July 15, 2014 "Fireworks"

Salut!

I was absolutely loving all of the pictures that you sent! You all look like you are having wayyyy way too much fun in the sun! Put some sunscreen on! The only one that didn't look fried was Caden and that is because he gets paid to sit in the sun :) Hey dad! You feet are looking great!

Ahh, gotta love Bear Lake and all of the memories that are there. I think that is by far one of my favorite trips that we take. There is nothing more fun than being with the whole family messing around in the sun. I am glad to hear that you all had so much fun!

Have a ton of fun in Toronto!! That is going to be an awesome experience! I can only imagine how excited Brock is to be going back, are you going to try and stop by and see some of the members that are there or are you just going to go around and see all of the sights that are there?

Tell everyone I love them and thank Gramps for his words!

Okay. . .

Elder Beyer and Elder Powell (New Companion)

Helping move a member!

So, the reason that I didn't send an email yesterday was because we were so busy doing a service project. We were helping one of the members move into her new apartment. So, as you know, yesterday was the 14th of July. That is one of the biggest holidays in France. Our President has been telling us over the past few months that if we work as hard as we can to have as many baptisms as we can on the 5th that we could celebrate as a mission on the 14th and go and Watch the fireworks, stay up late, and sleep in the next day. . . So, we had been working toward this reward for a very long time. Anyways, in helping the members slowly but surely we were realizing that there was still a ton of stuff to move and it was getting late. Load after load was taken back and forth and it kept getting later and later. Finally it got to the point that we missed all of the trains to come back to Lyon where we were going to meet up with all of the other missionaries to eat, play games, and go to the fireworks with some of the members. Because the service project we weren't able to make it :( I was seriously stressin' because I had been looking forward to this day for 3 months now! As it started getting really late, the members that we were helping were like, okay, we will drive you back as fast as we can with our families so that we can go see the fireworks together. We were so excited! So, we drove as fast as we could and after a few wrong turns we made it the perfect place to Watch the fireworks. . . but they were hidden by the buildings. As we were walking with 7 little kids over by the river to Watch the fireworks we heard them start going off. . . we didn't want to miss all of them so we all just took of running! We ran and ran until we made it to the river where we had a perfect view. When we made it past the buildings it was seriously so amazing. . . we were right next to the river and we looked up on the hill at a few huge old french buildings, one that looked like a little castle where they had the french flag flying high and just right behind that were the fireworks that we going off that were seriously amazing! I don't know why, but I love fireworks so much! I think that the July holidays are some of my favorites. . . After about 15 minutes they were over, but it was all well Worth it in the end. We all went out to eat after and then headed home. This morning we got to sleep in a little bit as well, although, my body woke me up at 8, so basically the same amount of time that I sleep every night :)

This week has been pretty crazy because we have been trying to figure out where we need to be going and what we need to be doing. . .

With that being said though, everything is going really good. We had a great week in which we talked to tons of people and we set up a lot of teaching appointments for this week! So, fingers crossed that they all go through :)

Not only that, but the people that the missionaries that were here before us were teaching are seriously amazing! They are so elect! One of them is a 12 year old boy that has grown up in the Church and his dad finally gave him permission to be baptized! We taught him about baptism and it was seriously incredible how much he knew and seriously how ready he is for baptism. His name is J....

and he is seriously awesome, if he doesn't have anyone to bring him to Church he rides his bike or his scooter to get there. . . how incredible is that?!

The other guy is named M.... and we were able to teach him right after Church. He is an awesome guy and he really wants to know if this message is true. He said the only thing that he wants to do right now is get closer to God, so he said that he thinks this message is the way to do it, but he is not sure yet. He is getting close to finding out though. We are going to spend a lot of time reading the Book of Mormon over the next little while so that he can know for sure and be baptized once he finds out!

I think that I told you last week, but like I said now on September 27th we are going to have another day like the 5th of July! It is going to be another one for the record books and the goal is to beat our last amount of baptisms, which was 22! I think that we are totally going to do it! It is so incredible seeing how hard all of the missionaries are working right now and how many changes are happening in the mission right now. It is amazing to be a part of!

Oh and by the way, this new ward that I am in is awesome! There is seriously so many kids running around everywhere. When I stood up to bear my testimony when I first got into the ward I said, Wow. . . your ward is so living! Where I was in Bordeaux really lacked all of the noise from the kids and I just realized how much I missed it! It is going to be a blast working with all of them and I think that we are going to see some miracles here in this city. . . As for Grandpa's question, I really hope that I spend the rest of my mission here in Lyon! But, I am not sure :) There is a big chance!!

Je vous embrasse!

Elder Beyer