iPads? Mile Time Trial?

Hello! Family and friends! This week was crazy! We had lots of things to do this week! 

EXCHANGES

This last week we had two exchanges! We had one with the Zone Leaders in Toulouse. Frankly, Toulouse is beautiful. Almost all of the buildings are red brick and les Toulousains are super nice. It is a little more upbeat than Bordeaux but still classic French. I loved it. 

Something cool about my exchange with Elder Kirkpatrick was that we didn't have anything really solid as a plan. We didn't have any fixed rendezvous, so we pretty much contacted the entire time. A cool miracle, we contacted this girl and she was from IDAHO and not a Mormon! She was super nice and although she was super rushed she wanted to meet with us again to talk about the church and all that cool stuff. She has family that is Mormon. I mean she is from Idaho so she must know a little bit about the church. Anyway, that was probably the best part of the entire exchange. 

Recently when I have been talking to people, I've noticed how nice they actually are. People talk all the time about how rude French people are and how they don't like Americans or whatever but it isn't true! They are actually really nice. You just have to know how to break through their superficial social barriers. A lot of the things they do to indicate that they aren't interested is pretty rude to an American but to a French person that is how you say no. 

France has become more and more of another place in the world to me than a foreign country. I'm still struck with how beautiful things are and it is true, there are some pretty weird things here but whenever I walk down the street I don't think "Wow, I'm in France right now, it is so crazy... wow France." I used to, but now I just feel comfortable here. haha

Anyway! We had another exchange with the district leader, Elder Gossel and Elder Keller. I went with Elder Keller. He is cool. He is just in his fourth transfer. He is in the same group as Elder Brill. Our exchange was pretty "relaxed". We took and hour and a half bus ride to a members house, did service, ate pizza and left. And that was our exchange! haha

DISTRICT MEETING

This week we had district meeting here in Albi. I like not being district leader! hahaha It is nice to be the one who is listening, not the once teaching. When we were talking about our stuff I thought a lot about the last six months that I have on my mission and how important it is going to be for me to set good goals so I stay focused and work as hard as a I can to the very end. So, I've fixed some pretty stellar goals. Elder Ottesen challenged me to try to gain ten pounds before the end. I told him it would be easy. I could just eat nutella before going to bed every night. hahaha.

L'OEUVRE 

The work is going really well. We found some really cool potential(s) this week. We kind of got destroyed at the end of the week. No one could meet with us so we just had to port and contact all day. At the beginning I had a really bad attitude about it. I didn't want to walk around all day, it is hard! But as I forced myself to think about how the least I could do was sacrifice my will to the Lord for four hours it got a lot better. 

We saw a lot of miracles! We were able to teach one lesson at a door and we got several numbers of cool people. At the end of the day we ended up with 23 conversations! WOO! The average is usually around 7. I was pretty happy. We worked really hard.

Sunday I had to conduct and preside. And I blessed the sacrament. It was one of the rougher weeks as far as that goes but it is getting easier. Anyway! 

That is about it for the week! I love you all! Sorry about no pictures.. I forgot my card reader in the apartment...

Love,

Elder JOHNSON

PS

Elder Ottesen and I have been running all transfer and this morning we decided to run a mile time trial on a 200 meter concrete track.  Well, let's just say I wanted to die. hahaha I ran a 5.37 and he ran a 5.07. It was so hard. I remember thinking the entire time, “This sucks, I hate running. Why do I run?” Then when I got done I was really happy. The end. hahah

OHHH

Also, the mission is having a MISSION WIDE conference in Lyon this Friday so we can get iPads! YAY! hahaha. Just kidding, I don't really want one. I've done without for this far on my mission and it has been okay. But yeah.

Donc, voila quoi, vous savez... bien. C'est tout.