Transfer 13, Week 3 "We're all still single..." ..... December 29, 2014

Dear family,

Wow what a week! So many miracles! And I got to talk with you!

A special shoutout to Ran who's one liner from Skype is the subject line today. It was so much fun talking to you all and both bizarre and relieving to know that next Christmas I'll be with you again!

Well last week within all the people we had found, we managed to teach one of them. Her name is Jia, she is a chinese student, who has been in France for two years now. She agreed to meet with us because she had no knowledge about God and it intrigued her to know more. She is really fun and smiley, but also skeptical. We taught her on Tuesday last week, in a park. During the lesson a Young man sitting nearby asked if he could join our conversation. We let him but after a while he wouldn't stop talking so E. mataalii decided to go teach him and let me teach Jia by myself #clutchmove. The lesson with Jia went well enough, the Young arab guy didnt really lead to much. We got to see Jia again on Friday and she brought a friend with her named Lilian, also Chinese and also interested but who speaks much better English than chinese. So we taught both of them in the park again. E. Mataalii taught Lilian and I taught Jia. And both are super interested. They both should be coming to FHE tonight. Its interesting teaching them, because they have no Christian or religious background really, so we start from scratch. Teaching prayer has been difficult. But it was cool because on Friday I had to teach Jia who the Savior was and why He is important. She had trouble believing it, but will come around I think. She later asked about the Bible and how we knew which Church to join if there are so many Christian churches. That of course is a great door for our message. It struck me that I was getting a chance to just teach pure Christianity! Thats what I was teaching and thats what Jia was understanding it as. So often we're known as the Mormon missionaries or the mormons, for better or for worse. It was just a cool moment to realize that we were getting to teach the restored Gospel of Christ from ground 0.

Now to share with you some of the Christmas festivities: We ate so much food. Too much.

We spent Christmas eve with the Garon family (fr Garon is the ward mission leader and has so much respect for us missionaries) We had escargo (snail) and salmon and turkey and cheese and foie gras. They had some non member family over which was really fun.

Christmas Day we spent the afternoon with the Begani's and ate raclette (the cheese and potato dish I explained to you over Skype). We then went to the Beaulieu's home the evening and skyped :) then ate Gratinee- french onion soup, really good and lots of foie gras and escargos

Then Friday at noon we ate with the Castelao's who fed us jumbo shrimp and frog legs!

It was so good. Escargos (snail), Foie gras(liver fat from a duck usually on bread with a Jelly), and cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs) are the classic french Christmas dishes.

Yesterday we saw the first snow of the year! Just a lot of flurries. It was really cold and the heating system in the Church building was broken so all three hours of Church was spent in one room with two box heaters and the 50 members who came.

Now with Christmas passed us, we're trying to put our focus back on the new year and really doing more, especially has I come around the six month turn here pretty soon. This month of January is going to be huge. I'm stoked to see what happens.

I love you so much! Enjoy the pictures! Happy new years!

Remember the spiritual thought I shared and make some new year's résolutions!

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Montgomery