Finishing up in Nantes

This is Garrett Graham, he and his wife are in France for schooling.  They had the Elders over for dinner. 

The Elders moved apartments.  Their apartment lease was up and they decided not to renew it and to move them to an apartment thirty minutes away. They were happy about their American fridge. 

Jonah said it took so long to move.  A senior missionary couple, the Woods, brought the mission van and drove them back and forth. He said it took two full days to get it done.  He likes his new apartment, it is a lot bigger.  The downside is that they are thirty minutes away from the church now. 

The Wood's took Jonah and Elder Drake to IKEA to get things for the sisters that are coming into Nantes next transfer.  This is the first time they have had sisters so the Elders were helping get their apartment set up.  They bought and built the furniture for them.

Jonah was really excited when Elder and Sister Woods gave him pancake mix from home. 

Here is Elder Anderson, Elder Drake and Simone. They did a service project on Saturday, where they were bundling sticks.  Jonah only has his nice shoes and his Nike shoes so he wore his Nike shoes and luckily someone had boots he could borrow because they were working in mud and rain. He said once he accepted the fact that he was going to be dirty it was fine and he enjoyed it. 

Jonah is excited that Spring is close and that they are getting some sunny days.  This winter was very long and wet!

He has loved getting outside and enjoying the sunshine. 

They went to some Japanese gardens on their P-day.

Elder Loosli and Elder Housley. Jonah loves Elder Housley, they get along so well.

Shane met them at the Japanese Garden. He is a convert from Elder Housley’s old area. 

Jonah met Sahil shortly after he got to Nantes and he has been coming to church ever since.  They meet up with him a lot and teach him.  He is from India and loves the church, but isn’t sure if he’s ready to convert. Jonah said he is really going to miss him, but Sahil is planning to come visit him in his new area. 

Nelly and Yoann wanted a temple tour so they did one by zoom with the sisters. 

On Sunday Jonah baptized Nelly's son.

Joann picked Jonah to baptize him.  

Jonah said it was cool to baptize Joann and the whole thing went smoothly. Joann bore his testimony after and Jonah said that was cool. 

Jonah told us that finding is going really well. They had fifteen friends at church last week! Two of them stayed for the baptism. He said things are going really well with three specifically, Armel, Fidel and Florent, Jonah referred to them as his holy trinity. Two of them have set baptism dates. He said he connects with them really well and he's nervous he will get transferred.  Transfers will be before their baptism dates. Fidel had them over for dinner last week. Fidel wants to go finding with them and help teach people.  Fidel loves the plan of salvation, but he hasn't quite accepted that he needs to be baptized yet.  Jonah thinks he will get there though.  

They met up for district council this week. 

The Bellions made them a yummy lasagna dinner. Jonah said they had fun singing songs with them and playing ping pong. 

This is their friend Sarah and the Lacey and Garrett Graham joined them to teach her. 

Jonah sent Wyatt a picture of his breakfast.  He and Elder Housley have been focusing on bulking a lot.  They eat a lot of eggs and peanut butter toast. 

Elder Loosli and Elder Anderson.  

Jonah is sad to say goodbye to Elder Anderson, Elder Drake and especially Elder Housley. Jonah got transfer news on Saturday, he is heading back to Belgium for his next transfers.  He will be going to Brussels this time.  He has mixed emotions about the transfers. The work was going really well in Nantes and he has a lot of friends that he is really close to who are progressing and two baptisms coming up.  It's hard for him to leave people he loves.  He is excited to go back to Belgium and he's excited about his new companion.  Jonah is so good at having a positive attitude and focusing on the good things.   

Happenings

Hallee made these pajama pants in her sewing class. They turned out so cute. 

Caitlyn had her Spring break last week. Amarie was also on Spring break so they got to hang out a few times. Caitlyn loved doing two escape rooms with her. 

 

Caitlyn had the best time with her, she is excited for her to move back after this semester. 

On Saturday Ataiya and Alexys came over and picked Caitlyn up so they could go to dinner.  They stayed and visited for a while and I loved it.  It was so fun to reminisce and listen to them laugh.

It was very healing for Caitlyn to hang out with her cousins this week.  She was grateful to talk to them about how much they all love and miss grandma. 

Hallee had fun at Young Women's this week. They went out by the lake and did a photo scavenger hunt. 

Hallee had her choir concert for third term. They sounded great. 

Keith's schedule is really hard, but he was able to leave work and make it for Hallee's concert.  

Hallee is loving choir and is planning on trying out for choir at Provo High soon. 

Keith brought Hallee some flowers, she loved that. 

Wyatt had his first home game on Friday so they wore their best dress to school. 

I only took video at his games this week, but I'll add some pictures I took at games last week. 

On Wednesday they played Jordan. It was nice that it was close to Keith's work so he could come watch some of it during his lunch.  It was a rough game. Jordan had some dirty players and they took two of our players out of the game with cheap shots and a fight. It was hard to watch. 

On Friday at their home game Provo was down 2-0 at the half, but we came back to win it 3-2.

Wyatt played great and got off a couple of shots. 

The JV team is really good. I'm surprised at how well they pass because all of them are new to the game.  It was an exciting game!

Korey reached out to me last week and asked if we wanted to come in to surprise Caitlyn when they presented her with a scholarship.  It was on Saturday so Hallee and I were the only ones that could go. Korey was waiting for us and had flowers and balloons for us to give to Caitlyn. 

They gave her a $2500 scholarship!  I'm so happy for her. She deserves it, she is such a hard worker. 

LiEE Is Good!

We bought dad some license plate signs on the beach for his garage.  When dad opened them he looked so confused and couldn't figure out what it said. We hadn't noticed on the beach but the sign had two e's in life instead of an f. We had a good laugh about that. 

Dad was starting to feel better on our last full day there. He still stayed in the condo and took it easy, but you could tell he was doing better and had more energy. I went shopping with Matt to get some stuff for the condo and then we all hung out on the beach again after lunch. Mel went up to shower and Matt, Tiff and I walked down to the resort next to us to get pina coladas and tacos. Unfortunately they were closed, but there was a restaurant open and they said they could make us pina coladas. Tiff and I didn't bring shoes because you walk across the sand to get there and we were planning on just going up to the window on the beach. It was a little awkward standing in the restaurant with our bare feet. 

They had tables outside so we drank our pina coladas out there. 

We visited while we drank those. 

When we were finished the sun was starting to set so I walked on the beach again to enjoy the sunset.

I always get sad when it's the last sunset before we get home. 

I watched it from the water again.

The ocean was very calm during our trip.  I missed hearing the sound of waves. 

A few last pictures of sunset.

That night dad was feeling up to opening his birthday presents. 

Matt and Lori got him some funny things. 

The Back and Body Hurts candle was funny.

Here he is trying to figure out what the license plate signs say.

He thought the shart kit was pretty funny.

He wasn't so sure about some of the things in it.

We laughed a lot while he read the instructions in the kit.  It was fun to laugh so hard.  Dad told us stories about his childhood and when he and mom were first married. I always love when he tells stories and we have fun reminiscing or I hear things I have never heard before. We stayed up visiting until we were all ready for bed. 

On Thursday our flight wasn't until late so we took our time leaving Rocky Point. We got back to Matt and Lori's at dinner time so we got Salad and Go and had some time to visit before we had to go to the airport.  I'm glad we had this time together. I wish Gary could have been there and I wish dad hadn't gotten sick, but we still got some good, quality time together.