Bonjour!

This email is going to be screamin' good.

Yesterday could be described as a bit of a frenzy. First of all, I fell in the shower. Hard. I was just trying to kind of jump over the divider to the next one so that I could turn his shower cold. I kind of forgot about my feet on the way back down. I sat on the floor for about ten minutes after laughing in pain. Also yesterday I wore a tie with dogs on it. It was unlawfuly hideous. It was good because it inevitably led into conversation about how I worked at a pet cemetery. Elder Johnson and I have also started racing to our residence hall. Like, racing. It involves hurdling rope dividers and benches and dodging those vertical poles that are conveniently placed everywhere. Don't worry though, I went back and found all the highlighters that fell out of my shirt pocket. They were strewn about the MTC.

As I walked into dinner yesterday I saw one of my friends headed towards our table. He was holding a tray with all the food that I was planning on getting. I walked up to him, took the tray gently out of his hands, and graced him with a little "ah, merci mon ami." Then I went to our table and ate it. He forgave me later though.

Okay. Let me tell you about the best lesson I've taught so far. It was at the TRC this week. We taught an uncle and his niece. The niece was from France and didn't even speak English. It was SO GOOD to be able to talk with her and understand her and know that I can do that. It was cool because we just broke out of the mold of the TRC. They just stopped acting like investigators and we taught them as them. The Spirit was the strongest I've felt while on my mission. It felt like I was being pulled up out of my chair. Our teachers watch us on cameras in the TRC. On our feedback he said "you can really tell that you care about and love the investigators you teach. I think it's one of the things that gives you so much power." Ahh. I loved it.

So every week we do "service." What that means is that we go and clean someone else's building. Anyhow, the custodial worker who is in charge of us is my buddy. I bribe him with left over bagels from my breakfast to get the easy jobs. Yes.

The past week we've had a sub for one of our two teachers. It's cool because the sub went to our same mission so he has lots of cool stories and things to tell us. Like, how French people go crazy if you take them jello. It's a novelty apparently. I'll try it: "Hey... I brought some, jello? Do you want to hear a message?"

There is another teacher here who lived in the same dorm as me before his mission. With the same bishop.

Speaking French only is going good, but getting kind of monotanous. It's been 1 5/7 of a week now. I dream about speaking English sometimes.

We learned a little bit of Chinese this week. In case we meet Chinese people that can't speak French. I learned how to say three things:

"I am a missionary"

"I don't speak Chinese, but my friend does" (this is when I hand them a phone that is calling the Chinese Elders)

"Wait a second!" (this is for when they decline the phone and start running)

We get 60 new French missionaries this coming Wednesday. It will be a big jump from our current zone of 30. We get to host new missionaries this week too. We're the ones that stand by the curb, pick them up, and take them everywhere they need to go. I'm excited to be an example for all our new French missionaries. You can decided exactly what kind of a missionary to be. I remember when I first got here the older missionaries seemed SO much older than us. The missionary who only spoke French was my biggest example. I want to be like that for other missionaries now.

Most of my free time is spent in rendez-vous with our 'investigators.'

Mom, you are a GREAT letter sender ;)

I love you guys. It's weird that I've already cut more than a month out of my two years. It's going really fast. I like that.

LOVE,

Elder Ben Coburn

Mosiah 2:41, of course.