It's the spirit not the numbers

I am glad that Jean Marie got a
hold of you. I was trying all
day to find a way to email you
on Monday because I didn't even
know you were in transit. I went
to all 5 cyber cafés here and we
even tried using the computer at
the church, but the emails are
down. I get a chance to walk
around outside a lot, despite
having a car, and I am so grateful
for the sun and the beautiful
creations the Lord has given us.
It is warming up here and the trees
are all green and everything is
coming back to life!
That is so great that you had an
average of 127 people at church for
the month! That is more than I think
any ward in the four stakes in our
mission! I think, after the sacrament
and one of the families left, we had
maybe 15 people at church. Its alright
though; its like what one of the members
told me after church, it doesn't
matter how many, it just matters that
the spirit is here with us.
I had a great week here in Chalon sur Saone.
I was able to be in Dijon for a couple of
days for an exchange which was great.
Dijon is one of the more beautiful
cities I have seen on my mission,
apart from Metz and some of the
other cities up in northern France.
We were actually walking right after emails
and this rad man stopped us. He was
standing in front of his hooka bar, which
actually was a way chill place.
He invited us in, and my zone leader
just looked at me, and being the person
I am was way stoked to go in. He gave us
a ton of free herbal tea and it turns
out that he was a Hindu missionary; but
he was a white french guy. He had
actually talked to the missionaries in
the past and knew almost everything
about him. He was one of the most
generous open people I have ever met.
He actually has, once a month, an
open discussion for the public on
religious topics and invites a Muslim,
a Jew, a Hindu, a catholic,
and the Mormon missionaries to come
(the missionaries use to go in the past
but haven't for a while.)! It sounds
like a way cool idea and I would love
the chance to go to it one time,
even if its after my mission.
The week here in Chalon was also way good.
We were driving to a rendez-vous one
day and we saw one of our members with
his friend. Instead of doing what a lot
of members do and pretend like he didn't
see us, he actually starts waving for us
to park our car to talk to him!
He introduced us to his friend and
we set up an appointment where he was
there with us, and then he even came to
church yesterday! His name is Pierre
and we have two rendezvous with him this
week and he already said he would come
to church this Sunday. We plan on inviting
him to be baptized on Wednesday!
Other than that, myself and my companion
are just working hard on trying to
continue finding people to teach.
We have taught more lessons each week here
so I hope that will continue to increase.
The members here are great though.
Even though there are only about 15-20
members each Sunday at church, who each
drive at least an hour from different
directions, they are all so close and
are so anxious to help us! They always
want us to come eat with them, which isn't
very practical, but we do get to like
once or twice a week!
We have a lot of fun stuff planned for
this week as well. We have a bunch of
great rendezvous planned and we will be
watching the last session of conference
tomorrow in Dijon.
It should be an exciting week!

Love,
Elder Clayton H. Welch