On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 4:40 AM, Nicholas Allan Davis <ndavis@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Good morning everyone! I meant to bring the letters that I have to answer all the questions but alas I have forgotten so I'll hand write some letters today. This week was good, there's been a lot of lessons about setting goals for myself so that's kind of neat. To set goals for the things you want to do and then follow them through to what it is that you want to get to. So now all of the missionaries that got here before we did have left so my district is the big man on the totem pole. That's kind of weird. When I think back to when I first got here all the Elders here already seemed much older than I was and now I'm that for other people. Tomorrow my district is being hosts to the new Elders coming in so we take them to their residence, get them all their books, and get them to their class after that. It should be kind of cool. There's only one person coming for the French branch tomorrow and she was supposed to get here with us on the nineteenth but her visa didn't go through (she's from Canada). I wonder how it'll work with her being six weeks behind us here though. I don't think I've told you this before but three times a week my district (the elders anyway) do a district bonding activity where someone buys chips and another person buys dip and we destroy the bag as fast as we can. We do that on Monday Wednesday and Friday. Last night our time for doing it was 2:35. That was really cool because it's a new record. It's funny because next to us the elders do shoe shining together and below us they do ab workouts but I think I like ours better. This week I've been really proud (the good kind) of where my French has been going. I can understand the things that the teachers say during our lessons and I can start to express myself. Of course I know that I'll be knocked back down once I get out there and hear that everyone speaks much faster and with a weird accent. One of my branch presidency just got back from Paris and talked to us about that a little. It snowed there! Granted it's not a lot but they don't get snow there except once every twenty years he said so nobody knows how to drove on it so everything was canceled. Before I left I'd hear the missionaries complain about the amount of sleep they'd get and I'd never be able to understand why but now I do. When you wake up at six thirty every single day your body feels like there should be a sleep in on Saturday (which has pretty much disappeared) but then the alarm goes off and it's time for you to get up. I understand why and I know it's a small thing I shouldn't complain about but that's what goes through my mind about every morning. I said that Saturdays have pretty much disappeared because all of the days are exactly the same. I think I probably wrote about this before but there is really only three days, P-day, Sunday and everyday. Two days a week the schedule changes a little but not very much at all. I'm glad I'm here though. Three weeks is going to pass by in the blink of an eye. I thought that the first three weeks went by fast but these last three will be even faster. My teachers are really funny, one of them went to Quebec for his mission and so he has a slight accent called Quebecquoi which I'm sure we picked up on a bit. We found a girl from France on Sunday and she was funny. First we didn't understand most of the things she said and then she remarked that we had that accent. Our teacher has told us some of the ways to say it in a really bad accent like that so we teased her a bit with that and it was funny to hear her opinion on that. And then my other teacher looks and acts exactly like the main girl in Girl's Just Want to Have Fun. I told her that but she didn't know the movie. She's really funny though. She's exactly like a lot of the people I know in Eugene. I'll probably think of more stuff to say after the sun comes out. At that point I'll make sure to write it in a letter. I'm sorry that my letters are so random. Oh! I need you to go on to the Mormon.org profile I started and upload a picture of me onto it. I started to make one but I need a picture to finish so I'd love if you could do that for me. I love you all. I can't wait to tell you of all the things that I discover in France. Until next week.