Monday, April 29, 2013 "Hard but Good"

Hey!!!
What the crap?!! That is so crazy about the mission calls! Tell them all good luck! Ah I can't believe that about Aubrie and CJ!! That is so so so crazy, tell them to send me some pictures. I really liked that card that you are going to give to Berkeley and tell Cole good job. Tell him to prepare himself for some hard times with the language, but that he is going to have a blast.

That is what I am talking about with the ROCKHOUNDS! Nice work Dad and Bubba, before we know it you are going to be winning tournaments all over the place. Don't dwell on the loses though because there is always going to be something that you could have improved on in everything. If you dwell on the loses you never enjoy your success. That is something that I have really learned since I have been out here. . . you can focus all day on those people who make your days really hard, or you can keep looking and when you find that awesome person who talks to you it will make your day so much better.

As for the piano yes I have! There is one in the Church that I have been able to play a few times, we also went there one day on P-Day. Our ward doesn't really have a piano player. . . but I don't know if I want to take on the obligation of struggling through hymns when they can play them just fine over the ipad.

 

Okay, as for France! It is going really good. Man is it hard though! It is true though, no one ever said that it would be easy. I feel like my French is not getting any better, but everyone that I have talked to said that it will feel like that for a long time and then one day you will Wake up and realize that you speak French. I can't wait for that day!  We have had a lot of fun days here though, not to mention the weather has been amazing. We don't have to wear our suit jackets any more so we just walk around in the sun all day and at night the temperature is perfect. That is one thing that I really love about this place, it is beautiful. The members are awesome here as well, they take really good care of us and anything that we need they provide it for us.

Since I have been out here I have taken so much pride in American culture though, I love everything about home, maybe a little bit too much too. I starting to love it here too though. One of the Elders who picked me up from one of the train stations in my first week and he said one of the most important things to do over the next little while is not compare France to back home. It is so true though, when I start doing that I have a lot more fun here and I really appreciate everything here more and more. Ahh the french are some funny people.

 

Keep up the good work everyone! Caden keep winning those games and working hard! I love all of you so so much, and thank you for the opportunity you have given me to serve! One thing that I have really come to know out here is that missionaries are weird haha, all of them (including me). So now I can see where Troy and Blair are coming from :) Man do I miss those guys haha

Love, Elder C. Beyer

 

Monday, April 22, 2013 "Lemon Drops"

Mom! Family!

Bonjour! Commet allez-vous?

It sounds like everyone is doing so good back at home! I really hope that Coulter doesn't have to go home and that is awesome for Berkeley. That is not good about Caden, he is going to have to eat twice as much this week to get back up to normal. It sounds like Lacrosse is going really well for him though, so keep up the good work! Bubba! Be careful, the last thing that the Rockhounds need is another broken arm. Stop giving dad a heart attack! It sounds like everyone is doing really good all in all though.
As for me here in France I am doing pretty good! This week was a little bit of a long one and I had my share of homesickness, but I knew that it had to come eventually. We had a few really long days of walking in the hot sun and not having any good contacts with people that we met, but as soon as we made it through those days we came out on top and met some awesome people. We met this couple this week in the last hour before we were going to call it a night. We were on our way into the apartment when we realized that we had only contacted 55 people and our goal was 60 for the day. We started looking everywhere for people and walked everywhere to find a few people, we talked to the right amount of people to be in the right place at the right time. The people that we met were this awesome young couple who at first glance we thought that we were just going to get blown off, but no, they were seriously interested. We ended up talking to them for about 35 minutes and set up an appointment with them in a couple of weeks. It was awesome to talk to some people like that.  A big thing that they emphasize on the mission is that the miracles come when you think that you have given all that you can, and then you give some more. In that last little bit of energy that you muster out is when you start to see things happen. Ha ha and trust me, it is exhausting being out here trying to talk to people in french.
Okay so I have a funny story for you. . .
So this week during church we were sitting behind a pretty big family who has 5 kids. One of the younger kids kept trying to talk to me and I didn't understand a single thing that we was saying so I just sat there and smiled. All of the sudden he started going through my backpack. So I pulled the backpack a way and my companion was like just give him a tic tack or something and he will stop. Then, I remembered that I had lemon drops that we bought at Cabelas right before we got into the MTC. I was like, oh that will be perfect! I gave one of the lemon drops to the kids and sure enough as soon as one gets one, all of the kids need one. So we distributed them to the kids. Okay so some inside information about the french is that they are really dramatic, about everything. All of the kids put the candy in their mouths right before the prayer started and seriously in unison during the prayer they all started screaming. A few of the little ones were crying, the mom was yelling trying to figure out the problem and silence her kids. It wasn't working though so the parents grabbed a few of the kids and ran out in the hall. Long story short the little girl started to choke on the candy a little bit and the candy was too sour for all of them. After the sacrament I got a bit of a talking to about giving the children candy before the sacrament by the parents.
So what did I learn? Don't give french kids sour things and don't try and try and be the cool missionaries who quiet the kids by giving them candy.
Ha ha it was so bad!
Everything is good here though. I love all of you and miss you a lot, thanks for all of the amazing support. It is true, the closer you come to the Lord the more adversity that you have here and everywhere so we all know that we are doing something right as missionaries! It is all worth it though because the church is true!
Love, Elder C. Beyer

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 "Wish us luck"

Mom!
Family!
It was so good to hear from you. That is awesome for Jenny and that is so awesome about Peter! Haha that makes me so happy! I love that little guy. It looks like all of the family is doing amazing from the pictures. Tell Bubba to keep up the good work and to have fun in the Presidency, he will learn a lot in there. Oh and there is no doubt that Caden was trying to impress the ladies! Lets be honest here. . . That is awesome though, keep up the good work everyone!
I am doing really good here in little old Perigueux though! It has been really really hard, but it has been fun too. The french is killer and sometimes you just get so frustrated, but I know that it will come eventually (I just hope that it comes sooner than later). My ward here is awesome though! They take really good care of the missionaries and they all are so nice. I finally got to meet most of the members and they are all really cool. This last Sunday they called me up in sacrament meeting and they had me bare my testimony and give a prayer. Speaking french in front of real french people is a lot harder because they know if you say something right of if you are just saying something with a french accent to make it sound like you know some french, which is what I do all of the time.
Okay, so the reason that you didn't get an email from me yesterday was because I was in Bordeaux all day at zone conference. Zone conference is seriously the best, we get to meet up with all of the missionaries and hear awesome talks from President Roney, Sister Roney, and the AP's, it was a lot of fun and they helped us out a lot with our contacting. They taught us how to not not get rejected at first sight or mention that we are the missionaries so I can't wait to go try some of the things that they taught us out.
This week we are going to spend a lot of time setting up activities with the youth and spend a lot more time knocking on doors and looking for people. At zone conference they talked a lot about finding people, so that is going to be a lot of what our focus is going to be on over this next week. Wish us luck!
D'accord. . .
This last week I went on a transfer in Bordeaux with one of the zone leaders and it was absolutely crazy! We walked around in the pouring rain and it was freezing! We seriously walked around for hours and hours in soaking wet and looking for people. Between the two companionship's that we were with we contacted 146 people. It was so exhausting! But, the cool part was that after we walked around in the cold and not finding anyone who was interested is when we saw the miracles start to come. You learn that that is always the case with missionary work, or so I am told. So finally, at the end of the night we came across an investigator who the missionaries had been in contact with, but he moved all over and finally he was back. Long story short he was so happy to see us and set up a meeting for the next day to continue talking with the missionaries. Fingers crossed for that one.
I love all of you so much and you are such amazing people! I miss all of you so much, but I know that I am needed here in France. Keep being the amazing family that you are!
Love,
Elder C. Beyer

Monday, April 8, 2013 "Culture Shock"

Family!!!

Ah, it really is so good to hear from you. I am doing really well here in France and I can't believe that I am actually here. It is definitely a culture shock though, I had some speculations about how France would be, but I wasn't really right on what I thought. . . When we first arrived in Lyon I was shocked, it is a huge city! Metros everywhere, people everywhere, it really is huge. Those first few nights we stayed in a hotel and toured the city with the AP's and the Mission President, our AP's and Mission President are so amazing, that was awesome though. We ate dinner at the mission home our second night there and it was really fun, the mission home is incredible. On the way were able to talk to people on the metros and seriously as soon as I started talking to someone I forgot every french word that I had learned ha ha. I just stood there with a blank stare until I could muster our a sentence. It was quite the experience, no need to worry though because the AP helped me out and I made it through that conversation. The next person went a lot better though, I couldn't understand them, but they seemed to understand some of what I said ha ha. Who knows though!

Everything that you said is spot on with the town and with my companion. His name is Elder Asay and he is from Texas, yeah he is 26 also. He is such a stud, we both like a lot of the same things and he loves to fly fish. We get along really good and I think that I am going to have a lot of fun this first transfer. We are in the little city of Perigueux. . . It is a small little town on the west side of our mission. It is a really cool little town and it has been pretty fun so far. We stay in a little apartment and yeah it has a blue door. That is crazy that you were able to see it! We are about an hour and a half away from the other missionaries and we are like a two days/one long day journey away from the mission home. So, we are kinda by ourselves.

We were able to watch conference, but we were not able to get it to play in English at first at the church so we ending up walking over to a members house and watched it there. That was really nice because I was finally able to understand what people were saying besides my companion! That was a funny day when we were at the members house because they kept speaking to me in French and I could not understand a single word, I have never felt so lost in my life in a conversation. Good thing I have a companion to help me out.

That is so awesome about those mission calls! I am so excited for all of them, they are going to love it (especially the part about speaking English in the united states! ha ha) I hope all of you had so so much fun in St. George and know that I love you all so much! 

Love Elder C. Beyer

Tuesday, April 2, 2013 "Arrived in France"

Elder Beyer with President and Sister Roney at the Airport in Lyon.

The entire group of missionaries that traveled together.

Elder Beyer's Trainer Elder Asay.

Elder Beyer arrived in Lyon France with no trouble.  They did have several delay's before leaving Salt Lake City.  We were able to speak to him Monday morning.  He was excited to be leaving to France.  He really appreciates all the love and support he received from everyone.

*Les Missionnaires/Elders
Elder Beyer or Elder Asay
4, Rue La Grange-Chancel
F-24000 Perigueux
FRANCE** *

This is his address for at least the next 6 weeks.