Missionary Life

 

These are pictures from his first P-Day in Paris when they went to the museum.

Elder Goyes and Elder Loosli ran into one of the Sister's friends so they took a picture to send to them.

Jonah does a lot of exchanges. 

Vasikaran brought some grapes for their lesson.

Elder Donat's dad sent him some money and told him to buy everyone a treat at the bakery.

Jonah said the pastries there are so good!

Jonah picked this strawberry dessert and said it was so good!

This is Tina.  Elder Zeedik taught her so Jonah took a picture with her to send to him.

They had a fun activity at the church.

There have been protests in France for weeks now and they have turned into riots.  It started out as a student protest for more funding for education and now it's been taken over by far left groups that are looting and destroying things. They have destroyed business and lit things on fire.  They burned down the Hotel de Ville.  Jonah said they are able to avoid them for the most part.  It has affected transportation, but other than that they haven't affected them too much.  He said there was a fire by the church and they thought it might have been accidental, but then people started throwing fire works so the missionaries ran out of there. 

Sister Bravo went home "died" so they had a funeral for her.

This is Jonah's district.  Elder Laughlin, Elder Donat, Elder McDonald, Soeur Teheura and Soeur Foster.

They look like a fun group.

Jonah said they have a lot of fun together. 

Jonah was messing around with Soeur Teheura's camera at a member meal.

They went to a member meal and the elders all pretended to be asleep when the sisters came in.  

Yesterday for P-Day they played some sports and went shopping.  

Jonah got to do exchanges with Elder Blaylock, his MTC companion.  

Paris

 

Jonah was transferred to Paris! He has been hoping he would get to serve in Paris.  There are a five zones in Paris and they all get together to play sports and sightsee on P-day.  He's really been looking forward to this.  He is in the Aulnay district, a suburb of Paris. 

This is his companion, Elder McDonald.

They are the zone leaders.  Jonah is excited and nervous for the responsibility. 

Jonah said they hit the ground running as soon as he got to Paris. He said Elder McDonald is a hard worker and he was excited to jump right in and get to work.

They are teaching a lot of people.  Barec is on the right with his thumb up and Valdez is the other guy.  Valdez is a member and they are teaching Barec.  

He loved his first P-day.  They played sports and went to a museum and had a good lunch. 

They got the font ready for baptisms.

I love to see how they make everything fun. 

They had three baptisms on Saturday. 

Lisa, Lavonia and George were all baptized. 

Bishop Valdezio baptized George. 

Elder Loosli and Lisa. 

One of the things he was looking forward to was playing basketball by the Eiffel Tower.  He was able to do that on his last P-Day. 

It's still crazy to me that he is living in France!

This is Nadia, she is Romanian and they met her and her family on the street.  They were very interested and thought the missionaries were sent by God.  They have a 17-year-old daughter, Maria,  who has two kids (she was married at 13 and is now divorced) and she is very interested.  She came to church and had already read a lot of the Book of Mormon.

They did a dance for a zone challenge. 

We got to talk to Jonah on his birthday.  Cody came home so they got to talk for a while. It's always fun to hear them talk . 

Jonah's birthday was on P-day again.  

They played spike ball by the Eiffel Tower. 

They had a member meal the day after Jonah's birthday and the Elders brought Jonah a cake and they all sang to him.

They do a lot of exchanges as zone leaders and Jonah really likes that.  He had one with Elder Francsen last week.

Sister Liebard posted pictures from their zone conference this week.

They combined Paris and Paris Est zone conferences. 

Elder Loosli and Elder McDonald presented about preparing your friends for their baptismal interview. Jonah said the conference was centered on helping your friends become truly converted. 

On Sunday Maria made the missionaries a Romanian meal. Jonah said it was so good!

For P-Day today they decided to run a half marathon. They started at the temple and ran to the Eiffel Tower.  It was supposed to be 13 miles, but they had to do a longer route to stay in the mission boundaries so it ended up being 15 miles. 

Elder Donat shared this photo.  They made it and were all ready to lay down!

Jonah said it was one of the hardest things he's ever done in his life and he's never prayed so much!

He said the accomplishment feels great though!

I love that Jonah always dreams big and is never afraid to try hard things.

It has been a hard adjustment to leave Mulhouse and start over in Paris.  He said it's been an adjustment, but a lot of fun and he has grown a lot. 

I'm so proud of him for giving it his all even when it is really hard!