Salut

Bonjour! Comment s'est passé le semaine? Mon semaine etais super! Je crois....
Donc...

Leaving missionaries...
This week two districts left us... it was kinda sad, we were pretty close to them because we came in when they were three weeks into the MTC.. but the district going to Touluse left Tuesday morning..And the New Caledonia people were supposed to leave on Saturday, but when they all got ready to leave.... no one was there...no driver, no tickets, no info at all... their flights hadn't been booked and some of them apparently had visa problems...it was a big mess and their mission president didn't even know...and they kept getting in trouble with the MTC because they weren't gone... it was just a big mess and no one knew what was going on... but on Monday the front desk paged our classroom because Elder Larsen and Sorensen are the ZL's and they asked if we knew where Elder Troutman and Payne were because they were leaving in 15 minutes and they didn't know it.... ! So we all scattered to try and find them... we found them and then helped them throw everything together to leave... it was pretty intense.... but unfortunatly Elder Livingston and the 2 Soeurs didn't get to leave because they had visa problems... soo... ya two of them are leaving to Pheonix, Arizona on Wednesday and on Tues. Soeur Carter leaves for Kennewick, WA... so.. ya they have state side assignments for a month or so... and...ya anyway... we have 2 weeks from this coming Monday.... I think I just might throw up...

Pass alongs...
With leaving Elders comes the fabled tradition of passing on all of your junk to the younger Elders before you leave and writing your name on it and telling them to pass it down... .. some how... I don't know how but if you write your name on a piece of junk it some how becomes something.... well marvelous... NOT...but that's what they seem to think... well I guess some of them were cool... such as..... my tie that I received... You could say that I was deemed the Roi of four square... or the king.. and I have the passed down roi cravate to prove it... it was given to me by Elder De Lora.

(Just me and E. De Lora of Portland, Or. I am now the King of 4-square

 because E. De Lora was the king, but I took what was rightfully mine and

 he gladly handed it down to me. I feel blessed!)

Soeur Thornhill...

Well our teacher Soeur Thornhill had her last day with us on Wed. It was sad... she was a freaking awesome teacher.. she was sooo cool... She went to Geneva, Switzerland on her mission so on Wed. we had story time with pictures... it was pretty cool... but we will miss her... also our other teacher Frere Brown is leaving for a week here in a couple of days.. so our last couple of weeks are going to be a lot of subs... kinda sadening.. but oh well...

NEW ELDERS...
So we got new Elders a couple of days ago... it was insane we got 16 new Elders and 4 new Sisters... it is sooooo weird... I don't know if we will get to know them super well since we only have a couple of weeks left... but.. I have met a few.. and they are pretty cool.. we got 3 international Elders... two are from England and one has a terribly thick, thick accent...and also ......drum roll... we got an Elder from the Netherlands!!!! From my mission!  He is pretty funny... he always just comes and chills in our room... it's awesome... he said my mission president is awesome.. he said that was the first person he called when he got his call (to Paris). He also told me that the Belgium people are weird... ha ha it was pretty cool... anyway.. so our whole floor is new Elders and a lot of them are really stupid.. and annoying.. not our Elders but some english speaking missionaries and some guys going to Mongolia..

The RC...
So in the RC this week ... I got to talk to a ton of people which is a weird occasion... I only made 15 calls in an hour and a half... and 5 of them were answering machines... so ya that means I talked to a lot of people... I sent missionaries and copies of the Book of Mormon to a family, I talked to a southern black lady that LOVED Jesus... and I shared some scriptures with her from the Book of Mormon and she said she had a Book of Mormon and tried to meet with the missionaries a couple of times but they never showed up for their appointments ... JERKS, they can't even do their job... but I gave her a couple of chapters to read in the Book of Mormon because she said she wanted to grow closer to Jesus...it was awesome.. I also talked to a guy in Quebec.. he was REALLY interested in the church... so I invited him to church and gave him the times and the place.. and we set up some visits with the missionaries... he didn't speak English very well and I knew he spoke French but I was way too scared to try and speak French to him...

But.. anyway,... I might have someone to play soccer with now that the Hollander is here.  He loves soccer... anyway I'm running out of time... I love you all.. hope you dig some of the pictures I sent.... au revoir je t'aime

Elder Simonson