Week 11: Bye Bye Elder Peterson

First of all, sorry for the late email. I was in the Marseille gare all day waiting for my new companion because he was coming all the way down from Annemasse. His name is Elder Loveland. He seems like a pretty cool guy, and I think that we will have a good time during this next transfer here in Manosque. Also, apparently Elder Loveland was in the same district as Connor Fogg in the MTC which is pretty cool.

So now you are probably wondering "What happened to Elder Peterson?". Well... Elder Peterson was in his last transfer, so he went home yesterday. The end of the week was filled with lots of goodbyes because Elder Peterson knew that he would be leaving soon. We made sure to see just about everyone we knew so that he could say his final goodbyes. Sunday night, I had the opportunity to kill him at the Boukobzas home. It was pretty fun. We ended killing him by shooting him with an airsoft gun a couple of times. It left him with some nice marks on his body. Hahaha

We had an awesome experience last week. We received a text on Tuesday saying that there was someone that wanted to meet with us. (It was a media referral from mormon.org) All we knew about her was her street, her name (Alice), and that she was very interested. So, the next day, we were somehow able to find her and talk with her. Alice is from Kenya and has lived in Manosque for about a month now. She only speaks English, so it was kind of relaxing to be able to teach in English for once. It was really crazy though how she ended up finding the LDS Church. She had recently gone through a series of trials in her life that have brought her down in life. She eventually felt the need to search prayer on Google. Later on, she found herself on mormon.org chatting with someone about the Gospel. Then, she talked to a woman from Texas on the phone that helped Alice gain a desire to meet with the missionaries. Alice is an awesome ami, and I could definitely see her getting baptized in the future. She is open to a change in her life and just needs to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon now. 

One funny thing that happened with Alice was that she told us that she wasn't sure if we were Jehovah's Witnesses or something else, but she decided to meet with us anyway. Then, when she saw us outside of her window, the first thing that came to mind was "Ahh...they are Jehovah's Witnesses" because she saw us wearing white shirts and ties. So, we had to explain to her that we definitely weren't Jehovah's Witnesses. Haha. But, I do have high hopes for Alice.

One last kind of funny story was from when I was in the Marseille gare. I ended up having to wait there for like 7 1/2 hours, and most of the time, I was with the Corsica Elders and the Nice Zone Leaders. So, as you can probably guess, we got bored. So, Elder Wilkey, Elder Thangaraj, and I all went outside and juggled a soccer ball. This one guy later started playing with us too. After a sawhile, we stopped and just relaxed back inside the gare. Later on, that same guy that we played with earlier came over to us and tried to give us a "gift" in exchange for some money. We obviously said no. Right after, he is like, "I need the money for a joint for my girlfriend and I." And then, we obviously said no again. But, it was just kind of funny how desperate some people are for drugs that they will even ask some missionaries for help to get it. smh

Love,

Elder Mason

​​The pictures are of Elder Peterson and I with our Title of Liberties, the food at a super yummy creperie, and us with Herve and his wife.