13 January 2009
...It seems like things are going smoothly enough. A lot has changed in the last week, due to the fact that Elder Mendenhall, my replacement, was completely trained and I had nothing to do at the bureau all day. I've been moved! I didn't go to far, I went back to Colomiers which is the part of Toulouse I was first in when I came here. I will be companions with Elder Nolan for two weeks until the end of transfer, which suits me because we get along great. Elder Nolan has been in my district my whole time in Toulouse.
We'll see where I end up in two weeks.
It's really hard to believe that I'll be home in less than four months, it's a rather scary thought, I'll have to live by faith.
I love you all very much and can't wait to hear from you.
Thanks for everything
Elder Marsala
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Air Mail!
Dear Friends and Family;
Miles has decided to write only letters for the last four months of his mission.
I will continue to post information from the letters I receive each Tues.
As always missionaries like to receive mail, so if any of you have a moment, write a quick note I know he would love it.
Quoting from Miles letter:
6 January 2009
"...Things are going pretty well here, we've been finding new amis and they've been sticking around. The other day we were with our ami Mohammed and he had already read 100 pages in the Book of Mormon and he understood it well. He said, "it's not Lehi, Nephi or Mormon speaking, it's God, and you know it from the first page" That was pretty neat to hear.
Just for your information, President Carter has changed return days from Wednesdays to Tuesdays, so I'll be flying home on the 12th of May..."
Love, Miles
Miles has decided to write only letters for the last four months of his mission.
I will continue to post information from the letters I receive each Tues.
As always missionaries like to receive mail, so if any of you have a moment, write a quick note I know he would love it.
Quoting from Miles letter:
6 January 2009
"...Things are going pretty well here, we've been finding new amis and they've been sticking around. The other day we were with our ami Mohammed and he had already read 100 pages in the Book of Mormon and he understood it well. He said, "it's not Lehi, Nephi or Mormon speaking, it's God, and you know it from the first page" That was pretty neat to hear.
Just for your information, President Carter has changed return days from Wednesdays to Tuesdays, so I'll be flying home on the 12th of May..."
Love, Miles
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
6 January 2009
Bonjour tout le monde,
I hope all is well back home. It is snowing here again in Toulouse and that is never fun. This is a quick email to thank all of you for your love and support and to let you know that I will not be sending eny emails for the rest of my mission. So I encourage and ask all of you to WRITE LETTERS! I don't want to lose contact with any of you, and I would love to here from you all very soon. Have a great week! See you in May.
Love,
Elder Marsala
My mailing address remains the same:
Elder Miles Marsala
France Toulouse Mission
4, Rue Alaric II
Compans Caffarelli
F-31000 Toulouse
FRANCE
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
30 December 2008
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
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
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
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