I had no idea it was St. Patrick’s Day!  And besides, no one here knows what that is either so it’s ok. What today actually means..... I have 365 days left! 1 year! I have this little card that says what day I started (April 3) and what day I finish (March 17). Our mission doesn’t have any year mark traditions though. Wow that’s crazy to hear that Melissa, our cousin, is engaged!  Congrats!

This week we taught our friend from Benin!  He's really cool. We taught with our most recent convert, Ricky.  It went really well!  Ricky was pretty nervous to come help teach but he aced it!  He said exactly what needed to be said that I couldn’t say myself!  It was really awesome. Our friend didn’t come to church though because he said he had to go his own church that Sunday.... so there are still things to work out but it’s  good.

Friday we were walking through a park and saw a man sitting on a bench.  We went over and introduced ourselves and asked if we could share a message. Usually people say no or say they're Muslim (that happens a lot) but this guy said Yeah sure!! I would love to hear it!   So we talked about God and prayer a bit then asked to pray with him. He said of course, why not!!  So we prayed.  Afterwards he said that he felt really good and that he really needed that right now. That was pretty cool!  And he's a French guy so that makes it even more of a surprise!  

Yesterday we taught a guy at the church who we met earlier in the week. He's 20 years old, also a French guy, and he likes to try and practice his English with us... The lesson went ehhh, really strange, in fact. He's kind of just out there with things he was saying..... but he said he's going to read the Book of Mormon!  He said he already knows a bit about the church and has met missionaries in the past, so we'll see about this guy... he's an interesting one...

On Thursday we're going to Paris for a big conference, so I'll let you know how that goes!

This was a pretty good week. It went by fast! We went to Paris for legality stuff for my companion, then that night we took a train to Nancy. We stayed the night with the missionaries there in their apartment. We slept on these chair pads with some bed sheets for blankets... it’s not bad, I could be sleeping on some hard dirt somewhere else in the world, so count your blessings right?

The conference was pretty good. I knew some missionaries in the apartment, and so I met the other ones that were there too! There's this missionary "tradition" that when you train a new missionary, you go to this store in Paris and the new missionary picks out a tie and you buy the same one. Then you both wear it when you go to a big conference (like zone conference) so you're both wearing it when the trainer presents his missionary to everyone else.  That’s why we had matching ties on.

About the Muslims, yes, there are a million of them. It’s completely normal that they walk around with traditional clothing covering their whole body, sometimes even their whole face!!

People don’t really make the French pastries that you buy at the pastry stores, because it’s hard. The baguettes are good, they're really hard to chew though. I don’t buy a whole lot of them. We just buy the classic sliced sandwich bread at the store every week.

And that slideshow you sent was really cool. It was great seeing everyone serving from the ward!  Who's the next person to leave / come back home?

And no, I’m not getting transferred, still in Mulhouse.

Hope I answered some of your questions. Time to go, see ya next week!