Week 25 (Dunkerque)

Winter cometh. It's cold now in Dunkerque, but that means it's Christmas season!

Thanksgiving was this week too apparently. It's not much different here in France, but I guess Black Friday is still a thing for some reason. And we were actually able to celebrate a little, we have an American ami, Ray, who invited us to McDonald's. We had an American meal for our American holiday, fitting if you ask me.

We had District Council via video chat this week. It was interesting. We went to our local church building to use the wifi there, and had a nice little meeting. Our new District Leader, Elder Calabuig, talked about keeping our hooks in the water.

Imagine two fishermen, both leave on a 12-hour fishing trip. One of them has his hook in the water for 10 of those hours, while the other only has his in the water for 2. He spends most of his time traveling, messing with his equipment, etc. And at the end of the day, he may wonder why he had less success than his friend. -Elder Oaks

And the crowning event of the week was probably that I gave a talk on Sunday. It was interesting, seeing as how it was my first French talk. I didn't have a ton of time to prepare either, so I decided to base it off of President Nelson's talk from Conference this April. Because it's always important to be able to receive your own personal revelation. It's how we're able to grow our testimony and know our Father's will for us. So if you haven't read that talk in a while (or even if you have) go ahead and take another look and see what you find!

Bon lecture,
Elder Wood

"I tried on a hat"

"My Thanksgiving dinner"

"A homemade meal/mission specialty, rice truc. Cheap and simple to throw together."

"Our decorations at the moment." Apparently his companion got a tree in the mail, and they found some decorations in their apartment from previous years.

The French version of the "Light the World" campaign to give service during the Christmas season.

Week 24 (Dunkerque)

Transfers again! Time to find out where I'll be for the next 6 weeks! (Or not, like last transfer.)

We got the news this morning that our entire zone is staying the same. Except for the 2 missionaries who are going back home. Next transfer everything will probably get changed up then.

As for this past week, we had a good last District Council with our dear District Leader, Elder Thélémaque. He goes home this week, so we're getting a new missionary, and we found out that Elder Calabuig will be our new District Leader! We all bore our testimonies, and it was really powerful. Lots of great thoughts and feelings.

Unfortunately, this week a frère in our branch passed away. He was in his 70s, but he'd come to church Sunday morning, and passed away that night. It was hard for the branch, but we're doing ok. We got to go to his funeral on Thursday, and it was really nice. I've heard that our church's funerals are a lot happier and more hopeful than normal ones, and I have to say, even though there were plenty of tears shed at the beginning, after the service and the burial, everybody came to his wife's house for snacks, and they were all in good spirits again. It helps to know that death isn't the end, that we'll see our friends and family again.

We had a final exchange this Friday, so I got to go with Elder Thélémaque. We tried using the 21 Day Challenge banner we had, but it was cold and foggy, so nobody was out and about. We still had a couple good rdvs as well as some good finding later in the day though.

We also got to spend some time with a part member family, the Goldings. They're from England, so they speak English, and it's a nice break from speaking French with everyone else. We played a bit of foot (soccer for you Americans) and then Elder Koshiol set up his slackline. It was great to spend the time with them and get to know them better. And now since we're staying 6 more weeks we can hopefully keep helping them grow their faith in Christ.

We had a bit of a miracle yesterday. Earlier in the week, we had called this ami de l'église from our area book who hadn't seen the missionaries in two years. And he actually came to church! His name is Bruno, and he liked church well enough. But afterwards our Branch President invited him to come eat lunch with us, and we were all able to talk more about the church and what we believe. It was great to see how willing the members were to share their beliefs, and I feel it really helped Bruno to see how normal people live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And sometimes that's all we need to do, just be an example to light the world.

À bientôt mes amis !
Elder Wood

On the beach in Calais after a district meeting. Elders Bell, Calabuig, Thelemaque, Graham, Koshiol, and Wood.

Apparently "tag photos" of their tags places are a thing. It's a pretty beach, too.

Exchange photo with Elder Thelemaque

Food photo of the week: "Our dessert after our mangez-vous. Ice cream, pudding (I think), and pearsauce (I think)."

Their 21-day challenge banner

"I found this at a member's house, it reminded me of home"

A funny missionary cartoon he liked.

Week 23 (Dunkerque)

Another week, another email!

This was actually a really good week as far as finding new people goes. There was one night where we went door to door and talked to so many cool people! A lot of them were pretty interested in our message, so we'll be able to come back sometime and tell them more! It was crazy though how many people were open to talk with us, we'd never seen anything like it, much less in Dunkerque.

We also had our exchange this week. I went with Elder Graham; he's from Utah, and this is his first transfer in France. He had to wait for his visa for a transfer in New York though, so he's not as young as he seems. We had a great time. Neither of us speak that great of French yet, so it was interesting. We were knocking on this one door, and then the people answered from the 3rd story window! We could barely communicate because of the distance (and our level of French) so we had no idea what was going on. A man ended up coming to the window, saying something, and then disappearing back inside. We didn't know what he said, but when he looked out the window again, he dumped a bowl of water down at us! Luckily, it mostly missed us, so we weren't wet. But we did understand him that time!

But even out here in Dunkerque, we're still finding people who are looking for the gospel. We might not be teaching very often, but when we diligently search, we can find people who want to listen. And the same goes for anybody, God wants to help us with our righteous endeavors, so if we ask for help, He definitely will! He just wants us to have the faith to ask.

À plus!
Elder Wood

With Elder Graham on their exchange

"We got BBQ in France!"

Weekly food photo - this is the BBQ

One more food photo. "We found peanut butter! This stuff's rare, I hadn't seen it in a store until now."

Slacklining on their P-Day.

Pretty sure this is him on the slackline.

Week 22 (Dunkerque)

Time is weird. That's what everybody's been telling me in emails today. And I don't disagree! Retrospective time is always 10 times shorter.

Halloween was this week! For those wondering, people do actually celebrate Halloween here. We saw a good amount of people dressed up, and ran into a few groups of trick-or-treaters. We also did our fair share of trick-or-treating, we were looking for some less active members, and one lady was about to give us candy! Then she realized we were missionaries, so we didn't get any. Poor us.

We did have our first rdv with one of our amis this week. His name is Xu, he's from China, studying art here in Dunkerque. He's super cool. He told us he wants to learn more about Christianity, but he's not looking to convert himself or anything. But I'm sure if he feels the Spirit, he'll be more interested. When we were done with the lesson and said the closing prayer, he said he was touched. So that's progress!

On Saturday, Président Sorensen did a mission-wide video call to kick off our monthly fast. He wanted to personalize the invitation to fast for our goal of helping 30 people get baptized this month. He also made a couple of announcements, like wanting us to focus more of our efforts near our meetinghouses. They're dedicated buildings, with a certain power associated with that. He said he felt doing more finding near the chapel and/or giving more chapel tours would help us in this work. And I'm sure he's right. The only way to do this work, God's work, is with His help. Using His chapels effectively sounds like a great way to do that if you ask me!

Bonne semaine à tous !
Elder Wood

The first of many food photos this week. They made crepes!

Official food photo of the week - a pastry this time!

Closeup of the pastry; "I think it was called a Paris Brest Fraise"

More food - Yop! "Basically a giant Danimals"

One more food photo - "A Smurf themed Kinder Egg, my first Kinder Egg!"

"It wasn't a Smurf..."

The beach for P-Day. "It gets dark fast in the winter"

Dipping his toes in the water