25 November, 2008

Bonjour tout le monde!

This past week was pretty good, yesterday and this morning were spent preparing the bureau for Elder Kopische of the first quorum of the Seventy who'll be coming today and staying the week to do zone conferences. Our zone conference in Toulouse will be on Thursday which for you will be Thanksgiving. I can hardly believe that it's already time for Thanksgiving, I was in Carcassonne last year with Elder Dearing, wow how time flies.

I would just like to take a few lines to express my thanks and gratitude for some things in my life. I'm ever so grateful and thankful for my beautiful mother Carolee who has always and will always be there for me. I'm always very grateful for my father and for his decision to be baptized eight years ago this Christmas. I'm so grateful for my brothers and sister, and likewise their spouses who are equally consider as my brother and my sister. I am so thankful for my nieces and their pure love that they have. I'm very very thankful for my mission president, Président Carter and his wife Soeur Carter, I am equally thankful for my other mission president, Président Merrell and his wife Soeur Merrell. I'm so thankful for the opportunity that I have at this time to be a missionary here in the South of France. I'm thankful for the Scriptures and the opportunity to study them. How thankful I am for the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in it's fullness. I'm thankful for the Prophet Joseph Smith and all the Prophets we've been blessed with down to the present day with President Monson. I don't have the words to express my gratitude for our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ. Such love he showed and shows, such compassion, such kindness, such mercy, and such sacrifice. I love Him and thank Heavenly Father for the matchless gift of His Son. I'm so thankful for His Atonement and for the power and strength that He offers me. I'm forever thankful for eternal families and for January 8, 2002.

I love you all very much, I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Love,
Elder Marsala

18 November 2008

Hello everybody,

Wow, it's seems just like yesterday that it was time to email. Elder Gysler and I had a rather neat experience this past Sunday while doing some contacting en chemin. As usual we were talking to people and not too many people were overly interested or seemed to have the time to get in any real testimony about the Restored Gospel. As we continued down the street in the dark, we saw a stroller and two women walking with it. Elder Gysler opened his mouth and started. This was a three generation family. Both the grandmother and the mother mentioned that they have been asking themselves lots of questions and that they would love to belive in God and His Son and Their mercy. They had a particularly hard time with the treatment of the Jews during the War and were troubled by children dying young. As we testified of the saving power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that through Him all children are saved and will dwell with God they almost wept. I don't remember ever having seen the Spirit touch someone so deeply or so quickly while contacting on the street. We were able to exchange information and set-up a rendez-vous and the soeurs will be visiting them this week. It was wonderful.

I love all of you and thank you for your support.
Love,
Elder Marsala

11 November 2008

Elder Marsala with Elder Gylser and Brother Bandieri (older gentlemen) and friends -baptized 25 October 2008


This is Miles' Halloween costume. He went around all day dressed as Joseph Smith.



Bonjour tout le monde,

The Pyrenees, The Alps, and The Mediterranean‏

This past week Elder Gysler and I took a little journey. Because Elder Gysler is in charge of the apartments for the mission and there were some apartments being closed, off we went. We sent out Thursday after having received 13 blues on Wednesday. We started by heading towards Nîmes, well there was one wrong turn taken in Carcassonne and with the "help" of the GPS it took a little longer than normal to get to Nîmes. We were sent down smaller roads through small towns and vineyards. It was breathtakingly beautiful! It is early November and all the bushes, trees, mountains, and vineyards have decided to change colors. We drove through seas of color on both sides of us, deep reds, blazing yellows, burning orange and crisp brown. It was amazing to look on either side for as far as the eye could see, and only see this ocean compossed of waves of different color. It was, as my dad would say, "Marvelous, simply marvelous."
We eventually made it to Nîmes and thanks to some road construction en ville things were slightly complicated, but we made it and were able to deliver the elders there some new beds. Afterwhich we took a few more wrong turns and headed off to Vitrolles. It was nice to be back in Vitrolles, I hadn't been there in ten months, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it there. We would spend the night there and leave behind a chest of drawers. Early the next morning we headed off to Avignon to make a quick delivery and then to Manosque to deliver a bed and do an inspection of the apartment. We left Manosque and headed to St. Raphaël. We made there and got to work emptying the apartment of the recently departed Myers. They had loads of stuff left behind. The Elders of St. Raphaël pitched in a helping head. After we had loaded the Trafic to maximum capacity we headed up to Antibes to unload the items into the chapel in Antibes which is no longer in use. We had no idea what we were missing at the chapel that night until the next day. After unloading we headed back to St. Raphaël and filled the Trafic to capacity again and then we parked and stayed the night with the Elders in St. Raphaël. The next morning we headed back to the Antibes chapel to unload again. Wow! So the Antibes chapel is a villa that has been slightly remodeled on the inside, it sits on a hill with a million dollar view of the Côte d'Azur, where one can see in one snapshot both the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. It was breathtaking. We missed sunrise but the sun was blazing and it was gorgeous, I can't even explain. After taking a moment to soak in the beauty of the place we unloaded the Trafic and headed to the old Anibes apartment, with the help of the Elders from Nice we filled the Trafic up twice and took emptied it at the dump. After our day in Antibes we headed back to St. Raphaël to finish emptying the Myers' apartment. After we had once again filled the Trafic to it's limits there was still chairs and a lamp to fit in, so with no way to make it all fit, we were grateful to run into a neighbor who was delighted to take them off of our hands. With it getting late and time running short we left in a hurry, seeing how the next day was Sunday we wanted to get as close to Toulouse as possible. Aix-en-Provence would be our host Saturday evening and we had a great time. Very early Sunday morning we hit the road heading to Montpellier hoping to get there before there services started. We ran into the Elders and Soeurs as there were heading to church, with joy we gave them some things and after a quick laugh or two Elder Gysler and I climbed aboard for one last stretch. Going from Montpellier to Toulouse was an easy stretch of driving as far as conditeions are concerned, but considering the Elder Gysler doesn't know how to drive and I had already done so much driving I was spent and the drive became very tiring, I'd be happy to never drive the Trafic again after all the miles that we did in that thing! We arrived safely home and cleaned ourselves and made to church on time. We came home in the evening, ate the first real food we'd had in about four days and dozed off to Neverneverland a touch earlier than normal. It was great to sleep with the quilt that mom had made me, I had sorely missed it and it felt wonderful. Odd thing about the trip was as neat as it was to not wear a tie for a few days, getting ready for church it felt so relaxing to sleep on a clean white shirt.

Thanks to all of you for all of your love and support.
Love,
Elder Marsala

4 November 2008

Hello,

This past Sunday frère Vasco Santo Bandieri received the baptism by fire. Elder Gysler confirmed him a member of the Church and conferred upon him the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a beautiful blessing and it was a neat experience. One of our other amis, Philip, has been making some sweet progress in the last few weeks, he has stopped working on Sundays and coming to church, which was hard for him to do for about three months. Yesterday we again went to the family Thomas' home, but this time with Philip and his sister, it was rather interesting because the Thomas family doesn't speak too much English, hardly none at all, and Philip speaks practically no French, it was a rather amusing.

Today is the transfer and it's a big one, thirty équipes were changed and there are thirteen blues coming in tomorrow. But there are no changes in the bureau, so it's almost certain that will all be here until the new year comes.

Well I encourage all of you to go out and vote! I love you and thank you for everything.

Love,
Elder Marsala