UNE SEMAINE FOULE

 

Hey everyone! This week was the busiest week of my life. Three exchanges back-to-back, two District meetings and a whole lot of traveling. This next week will be even crazier. We are going to Bourdeaux, west of Montpellier to see Elder Kearon speak and then all of the Zone Leaders are going to a special conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday. We will be driving from Bourdeaux to Geneva with the office elders.... It is going to be crazy. We will cross the country and go into another!

Also I lost my entire wallet this week. Therefore my companion has to pay for eveything now. He is the best. 

We still have our three engagés (baptismal commitments) Marie, Margot, and Kevin. We also found a Romanian girl named Roxanna who has now come to Institute and church and we have done a soiree with her at a member's house. She is great and loves the young adults of the ward. During the soiree, our member invited three of her other friends and we showed "Mountains to Cimb" by President Eyring. They loved it. It was exactly what they needed.

HUGE MIRACLE on one of the exchanges. So I went up to do and exchange in Castres with Elder Poll and he took me up to a tiny ville called Vabre (population 40) for a referral. It is located in the middle of the mountains - in the middle of nowhere. Check out the pics below. So we went to this referral's house and no one was there... so I felt that we should go up a hill to port (tract) some houses. We prayed to find someone with whom we could fix a RDV. It looked like a ghost town. As we were walking I saw a light on in a house and I said "that's it"!  So we knocked on the door and a woman named Nadine answer. She was SO happy to see us. She said that she knew the missionaries 22 YEARS AGO in Montpelier and they helped her and her husband get married. She told us that she read the BOM and she wanted us to return as soon as her husband got out of the hospital. She was so happy and it was such a huge miracle.

God loves us and is aware of each one of us. He works in funny ways but he will never fail us. I love you all and I wish you a super great week! 

May the force (Spirit) be with you

 

Elder Bollard

 

Nous avons trois engagés!

Charlie with Mamy

Service Project

Appreciating local art

Nothing Tou-Louse in Toulouse

Hey everyone! I am writing this message with so much joy in my heart for our three investigators who have chosen to be baptized! We also had 7 amis who came to church yesterday!

The work in Toulouse is booming.  We have got nothing TOU-LOUSE in this city!  I love Elder Monty G and the zone. I was able to go on several exchanges this week and it was really great to be with the other missionaries. Life is great and we are extrememly busy. I am busier than I have ever been in my life. Tomorrow we are going to a Ville called Castres to "blitz the sector."  Then we go to Albi for a District Meeting, then Muret for another District Meeting.  Please pray that we will have the time to see our amis this week!  Our enagés (baptismal commitments) are Margot, Kevin, and Marie-Antoinette! Two are for November and one is for December. Pray that they will be strong and continue to progress.

One of my exchanges was with an Elder Yeung from Hong Kong. He is so cool.  We had a really fun time and he taught me some Chinese.  His story is crazy nuts!  He served in his home city of Hong Kong for 6 six months before coming to France. The Chinesse equipe (companionship) here has a ton of amis and they do great work.

It has been a great week. We were able to go eat fufu with Jeremie Pichon yesterday and it was the greatest Sunday ever. Him and I are super close. Dad write him.

This is the work of the Lord and we all have the choice to partake in it. Shall we not go on in such a greater cause?

Elder Bollard

Elder Bollard's Zone in Toulouse, France

Charlie in Toulouse

Charlie with Elder Cole Thompson (Tori's nephew)

Bonne soirée familiale et les amis

HEY EVERYONE! So this week was actually one of the craziest ever! It started off with Mission Leadership Council, then Zone Traning (where we created a zone title of bapistry, similiar to Moroni's title of liberty), then an exchange with the Assistants to the President, then my first Sunday in the Toulouse Capitole Ward. MLC was awesome and I saw some old friends there. We talked about mothers and we were each asked to share examples of faith that our mothers have shown us. It was a great meeting. Then for Zone Training the APs came down the night before and we had a good time. Elder Elvidge and Elder Beyers are the APs now. Great elders.

Zone Training this past week was great. I loved being able to testify to the missionaries in our zone about their divine potential. We wanted to focus on their original, righteous motivations for coming out here. Then with these motivations, we made an oath to work harder and for the right reasons!

The exchange with the elders was way fun and we taught a family whose dog looked like scooby doo.

Sunday was amazing and guess what?! Jeremie Pichon from Aix en Provence moved into our ward and last sunday was his first sunday there as well. He got married and we hugged for like 5 minutes straight when we saw each other! I was a blue (new missionary) in Aix. It was such a sweet moment and he invited us over for dinner next week! Dad send him a message on FB.  He is great!

We also had a lesson with the FRENCHEST FRENCH PEOPLE I have ever met in my life.  It was a family. François, Marie-Chritsine, Louis-Charles, and Rebecca. They are so French its not even funny. We taught them about geneology and also taught therm some English because they aren't too religious. 

It was a great week and I love my companion and my new ward. There is great progress here. We were teaching a lesson with an ami named Sevane who wants to get baptized. He asked if baptism is something that we should do after we have already walked the path, know everything and our shoes are worn out or if it is something that we should just dive into. This really made me think and I told him that bapitsm is an important convenant with God that shows our willingness to follow Christ and there is no way that we will be able to walk to path without the gift of the Holy Ghost. This made me think about the blessings of baptism in my life and I was able to testify of the power of the HG to him. He is progressing so much and we are seeing him this Thursday.

I love you all and wish you the best week ever!

October 12, 2014 Email to Charlie's Dad:

"Just had dinner with your two wonderful missionary sons. They are great Elders that you can be very proud of.

Have a great day!

-Bary Turley"

the yellow tie gang

Hello from Toulouse!

So we had a super great week!  I arrived in Toulouse last Monday and we have been working non-stop. The zone is HUGE with three massive districts.  We have some great missionaries in our zone (and some interesting ones as well). We are super stoked for this transfer.

We also got an engagé (baptism commitment) this week!  His date is for the first of November.  His name is Kevin.  Pray that he comes to Church this Sunday!

General Conference was great and I hope you got my past email on my thoughts.  We had the whole zone come to Toulouse for conference and it was such a great experience. I have done several exchanges so far and I love it! I  have met so many missionaries.  Tomorrow we go to Lyon for Mission Leader Training with President Roney.  Elder Kearon of the Seventy is coming to Geneva and all of the mission leaders are going to hear him speak.

We have some great amis here in Toulouse and are super optimistic about this transfer.  Our apartment is legendary.  It used to be the Assistants' apt when it was the Toulouse mission. 

My apartment in Toulouse

There are two wards in Toulouse and they are big (with 100+ attending)

I love my companion and we have a great time riding bikes around the city!

I will write more next week with pics as well!

Love you all.  Stay safe!

Charlie