Chel-lo!

Charlie's Christmas Suit

                                                                               It's cold in France!  

Bonjour everyone. I am so happy to be writing this email back home. This week was BUSY!   We did several exchanges and any time that we had in our area was spent with our recent converts. 

So we started off the week with the legendary Kahne family. We had a soiree familial (Family Home Evening) and taught them the game where everyone puts a name in a hat and then you guess who put which name in. I love them all so much it is unreal. I hope to one day go back and visit them ;) After that, the Albi Elders drove us up to Rodez so that we could do an exchange with the Rodez Elders. By the way, it is freezing here and it is FREEZING in Rodez. We drove through snow and got to their apt where we found out that their heater/hot water wasnt working :) But the exchange went well and we had a blast! I was with Elder Gossel from Hamburg, Germany and we talked to just about everyone in that ville. 

 

After the exchange we went to District Meeting up in Albi and then came back to Toulouse to do district meeting with Capitole the next day. Then we saw all of our recent converts.  It is difficult because we are the ones doing the new member lessons as well as the "Home Teaching" visits beacuse a lot of our recent converts haven't been assigned Home Teachers yet to help them get integrated into the Ward. But that will come, and I love our Elder's Quroum President. We were at his house doing service on Saturday.
Anyway, it was a great week and we will be doing plenty more exchanges this week before the transfer ends! That's right transfers are in a week. 

I love you. Remember that the Lord loves us all and even though we all have trials, we can be equipped with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to help us endure any difficulty with hope and patience.  Stay strong everyone!  He Lives!

Elder Bollard

 

Bonjour!

Alright, so this week was great! We started off with the grind #tracting and then we had some great days. On Tuesday, we received a text from our mission nurse, Sister Povar, who needed help bringing stuff to the chapel for Zone interviews. So we helpled her and she offered to take us out to dinner in Centre Ville! It was such an awesome night. She is one of the most interesting women in the world. She has been to places like Finland, India, New Zealand... She is awesome and she gave us some great advice that I have to share. She said "do everything with a purpose and make every decision on your knees". Deep.

Anyways, the day after was interviews and it was unreal! I had such a great interiew with President! He is a great man and I love the Roneys! Later in the week, we visited the Serrano-Milone's, the Vantonder's and the Lafargue's! They are great families.

Also, HUGE shoutout to Craig McBeth in West Jordan. He is one inspiring man. His son (my companion) is great as well :)

I hope all is well back in the States. You are all amazing examples to me and I am so grateful for you. Never forget that the Lord loves you and his Atonement is infinite. It doesn't matter what happens to you, its how you react. I testify that through Christ, we can find everlasting happiness :)

AU REVOIR!

Elder Bollard

Je suis Charlie (Bollard)

 

Bonjourno everyone!  Sara was baptized this past Saturday and, yes, I confirmed her in Italian. :)  This past week was GREAT!  Things started off very crazy with a terrorist attack in Paris. I am sure that the news got out to the USA that a newspaper company called Charlie Hebdo was attacked and now all of the French people are wearing shirts and holding up signs that say "je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie). I know that we aren't supposed to get into politics as missionaries but I am definitely buying one of those T-shirts ;)

 

Congrats to my nephew Max!! I heard your baptism was awesome!

What else, oh yeah, I had minor surgery this week!  I had a mole under the skin on my arm that our mission nurse wanted to be biopsied. They gave me four stitches and sent me on my way. Later that day we saw our RC Margot who is doing very well. Things could be going better for her but she is very strong spiritually. We also saw Marie A a couple times and she is doing well. And the rest of the time was spent with Sara and Michael!  We made three Tiramisus this week. They are unreal. We also visited Francois and his wife Isabelle and they are just the nicest French people ever! They have a beautiful family :)

As for the baptism. It was great! Sara and I are homies and I am so happy for her. We had three baptisms in our ward this past week and I was in the confirmation circle for all of them! It was honestly so great to be apart of confirming these awesome people. The confirmations were in Italian, English, and Chinese ... not even in French and yet I am living in Toulouse!  After the baptisms we visited some really cool Tahitians and taught them prayer from Moroni 10.

It was another great week and I just would like to say how grateful I am for this Gospel. It has blessed my life so much and I am currently witnessing a these blessings being poured out upon those around me. When we taught Sara and Michael about temples, they looked at us and said "we want to be sealed in the Rome temple"!  When we are baptised, our names are written down so that we can be numbered as those who have covenanted to take upon us the name of Christ. These are powerful covenants that bind us to our Father in Heaven and Him to us. 

 

Check out my new Christmas suit:

 

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! Stay safe!

Elder Je Suis Charlie Bollard

Bon jour everyone! 

 

I hope New Years was awesome for all of you :)  We are starting this year off with a bang here in Toulouse! We began with an exchange with the elders in Albi.  I was able to work again with my former companion Elder Andrew from Huntington Beach. He is a great man and is one of the most loving people I know. Later on, we saw Margot and she fed us some very nice steak. She is the best!  Then we did an enchange with the Chinese equipe and I was with Elder Yeung! (see photo) He is great and we went to teach our ami Francois. He is the Frenchiest French man I know and I love that family! Afterwards, we went porting next to his house and ported into a house where the father talked to us for about 30 minutes.  He explained to us about how he lost his brother. I testified about the Plan of Salvation that our Heavenly Father created for us and he started crying. Elder Yeung gave him a hug and we shared a super special moment. I know that there is a special spirit around when missionaries bear testimony of the Plan of Salvation because that is our message! 

Afterwards, we went to two district meetings that were about planning and goal setting! We came up with the idea of "MCBOLLARD". It is basically an awesome system for fixing goals. M is for mission, C is for choose (attitude), B is for become (character), O is for obedience, L is for learn, L is for life (vision,talents), A is for activity (physical), R is for relation (with comp/family/amis), and D is for disciple (spiritual). So voila!!! MCBOLLARD  :)

 

We are super stoked for this Saturday because Sarah, from Italy, is getting baptized. She is so excited! Pray for her that everything will turn out well. If everything goes well, the ward should have 3 baptisms this week! Miracles are happening here in Toulouse and it is so great to be here and witness it all. 

You are all amazing and don't forget that it is all about love and the Savior. He loves us so much and we all can feel his love for us. Let's strive to love others a little bit more in our lives so that we can feel our Savior's love. I LOVE YOU ALL 

Have a great week 

Elder Bollard