blessed. It was such a beautiful service that I think helped us all. As expected, this was Gordon B. Hinckley, there was much laughter to go along with it. I loved his paper clip cuff links. I also found it amusing that after President Monson mentioned President Hinckley's unconventional uses of a walking cane, that at the end when showing clips of his life and listening to his children speak-I never once saw him use the cane for it's prescribed use.
I was very excited to see that President Eyring is still in the First Presidency, I really really like him and I think that he feels the capacity well. How cool to have Elder Uchtdorf as President Uchtdorf. I just realized in typing this but what is now currently the First Presidency all spoke to us at the MTC during my stay, first Tuesday was President Eyring, followed the next Tuesday by President Uchtdorf, and shortly thereafter followed on a Monday morning by President Monson, cool!
How blessed we all are to be led by living prophets and Apostles that hold all the keys of the Kingdom in an unbroken chain of authority. Isn't it wonderful to live in the fullness of times in a world that has the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Much love,

Elder Miles Marsala

P.S.-On a BYU Television commercial before the funeral I saw a girl that I graduated with, and then during the funeral I saw two members of my home ward, Brother McChlanahan(I can't spell it-he does security for the church) and then I saw Brother Torgersen in the Choir