Contact Info

You can mail a letter to Elder Wilson in the PARIS FRANCE mission at dearelder.com or through the postal service:

Elder B. Stanton Wilson
49 Rue Marengo
72000 Le Mans
France

The mission home address is:
France-Paris Mission
23, rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
France

Monday, August 18, 2014

The District

August 18, 2014

Hello Family!!

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little jealous of your trip. I'm glad you all had a great time out there. :)

So for this past week, remember how Elder Smith was sick on Sunday? Guess who got sick Monday night? haha...I started feeling sick around 3ish on Monday and thought to myself, "I'll prolly throw up tonight..." Turns out, I was right! Right as we got to the area that we wanted to work, I was feeling worse...got clammy hands and told Elder Smith to wait because I was going to vomit. And then, about 2ish minutes later, I threw up...and got it all over my shoes and a little bit on my pants...haha. Don't worry though, I cleaned them. They are wearable again!! Tuesday morning, I woke up and felt better at first, but then about after 5 minutes I felt super achy all over my body, to the point that it hurt to stand up. It even hurt to sit down...and lay down even. And then I went to the bathroom about 6 times in the space of an hour. So we ended up not getting any work down Monday nor Tuesday...but the good news is that we are both healthy now! Yay!!

Wednesday morning I woke up and felt so much better. I am SO grateful for the Fitt couple here because Tuesday night, they brought us homemade chicken noodle soup, crackers, apple juice, and coke. The chicken noodle soup reminded me of yours, mom! It was SO good! I definitely blessed to have the Fitt couple here.

But good things did happen this week. :)

With the family Swanepoel, we were able to see them Thursday. We talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy because they haven't been coming to church. It went very well and they recommitted to coming to church. At the start of priesthood meeting, they hadn't come. And they still hadn't come by the beginning of the second class...but after that one ended, I walked out of the class room, and there was their 6 year old daughter. I feel like I haven't ever been happier. It was so great to see them there.

Later we talked to the DMP (ward mission leader) about the Swanepoel's and we came to a decision that they need to wait a couple more weeks before they get baptized. So we'll be planning now for the 7th of September for them. I'm still super excited. :)

Raphael is doing very well. A miracle happened with him. Now, when he smokes, he isn't able to finish the cigarette because it starts to taste really bad about half-way through. He is now down to 1 and a halfish cigarettes a day. He's made so much progress. He does have one problem though other than that. Family problems. His parents and rest of his family are not okay with him coming to the "Mormon" church. Nor do they understand why he needs to get baptized again (he's been baptized once. Catholic, no need for a 2nd baptism...). And so baptism is a rather touchy subject with him. He said he can't get baptized yet. And that he can't live one commandment and break another. If he did get baptized, he "wouldn't be honoring his parents." So that's our new concern with Raphael. I know that he knows these things we've taught him are true, and I know he's felt the spirit testify to him, we just don't know what to do now that we've finished all the missionary lessons with him.

Christian, on the other hand, is doing super great! He and his girlfriend (who was baptized in May in Poitiers) are thinking about marriage. They are looking forward to going to the temple with each other. They aren't looking forward to waiting a whole year though. It's been such a great blessing for me during my mission to be able to be one of "his" missionaries. He definitely is a miracle and tender mercy from the Lord.

We also have another ami named Anne. And she is progressing very well. She has a smoking problem, so for our 3rd rendez-vous we had with her, we taught the Word of Wisdom. And she just accepted it all and has already cut down her smoking in half! We were teaching her with a member...but we thought that we should teach with this member on occasion...for two funny things that happened during the lessons. After we taught the Word of Wisdom, Anne asked us if we eat meat. And we answered yes, she then stated how she is vegetarian. Our member then stated how he thinks that during that millennium, we'll all be vegetarians anyway...let's just say Elder Smith and I had a great laugh about that afterwards.

The next rendez-vous we had with her, we were hoping to create an environment that the spirit could testify well to her so we could lance the baptismal invite. During the beginning when we did a suivi (follow-up) on the WoW, our member proudly stated how he had never smoked in his life right after Anne stated how hard it had been for her to cut down on her smoking...Elder Smith and I had a great laugh about that as well. We weren't able to give her the baptismal invite at this rdv. But at the one after, when we taught with the Fitt couple, we did. And Anne got super excited and asked when she'll get baptized. We hadn't prayed for a date yet, so we told her that we'll talk about that in the next rdv. And at church she told many people that she was going to get baptized, but that she didn't know when. It was pretty cool to see how excited she got about getting baptized. :)

So President Babin has started something new. Now instead of getting our transfer repertoire on Monday, it comes out on Saturday! So Saturday we had a look at the repertoire to see if one of us would be leaving. Elder Smith and I will be companions for another six weeks! Sweet! :) We went and had some McDo after to "celebrate". :)

Also, here is a photo of the district. I've loved being apart of this district. Elder Louis has been such a great District leader. He's gonna do some great work out in the real world. (this was his last transfer, number 16).

Even though the week was off to a rough start, it was a super great week and flew by so fast!

I love you all so much! :)


-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

Eternal Families

August 11, 2014

Hello Family!

I'm glad that all is going well for you.

This past week was rather long...but I guess that's what happens when you have about 4 or 5 straight finding days in a row...BUT despite that, it was still a great week.

We were able to teach Raphael this week...he still is having difficulties with his smoking problem. But, he is making an immense effort. I'm very glad that he is trying so hard. Saturday he only smoked one! That is some huge progress from his normal 5 he was doing. And cool little miracle. We were waiting at the bus station for our bus to go visit a non-active member, and as we were waiting, Raphael was walking towards the station. He had to wait for a bus to go do some grocery shopping somewhere. He told us that right as he had envie (sorry, I don't know if that makes sense...I don't really know how to say that in english. The phrase in french is "quelqu'un a envie à faire quelque chose.") to smoke, we were there to remind him not to. I let him know that it was a sign from God. He replied "Je sais."

Oh, it just makes me so happy. All of the little miracles that happen. Like seriously, right now as I'm typing this, I'm smiling so big!! :)

So about Christian, yes we're still teaching the new member lessons. There are some new rules that came out by the First Presidency about two weeks ago that establish some things about amis and recent converts. For amis, we are now obligated to teach all 5 lessons, not just the 4 and then slightly mention the 5th like in the past. And with recent converts, it says that we need to keep seeing them for the 3 to 4 months after their baptism and then keep in regular contact for at least one year, or more. So we still go to see him. He is doing very well. We talked about missionary work...and he is a STUD!! He's already talking to others about the Gospel. He is NOT shy at all that he is a member of l'église Mormon, comme il le disait. :)

The Swanepoel family is doing well. We taught them about the Book of Mormon on Tuesday, because they told us they didn't quite understand it. I think they understand the Book of Mormon a little better, but the Fitt couple decided to buy them Book of Mormons in their native language, Africans, because it appeared like they had trouble understanding the old english pronouns. They invited us to eat lunch with them on Friday. They invited some other friends to come, who ended up not being able to go, but we still were able to go and teach them. They had asked us to talk about something simple (not the Book of Mormon...apparently the Book of Mormon isn't very simple...but I don't have any idea what it's like because I grew up with it.) for their friends, so we decided to talk about how families are eternal and are the most important unit in God's eyes. We still decided to share that simple thought with them, and they loved it. They had already been taught the plan of salvation, but they love Eternal Families. They weren't able to come to church this week and we'll find out why tomorrow. I'm rather starting to feel like Sister Voyles from the district when she talks about her ami Ofelia. "JUST COME TO CHURCH!"

In talking about Eternal Families and seeing the Swanepoel's children, I think I got kinda trunky. Trunky in the fact that I'm very excited to get married and start a family. And I started thinking quite a bit about families and how I really want to have an eternal family and get married in the temple, when that time comes. It's interesting to see how much I've changed since the beginning of my mission. I had so many things that I wanted to do musically, but now, I still have those dreams and I feel like I could go through with them, but I have a greater desire to get married and have a family. I guess that happens when you're with a man 24/7. Ha, don't worry though, I'm not legitly trunky. :) In thinking all this, it was very spiritual and I really am starting to see how important a family really is.

Well, that's all I got for this week. Except yesterday, Elder Smith was sick. He was able to make it through church but after that, he was out like a fat kid in dodge ball!! I haven't seen someone get sacked out that fast...but today he is doing TONS better!! Which is great news. We'll be able to work! Yay!! :)

I love you all so much!


-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

A Year

August 4, 2014

Hello Family!

Kaysen, j'ai hâte que tu prendras les cours de français. Le français c'est le meilleur langue du monde! Bon courage en l'apprenant. :)

Well, this last week was pretty good. We're working hard to find new people to teach and to continue teaching our current amis.

Tuesday we had a double exchange, c'est à dire, the Elders from Nantes came to La Rochelle and both équips stayed in La Rochelle to work. I was with a cool Elder named Elder Louis. He is a STUD! We did some great work and saw some pretty awesome miracles. I also learned quite a bit.

One of the things that Elder Louis said during the exchange was "If you look for the bad, you'll find the bad. If you look for the good, you'll find the good." It's super true. And that's why I think it's so important that we look for our blessings each day. As we true to actively search for the miracles or blessings that we have, we will be happy, and we won't complain when trials come our way because we'll be looking for the good.

Thursday we had Zone Conference and interviews with Président Babin. I could definitely feel the love that he has for me as a missionary serving in this mission. I've been so blessed to have the two most wonderful mission presidents ever!

Hey dad, there's an Elder Ericson in my zone that is Canadian. Guess where from? Saskatchiwan!! Cool beans right? Did you happen to serve in a ville called Saskatoon during your mission? That's where he's from.

This week we were able to meet with Raphael and Christian. Raphael is doing well and today is supposed to be the day that he is no longer a smoker! We've been following up each day to make sure he's following the program and that he's doing well. I have faith that he's done smoking.

Christian is doing well too. We helped him start up on his family history. He's pretty excited to do his family history and then to take the names to the temple to do ordonances for them.

The Swanepoel's, we weren't able to see them this passed week, but we'll be seeing them this week. Bokke got a new job, which is what they've been hoping for. :) I'm pretty excited to go and see them this week.

And that was the whole week. We've also been trying to hunt down less active members to find out if they're even still in La Rochelle. We've had success in finding a few of them :)

Wow, my year mark is this Thursday. Pretty crazy right? I've been out for one year. I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned on the mission is probably come what may and enjoy it. It's super important to strive to enjoy the things in life. There is opposition in all things, but that doesn't mean we can't search for the things to enjoy in life. I also have strengthened my testimony probably in most aspects of the gospel, but the aspect that sticks out the most to me is prayer. I definitely know that when I pray, I am talking with my Heavenly Father. I know that He loves me and I love Him. I know that He hears and answers my prayers in His perfect way.

I also have learned the importance of understanding. I now am a strong believer that one of the biggest causes of contention is misunderstanding. We get frustrated with those that don't understand us. We get frustrated with those that we don't understand. But if we can take a couple seconds to breath, think, and pray, we can try to better understand each other before we break out in anger towards one another.

It's been a tough year. But it has been worth every difficulty. With every difficulty that comes, the Lord prepares a way to overcome it and to get through it. This next year I really want to focus on love and charity. Because I feel like love and charity are some of the most important things I could develop while on my mission. I do love the people here, though. I just feel like I need to take it to the next level and strive to love as Christ did. I also have some language goals for my mission. I'd love to go from at least from (I'd like to start now, but it rather depends on the companion I am with...) transfer 10 'til the end of my mission only speaking French. :)

I love you all so much! I'm glad you're all doing very well! Thank you so much for all the support you give me!

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

Insanity

July 28, 2014

Hello Family! :)

This week was...pretty great. Yes, it was another finding week (c'est la vie comme missionnaire en France) BUT it was more than that. This week was a week of miracles.

It started on Tuesday with District meeting. We have a BOSS district leader, Elder Louis. And at this meeting, some things he said really stuck out to me and hit me hard. The main thing that kept playing back in my mind was the definition of insanity (one of the things that stuck out to me during his District meeting). Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Another thing that has come is LARC-ing (working with Less Active/Recent Convert members). At the beginning of the transfer, the Zone leaders talked to us about larc-ing. Another thing that was in my mind was finding. Is the way that we went out finding efficient? Is there something we can do to improve?

And then another thing was in my mind. Elder Louis talked about when he did less-active work and it reminded me of Cergy and the success we saw from doing our less active hunts.

And as I was thinking about all of this, Elder Louis had my inspired to do a less active hunt in La Rochelle. Just because the transportation here isn't the best doesn't mean we can't work with the active and less active members that are in our reach.

So Elder Smith and I made a list of all the members (active and less active) in La Rochelle, and we bought a new map of La Rochelle to make different zones to group the members. We have 6 zones in La Rochelle. Then we started to pass them all by, contacting on the way.

We weren't able to find too many less actives, but we did find one new ami this week. But that's not all. I now have a testimony that Heavenly Father blesses us as we make efforts to work harder and more efficiently. These other miracles came about because we made efforts to go the extra mile:

First, Raphael. We taught him again this week. And we weren't too sure how to help him with his smoking problem, so this is what we did. We set a date with him for him to stop smoking. And he committed to the date!! He's already been making more progress to quit smoking. And I know that as long as we continue to pray for him, keep daily contact with him, he will be able to quit smoking by the 4 of August.

Next miracle was with Christian. We set up a rdv to come over and continue the new member lessons with him. When we got there, we asked how he was doing and he said he wasn't doing well. He told us he hadn't felt the spirit for the past week, and that when he reads in the D&C, he becomes almost critical of it, so he asked us for a Priesthood blessing. We gave him a priesthood blessing. A couple days after it was his birthday so we called him and left him a message, wishing him a happy birthday. He sent us a text back thanking for the blessing, and told us that he is doing so much better now, thanks to the blessing.

And the last huge miracle is with the Swanepoel family. We were supposed to meet with them Tuesday but weren't able to because Bokke passed out and had to go to the hospital to make sure everything was fine. He was in the hospital until about Saturday, and we were able to go see them on Sunday thanks to the Fitt Couple. The Fitt's went to their town on Saturday to do some less active work and to pass by the Swanepoel's. He talked to them to see if it would be possible for us to come the next day to teach them and also give Bokke a blessing, and they said that would be possible. So we went to their house Sunday afternoon and taught them. We did some How to Begin Teaching (basically a get to know you, get to know the missionaries, and set expectations and find out their expections). Usually when we do HTBT, we extend a baptismal invite. Bokke accepted right away but his wife, Georget, said she was already baptized. We then talked about Authority right there and then she said "well, I can get baptized again." And then we committed them to a baptismal date. It was very miraculous. I was freaking out so much inside from all the excitement! And then we ended in giving Bokke a blessing of healing, which he was very grateful for.

I'm so blessed to be out here to see all these miracles. And I know that this week, these miracles came as a result from us showing our faith to stop doing the same things over again. I'm sorry if this is rather confusing, but it makes sense to me. :) Good luck!

Thank you so much for the package! I loved receiving it. :) It was a nice surprise, as I didn't know you had already sent it!

I love you all so much! I hope all is going well. :)

Stay fly!

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

Finding and LARC-ing

July 21, 2014

Hello la Famille!

It sounds like everything went really well this past week for you. That's good. :)

This past week was another hard, finding week. Every time I go finding, I think of a song called Fun to Find...written by a missionary. I'll have to send it to you sometime. It's pretty inspiring. :)

Not too much happened this week, but here is a pretty cool miracle. You remember that family, the Swanepoel's, that moved to our secteur that wants to get baptized? Well, we've been having troubles getting a hold of them. Well, Tuesday night, they called us up and invited us to come over the next day for lunch! But that's not the miracle. Here's the miracle. The missionary couple here (the Fitt's) told us they wouldn't be free Wednesday, because they had something else planned...which would mean that we wouldn't be able to take us to the Swanepoel's house (they live about 45 minutes by car away. And only other way to get there would be to take a train to a different town, take a bus to their town, and then walk some distance...which would probably take about 2 hours+ just to get there)...well turns out that il fallait that we went because that activity they had fell through. And they were able to come with us to the Swanepoel's house (it's pronounced swan-a-pool, just in case you were wondering). And let me tell you, Elder Smith and I are very blessed to be here right now. The Swanepoel family has definitely been prepared. We are hoping to be able to teach them twice a week.

We were able to meet with our ami Raphael this week. And he could use some extra prayers. He's trying to quit smoking. And apparently he's down to 5 cigarettes a day. (I thought it may have been less, but that is still some HUGE progress!). I think that we will give him a baptismal date soon. I've felt strongly like when he commits to baptism, he will receive the strength and the will power to overcome his addiction.

As for Christian, he is doing well. I'm so excited to still be here. He is a stud. We talked about the Priesthood with him and showed him where the duties of the Aaronic Priesthood are in D&C. He completely understood that the Priesthood completely a selfless thing and is used for the benefit of others. Isn't that super awesome? It's been so exciting to see the changes he's made and see him progress. It's really shown me that there really are people here that have been prepared to receive this amazing Restored Gospel.

We did quite a bit of searching this week. We'll continue again this week. We also started LARC-ing. (Less Active Recent Convert). We've passed by some of the less active members. One of them even told us to come back the next week! Which is a great response. :)

Well, I don't really have any more to add. I'm sorry about the short email. :P

I love you all so much!

Passez une bonne semaine!

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

New Beginnings / Sad Goodbyes

July 14, 2014

Hello Everyone!!

So transfers happened this week. I got this cool missionary from Salt Lake City. His name is Elder Smith. He is 6'4". He likes basketball.

It was rather sad saying goodbye to Elder Rigby, but it's all good. Totes gonna miss that guy. Elder Kendall is also done with his mission, too, which is rather sad. I'll miss him too. I've started to realize that the mission has a lot of new beginnings, but has some of the most endings/goodbye's that I've ever seen. 

So this week we did lots of searching, with little finding. But we will continue to search for those that are prepared. There is a family that just moved into the ward boundaries that is interested in the church. I'm really excited to meet them.

This past week I wasn't able to buy new socks. But I just may today. It depends. Elder Smith kinda wants to go see centreville and we're not sure at all if stores will be open (HAPPY INDEPENDANCE DAY IN FRANCE!!) :D

So lately there has been this huge event in La Rochelle called Francofolies. Which is like over 100 concerts in 4-5 days. Today is the last day, and I am SUPER excited for it to be done. It's great that huge events happen, but missionary work isn't too practical when all you end up contacting is tourists that speak neither french nor english.

Also, I think I may be catching a cold...which is weird because it's pretty hot here in La Rochelle. But I'm hoping to overcome it soon. It shouldn't be any problem and I'm doing what I can to take care of it.

Yesterday, Christian was conferred a member of the church. Man, he was absolutely just beaming. The bishop talked to him after church about preparing to recieve the Aaronic Priesthood in 2 to 3 weeks. Let's just say he is absolutely excited for this new journey he has taken for his life. It's been amazing to see his progression and his enthusiasm in wanting to learn and grow.

I'm not really sure what else to say, not much happened this past week... :p sorry. Although, I do have a question, when are the iPad's supposed to come out to Europe?

Oh, and I should be starting my 2nd year legality sometime within the next two weeks. I got an email saying that I need to start it. It's crazy how fast time moves on.

Well, I love you all! :)


-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

First Baptism!

July 7, 2014

Hello Family!! :)

So today, I'm short on time, so basically, I love you all so I'm writing you first :) yay! :) It sounds like you all had a great 4th...and that's a funny memory. I actually thought of that, too...hehe :P

So this past week was a finding week...and honestly was one of the hardest weeks I've had. But, I've been prepared overtime to be able to handle this week. We worked really hard like every day to find new people, but just weren't able to find new amis. Although, there must be power in baptism.

I say that because the baptism went so well! Christian was beaming from ear to ear. And I played the piano for the service. Let's just say the whole ward was super surprised that Elder Wilson plays the piano... hehe. They just don't know that I don't sight read very well...

The baptismal service was so great. Christian was baptized on the first try ('at a kid, Elder Rigby!). Elder Rigby did a good job baptizing him. The talks where nice, spiritual, and short. And then there was a small little meal put together for everyone who was there. SO many members from the ward stayed. It was AWESOME to see how much support the ward was with Christian. Some members even came up and asked us when the next baptism will be.

I still am having a hard time believing that Christian is baptized...it just seemed like a fantasy. Everyone always seems to say that you don't baptize in France. And when you do, it's not the French you baptize. But Christian is literally living proof that that isn't true. And that the Lord prepares His people. I know that Christian was prepared for this time. And now he is looking towards going to the temple and marrying his girlfriend in the temple next year.

I received a call from Elder Wallace during the last week. He called to let me know that Jacques, one of the amis I started teaching and taught the most (other than Elder Wallace) had been baptized. And that he'll send me a photo. :) Seriously, I am so blessed to be here right now in the la Mission Française de Paris.

Au niveau de the new Mission President. President Babin is super. During the conference while he and his wife were talking, I could really feel their love for Christ and for each of us individually. It was so great! I'm super excited for this new mission president. But I will definitely miss President Poznanski and Soeur Poznanski.

I'm excited for this new week. Transfers are Wednesday and Elder Rigby will be going home (I'm killing him! He's finished his mission!). I will definitely miss Elder Rigby. He's been a great missionary companion and a great friend as well. My new comp will be an Elder Smith (there are SO many...I don't know if I've met this one already...haha) and I'll meet him Wednesday.

Here are some pictures! :)

I love you all!

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

This is a Religieus which is a pastry. This is from a town called Tours which is famous for their numerous castles and their giant Tours Religieus. (the Fitt couple brought us some from Tours...they are so amazing!)

Christian, Elder Rigby, and I.


Centreville of La Rochelle. :)