June 3, 2013

K so instead of writing at the church i'm at some cybercafe so my time is limited!

The weather here has been cloudy, cold, and rainy since i got here. But about 2 days ago, its been really hot and sunny so hopefully that sticks around for a while. 

Im buying things with my missionary debit card i have. I get around 175 euros a month and I spend over 30 euros at least per week on groceries. And starting sometime in June (this month) is the huge clearance sale that everyone talks about. It goes for 4 weeks and everything is on sale. And the more weeks that pass, the cheaper everything gets so make sure theres money in the card!!! hahaha

Ive boughten some ties and some t-shirts so far and thats it for clothing. 

The place im staying at has a really small kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. haha thats it.

Since that one time eaten at their house we've eaten at two other members homes. No tomatoes!

The baguettes are really good here. The patisseries are even better!! There are these things called Religieuse which are super good. And also Mille Feuille which is also really good. Everything at a patisserie shop is soo good!!!

For meals we usually cook pasta, and cook some meat and mix it with some bolognaise sauce. its pretty good. Another meal we usually have is burritoes. haha we cook beans, meat, and cheese and have burritoes. And another one we have is crepes with Nutella. haha

As far as teaching goes, it was rough. We didnt teach any lessons this past week. We havent gotten a referral yet from anybody and usually we go contacting downtown on the street or door-to-door contacting in neighborhoods. But we have a couple of scheduled lessons this week with people we contacted on Saturday and Sunday so that should be better.

That lesson that was two hours away was because we contacted some guy on the street in downtown and he allowed us to come over to his house to teach a lesson. But he happened to live 2 hours away. That was our only lesson with him cause we're not supposed to go that far away for investigators anyways. And he also didnt want us to come back. 

Well im done now. see ya!!

pictures May 27, 2013

Funny restaurant name. hahaha

A cool castle we drove by on the bus. We had an appointment 1 1/2 hours away by bus from the main city so we took this bus and saw that castle. It was sweet. It had a moat and everything

May 27, 2013

As far as letters go, just send them to the mission home. its too complicated for me to figure everything out so just let the secretaries there do it and ill get it eventually. hahaha

Anyways, on Wednesday we had a district meeting and that was good. But since my companion is district leader i had to go on an exchange! I went to the city of Tours and stayed the night there. Tours is pretty much the exact same as Orléans. They look the exact same so not much difference. But It was good, but so unexpected! This week im going to Bourges with a different elder in the district so ill be there tomorrow! 

Elder ganjanakrit wasnt there because when we got to the airport, his visa wasnt valid and the security wouldnt let him leave. so the mission president bought him a ticket to Thailand and he will be there until he gets his visa from Thailand. Everyday at the MTC he went to the travel and medical offices to get things worked out for his visa but i guess the MTC was just stupid. haha 

My companion is cool. Everyone there cooks everything so i dont have to! haha And yesterday we ate "lunch" with the people we're living with at their side of the house. It was a four-course meal! The first course was a plate full of tomatoes, cucumbers, sliced carrots, corn, and salad. While i was eating the tomatoes i almost threw up. haha i dry-heaved. but no one noticed! then after that were these noodles with this weird zucchini type sauce. Again, not so good. but after that we had baguettes and cheese haha then a big giant chocolate cake!! i felt so sick later that night because of the veggies... my companion said tomatoes are pretty popular here so i guess ill just say im allergic to them haha.

There are a lot of people in the ward. I dont know how many but more than normal for a regular ward in france. And there arent really any inactives either. We use the tram/bus everyday. we dont walk that much. 

Its weird to think that this time last year i graduated high school, then worked at Response for the summer haha wow a year already that went by quick!!

I didnt take that many pics but ill try and send some new ones.

bye

Coop

Pictures May 20, 2013

Castle in Paris

Paris in the background and the Eiffel Tower is to the left of the hill.

Cooper's MTC friends all in Paris!

A Cathedral in Orleans (the city he is serving in) with a statue of Joan of Arc in the background.

Downtown Orleans

May 20 2013

Bonjour.

i made it finally! My P-day is Monday. Its so hard to type because the keyboqrd is soo different! when we got to paris we rode the metro from the airport to paris. we got off and everything was so different than home! i didnt see the eiffel towe'r or any famous things yet. actually i saw the notre dame. its less than a mile away from the lds church! the lds church in paris is one of the most expensive things the church owns! ill send some pictures.

So i never went to the mission home. there were so many missionaries that we stayed at a cheap motel. hahaha

the first couple of days were rough though. i wasnt used to the time changes, i only slept for like an hour in total on the 10 hour flight, and just a lot of things werent going my way. oh yeah; i forgot to mention that i have no idea what anybody is saying!!!! french is super hard. im not even close to getting used to it yet.

Anyways my companions name is elder Reed. he's from Calgary, Canada. He doesnt have an accent or anything. And he never learned french once until the mission. hahaha he's been out for 21 months! im his last companion. ill be with him until august i think... hes cool though. He isnt trunky (yet). we live with 2 other missionaries at a members home! thats kind of nice. the 2 others are elder cutshall from Park City. hes been out since december. then theres elder Kusseling. he's french, born and raised in france. He doesnt know english so i guess its nice to live with someone who speaks french all the time. He also has been out for 21 months. oh yeah, we are in the city of Orléans. Its a pretty big city. theres this enormous cathedral in downtown. Like notre dame big. Look it up. its also where Joan of Arc lived. therzs this big statue of her on a horse in downtown. Tell me more info about this place cause i have no clue.

Anyways at church they use baguettes instead of white sliced bread for sacrament. hahaha it tasted good! so people are crazy here! theyre actually pretty nice if you know how to speak french haha. and ive never seen so many muslims in my life before! theyre everywhere haha. The muslims that come up and talk to us are cool though. they dont want to bash on us or kill us. they just want to talk church. theyre funny. they love the mormon missionaries! hahaha

And, the president asked for each new missionary to tell their family to pray three times a day for them to have the gift of tongues to learn french. i would really like that. thanks. speaking of the president, hes a nice guy. he has a pretty good french accent when he speaks english haha but his english is good enough. Also, i found out that president poznanscki's dad lives in the ward i'm in!! i met him yesterday! i better be really good hahaha.

well bye bye. see ya

-Coop

Pictures!

These are all pictures from Cooper's district at the MTC. He left the MTC this past Monday so he should be in France now. The next time he writes will be from Europe!

Coop's zone. Most of the missionaries went to Canada.

Coop's district

The district with their first teacher (the sister in the black skirt)

The district with their most recent teacher (on the very left)

A few missionaries in Cooper's district with an Elder from France now serving in the Provo mission! (He is in the center)

Cooper was the host missionary for Austin Snow as he entered the MTC last week. Pretty neat that they grew up in the same ward their whole lives and then Cooper was his host! 

May 6, 2013

Ya'll,

 

I wrote a letter home that talks about my travel plans. The plane leaves at 4:50 PM on Monday. So I'll have all morning to get ready. That'll be nice. I don't know how to send a package home yet but I'll figure it out and do it today sometime. And I told about the shoes. And I tried to upload pictures today and it doesn't work on these computers. I tried them all. Sorry! Just wait until next week. (maybe...)

 

I haven't even thought about going to Paris yet. hahaha I'm too used to the MTC. Kidding. I can't wait to get out though.  I went to the temple today and that was probably the last time for two years. That's weird to think about.

 

Yesterday for the Sunday devotional, Chad Lewis spoke. It was really cool. Which reminds me.... before the devotional, Chad Lewis was talking with Elder Emery forever. hahaha and during his wife's talk (Every speakers wife speaks for like 5 minutes before the actual speaker) she was talking about natural athletic talent and she said, "Some of you have really good natural talent, just like Elder Emery here at the MTC!" And during Chad Lewis's talk, he said, "There are so many different people here! People going across the world! Some of you speaking Chinese! Some of you are on national championship winning high school basketball teams!"

 

So people still do get star treatment, even here at the MTC.

 

And no i didn't see people I know getting dropped off last week, but there are so many people I know coming in this week it'll be crazy!!! And no one told me about Ben getting his date changed.. What happened? When is he leaving?

 

Thanks for the NBA updates. I saw a newspaper today saying how the Bulls beat the Nets in game 7. Sounded intense. And by the looks of it, seems like it'll be Spurs vs. Heat in the Finals. And if somehow the Thunder end up in the Finals, there's no way they'll win it all with Westbrook out. And the Jazz won't get better unless they get rid of Ty Corbin. And get a point guard. And get rid of Earl Watson. hahaha

 

Congrats to Chris and Will about their missions! When I think about it, it's actually really nice and convenient that they can actually have one last summer before they leave haha.

 

Thanks for telling me about Grandpa Jack. And tell Nana I'll be in Paris when they have the French Open tennis tournament. She'll like that.

 

Keep taking care of Ziggy!

 

So I told you a while ago there's this missionary here who is from France. His name is Elder Visconti and he's going to the Provo mission. Well I've gotten to know him pretty well and I'm going to give him our address and phone number before I leave so he can eat at our house sometime. We both leave the MTC the same time. So if he ever does call and wants to come over, make sure Mark is there because I told him that he knows French and he would really love that. hahaha he's a strange kid so he might not even call ever but i'm telling you just in case.  

 

I'll probably call home from the airport next Monday, so we'll see.

See ya.

Love, Coop