Elder Fitch: April 2, 2012

Well here we are again. However, this week was normal speed. The first week of a new transfer with no changes always seems like it goes a little slower, but it was a great week either way! No matter how slow it seemed we had conference to look forward to all week, which was an awesome motivator. Conference as a missionary is like jumping in a nice cool pool on a super hot day. It's just refreshing. There was one talk I really liked that talked about the difference between the church and the gospel. Where as the church is important and is ordained of God the Gospel is what we share with people, the Gospel is what brings people to Christ. I, as a missionary, am here as a representative of Christ. I am accountable to the Lord first and foremost before anyone else for the work I do. I try to help people apply the Atonement in their life. The church is good, but it is only an appendage. Christ is what is important and it is because of what He did for me personally, for our family, and for everyone that I am here.

 

Other news is that there isn't a whole lot of news. Yet, we are picking up momentum and it is starting to show. We didn't have anything really happen with anybody we are already teaching. We did find a few potentials, but a little sketchy so we will see.

It is starting to get quite warm here. All the foutains in the city are running now, including the big elephants. The trees ALMOST have there leaves up. AND good news! starting today we can wear short sleeve shirts, which I am wearing at this very moment. Im super stoked about that, because up to conference we are suposed to wear our jackets which have been a little warm Im not going to lie.

Other than that pas grande chose!

I LOVE YOU!!!!! Have a nice day :)....and week.

MArk

Elder Fitch: March 26, 2012

DUh duh dun dun dun...and another one bites the dust. and another one gone and another one gone and another one bites the dust. duh duh dun dun dun..... 
WELL...another transfer bites the dust. I have now gone from single digit transfers to double and in a couple weeks I will go from double digit months left to single digit. This last transfer went by faster than two skinny muslim kids in there matching warm up suits on their whiny loud scooter with helmets only on half their heads. Meaning fast. Actually they're not that fast, but you see that a lot. 

This last week was pretty full. We had an exchange, we went to another city about an hour away, we had english class, we went to yet another city to visit a few members, we did some service in a members garden up on the side of the mountain, AND we found a porcupine. So between all that with the travel and everything we didn't have a lot of time but it was fill with walking the roads and searching for people that would listen to us. It was a pretty great week, yet we still have no solid amis. Whatev, no big deal. Seriously though I love it here! We have a great time. I did however hear something from someone that I have NEVER heard before my entire mission. We were heading back to our apartment on saturday night when we came across this little old lady. Often old french people are the meanest most bitter hateful people we meet, but lately my confidence in nice old ladies has grown. Anyway we stopped this lady and shared a little about how God had called a prophet who is livning today. She said she was catholic, no surprise there, but then said and agreed with us that the world was in a great need for a prophet and that that would be really important to know. she then agreed to meet this next week and reminded us she was catholic, but then said (and here's where she said what I have never heard before) "but what you say about prophet is interesting I AM INTERESTED in that" I was a little shocked. She was really nice and we'll see how that goes with her. 
WELL today starts a new transfer. I AM SUPER STOKED!! OH I forgot to say that there are no changes. Staying in Chambery with Elder Jensen. This transfer is going to rock though! Hurrah! 
I love you all and you are all in my prayers everyday!! CIAO! Bonne semaine!
Mark 

Elder Fitch: March 19, 2012

Well the week is over and I'm now starting the last week of this transfer....c'est fou quoi.

 

There were a few super cool things that happened this week. First, they got the carpet cleaned at the church and we may or may not have recuperated a piano that is now in our apartment. SUPER cool. I can totally play hymns now....seriously though. Second we had an exchange in with the elders in Annemasse and I was up there for a day. We went out to this teeny tiny little area in the middle of the mountains to work for the evening....let me just say it was NOT ugly. VERY beautiful actually. The temp was just awesome, perfect. Not a bad night for missionary work. It went really well except I found myself getting, not frustrated, but bugged on the sad side. I just wish sometimes that people would give us five minutes and just listen. What we are offering people is the best and most important thing that could ever happen to them, and they close their hearts, their ears, and the door. OTHER than that it was a beautiful night.

Third, we are now the institute teachers....I've never even been to intitute....fortunately we only have one person we are teaching so it's not quite the same. I'm actually pretty stoked, it will be fun.

Forth we had a cool experience with just being in the right place at the right time. One day while we were picking something up from a members house and in a very big hurry this lady who is the neighbor of these members stopped us. To get to the members apartment we have to walk past the window of their neighbors. So this day this lady stopped us because she said she had seen us before and wanted to know who we were but hadn't had the chance before. She said she wanted to know why we were always dressed up and why we were always smiling. We ended up being even more late to the RDV we were headed too but we were able to get her number and she said she would love to talk to us another time. This week we were able to invite her over to this members, the Gaggini's, and we taught the first lesson. It went really well and she was really looking forward to reading the BOM. It is always when we are not looking for people that the Lord drops them in our laps like that. It's kinda cool. Which takes me to what happened last night. So we went out to the area yesterday afternoon to find this address of a potential amis. Unfortunately, I didn't look close enough at the map and the bus schedule so we ended up going A LOT further than we ment to. I figured we must have been brought out there for a reason so we might as well start doing something, so we started knocking doors. Nothing. Well, mince, I guess we'll start heading back and find that address on the way. Side note: It had been raining all day and because of the clouds and night that had arrived we could see none of our mountains or anything to give us a sense of direction. So we keep heading, we check the map at a couple of bus stops and think we are heading in the right direction...nope. We kept goin unknowingly. Finally we get to the right main road and start heading back, still a ways a way from Chambery. We see this lady coming and Elder Jensen jokingly says that we should ask her where Chambery is. Ha. ha....hmmm ok! So I decided to stop her and ask her, turns out we were walking in the complete opposite direction and right back to where we were dropped off by the bus earlier in the afternoon. Mince. well ok so I decided to a least ask her if she had met missionaries before. Yes she said and we had an awesome conversation and she told us we could call her later in the week. Super awesome! Moral of the story: God not only calls us in our weakness, but he uses them for the benefit of His work. We were definitely led last night, there's no doubt about it. We were totally lost but we found someone. Hurrah for Israel!

Also super cool thing that happened last night is that we found some frogs! and we took pictures. and then we ate them. We are in France afterall.

Oh and today we went back to try and find that address again and ended up knocking some more doors and there was this super old grumpy guy that said he wasn't interested and for us to leave before he got angry. So we left. On one of the next house he came out on his porch with a big rifle and started yelling stuff about the end of the world(mocking us ignorantly, because he thought we were Jehovahs Witness). Anyway I thought it was kinda funny.

I love you all!! have a good week!

Mark

Elder Fitch: March 13, 2012

Alright so last week was pretty great! Im doing my emails today because we were unable to take our Pday yesterday. There is a member here that needed us to help with basically rewiring there whole house. Unfortunatly it ended up being a really big waste of time for what we actually got accomplished. We were supposed to be there helping but the guy whose project it was (brother of this member) was this old bitter stubborn man. He wouldn't have us do anything, so we did a lot of watching. We were in a different city and it wasn't an option to leave, so we watched.....and watched. OH and they fed us lunch and it was....sketchy...to say the least. It was sauerkraut with wierd pieces of meat and strange looking little potatoes. For dessert it was cherries.....let me tell you....yuck. So first off one thing I've learned to do is eat anything, but these cherries just looked....sketchy...so I asked for just a little (you can't say no). Luckily I didn't see cause I would have barfed, but Elder Jensen told me after that on his last couple cherry he realized that there were tons of maggots! YUCK! That was not a good meal. One thing about the french that was REALLY evident with this family is the complete lack of priorities when it comes to money. Their house is falling apart, they were without heating right in that big cold because they didn't have money to make repairs, they have problems making other payments like rent, BUT they have a couple nice TVs, Ps3, nice phones etc. It is ridiculous I think and there are SO many people here that are like that. Dumb. anyway It went really slow and didn't get a lot done, which is a bummer because I think we could have accomplished most everything that needed to be done. and then when we finally got back we had time only to go back and change and go to a family night that we do for single members here. SO we moved our pday today. voila. 
The week was great though! Do you guys remember Catherine? We were teaching her like right when I got here, but she wanted to take a break to read more in the Book of Mormon. She was the one that didn't have time to read because she was reading the Old Testament. ANYWAY we've stayed in contact with her since then and this week we were able to see her again. She had finished the Old Testament and had read pas mal in the Book of Mormon. We had a great time just talking about her questions and connections between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. She is super sincere in questions and in her efforts to know if our message is true or not. She explained how she disproved the catholic church in reading the OT. She was baptized catholic but now knows that it can not be the true church from reading the Bible for herself. She says if she got an answer that our message is true she would be baptized in a second. She also was very interested in seeing general conference and seeing who the prophet is today. So that should be super sweet. 
Odile kinda had another break down. It is SO frustrating! She wants an answer, she does. She is sincere too, EXCEPT she is not willing to make any effort. She wont DO anything. She wants her answer to come on a silver platter and to have it fed to her. That is unfortunatly not possible. We can not GIVE her a testimony. One can only recieve a testimony for one's self in making one own efforts. As missionaries we can only invite and guide. The answers come from God though. In the end she wanted to take another break because she is frustrated and doesn't understand why she is not progressing. So we will see if something happens in the next couple weeks. 
SO I have some more news from Montauban! yay! so do you remember Emma? She was the lady that we found knocking doors that was going to celebrate Christmas with us, but ended up not. Super nice lady. Well she was baptized this weekend!! super awesome!! It's so cool hearing that someone you helped find is getting baptized. Super. 
And I also got a call from Jeanpierre. If you remember his story a little bit he just started coming back to church last spring after going off the deep end and swimming around for over ten years. So he called me and told me how he had just come from an interview with his Stake President and there he recieved permission to take the sacrament on sunday. Through tears he told me "For the first time in ten years I will be able to renew my baptisimal covenants". That hit me pretty hard and made me think a little bit more seriously about how precious that really is. I don't think I'll forget that one. It is moments like those that have made my mission priceless. I got to witness the miracle of forgiveness. 
There was lots of other good stuff that happened this week but I will leave it at that for now. I love you all. CIAO!!
Mark 

Elder Fitch: March 5, 2012

Another week COME and GONE!! 

This we week we had more beautiful spring weather. It was just nice, just perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, but baby bear temp. That was really good, because we had plenty of time to be out side walking around talking to people. 
We had a few really cool experiences happen in finding people in the moments we least expected. One of them is a guy named Steve. He's a younger punk looking guy that happened to be at the buss station the same time were to buy our monthly bus pass. He looked liked someone who was going to say some kind of dumb ignorant statement, specially when he gave me a funny look and was looking at my tag. I was all prepared to shut him down with righteousness when he said "who are you? Jehovah's witness??"  Nope and told him who we are. He then just started asking us some legit questions about Christ. So we started explaining. It was awesome because he was with some other people that were just shooting us daggers and stuff but he didn't care he was legitly interested. We got his number and fixed a RDV with him and left. He didn't end up making it to the RDV but we ended up running in to him again, in SUPER crazy circumstances, in another city, and we rode a bus back to chambery with him and got to talk more with him. Turns out he is a thinker and really likes to learn about everything he can. He says he doesn't believe in God but by the time we got back it wasn't really that he didn't believe, but rather he had just never found Him. We will hopefully be seeing him again this week, if he will put in a little effort I'm certain he will find what he is looking for. 
We had a great RDV with Odile as well and it was all about Joseph Smith who she really had never been taught very much about at all. It was really great and she found a lot of answers she needed. She was able to understand a lot better what his role really was and why he is important. She is moving along, slow and steady. 
Saturday was a nice day cause we got to go to a tiny little town out or rather up in the country right in the mmountains. We went out to do some service for a member and it was just a beautiful day to be out raking leaves and hauling wood and debris. I like physical work like that, it was a nice change and felt really good to get some fresh air. 

Well Fam, I love you! Miss you! Hope you all have a good week! 

Mark 

Elder Fitch: February 27, 2012

SO this was a pretty sweet week! Tuesday we went up to that ski station, Meribell, again to visit that english couple. This time one of their brothers was there so we got to visit with him as well. We had an awesome spiritual lesson, the guy made us a super delish something(he's a professional cook), and they showed us around again (meaning we took the ski lift again). The brother came up with us with his snowboard because he wanted to learn. He had never done it before. So we spent about 20 minutes on the bunny hill. Him going down and falling and us pushing him back up. It was super cool though because I was the only snowboarder there so I was trying to teach him. Unfortunately I couldn't show him, cause that would have been a lot easier. Oh well It was cool to be able to give him some pointers.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful. Still a little chilly, but sunny and nice. I wonder if hannah's new winter blast will make it's way over to me...we will see. For now I am enjoying it.

This week will be super sweet, we have lots of potential progression this week. Im stoked. Our amis Odile will be back in town and I think she will make leaps and bounds now. We have another amis named Catherine that is starting have thing click with her and we should be seeing some more this week as well. We also met a guy contacting in the park that is super cool. He is hungarian italian and is at this moment out of work and has no home. He used to work for some big company in Cananda but lost EVERYTHING, job, wife, house, kids, everything. Super bummer situation. He's been riding his bike around europe looking for work. He so far hasn't had any luck. He's a super cool guy that just want to work. He wont even beg, he prefers to look for a job. Anyway we met him, had a super cool conversation and gave him a hungarian Book of Mormon and invited him to church. He showed up and really liked it. There is a member that is hungarian so they got to talking and I asked around a little bit to see if any members knew of any workiing opportunities. There are a few possiblities so he might end up with something this week. Which is just in time because this week is his last couple days that the soup kitchen thing will give him food for free (10 limit, after it like a euro). So if he doesn't get anything he has to leave. So we'll see.

HEY guess what????? You guys remember the family Slepcik in montauban???? Well I talked to Elder Ormond this week and confirmed it today with our weekly letter from president, but the rest of that family was baptized on saturday!! 4!!! We baptized a FAMILY!! that is what i am talking about, SO cool!! AND I also found out that another amis of ours named Emma that we found while I was there will be baptized on the 10 of March. How cool! Oh Montauban.

Oh ya so I don't know if I told you guys but we missionaries teach english as a second language as a service. It is really hard to get people that actually come and have it actually be worth it. So up until Chambery we have either not done it our done it very unoften. But here the last month thanks to a friend of ours we have about 15 that come everyweek!! it is super cool. These are people that would NEVER stop and talk to us on the road, but here they are in the church. If nothing else they get a better idea of who we are. PLUS we've had several people start asking questions. super cool guys, super cool.

Well I love you all And I pray for you everyday and I hope you have a wonderful week!! LOVE YOU!!

Mark

Elder Fitch: February 20, 2012

Well the beginning of this week was cold, it snowed, and then turned into spring! Most of this week was absolutely beautiful! Still chilly, but nothing like the last couple of weeks. Since Elder Jensen came from serving in Nice my theory is that he brought the sun up with him, cause it has been NICE!! haha get it? He really did come from Nice (said like niece) though.

 

This week was definitely a walking week. We walked everyday, just about all day. We spent alot of time contacting on the road, hunting down addresses, and knocking(or ringing rather) doors. I LOVED it! I felt so good this week! I felt like I got A LOT done and am very satisfied with what we accomplished. YAY!  Despite the lack of RDVs we were able to plan, we ended up planning this whole week out already. At this point everyday is FULL to point we couldn't fix anything else if we wanted. Except for Saturday and Sunday. It is SWEET! that just makes you look forward to the week I tell you what. One cool thing we are doing tommarrow is we were asked to go back up to that ski resort to visit that couple again. Im stoked for that. This week is just going to fly by.

We were able to see Odile agian this week and had an awesome RDV where we were able to speak very openly about what she needs and what she wants to do. I'm super stoked, within the next couple weeks or so I think she is going to make leaps and bounds in her progress. So send your prayers for her. This week she is in Paris so we wont see her till next week.

Our family Cossongo we found were all sick this week and so were unable to see us this week. Plus they haven't been able to get moved down to Chambery yet like they and us had hoped. We might be able to go see them on saturday, so keep them in your prayers as well.

 

So other than that things are going well! Elder Jensen is pretty awesome, we get along really well. PLUS I am actually taller than him. My last two companions have been giants.

OH and today we got to go snow shoeing again up in the mountains. It was beautiful! with brand new snow everywhere. That did me lots  of good.

I lOVE YOU ALL and MISS YOOU!!!!! Have a good week!

Love Mark

 

Ps this is a photo from snowshoeing LAST time, with Elder Park. I just had to climb this dead tree....and jump off it. I couldn't help it. I landed in snow up to my knees, it was tight.

     The middle one is up at the ski resort last time....yeah Im on a ski lift. 

     snow shoeing agian the first time.  

Elder Fitch: February 13, 2012

Hey Fam!

So I totally forgot that last week was the last week of the transfer! Well There's been some changes. Elder Park left me, he was transfered. I stayed in Chambery and I have a new companion.....named.......ELder......JENSEN! He is super awesome. He knew Hannah in the MTC. Im looking forward to working with him he seems like a great missionary, AND I am actually taller than him! Thats a first for me. 

So this week was pretty cool....literally....cold even. Yup still cold and it's supposed to snow again this week. But this week was cool other wise too.  With Elder Park being transfered we gave Odile, our amis a few weeks ago that was going to be baptized but then dropped us, a call to tell her and we were able to see her on Saturday because of it. It turned out though that she was going to call us that same day. When she dropped us she kind of hit a rock bottom and had a lot of time to think. I know the spirit was workin with her because she came to the conclusion that she needed to get out of the situation she was in and she knew we could help. We had an awesome Rdv with her on sat that I know was inspired because it was exactly what she wanted to talk about. She talked about WHEN she's baptized, so that is still in her plans. She wants out of the relationship she's in with some guy, so that will be good. We fixed another RDV for this Wednesday and I'm super excited! I think she will make some HUGE progress this transfer, so stay tuned. 
As for that family we found, the family Cossongo. They weren't able to move down to Chambery yet, but we're working on it. 
These next couple transfers we are going to rock Chambery. It will never be the same. The end. 

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like a french teenager loves cigarettes! (its kinda like how a fat kid loves cake, but frenchified.) Except I love you EVEN more!....yeah that much. 

Love Mark 

Elder Fitch: February 6, 2012

WINTER!!!!

So when i got here It was a lot colder than Montauban, but still, not TOO bad. Winter finally struck in the great Alpalachians this week. We got a big fatty snow storm and then incredibly cold temperatures ALL the time. It does not warm up. It cold your face freezes and you can't talk normally and everything is dry and cracking. Man I feel bad for anyone serving in places like Canada....haha hannah. Seriously though, Hannah is tough. Go Han. The sun comes out sometimes but it strange to not feel any warmth coming from it. The wind takes it all away. Haha it's great, what an adventure. BUT if I come home with no fingers and toes I hope you'll still love me.

THis week was super great because we found a family! YEah! so two weeks ago when we went up to visit that english couple at the ski resort we were on this train right? and we were sitting across from this guy. After a sec I noticed this guy looking VERY intently and very creepily at my name tag. I knew, or thought I knew, what he was thinking. So I was getting ready for a comment or maybe something to say to him. Then he leans forward kind of slowly and whispers to me.."Can we talk about God?" and I said "what no, go away don't bother me." no Im kidding i said YES, Of Course!  People don't say things like that....ever. I was really suprised. Anyway so we had a great conversation with him until he invited a muslim guy to sit with us and it just turned into a we're all the same theres no specific church of God conversation between them. BUT he did say he wanted us to come to his house and meet his wife and family. COOL. So we went later that week. We couldn't find him. couldn't get a hold of him. Mince. that is a bummer. This week we tryed again and set a RDV with them and we went back out there. Found them. Taught them. and they want to be baptized. The lesson was super awesome and they were really into it. They were super receptive to the spirit it was great! Our only worry was getting them to church....BUT turns out they are moving to Chambery this week, WOW. I am super stoked to keep going with this awesome family, they have 3 kids by the way. Just super great.

Something like that just makes the whole week worth it and a great success. Specially when we walk around for hours with absolutely nothing to show for it. THe Lord is merciful and is always there. This is His work, not ours. Im super stoked to be apart of it.

I loove it! I love all of you and hope you have a wonderful week!

love Mark

 

ps in the photo notice the lovely green scarf that is keeping me from freezing because it is about negative 20 degrees Celsius because it was so well made nice and thick....Thanks Les

    and eating mac and cheese made by me.

    and elder Park contacting Yoda at the bus stop....he is super interested.

Elder Fitch: January 30, 2012

What a week!

So its a good thing that I am serving in Chambéry....I was hardly even in Chambéry this week. I have never traveled so much in one week in my life! IT WAS INSANE! It made time fly though, I feel like I just emailed you guys yesterday.

This week I took 13 trains, 4 of them only lasting about 20 minutes a piece, the others all over an hour. I took 2 long distance bus rides each an hour long. I also spent about 2 and a half hours in a car. I saw a lot of super cool stuff though. tuesday we went and visited an english couple that is working at one of the nicest ski resorts in the Alps. The nicest being only 20 more minutes down the road at Courcheval. They are working there for the season and can't make it down for church on sunday so they asked if we could visit them. It was legit, I was litterally on the ski runs. They took us around a little bit, yes I did get to take a ski lift, and walked down a little cat track to an upper lodge. The snow was absolutley beautiful! and LOTS of it. I got my snow boarding fix so I'm good. Just watching people snowboard was good enough for me for right now. Wednesday we had an exchange and I went up to Annemasse and while I was there we had to go to a city called Gex and to get there we had to go through Geneva. On the way back the elder I was with got himself lost so I got to see a good bit of Geneva which is super cool. That was the first I've left france for almost 11 months. Thursday we had our districk meeting in Anncey and then went to Aix les Bains. Friday we went to Albertville where the 1992 winter olympics were held, cool huh? I had no idea. Unfortunatly the RDV we went there for did not end up working out. Saturday we went to Modane which is over closer to Italy. The family we went to see there is super awesome. The father works for the gendarme which is like the national guard and he id on a ski unit for that. So The week was full of travels. We were not able to have much success with amis, but I think this week will be alot better and we will see a lot more results.

Well That is it for this week. I love you all so much and I wish you a fabulous week!

Love Mark

Elder Fitch: January 23, 2012

So This week was pretty good. We had some pretty cool things happen. We met the owner of a grocery store we were in and he started talking to us and asking us some questions about who we were and everything and we were able to talk to him a little bit there. Later that day we went back because we had forgotten something we needed and the same guy came up to us again and said that during his lunch he went and looked us up online to find out more. Usually thats not a great thing because often people just find antimormon  poop stuff that isn't anywhere near the truth. Fortunately he found pretty accurate stuff and was smart enough not to believe everything he finds on weird sites. At this point we were able to have a much more in depth conversation with him and answer a lot more questions he had. It was really cool and he said he would be interested in talking to us the only problem is that he is the owner of this store and so he works alot and plus there right about to do some renovations and the store so he not super available, but he said in about amonth he'll be more open. so we're hoping that goes well and we're going to try to stay in contact with him until then as well.

We also ate dinner with some members last night and one couple that came the wife is a member but the husband isn't. The husband loves the other members and he knows all about the church, the problem is is that he is a sniper in the army and doesn't really feel like he can become too religious. He's a great guy and very nice. What was good though was that we got along really well and fixed a RDV with him after his next trip. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes!

We have a little bad news, our amis Odile dropped us. She is the one that had a baptisimal date too. She decided she is not really ready to make any changes in her life. Plus the member that was with us pretty much convinced her that she should take a break and not see us for a while. So that is a bummer, she is just too stuck in the traditions she has been living all her life. I'm sure she'll come around, if she continues to read the Book of Mormon like she said she would. The Book of Mormon is everything, the KEY!  Anyway so the other bummer with that is that we now don't have anyone that we are teaching anymore, that just means more time to find!

Hey so today was pretty cool. We had a member take us up into the mountains and we went snow shoeing! it was super awesome! Very beautiful! I loved it.

I love you all and pray for you! Ciao ciao! TTFN

Mark

Elder Fitch: January 16, 2012

Well....I'm over the hill.....it blows my mind. The last year went by so fast! From what I've heard too is that the first year is the slow year. So I might just be waking up in my own bed one of these days. My Year mark was pretty uneventful. We didn't really do anything. We did go to Anncey for a meeting, that was cool. Other than that it was just a normal day!

This week was just fast. We went down to Valence on tuesday and then the rest of the way down to Marseille on Wednesday morning. That was pretty cool. Marseille feels a lot like San Fran. It was a beautiful day and we got to walk down to the old port where theres lots of boats. At the moment they were having a fish market and let me tell you it was the craziest one I'd ever seen. EVERYTHING was still alive! I'm going to include a picture of one of the tables and it is all alive. eels, octopus, all kinds of wierd fish, you name it. It was cool though. That was good to get my passport stuff taken care of.

It's been sunny, but super super freezing! BEAUTIFUL though! We did a few service activities, one where my chainsaw skills came in handy again, the other was digging holes and planting fruit trees on the side of the mountain which was sick! I loved it.

We don't have many people we are teaching right now, but we do have one that is engaged for baptism named Odile. She is awesome and loves everything about the church and the gospel, she just has commitment issues.

OH I totally forgot to tell you guys that I ate frog legs! There was a member that prepared frog legs for us and I ate them, it was actually really good I recomend it.

I love it here, it is just super great! I love being a missionary!

Well I Love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Mark

Elder Fitch: December 19, 2011

Hey Family!

 

So this week just totally blew by. I don't know what happened. It's just gone. It was a good week though. We accomplished alot.

Tuesday night we went to Toulouse and then got up at 3 o'clock in the morning to go to Bordeaux. It was Sweet! I love doing stuff like that. I got to see alot of great missionaries and learned a lot of great things that will help me in what I am doin. I've made a lot of life friends here on the mission. It will be awesome to be able to get together and talk about our mission. Bordeaux was beautiful but freezing cold. That wind storm that hit you guys has found it's way over here. The day after we left, Bordeaux, well the whole coast and even up into Paris and over to Dijon was hit with some crazy wind storms.

Saturday was the Branch Christmas party where they held a cake making contest. I made my betty crocker birthday cake that mom sent me. With frosting I designed the Plan of Salvation on top, complete with outer darkness. It was epic, I took pictures don't worry. The good news is that I won the competion by a landslide! That means best looking, most colorful (thanks to the food coloring Les, it doesn't exist in France), AND taste. Cetain poor sports claimed that I cheated, but I wasn't the judge, the people were and they voted my cake, so I son fair and square. It's not my fault that my good friend Betty has better baking skills than their "french cuisine", please! Americans always win. But I'm not prideful. :)

The BEST news is MUCH more important and it has to do with Maria Ziga. She is the grandma of the Slepcik familly and will be getting baptized this saturday, which as you know is Christmas Eve. She has already read the whole Book of Moron, including the scripture guide, and now she has restarted. Last night we taught the law of tithing, and once everyone understood what it was, with the help of a couple of marvelous member testimonies, it was well accepted. Maria said it will be the first thing she does after she is baptized. At the end we invited her to say the closing prayer. Now we've had a little bit of a hard time getting her to not say a memorized prayer, but we've really been working on it with her. Last night when we asked her agian we reminded her to use her own words. She started out slow, and we could tell that she was doing what we asked. We couldn't understand a word she said, but everyone could feel the spirit at this moment. After a few seconds, she was overwhelmed and could no longer speak because she was in tears. This also brought her daughter to tears as well. It was an incredible moment! I love them so much! That whole family is going to be baptized. I am so blessed to be here with them to help them along this journey. It's just wonderful. Another bonus is that I'm learnig little bits of slovakian. It's SICK! I can say about 5 DIFFERENT words so far. Anyway keep this lady and this awesome family in your prayers.

Well Fam, I'm super stoked to talk to you all next sunday! I seriously can't even believe it's Christmas already. It hasn't really hit me yet.....wow. The next time you hear from me it will be right out of my own mouth.....wow. wow. And this is how you say it in french....wow.

I love you all and can't wait. Have a wonderful week, I love you all, and MERRY CHRISTMAS. God bless us, everyone. afterall there's only 6 more sleeps till Christmas. wow.

Love Mark 

Photos from Mark

from his new area in Chambery...

Elder Fitch: January 9, 2012

Life in the Alpalachians.....

WHAT A CHANGE!!!! I honestly feel like I've changed missions. Everything is different. It's incredible. I LOVE it though.  Leaving Montauban was one of the hardest things I've had to deal with yet. I LOVE Montauban. HOWEVER, I can't even say how stoked I am to be here in Chambery! IT. IS. BEAUTIFUL! For times sake I'm going to shorten alpalachians to just alps, ya know cause alps are short for alpalachians. Anyway Chambery is situatated right in the middle of HUGE mountains! The ALPS! I'm used to seeing absolutly nothing. It's so cool to be up high in the alps. Our area is huge, again. The area we are in charge of goes all the way to the boarder of Italy. It's a lot colder here, which is cool. The members here are really great and I'm really looking forward to getting to know them and working with them.

This week has been super good, super long, but good none the less. We've had to go back and forth to the police station a ridiculous amount of times and it's finally been figured out that there really isn't anything that they're going to do. I at least have a statement saying I've lost all my ID so that is kind of acting as my legality. Otherwise I would be deported! which I think would be kinda fun, but it would hinder things.

Ok so super funny story. Saturday night we were walking home and it was super cold and calm and chill. There wasn't anyone around. The skys were clear and you could see the stars, which I'm also not used to seeing. We were walkin along not really saying anything. I was pretty tired, cold, and just kinda lost in thought. WHEN out the bushes randomly pops this little creature halfway resembling a dog. Ok it was a dog. But it's fur was nasty and there was a lot of it. Its head was just this rectangular block of hair. You honeslty could not even see it's face. For whatever reason I thought it was the funniest ugliest thing I had ever seen! I just started laughing and laughing! I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. Tears were just streaming down my face and I couldn't stop. The dog looked at me and then just kinda went about it's business, which just made me laugh even more. It was hilarious! I thought it was a homeless dog so I felt a little bad for laughing at him like that, but after I stopped laughing and had control of myself it's owner came walking up. WHY would someone EVER let there dog become so ugly!? I don't know, but it was funny......I guess you had to be there.

Well I'm super excited to be here and Im really looking forward to learning somemore. Thanks for everything you guys are great! I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART!

Elder Fitch: January 2, 2012

Dear family,

 

Holy cow I just love you guys! It is wonderful to know how much you guys got my back! To hear from all of you was just wonderful. Yes it is a super bummer, but oh well!

 

Just to let you all know as well I was transfered. It was really hard leaving Montauban which has become my home over here, I really felt like I lived there as opposed to just staying there. I guess that happens after 6 months. Anyway there was tears for sure, I had to leave some very dear friends and who knows when I will be seeing them again?? I don't know. I loved Montauban and all the people there. BUT life, as usual goes on! Keep Moving Forward right? I am now on the complete other side of France in the Alps. It's a town called Chambéry. My knew companions name is Elder Park and he is super awesome I like him already. He is tall, like my last companion, and is from Tremonton. I'm really super stoked to be here! For one it snows alot here! YAY! and for two I've heard great things about the people here. It is bigger than Montauban but the branch is alot smaller. Elder Park tells me that it we have some great amis that we're working with rght now so that is sweet! jump start into action!

I can't believe it is already 2012! Wow. I can't believe how time flys... This year is going to be great! which is good because when the world ends this year at least it can end great. HA just kidding that's TJ (JW) stuff! I'm stoked to get going here to have a change and to learn knew things.

Last week in Montauban was pretty cool. We did a lot of finding. We found 3 knew younger amis that have a lot of potential, as well we found a knew family! It is a family half portuguese, half south african, and half french. They have five kids and are just perfect for the gospel! I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes with them.

Knew years was pretty good, pretty low key...in bed at 1030 and all haha. I cannot stay up late anymore, we got to stay out a little later on Christmas and let me tell you I was DEAD tired the next day! For New Years I honestly did not want to stay up late. Sleep is too precious right now, specially when there's no nap time during the day.

 

Well guys I just want to say again how cool you are. You are cool. I really appreciate all your support! You are my team. I love you so much and I am so blessed to have you as MY family. Haha in thinking about this whole deal I just keep thinking about Robin Hood after Robin steels from the king and he yells at Hiss and stuff and breaks the mirror and sucks his thum and stuff, SO funny! "robbed! I've been robbed!" I love that show. "HISS! you're never around when I need you!" haha life is so crazy. Like my duncan bracelet says, and I already said it, but KEEP MOVING FORWARD! 

I love you and have a wonderful week! 

Mark  

Elder Fitch: December 26, 2011

Hello fam! I'm forwarding Hannah's message right back to you because the first part of her message was exactly was I was going to say. So I'm double testifying, we do that as missionaries alot. Oh and the key board Hannah is talking about really is a pain. This last week was awesome and I'm looking forward to finishing up this transfer and this year with another great week. I on the other hand will most likely be transfered. That means a new area and a new companion, so well see how that goes. I love you guys all very much. I'm sure Han could back me up when I say being a missionary is just so cool. I love it. I can't believe I'm almost half way done already! Wow.
Love again 
Love mark 

Elder Fitch: December 19, 2011

So this week just totally blew by. I don't know what happened. It's just gone. It was a good week though. We accomplished alot.

 

Tuesday night we went to Toulouse and then got up at 3 o'clock in the morning to go to Bordeaux. It was Sweet! I love doing stuff like that. I got to see alot of great missionaries and learned a lot of great things that will help me in what I am doin. I've made a lot of life friends here on the mission. It will be awesome to be able to get together and talk about our mission.

 

Bordeaux was beautiful but freezing cold. That wind storm that hit you guys has found it's way over here. The day after we left, Bordeaux, well the whole coast and even up into Paris and over to Dijon was hit with some crazy wind storms.

 

Saturday was the Branch Christmas party where they held a cake making contest. I made my betty crocker birthday cake that mom sent me. With frosting I designed the Plan of Salvation on top, complete with outer darkness. It was epic, I took pictures don't worry. The good news is that I won the competion by a landslide! That means best looking, most colorful (thanks to the food coloring Les, it doesn't exist in France), AND taste. Cetain poor sports claimed that I cheated, but I wasn't the judge, the people were and they voted my cake, so I won fair and square. It's not my fault that my good friend Betty has better baking skills than their "french cuisine", please! But I'm not prideful. :)

 

The BEST news is MUCH more important and it has to do with Maria Ziga. She is the grandma of the Slepcik familly and will be getting baptized this saturday, which as you know is Christmas Eve. She has already read the whole Book of Moron, including the scripture guide, and now she has restarted. Last night we taught the law of tithing, and once everyone understood what it was, with the help of a couple of marvelous member testimonies, it was well accepted. Maria said it will be the first thing she does after she is baptized. At the end we invited her to say the closing prayer. Now we've had a little bit of a hard time getting her to not say a memorized prayer, but we've really been working on it with her. Last night when we asked her agian we reminded her to use her own words. She started out slow, and we could tell that she was doing what we asked. We couldn't understand a word she said, but everyone could feel the spirit at this moment. After a few seconds, she was overwhelmed and could no longer speak because she was in tears. This also brought her daughter to tears as well. It was an incredible moment! I love them so much! That whole family is going to be baptized. I am so blessed to be here with them to help them along this journey. It's just wonderful. Another bonus is that I'm learnig little bits of slovakian. It's SICK! I can say about 5 DIFFERENT words so far. Anyway keep this lady and this awesome family in your prayers.

 

I seriously can't even believe it's Christmas already. It hasn't really hit me yet.....wow. The next time you hear from me it will be right out of my own mouth.....wow. wow. And this is how you say it in french....wow.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! God bless us, everyone. afterall there's only 6 more sleeps till Christmas. wow.

 

Love Mark

Elder Fitch: December 12, 2011

Another week gone.

This week was really great! This week was great! We took two of the family Slepcik down to Toulouse to go to institute. The first was Michaela and the second her grandma, Maria. It was awesome! They loved it. We were also able to show them one of President Monsons talks from conference in a language they understand. This family is really amazing. A member here commented that we are in the middle of teaching a small branch, because there are so many of them. I feel very stongly that it's not a matter of IF these people are going to be baptized, but WHEN. The grandma, Maria is for sure getting baptized on the 24 and I'm SO SO happy about it. She is SO receptive to the spirit and has REAL intent. She really wants to follow Christ the best she can. There's about three more that I expect will be baptized in January. Jeanpierre Van Tonder invited them over for dinner, because he was so touched at their spirit. In all there will be 11 of the family there, elder Ormond and I, our recent convert Auguste, and then the Van Tonders which make 3. Total is 17 people! There is still a language berier but anybody that is around them just feels their wonderfulness and just falls in love with this warm family. I'm so blessed to be here and to be able to help this family with their progression. I love being a missionary, truly this is a marvelous work and a wonder. I could go on and on about this family, They just blow my mind.

 

This week we are going to Bordeaux agian! I'm stoked cause it is a super pretty city. We will be there, including our 5 hour travel there and back, basically the whole day. We have a zone conference and then after we have a missionary christmas party. It will be sweet there will be plenty of noncaffeinated drinks and scripture chases for fun. Ha. But seriously it will be awesome, Just being around other missionaries is the best! It gets lonely when you go weeks alone in a city without seeing any other missionaries. Sweet.

 

I love you all!! and Bon Fêtes! Que la paix de Dieu soit avec vous.

Elder Fitch: December 5, 2011

I'm Dreaming of a white christmas! woo!

This week was awesome! We fixed 3 baptism dates with the family Slepcik! It's the grandma, the mother, and the daughter. 3 generations. I'm super excited! They are a wonderful family! They are so incredibly open to the spirit. They love the Book of Mormon and read it everyday. The daughter, Michaela, has already read PAST Mosiah 23. wow. AND she is going to come down to Toulouse on wednesday night to go to the institute class for the young adults, ha her grandma is coming too. Im SO STOKED! Plus I'm learning to speak a little slovakian/czech.

Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting at church, and Auguste got up and bore a powerful testimony. He's been havin some stugles, but he has just rocked it! He has anchored himself in Christ and is overcoming mountains. I have learned more from him then I have been able to even try to share with him. He is just solid.

Oh hey! good news!............WE FINALLY MOVED!! We spent most of the day friday getting ready and then moved half the day saturday. WOW I can not even describe the difference! It's HUGE. We have probably THE nicest appartment in the mission, at least the nicest kitchen. It's incredible. It really was a miricle that we even found it in the first place, SPECIALLY for the price that we got. The only hold up was that we didn't have hot water or heat until this afternoon. Needless to say our showers were sketchy and there was much screaming. Also it was just cold, but as of today it is all good and we have hot water, and there was much rejoicing, yay. Man what a blessing.

Other than that not a whole lot of news.... We are already booked with dinners for the week of Christmas, that is kinda cool. The members were auctioning us off, it was funny. Oh we're so loved here. Seriously though, Montauban is very special in that the members actually invite you over. ching, another blessing.

Man being a missionary is just awesome! I love it. This is a marvelous work and it is a blessing to be able to be apart of it. C'est hyper chouette!

I love you all so very much and I miss you the same, I pray for you everyday. Take care et à bientôt!

Love Elder Fitch