My dear family,

Well here I am in the gorgeous city of Nantes. It is a lot warmer here than Lille and has been beautiful beautiful weather since we got here. My new companion? Elder Timothy Wade Murdock. Where is he from? OOO-HHHI-OOOO!!!! I have seriously been praying for this my whole mission. His family actually moved to Iowa a few months ago, but most of the latter half of his life was spent in Milford, Ohio. AKA, Cincinnati. We lived like 40 minutes away from each other. What a craze. So that has given us plenty to talk about. In Paris on Wednesday we went to the Eiffel tower to take pictures before taking the train out to Nantes. We went with Elder Godfrey and his blue. While at the eiffel tower I saw part of an asian girls ear mufffall off so I went and gave it to her. They were Japanese and freaked out when I said konnichiha. They like started jumping up and down and screaming just like those two asian cars in the movie Cars. They seriously did that after everything I said:

"I'm American"

HEHEHHEHHEHEHEHEHE!!!! HHEHEHEHHE!!

"My parents lived in Japan."

HEHEHEHEHe!!!!! HEHEHEHE!!!!!!!!!!

"They lived in Kobe."

HEHEHEHE!! ME THERE LAST WEEK!!!!! HEEEEEHEHEHEHE!!!

"I like to eat tempura."

HEHEHEHE!!!! ME TOOOO!!!!! HEHEHE!!!

It was awesome. Then they asked for pictures. You better believe I threw up a peace sign. So that was basically the first impression Elder Murdock had of me. Then we had to take our bags all the way across Paris through the metro. It was... well, hell. I had my two suitcases and my cargo back pack, and he had three suitcases and a back pack that kept slipping off his shoulders. We we're hauling these things up and down endless staircases under ground while sweating and soaking wet because we are wearing our winter coats. On person helped us once. Then the wheel on Elder Murdock's biggest suitcase breaks. Since he was having a really hard time and is a little smaller than me I took his big bag (which also had the smaller suitcase attached), gave him my small one, and started draggin' these things through the never ending metros. We no joke walked miles in these things. So at this point I have two full sized suitcases, a carry on suitcase, and a cargo backpack. The one full sized suitcase was being dragged across the pavement and seriously couldn't have created more friction if it had wanted to. One time I went to take the suitcases up an escalater but they were too wide and got jammed together at the entrance to the escalater. So I was holding onto the two handles down behind me trying to budge them free as I walked backwards down the moving stairs and a mass crowd of angry looking people stared at me. Finally this big black guy came up and kicked on free for us. We looked soooo pathetic. Whe even tries to take that much crap through the metro? And so we finally got to the train station, and of course our seats were at the verrry far end of the train, so we tacked on a good 600 meter sprint at the end. My back is hurting all over again just thinking about it.

Anyway. I really like Elder Murdock and he gives me compliments nonstop about how good I am and I never know what to say. I hope I am being a pretty good trainer. In Dad's email he said ""How do you like your new area? How do you like your bleu?

Are you giving him the old "karate chop to the open hand / this is how it is buddy" training? "" Annnd, yes I have definitely given him the karate chop to the open palm thing. But just as a joke. Sort of. I told him about how my dad is so cool and that's how he taught me and so that's how we're gonna be. We have had a lot of miracles here already together. In between getting here on Wednesday night and Saturday, we found a young couple, and took a member with us to go teach them. They are cool and have a baby girl. We also have taught a few other people and found several new people that we will start teaching soon. Being with Elder Murdock is making me feel like a new missionary all over again. It feels like I'm in France for the first time and that I have all the enthousiasm possible. I like it. It is going to be a really good transfer.

I am district leader and so the theme for our district is going to "Welcome to the Jungle." At district meeting tomorrow we are going to do a district unity activity where we all act like animals of our choice and interact for 60 seconds. Then we are going to talk about how we need to be "beasts" in finding people to teach. Then we will read Joel 2:22, "Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength." So basically saying that God has prepared people for us to find. Then I will announce that any time a companionship finds 5 or more new amis in one week this transfer, I will make for them one of the following homemade pizzas: Wild Lion Chorizo, Crazy Carnivore, or the Dingo Deluxe. They will recieve their pizza at the next district meeting. Then we will do some practice contacting with some new "beastly" ideas. It will be awesome.

Okay, I have to go. Have a wonderful week! And yes mom I agree, Jordan is a lady's man.

Love Elder Coburn