Week 10

Youtube link

Video Dres sent us a tour of his apartment in Evry.  I uploaded it to YouTube.  His apartment is so so tiny!!

 

Dres and his comp, Elder Baldwin studying

 

Dres and one of his fave Elders in his apartment

Hey!!! 

It's been a pretty good week here in Evry. We got to go to Paris for zone conference on Thursday. While we were waiting for the conference to start  me and Elder Ireland went and got dr. peppers :D and walked down toward Notre Dame but there was a little manifestation going on so we turned around and went back to the church haha.  

Friday was a super awesome day! Me and elder Baldwin were walking in the park and we contacted this guy and he turned out to be an Evangelist pastor. He was telling us how we can only have the bible and no other book. While we were talking to him i was just thinking to myself, wow we really do belong to the true church!! I bore my testimony to him and he told us that he would pray and if
God told him that we were true messengers of God he would give us a call.

That night we taught a guy named Mohamed, his dad was Muslim but his mom was Christian and so was he. We taught him the restoration and he understood really well. The spirit was super strong! I think he'll become a progressing investigator.

On Sunday we taught this lady that we contacted a week ago. It went super well also and i think she'll become a progressing investigator!

love and miss you all!

love elder empey

Week 9

Aparjon

They wanted to see if they could only eat cereal for the whole week.  They did it!!!  Love the ping pong net on the kitchen table!

His desk with pictures of the Savior, his whole fam, friends and pics of his motorcycle.  

Looks like the other companionship says their prayers long enough to fall asleep!

Hello family!

We made it all week on cereal haha it was kinda sucky but we did have dinner at a few members houses so that was really nice. Some other stuff that happened this week: I got to give this lady a blessing, and we blessed her house too. Shes not a member but has been on and off with the missionaries for a while and lifes been kinda rough for her lately.

Had some interesting contacts, one guy we contacted was a kinda crazy turkish guy. He kept trying to talk politics and about some sort of problems between the US and Turkey. I kept trying to tell him that we are here to talk about jesus and not politics but he just kept going. Another guy we contacted was this big, 50 year old, with one tooth, he was hitting on me and my comp haha

We went out to Aparjon a few times. I really like it out there, theres a bunch of cool, narrow, really french looking streets and buildings.

We taught quite a few lessons but we dont have any progressing amis which is kinda a downer. I feel like the amis we do have only like to meet with us because they like to discuss their views but they dont really care about our church. There was a random guy that elder baldwin contacted like a month ago that just showed up to church so there might be some potential there :)

okay so to answer some of your questions mom and dad. so you already know a bunch of stuff about my comp. from stalking him haha. Hes pretty cool. He has 5 sisters and no brothers. He loves fishing, and country music. I would say that me and him have very different personalities, interests, and senses of humor. He is a solid missionary, follows all the rules, and can speak french pretty well. Even though were very different we still get along fine. 

ill send you a vid tour of our appt next week

the members feed us a lot! its really nice! probaby 2 times a week, maybe thats not a lot to other missions, idk haha. the members are sweet! 

i have to leave the library right now, hopefully i can repy to the rest of this email next week. love you! you are the best! thank you for everything!!! oh and i got the two packages :) thanks! i promisse i wont open them till the 20th (the 20th of September is Joe's birthday and we have sent him two packages, glad he got them)

Love,

Elder Empey

Week 8

 

Dres with one of his sweet friends, Kim Gubler at the MTC

 

 

 

 

This week has been pretty good. On Tuesday I went on an exchange with the district leader Elder Ricks, the district leader. He's an awesome missionary! We talked to every single person we saw and taught a bunch of lessons! He's super good at french too! People thought he was french. 

Wednesday we switched back, me and Elder Baldwin did some porting (door to door) and found this awesome old lady from Ethiopia. we taught her a lesson and gave her a book of mormon, i'm pretty sure she'll become an investigator but we wont be teaching her, the sisters will. 

Thursday we had a bunch of rendezvous planned, they all ended up cancelling but it was still an awesome day because we ended up finding quite a few people by contacting and gave them lessons instead. 

Friday was kinda rough, we had some rendezvous set up but none of them showed and we couldnt find anyone else to teach either. 

Saturday we helped a less active familly move furniture, we also got to go out to this pretty little town Saint Germain-les Aparjon to find a guy that we were reffered to by the Saint George Temple! Pretty crazy huh!? I think he was on vacation in St. George, was at the visitors center, and told them he'd like to know more. We only had an adress and no phone number for him so we just had to go to his house but noone was there :( 

On Sunday I was asked to introduce myself and bare my testimony in sacrament, that was kinda scary doing it in french and all. We also taught an investigator that night, Edward, he's a super cool guy from Nigeria. We teach him in English so thats cool. 

Today we all went shopping at Carrefour, and while we were there we decided that we wanted to see if we could go a full week on only cereal and milk so well see how that goes haha. hope you're all doing good! I love you!

(Answering random questions from me and Amber)

yeah there are other elders in our appt. elder ireland and elder roth. elder ireland is super cool! he was a dj before he came on his mission and hes from canada! we get along really well! hes super funny! elder roth is a convert as of 2 years ago i think. hes into video games and hes got nice style hah. 

food here is alright, some stuff is really weird like milk, it doesnt need to be refrigerated till its opened and it taste A LOT different. 

there arent any other language missionaries here in evry, only french. i did see some chineese speaking elders when i first got to paris though. 

love Elder Empey

Week 7

This is Dresden's trainer from Atlanta, Georgia, Elder Baldwin

Dres writing in his journal taken from his mission pres or his wife and posted to Facebook.

This is on Consecration Hill by Sacré-Cœur.  A beautiful cathedral that Amber and I visited a couple years ago.

whassss uppp!

so the keyboards here are super mixed up and we dont have very long to email because were meeting with a new investigator soon so i wont be able to say a bunch.

the first 2 days here were super cool! we were in paris and got to see a few cool sites and some other stuff. i sat next to a french guy on the plane and gave him a book of mormon and then i got to place another one with a guy on the train, he actually sounded really interested and i got his phone number.

i was assigned to Evry with elder baldwin. it has been awesome! evry is known as little affrica because of all the affricans that live here, its pretty sweet. its not the prettiest city in france but there is a massive park right behind our appt that is super pretty! we do a lot of contacting there and a lot of contacting in general. we have a few amis (investigators) theyre pretty cool and all of them are african. church was awesome! and the members are sweet! love you all ill try to give you more deets and answer more questions next monday oh and this is my address right now

Les Missionnaires Elder Empey
17, Cours Monseigneur Romero
91000 Évry
France

my comp told me that mail only takes like 5 days so thats not too bad

love, Elder Empey


EXTRA STUFF

Amber and I were so excited to talk to Dresden on 8/18 on the phone as he left the SLC airport to fly direct to Paris with 30 other missionaries.  Even though we did not get to hear from him after he arrived in Paris, we noticed that his mission president and his wife had posted videos and pictures of his arrival.  I have included his mission Facebook link to on the right of this page.  On 8/20 we received an email that he had been called to serve in Evry and that Elder Baldwin was his trainer.

Google is so cool.  We google mapped his entire area and street viewed his apartment, the church and other exciting things in his area.   EVRY is located 45 minutes south of Paris.  It has a strong LDS community there.

His companion has been out about a year and is from the Atlanta, Georgia area.  I found out tons about Elder Baldwin just from other blogs, etc.  We've read that his French is really good and that he had a pretty serious girlfriend when he left.  We are not sure if that is still the case, but have found her Pinterest page and it was awesome.

We love that Dres is out serving the Lord and feel so close to him and the Savior.

Love,

Court

Week 6 Elder Empey Flys to Paris!

Dresden in Paris with his mission President who has only been the Pres for one month.  They have a Facebook  page with the link on the right side of this page.

Breakfast with President Babin and his wife in Paris.  President Babin and his wife are from Paris.  She went on a mission to Brussels years ago and he to SLC.

Elder Empey with two Santa Clara buddies in the MTC before flying to Paris.  Sister Gubler and Elder Lindsey.

Elder Empey's MTC district including his two teachers whom he really loved!! (from left to right soeur Adams, our teacher Soeur McKay, Soeur Facer, our teacher Frerre Rellaford, Elder Sherren my companion, Elder Blackham, Elder Hamilton, Elder Manwaring, Me, Elder Pratt)



Elder Empey flew to Paris on Monday August 18th direct from SLC to Paris with 30 other missionaries that were going to his same mission and several other missionaries going to other parts of Europe.  He got to call us from the airport in SLC and he sounded great.  He loved the MTC but was ready to get to Paris.  He talked with our entire family and even to Grandma and Grandpa Orton and other family and friends.  He says that he has gained 10 ponds form all the food in the MTC!  We have not yet heard from him since his arrival in Paris but have found video and pictures of his safe arrival on his mission president's Facebook page which has a link to the right.  I have also added links to Elder Empey's Eagle video.

Thanks for all your love, support and prayers for our family and especially Elder Empey.  We feel so blessed and lucky to have him as a son and you family and friends for support and love.

Love,

Elder Empey's family

Week 5

Its been a good week, except I'm so ready to get out of the MTC and head off to France! On Wednesday we do something called TRC, Members who speak french come in and we teach them little lessons, but this last Wednesday we got to Skype this lady who was in France, that was pretty cool. I got the clothes you sent and the doughnuts Isabelle dropped off on Wednesday, thank you soooo much! I loved the tiny envelope that mom put in there for me ;) We got some new missionaries in our zone, all of them are going to Montreal Canada. There are some pretty cool guys here at the MTC. Oh and dad, yeah I did see Elder Webster, I saw him quite a bit actually but he left the other week, I didn't know him at all before I got here but he seems like a super cool guy, I like him a lot. On Friday we got our travel plans!!! We fly out of the SLC Airport at 4:30pm Monday the 18 directly to Paris! There are 31 missionaries going together, we'll get there at like 11am Tuesday morning. It all made us super excited! So be expecting a call from me sometime around 3:30 on Monday :) But I'm not positive on that time. 

   

We had a really good devotional on Sunday. Niel Heaton spoke, he had two missionaries come up and tell their conversion stories which was really cool then we watched a Mormon message "The Hope of Gods Light" It is soooo good! I want all of you guys to watch it! I have probably watched it like 10 times.    The Hope of God's Light Video   Lets see what else has happened the past week.... I got a hair cut today.... yup that's about it.

Thank you all so much for the letters, emails, packages, and pictures, I love you all so much! I am so grateful for you! I am so glad I chose to serve a mission! I feel like my testimony has grown a bunch even just in the past month! I can't wait to get to France and share this awesome message with the people! 

Love, Elder Empey 

Week 4

It has been a solid week here at the MTC. We have two "investigators" right now, Lupe (Soeur Mckay) and Jean Pierre (Frerre Relaford) teaching them has become a lot better! I feel like I am finally able to get what I'm wanting to say to them in French, it isnt very good french but its alright. We got some new elders in our zone and some of them are pretty cool! I think were getting like 10 more tomorrow too! Yesterday was really good! We had some solid lessons taught to us and while Elder Sherren and I were teaching Jean Pierre I just felt really good about my french. What really made the day so fun is when we went to go play volleyball after we got out of class that night. We went up and it was super dark and cloudy and just as we started to play it started to pour hard! It was awesome! we helped the MTC people take down the nets and then walked toward the residence in the pouring rain and it was just so fun! we ended up just messing around outside our residence. probably the closest thing to swimming im going to get in the next two years hah. tell tom tom a happy late birthday for me! I'm nervous im going to miss peoples birthdays :/ maybe you guys can give me heads ups. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun in Powell! We get our flight plans this friday and im super excited! I cant wait to get to france! and i get to call you guys from the air port!! :) love and miss you all

love, elder empey