Dear Coburn Clan... and guests.

What do you want to know about? What I did this week? What I'm wearing right now? The weather in Nancy? Well I'm wearing a white shirt and tie (obvious), and it's pretty dang cold outside. We've had a heavy winter week have been wearing coats and scarves everyday. I cut my hair last night. I ate chocolate chip granola for breakfast this morning. I still haven't found any mittens to buy for this winter (but a member tipped me off to where I can find some). Umm, I went on exchanges in Luxembourg this week. I made chocolate chip cookies this week and they're all gone. And... did lots of other enjoyable stuff.

In the missionary area, we did a lot of door knocking this week and we taught a lot of cool students. We taught a Venezualan named Jesus, an Iranian named Mamod, an African named Duran, an Enlish guy named Vaughan, and talked to and met a lot of other cool students. There are so many foreigners in France. As irony would have it, our best new ami out of everyone is Jesus. Our rendez-vous went super well. Most of the others though we are probably not going to be seeing again. We had nice lessons with all of them, but they weren't incredibly interested. Oh and a bonus: last night we went out porting (knocking) and we kept saying "man, we just need to find another person like Jesus!" and then the first door we hit was another Venezualan and we're going to go see him tomorrow :) I need to learn Spanish. Speaking of Spanish, I did actually teach a lesson in Sanish this week. It was during my exchange in Luxembourg with Elder Canonica (a swiss missionary) who was called Spanish speaking. We taught a midgit from Peru, so that was kinda weird. I picked up most everything being said when he was speaking, but most of what the peruvian lady said went over my head. I got a few sentences in here and there. Yo soy Elder Coburn. Tengo hambre.

We saw Kevin this week again; but only once. It was good. He is changing so much. He was happy, smiling, and laughing. He has started to pray on his own now and is hopefully going down to the temple in Switzerland this week for the mariage of Josselyn's brother. That would be cool. Erasto is also really cool as always. He is progressing. We had a great lesson where we taught the Gospel of Christ trying to show how the Bible and Book of Mormon work together. It went really well. The Bible and Book of Mormon complete each other.

Oh, another cool thing. Two weeks ago on the way home from Paris I talked to a guy in the train named Charlie. He is a GI in the french army with a wife and kids. We talked about the Book of Mormon a lot, and the conversation ended in him promising to read it, and that I could call him in two weeks to see what he thought. So I called him this week and asked if he had been able to read it at all. He said he was about halfway through it. Halfway WHAT? "Have you already read about when Christ comes?" I said? "Yeah, I already am passed that." he replied. Mirrracle!!! Remember how we spend all day everyday trying to get people to read even one little chapter of the Book of Mormon? Yeah. He said that in one more week he will have finished it and we can set up a rendez-vous to talk about it. He lives in Strasbourg, so that rendez-vous might not be with us, but it's okay. Go Charlie.

There was a funeral in our ward this friday. It was for a sister that I never met, but I know her children pretty well. They are my age. Hard hard hard. I didn't think I would cry at all, but that was a futile attempt. Thank goodness for the Plan of Salvation. I don't know how people do funerals without knowing that they are going to see the person again.

On Sunday Elder Hales and I did a special musical number for sacrement meeting. We did a piano/organ duet of Nearer My God to Thee that we have been arranging for the last several weeks. I played piano with lots of little twiddle dees and dums and Elder Hales powered through on the organ. It was realllly cool. I think it was the first time the organ had been used in like 3 years. We got lots of thank yous and such and there were a couple people crying afterward too. I wish you could've been there :) We are going to try and do another one before we get transferred. Sometimes when Elder Hales and I are just messing around on the organ and we play songs with hard bass lines, we sit side by side and he does the hands and I do the feet. That's fun.

I love you a lot. The missionary work here is getting better and better. Thank you for your prayers.

Love,

Elder Benjamin

Ps, I think I want to name one my my kids Hayden James Coburn. Yes? No? Wait to run it by the wifey?