Trains and Delays

Bon Jour!

This week was full of delayed trains and early mornings. We went to Lyon for our monthly zone council and presented zone goals and spent some time with president. It was rough trying to make it out to Lyon as to the fact it has been raining non stop and when I say rain I mean Washington real thunder lighting kinda rain!! Oh ya it was coming down! It flooded in the canals and all the trains were delayed or canceled so we had to switch trains 3 times to make it from Montpellier to Lyon.

Pauline, who is one of our engages for baptism has been progressing well and we hope to have a baptism the 19th. It is going to be great because her boyfriend is a member and we are definitely thinking that will be a future eternal family o yayayaya! o yayaya! We also met a sweet student who actually has her family in PAU.

My companion has 3 huge spider bites on his stomach it must be spider season. Last night we were porting and it was raining and for some reason the stairs had spiders in ever crack possible it was so gross !!

I love you all and hope y'all are visiting Mormon.org.
http://mormon.org/people/
Have a happy thanksgiving!!
Elder Garlock




A WILD RIDE and WEEK!!!
OCT. 31, 2011

Where shall I begin? A wild week!!
Scary Encounter, a random woman from California, stake conference, stake conference choir, Recent Convert: Jean luc, delayeeeeeeeeeeeeed trains, Carcassonne sleep over, Elder Wahlquist.
Kidnapping not going to go into detail...l hoping the experience will be erased from my memory but long story short.

My companion and I were out in a little ville working there for a day and trying to call and contact everyone we could who lived in the area because we usually are not out in that direction. So we called this man and he said he was busy and he shortly there after called us back and said that if we wanted we could go with him to his house. So we arranged it for him to pick us up in this small ville and drive us there. We met up got in his car and started talking just seeing who he was what is does for work those types of things. Next thing we know we are on this movie scene-- like 24--- abandoned industrial factory with huge pot holes and him wrecklessly driving.

Spirit left and I was flipping out. Started asking him some more questions-- he told us he does the same things we do just with actions. He doesn't work-- all he does is figures out ways to take down the "men of the world" he has no belief in God and he confessed that we weren't going to his house but rather some of his "friends" that want to meet us. My collegue was in the front seat me in the back--- he put down the make up mirrior and looked at me like what is going on elder?

I was super scared! Thoughts were running through my mind like:
ok i can fake sick, get out of the car and run back to our car... but then I realized that's a dumb plan... he knows where the car is!!

Number two, I'm not ready to be chased down by a car and become road kill.
The other thought was I can strangle him from the back while my companion beats him senseless but then I thought he could easily call the cops and set us up.

So we both said silent prayers and went with it. He got us back on the high way and I was like ok maybe he is just joking I'll try the hahah funny man so who really are you, kind of thing. Tried it Failed...

So when we got back on the highway he wasn't really talking anymore and he pulled a u turn in the middle of the high way with cars honking fingers being thrown and 2 elders praying their hearts out.

We took a u turn down a road on the highway that was under construction and he started flooring it towards these back hoes and huge construction trucks about 30 yards before All three of us were going to die he whipped it down a dirt road off the freeway towards the bay and all these brushy areas. We finally arrived at a Romanian camp just like the ones I had known in Béziers. I calmed down and just said hi no big deal and they were nice no problem. We then told the crazy guy to take us home!!! This man was a lunitic.

It turns out that this man tries to legalize all the romanian camps. To make a long story short he tried taking pictures with us with them to show to the state saying that the church supports this up rising that he is a part of. It was weird stuff, weird feelings, just nuts!! We then asked him to take us home but he instead took us to another one and tried the same thing. We finally after all was said and done told him to take us home or we would call the police.

The random woman from Califonia was stranded in Montpellier. She had been trying to get to Spain but missed her train. She is in fact a travel guide :) She tried checking with all the hotels for open rooms but they were all booked. So we actually met her in this same internet cafe and heard her speaking american english so I contacted her. We tried our best to help her and called a few members and found her a place to stay. I do not recommend this to anyone. She spent the night at aimes house who used to be a professional soccer player who had a car accident and was paralized and is in a wheelchair. Seriously, one of the most charatible men I have ever met. We woke up the next morning and took her to the train station. Got her contact information to pass on to the Californian missionaries!

Stake conference was this weekend. It was great! The stake choir was lacking so I got a chance to sing in it with a couple other missionaries. It was intense because we had never practiced any of the songs together. Elder Wahlquist was actually in the choir with me it was really great to see him. He is as GQ as ever :) The songs ended up going pretty well!

At stake conference I ended up seeing the branch from beziers. It was a great reunion to see one of the recent converts who was baptized while I seved there at stake conference. On the way home from stake conference there was a train delay of 2 hours-- once we got on the train it broke down almost between ever train station and arrrived 8 hours after its scheduled time of arrival.

This past week was full of surprises! Seeing miracles daily!
Love,
Elder Garlock