ELDER BOWEN.
Elder Bowen, one of my old missionary companions has been serving in Carcassonne (which is a neighboring city). His companion called me on Thursday frantic telling me that Elder Bowen had been bite by Match, (who is the ward mission leader's dog in Carcassonne) meaning that he could not come to do the interview for the baptism as planned that day because he was in the hospital. To make a very long story short it all started as Elder Bowen was feeding the dog slices of ham. The dog, I guess got a little too hungry and bit a Mike Tyson chunk out of the ear of Elder Bowen. As Elder Bowen then realized that the dog had not licked him but rather BIT him, he started yelling for his companion to help him. Understand that Elder Bowen is a joker and he is ALWAYS messing with missionaries with jokes and acting like he got hurt or something. So Elder Bowen's companion non shalontly walked over and was like quit messing around... as he stopped in his tracks looking at the blood now coming from his ear he went to pick up the piece of ear from the ground which had been bitten off. He then freaked out dropped the piece of ear and the dog came over and ate it up. The owner at this point of the dog lost it and punted the dog in the face in hopes that he would spit out the part of his ear with no success. They rushed Elder Bowen off to the hospital and waited for hours until the free public health care could help him. Now days after, he has stitches and once he goes home they will re graft his ear back to normal. For the mean time (less than 1 year) he is the only missionary in the world probably with the permission to grow out his hair. Cool crazy story! Side note I'll be seeing him tomorrow and take some pictures. He says that there are pictures on his facebook: Mattew Bowen from Utah. Check it out.
BASKETBALL.
Well I met an American who works in Footlocker this week. He invited me to play basketball with him last Wednesday so I got permission and played with him for a couple hours. He was not half bad actually. However, I made him a deal that if I beat him 1 on 1 to a game to 21 that he had to come to church. He took it and I beat him 21 to 0. We played make it take it and he did not touch the ball. Granted I made 5 three pointers in a row and drove in 3 times to win it. Seriously it was incredible. Still got it o ya!
BIKES.
We went on a bike ride with our English friends this morning down the canal du midi. So B E A Utiful! Its a famous canal that spans from Toulouse to the sea. It's lined with trees, small cities, vineyards and incredible views. check it out online its super sweet.
BAPTISM.
A Baptism occurred in VITROLLES!!! Way to go Elder Birk for finally breaking the drought. It was a lady that we had contacted together at the end of the transfer! Speaking of Baptisms Sister Flerimont was baptized Saturday! It was a great service. I played the piano and gave a testimony during the baptismal program. It was amazing! I contacted a man 2 days earlier and invited him to come to the baptism he accepted and came. Miracle after the baptism he said he had spoken with the missionaries in the past and wanted to be baptized but could not because he was homeless, smoking and drinking. He then told me it has been over 4 years since then and has now cleaned up his life. He has a house, a job and doesn't smoke or drink anymore. We engaged him to be baptized in June! MIRACLE!
Also something I thought you might all like to hear is in our homemade make shift baptismal font there was a lizard that we extracted out of it. Moreover, that was at 7 in the morning because the service started at 10:30. So we woke up ran over to the church started the frigged cold water and started boiling pots of water in the kitchen for 2 hours. At about 9 o clock we decided we'd better go home shower and get in our missionary cloths the only problem the font was not close to being full so we left it running and ran home. While frantically changing, showering, etc at home we received a call from Sister Flerimont's mother who asked if we could stop by her house and grab the food that she had prepared and take it to the church. We said we could in 30 minutes she said, "No that's to late because the food needs to cook in the oven." I then realized she had just volunteered us to cook the food. We sprinted over to her house then sprinted to the church. (The showers we had just taken really served no good)
We got to the church just in time to see the font begin to over flow! It was literally a James Bond (Elder Garlock /Elder Smedley) esk in the neck of time moment! After emptying out the font, we started cooking upstairs in the kitchen. She gave us no direction other than, throw this in the oven-- no time, no temp, no directions. It felt like a camping meal... just cook till it looks good. The only problem was we didn't have the time... it was then 10:30 and time for the baptism to start. We went down stairs called the president of the branch, who was late and started the meeting. It all ended, well a bit hectic but it was fine.
Yesterday (Sunday) was nuts! Every morning before church we pass everyone we can and walk with them to church we did not have time to pass yesterday so we ended up just going directly to church. During the 2nd hour I went on an exchange and left Elder Smedley took Frere Gonzalez and passed everyone we could we ended up have 8 investigators at church and 2 less actives we did 3 car trips driving people to the church and going back for more that went on for an hour. I then went and played interlude to start sacrament meeting. The meeting started. After the first hymn, I went and sat with our investigators and less actives after that I gave Camille the gift of the Holy Ghost. Afterwards, played the sacrament hymn after that a lady gave her talk so I went and sat with our investigators after that I sang a solo to a hymn during the meeting in french :) then I went and sat down next to our investigators and listened to the next talk. Then I played the closing hymn O yes I forgot to tell you that the president of the branch changed the songs we were singing for sacrament and ended up telling me moments before the meeting started. Talk about a little overwhelming because I usually practice so then I can simplify the hymns but he threw me a curve ball and I had to do it-- a strike out was not an option so I played unpracticed hymns and it actually went better than expected.Once the meeting closed I still had to get everyone back home. The Lord magnified Elder Smedley and I to get everything done!
I love you all. Transfer calls are coming!
Elder Garlock
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