Great Week

I am doing great.
Things with my companion are getting
better and I am working on not being
so prideful. I feel that that is one
of my biggest weaknesses so this is a
great chance for me to be more humble,
and learn to work with others,
not just on my own.
This week went by really fast,
and a lot of great things happened.
Our zone versus zone football game went
very well, although our zone lost both
games. It was way good though.
We actually do have some pretty good
athletes, two other football players and
a couple of basketball players. I was
quarterback most of the time and I feel
like we had more fun as a zone because
everyone had at least a couple of catches,
including the Frenchman in our zone, and
I think all but 2 had a touchdown which
was great. It is so nice being able to
spend time with other missionaries.
Our zone blitz went very well as well.
I went out with my good buddy Elder
Trejo who is the same age as me in the
mission and is from Texas and is one of
my favorite missionaries in my mission.
Since I have the only "carte bleu,"
mission credit card, in Lyon, I usually
have to run errands all the time buying
train tickets and other things so
unfortunately a large portion of our
time was with that. But, we did teach
a sweet lesson together with a recent
convert, and I shared the story out of
Matthew 14:22-25 I believe, and
paralleled it with 2 Nephi 19, towards
the end of the chapter where Christ
tells us through Isaiah that the Lord's
hand is always there for us.
That is one of my favorite
images in the Book of Mormon.
Zone Conference went way well.
Our mission president implemented
the new member lessons we are teaching,
and I was able to give a demonstration
with my companion for the two zones
which went well.Wednesday night I was
up in Grenoble again to pick up my
carte de séjour, and it was such a
great time. I went with Elder Trejo
and we had a great time with the
Elders up there; we ate stuffed crust
pizza hut pizza that we got hooked up on
with a deal thanks to one of the other
elders, and we just chilled and talked
about the mission; good times.
I went on a great exchange with
Elder Hamilton in St. Etienne this
week as well, which went way well.
Elder Hamilton was my former zone leader
and a huge football player guy, the
other one in the mission.
It was way good! It is a struggling
city, but we were able to have 4 lessons,
which is one shy of how many they had
in the first two weeks of this transfer!
But it was in one of these rendez-vous
that the best part of my week happened.
We were with a man named Jean Marie,
a man about 35 from Barcelona Spain,
who speaks French as well as I speak
English, and English as well if not
better than I speak French. He
was married right after college and
was living in Kentucky when his wife died.
He decided to devote his life to God, and
entered a catholic monastery where he
literally became a monk, one of the 500
catholic monks on the earth I believe,
at least in this group. He went 8 years
wearing nothing but brown robes, going
to church everyday, praying, and
meditating until one day, after 8 years,
the leader of the group told him he
wanted to go in to the real world and
do go for others. He was infuriated,
and with only 2000 euros given to
him by the church and his robes,
he bought a computer and started his own
enterprise and now, just one year later,
is close to making one million dollars
this year, which he will give entirely
to building houses for needy people.
He give thanks only to God for his success,
and is the most humble, spiritual person
I have ever met. He is one of my heroes.
It was such a spiritually building
experience and it was a testimony that
there are many people whom the Lord
has prepared, and who are often times
closer and more spiritually understanding
than members of the church,
who are just waiting for the gospel.
He refers to himself as the "Mormon Monk,"
and hopefully he will continue to
grow in the gospel. I love being a
missionary.
This week will be good.
We are having a little zone meeting
here tomorrow and will be talking more
about these member lessons which will
be good. I will be going to
Clermont Ferrond tomorrow night as
well for an exchange with Elder
Bellamy which will be a great experience.
So I am very excited for this week.
But way good news, Elder Bednar,
apostle of the Lord, will be visiting our
mission and we will be having a
conference the 13 of February in Geneva
where he will speak to us for 3 hours!
I am stoked!
The weather here is good and it has
been rainy but no snow; bummer, I know.
Just cold rain and a wet right foot. haha.
I think I will look for shoes today,
and I would love to get these ones resoled,
but the salty water I think has
ruined the leather.
Have a great week.

Elder Clayton H. Welch
P.s. happy birthday pops!