Monday, December 29, 2014

Week 25

Christmas eve with frere boissery


basketball earlier today

supppp!

 This week has been really fun with christmas and all! We've been doing a lot of door to door and singing at peoples houses! We've met quite a few families and been getting quite a few pass backs too! Were going to keep singing christmas songs for people at their door even though christmas has passed cuz it has been working so well haha.

 i guess ill tell you how christmas went down too. On Christmas eve we worked up until 6:00 and then we got to go over to a members house for the rest of the night. We went over to the Boissery's house. They're a young couple, the wife is from America and hes French, they're super cool! they also had a few friends over that prefered speaking english and so we just spoke english the whole night! It was super fun!

On christmas day we got to go over to another familys house with the other elders from our appt. They also fed us a really good meal! that night we got to skype and that was super awesome!

Christmas season is amazing as a missionary! its awesome to be able to bring others to christ especially during this time of year!


CHRISTMAS PHONE CALL



We loved getting our call from Dres.  He called us Christmas day from a member's house who also has a missionary daughter out in Switzerland.  Dres and his new comp each spoke to their families at the same time in separate rooms.  We used Skype and got about 90 minutes total to talk to him.  He looks great!

He shared his testimony and the First Vision in French.  His French sounds amazing.  It is really beautiful and his accent is great.  We busted out the guitars and banjo and played him Jesus, Savior Pilot Me.  Dorothy and Ray (Dres' grandparents) came over as well as two of his uncles, Tom and Digger to the last 30 minutes or so of the phone call.  It was just great to hear his voice and watch him talk and move.  Having our whole family hang out together was just great!


For Christmas, the mission president let the missionaries sleep in and watch a cartoon movie.  Dres said he slept in until about 9:00 and it was so great.  Then he got to go watch Ice Age 3 at a members house, "We watched ice age (in English) with an 80 year old french lady who doesn't speak a word of English. It was the funniest thing ever"

"We watched ice age (in English) with an 80 year old french lady who doesn't speak a word of English. It was the funniest thing ever"


"thank you all again sooooo much for the presents!!"

Monday, December 22, 2014

Week 24

The Empey family has a Christmas tradition that Grandma Dorothy Orton came up with and does every year.  All the cousins and family get together and make "candy trains".  Dorothy sent all the stuff for Dres and his companion and roommates to make them too.  They loved it.


suppppp. hey thanks so much for those videos! they're sweet! im sitting here in the cyber cafe holding back tears just having watched  you guys play paranoia.

skyping.... so i will be at this members house to skype at around 7pm here. I'm not sure if elder jacobson will be going first or me so i might be calling at 8pm or a little later. i will be able to send you emails that day off of members phones and whatnot so i'll let you know if things change and once they are more certain. I'm totally fine with anyone you would like to be there. it is totally fine if it is just the imediate family or if other people are there. its whatever you want.

i sent a package to you guys last p day so hopefully it gets there before christmas. i had a hard time finding cool stuff to buy and thinking of specific stuff for everyone so its kinda just a bunch of random stuff.

i got grandmas package the other day. it was soooo sweet! the other elders loved it!!!!!!!

Monday, December 15, 2014

Week 23





supppppppp! the update for this week......


Toward the begining of the week we visited lots of members and amis cuz Elder Davis was going home. On Wednesday morning we went into Paris for transfers. We got there kinda early so Elder davis and I looked through Notre Dame real quick haha. We chilled at the Saint Mairie chapel for quite a while figuring stuff out. they have a thing called Paris P Day for all the missionairies that are going home right then so Elder Davis and I said our goodbyes :( and he went off and did fun paris stuff. Elder Davis is sooo cool! I miss him a bunch already! our appt just isnt the same without him. so i had to wait at the chapel for quite a while cuz my new comp was coming in from the far east part of france. he got there at like noon and we ate up there real quick and headed down to evry. His name is Elder Jacobson. he is really obedient and a really good missionary. he was talking to everyone on the train ride down here and we found a new family from it!! we have taught them once since then and will be seeing them again in a few days then they said they would come to church too!


The rest of our week has been really good. We've been doing quite a bit of porting and contacting. for porting we have been caroling and its worked pretty good! We have been let in a few times and have gotten a new family as ami's from it. I thought more people would let us in cuz all we ask is to sing for them but they always say no and i have no idea why! i feel like if I had two kids from a different country show up at my door wanting to sing I would love to hear them sing a christmas song with funny accents but i guess thats not the case for these people. thats okay though.


hmmmmmm is there anything else i want to share.......... i dont really think so
heres a pic of elder davis and I with Samuel. he's super cool. and one in Notre Dame


love you all :)

Monday, December 8, 2014

Week 22




hey i dont have a bunch of time today because we're going to go into paris in a few minutes :D
yesterday was fun, we pretty much spent the whole day with the mission president and his wife.
Bernard baptized somone on saturday!!!! the other companionships ami! it was so sweet!!
I'll talk to you guys next week :)

Love,

Elder Empey

Monday, December 1, 2014

Week 21

Dres ran into his trainer, Elder Baldwin, at a conference in Paris

Ben got the Priesthood


heyyyyyyyy hows everybody doing? this week has been good :) no crazy experiences or stories so i guess ill just give you a little overview of the week :)

we got back in touch with some old amis this week, Samuel and Admaya. They're super cool, i taught them once with elder Baldwin when i first got here in Evry but after that couldn't find much time to meet with us so we lost contact a little bit until they saw me in the gare (train station) on Sunday i think it was. They said that they missed our visits and wanted us to come over again. we've seen them a couple times this week and they're actually super solid. they could totally be baptized soon except they aren't married and cant get married until next year so the elders that will be here then will get to do that. oh and they speak English so that's fun :)

we've also been meeting with Alberto quite a bit too. He's 19 and LOVES his bible. our rendezvous with him can get just a tiny bit out of hand some times when he wants to argue doctrine in the bible but other than that he's cool

we also met this young African lady in the park. we went over to her house and she had invited 5 of her cousins to the rendezvous too. It went really well! and two of them came to church yesterday

OH! we got the police called on us earlier this week haha! we were porting in a neighborhood and someone thought we were thieves or something and called the police. they pulled up next to us and got out of their car but it was all chill. we just explained that were missionaries and they told us to just be careful about knocking on doors when its dark outside, and left.

the whole mission is doing "Christmas contacting" so we center our contacting and porting on christs birth. So we started going caroling for porting! Except...... no one has even let us yet haha. we've only been doing it for a couple days but I'm pretty surprised that people still say no when we just ask them if we can sing a Christmas song for them. I'm sure at least one person will let us in this week so ill tell you guys about that next week :)

Thanks for all of you emails and whatnot, i love it! oh and thank you for my awesome little Christmas tree! its so rad! we decorated it on thanksgiving. also the elders say thank you for their Christmas countdown calendars! :)


love and miss you all

Elder Empey