July 11th

(this is a copied email from Jacob)

The MTC... (an experience to behold)
Well its been a week in the mtc.  There has been so
much stuff that has gone on just since I last wrote...The
first sunday was great here.  We had  a 24 hour fast.  It
was really great.  It was my first experience with an all
French sacrament meeting.  It was pretty crazy.  But it
was testimony meeting so all the elders that have been
here for a long time all bore their testimonies in French.
It was awesome the spirit was sooo strong I cried most of
the time. Then we had mission conference and that was
great too, to hear from all the mission presidency.  I
know that mom thought that I had taught the first lesson
in french already but that is completely as far from the
truth as you can get. I barely know any french... haha but
we have taught the first lesson in English a bunch of
times  and it is going great.

Tuesday... one of the craziest days of my life...
On tuesday Elder Robinson, Soronsen, and Larson went to
San. Fran to get their french visas.  So that meant Elder
Schmutz, Furgeson, and I got to stay here. I thought that
would be fine... but I didn't know what lay ahead... So we
get a friendly note saying that we needed to be in the
health center at 11:15... so we are like "oh ok we are
just getting shots"... oh how wrong I was!   When we arrived
there.. we were kindly greeted by a middle aged lady.. who
then took us in a room and started giving what seemed to
be a mission breifing.  Well long story short, she told
us that we would be giving a stool sample...!! So she gave
us a bag with a cup, glove, and a vile filled with
preservative and a "pooper scooper" yes.. It was truly
disgusting... I had to fill the vile and stir it up...
haha ya... we'll move on to a new topic.

The TRC
I had my first experience with the TRC on wednesday.
The trc is where we go in and there are volunteers
that pose as investigators and we go and teach them.
So our first week was exciting and nerve racking.. We
had to first go and contact them in french... ask
them if they had family share a little message about
the church and really just find out as much as we
could about them.. So we went in and I introduced
me and my companion and told him that we were
missionaries.. and blah blah blah.. then we started
asking him questions... ya it was brutal.. for
example I asked him if he was christian and he went
on forever and i just looked at him in shock.. so he
kindly said oui Chretien... haha ya but then we had to
teach him in english.. the lesson went pretty good..
we were both really nervous and he was really quiet..
we kept asking him losts of questions and he would give
us one word answers... but it was a good learning
experience..

Gym...
gym is pretty nice.. Other than everyone likes to
play basketball and we all know just how good i am
at that game... So you could say I have once again
become a fan of the fabled game of four square..
its pretty fun.. but oh well... anyway i have
a lot more to write about but my time is running out
so I will have to end it here and maybe write the rest 

in a letter.. I love you all and miss you..

Thanks for the support...   (Elder Simonson)