Bonjour à tous,
I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to be with family and friends. We had a wonderful Christmas and were able to spend some time with some member families and are amis. We had to finish the day we ate at President Carter's house, we were also joined by Soeur Carter's sister and her family. It was a wonderful Christmas. Of course the most wonderful part of the day was the opportunity I had to speak over the phone with my mom and the rest of the family.
Since last Tuesday we've been kept pretty busy, which is always nice. We had a fun little miracle this last week. A few weeks ago we contacted a family from Romania that spoke very little French, they had quite a few little children with them and we fixed an appointment. We went over on the 24th and to our delightful suprise they also invited some more of their family. There before us was this family, with four kids, three over the age of eight, and some siblings of the parents. It was a wonderful lesson, the kids participated and didn't leave the room or lose interest. At the end of the lesson we had eight new amis!!! I can't remember ever having that many in a week let alone in one lesson. They also asked if they could all come to church, it was so much fun.
Things are cold here and we even had a rare surprise the day after Christmas, it SNOWED!! Toulouse had a light blanket of white that lasted all day long, it was pretty and was alright to have just once. Well I love you all very much and wish you a very Happy New Year!
Love,
Elder Marsala
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
23 December 2008
The Best Christmas Ever!
Merry Christmas!
Well the holiday season is in full swing and we are preparing for Christmas this Thursday. We are lucky to have some eating appointments coming up, there always appreciated, especially at this time of year.
Last night after zone conference, the Toulouse and Montpellier zones stayed in Toulouse to put on a special show, for members and non-members alike. It was fantastic! We formed a choir of approximately 35 missionaries and sung Christmas Hymns, had a special video presentation on the life of the Lord with the song, "Come thou fount of every blessing" which was an amazing rendition. Some of the missionaries had the oppotunity to share some Christmas stories, special musical numbers, and two were chosen to bear their testimonies about Christmas. The elder that bore his testimony stated it as the best Christmas that his family had ever had. He told of his family and of their love for one another. He told of some of the struggles that come with living in a part member family. He spoke of his mother and her unyealding faith that she showed in taking her children to Church on her own every week for more than twenty years. He mentioned two beautiful and nearly perfect sister missionaries that came to his door late in 2000. He told of countless other missionary visits before and the hope that the family had in these two sisters without trying to get there hopes to high and then being let down. He continued as he talked about the charished Apostle Elder David B. Haight who reached out with pure love towards his this elder's father. He spoke of the stake conference where thay met and their unannounced meeting that followed shortly there after. The storied continued with the sisters coming over to watch the "Special Witnesses of Christ" video and the testimonies that were born afterwards. His father accepted to receive the lessons from these loving sisters giving them just one shot. The day of the appointment came and this elder and his sister were quite anxious to hear the outcome, dad came home and sat the children down and announced the news, he was getting baptized! Shock filled the room and joy overwhelmed the family, the date was fixed for Christmas Day 2000. Christmas came, as did nearly three hundred people to watch him enter into the waters of baptism. This elder can still remember perfectly the image of his father dressed all in white standing in the font, he can still remember the joy that radiated from his mother's face. The story ended with the family being sealed for all time and eternity in the temple by the hand of Elder Haight. Thank you dad, I love you.
The finalé of the evening followed immediately after the testimony, with a sister missionary singing the most beautiful and most powerful version of "O, Holy Night" that I have ever heard in my life, it was perfect because that is the favorite Christmas song of my dad.
I'd like to thank Sister Sites and Sister Still who helped my dad along this path, I'd like to thank Elder Haight who took the time to reach out to him, I thank my brothers and sister for living as examples, I thank dad for making this decision and for being the greatest dad in the world, and mom, thank you for everything, thank you for enduring and for never giving up. I love you!
Merry Christmas everyone! I love you!
Elder Marsala
Merry Christmas!
Well the holiday season is in full swing and we are preparing for Christmas this Thursday. We are lucky to have some eating appointments coming up, there always appreciated, especially at this time of year.
Last night after zone conference, the Toulouse and Montpellier zones stayed in Toulouse to put on a special show, for members and non-members alike. It was fantastic! We formed a choir of approximately 35 missionaries and sung Christmas Hymns, had a special video presentation on the life of the Lord with the song, "Come thou fount of every blessing" which was an amazing rendition. Some of the missionaries had the oppotunity to share some Christmas stories, special musical numbers, and two were chosen to bear their testimonies about Christmas. The elder that bore his testimony stated it as the best Christmas that his family had ever had. He told of his family and of their love for one another. He told of some of the struggles that come with living in a part member family. He spoke of his mother and her unyealding faith that she showed in taking her children to Church on her own every week for more than twenty years. He mentioned two beautiful and nearly perfect sister missionaries that came to his door late in 2000. He told of countless other missionary visits before and the hope that the family had in these two sisters without trying to get there hopes to high and then being let down. He continued as he talked about the charished Apostle Elder David B. Haight who reached out with pure love towards his this elder's father. He spoke of the stake conference where thay met and their unannounced meeting that followed shortly there after. The storied continued with the sisters coming over to watch the "Special Witnesses of Christ" video and the testimonies that were born afterwards. His father accepted to receive the lessons from these loving sisters giving them just one shot. The day of the appointment came and this elder and his sister were quite anxious to hear the outcome, dad came home and sat the children down and announced the news, he was getting baptized! Shock filled the room and joy overwhelmed the family, the date was fixed for Christmas Day 2000. Christmas came, as did nearly three hundred people to watch him enter into the waters of baptism. This elder can still remember perfectly the image of his father dressed all in white standing in the font, he can still remember the joy that radiated from his mother's face. The story ended with the family being sealed for all time and eternity in the temple by the hand of Elder Haight. Thank you dad, I love you.
The finalé of the evening followed immediately after the testimony, with a sister missionary singing the most beautiful and most powerful version of "O, Holy Night" that I have ever heard in my life, it was perfect because that is the favorite Christmas song of my dad.
I'd like to thank Sister Sites and Sister Still who helped my dad along this path, I'd like to thank Elder Haight who took the time to reach out to him, I thank my brothers and sister for living as examples, I thank dad for making this decision and for being the greatest dad in the world, and mom, thank you for everything, thank you for enduring and for never giving up. I love you!
Merry Christmas everyone! I love you!
Elder Marsala
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
16 December 2008
Merry Christmas everyone,
The Christmas season is getting into full swing here in Toulouse and the city is beautifully decorated. This last week was transfers and there was some changes and some big suprises. I will be getting two new companions here in the bureau. None of us are leaving the bureau at the moment, but we have switched up the companion make up, I will now be with Elder Moon the Accountant and I will be training my replacement, Elder Mendenhall! I love Elder Mendenhall, he was in my MTC district and he's sweet! It was a shocker to us all but it should be fun. Things are going great here and we're all very excited for the Christmas concert will be putting on this Monday at the chapel.
I love you all and wish you a very merry Christmas!
Love,
Elder Marsala
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
9 December 2008
Bonjour,
Well Christmas is definitely in the air and all of Toulouse, and the rest of Franc I assume, is preparing for the Holiday. Street lights and decorations are all hung and it definitely adds to the atmosphere. I'm happy to be in a larger city this year that's not over 80% Muslim, because there's more than four street decorations. Packages are already starting to flood the bureau and the mission is planning some Christmas evenings for all the amis.
Saturday was a marvelous and long-awaited day for Elder Gysler and myself. We finally saw Kojo Philip D'Zikunu enter into the waters of baptism. When we first started teaching him he wanted to be baptized but just didn't seem to willing to do what was necessary, he'd never be there for rendez-vous' and after months of promising to come to church he just never did. A few months ago we went to teach him with one of our English speaking members, he speaks no French, and we taught the Sabbath Day and changed his baptismal date to the 20 December. The next day was Sunday and we waited in anticipation and when he arrived I threw my hands in the air. Since that Sunday he's never missed church except for Stake Conference when he was ill. He only missed one rendez-vous since that day and as previously mentioned he was baptized two weeks earlier than planned. Philip has an amazing faith in God and Jesus Christ, he's so willing to put his life in Their hands and to just trust Them. Often he'll speak the lesson about the Sabbath Day and he mentions how he felt the Spirit and he knew that the Sabbath was very important, that night he had a dream telling him to go to church because it was where he needed to be, he's poor and has had to turn down many Sunday jobs, but he does it for the Lord. He was with his friends the other day and he wouldn't drink and they asked why, he briefly explained that the Lord told us not to, his friends now call him Pastor. He's so wonderful.
Thanks to everyone for all your love and support, have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Marsala
Well Christmas is definitely in the air and all of Toulouse, and the rest of Franc I assume, is preparing for the Holiday. Street lights and decorations are all hung and it definitely adds to the atmosphere. I'm happy to be in a larger city this year that's not over 80% Muslim, because there's more than four street decorations. Packages are already starting to flood the bureau and the mission is planning some Christmas evenings for all the amis.
Saturday was a marvelous and long-awaited day for Elder Gysler and myself. We finally saw Kojo Philip D'Zikunu enter into the waters of baptism. When we first started teaching him he wanted to be baptized but just didn't seem to willing to do what was necessary, he'd never be there for rendez-vous' and after months of promising to come to church he just never did. A few months ago we went to teach him with one of our English speaking members, he speaks no French, and we taught the Sabbath Day and changed his baptismal date to the 20 December. The next day was Sunday and we waited in anticipation and when he arrived I threw my hands in the air. Since that Sunday he's never missed church except for Stake Conference when he was ill. He only missed one rendez-vous since that day and as previously mentioned he was baptized two weeks earlier than planned. Philip has an amazing faith in God and Jesus Christ, he's so willing to put his life in Their hands and to just trust Them. Often he'll speak the lesson about the Sabbath Day and he mentions how he felt the Spirit and he knew that the Sabbath was very important, that night he had a dream telling him to go to church because it was where he needed to be, he's poor and has had to turn down many Sunday jobs, but he does it for the Lord. He was with his friends the other day and he wouldn't drink and they asked why, he briefly explained that the Lord told us not to, his friends now call him Pastor. He's so wonderful.
Thanks to everyone for all your love and support, have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Marsala
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
2 December 2008
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin
Bonjour,
I hope that everyone one of you is doing well. I'm doing pretty good. This week on Thursday we had the second greatest zone conference that I've ever been to, second only to the one with Elder Richard G. Scott. Elder Kopische of the First Quorum of the Seventy taught us so many wonderful things pertaining to missionary work, it was amazing. He just made it seem so simple, one of those, why didn't I think of that days. We were most definitely edified. We also learned a great deal from Elder Paya, the area Seventy in the south of France.
It hasn't been more than five minutes since I read that Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin passed away last night. We're all saddened by the loss of this great servant of the Lord. I will sincerely miss his talks at General Conference, he taught boldly, clearly, from the heart, and also made us laugh. It's hard to think that he will not be there come at Christmas or at the next Conference in April. He was an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he lived up to and magnified his calling. I know that I have personally been blessed through his words of inspiration. I know that he is now happy to be re-united with his dear wife and that he is continuing to serve on the other side. May I suggest that we remember both him and his wife in our prayers.
I love you all very much and I thank you for your support.
Love,
Elder Marsala
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