Levez-vous et agissez ! se lever et aller ! (Stand up and take action! get up and go!)

Weekly questions from home for the elder. His response in his return email received today.

Q1. How are your clothes, shoes, etc., holding up? Where do you do laundry
A1. Clothes are good. I haven't worn the pants you sent me in December yet as I am waiting for the winter to be over to bring them out. We do laundry in our apartment complex
Q2. How is the training of elder Canovas coming along? Is he able to do more, speak more english? Do you talk french with him?
A2. Training is coming along well. Elder Canovas is really starting to come out of his shell I think its really helpful that he is 1 transfer in and doesn't feel like the fresh Greenie anymore. No I only speak to him in English.
Q3. How are the investigators, D., others coming along?
A3. D. is coming along really well. We were also able to pickup a new investigator.
Q4. Are you in need of anything at this time?
A4. No I'm doing good.
Q5. Who or what can we pray for this week?
A5. Investigators

Bonjour Famille!

Birthday haircut with dear friends

Birthday celebration meal with fellow missionaries

Thanks for the pictures of Kelee. Man I miss that grind so much! Its definitely been such a huge sacrifice for me being away from the grind for so long! Really looking forward to getting back into it again. Kelee is gonna have to take it easy on me for the first couple months then everything will be back to normal again..Haha j/k proud of ya little man! Keep working hard and busting your tail.
I love seeing your progression as an athlete its awesome!

Well things are going pretty well up here in MTL. The weather is starting to feel like spring which is really encouraging! The temperature is supposed to start moving into the positives. Today is really warm so I didn't have to wear a jacket for once, its been really nice!

Elder Larry S. Kacher of the quorum of the Seventy came and visited MTL this past weekend and spent some time talking to all of the investigators, less actives, returning members, and non members of the stake. It was a really cool meeting he pretty much just bore his testimony of the truths of this gospel and you could really feel the spirit it was cool. I was able to shake his hand afterward!

Update on D. he will be getting baptized this Saturday so we are pretty stoked for this. We will be tying the amount of baptisms of all last year with this baptism. It will be really cool, we are planning to Skype his family during the meeting so they can be a part of this as well. He has asked me if I would baptise him so I am really excited about that. It will be really nice to be able to finally get him into the waters of baptism. Hopefully the water is warm this time!

We had a really cool experience this past week in picking up our new investigator J. So on Saturday we were at the Chapel and were having the baptismal interview with D. at 10:00 AM. It took about an hour and after we planned some things for the baptism we ended around 11:30 AM. Our next appointment was at 1:00 PM at the same building so instead of going home for lunch we just decided to stick around and do our mission Facebook time! So we did Facebook waiting on our lesson appointment which ended up canceling on us last minute. We decided to use the time to make up our weekly planning that we missed earlier. So we were on the 2nd floor looking for a room to do our planning and walked into the room we usually use but we just felt like we should go back to the 1st level so we walked down there and as we turned the corner the sisters from the family ward had an investigator with them whom they were eventually going to pass of to us and it just so happened we were there at the right time! So we were able to have an unexpected pass off lesson and now have a new investigator haha!

Yesterday at Church we had a combined Sacrament meeting with the French YSA. So half was in French, half in English. Its been cool ive been able to use my french a lot this past week and im feeling really comfortable with it. Anyways one of the speakers talked about something that was really touching.

He shared the story of Nephi when he goes to hunt for food in the wilderness and breaks his bow. Now we read that the bow is made of "fine steel" a metal that is pretty tough to break. He related it to how we all have weaknesses and challenges in our lives. But then as we know the story continues that Nephi doesn't just sit around for things to get better, he makes a bow out of wood and string! The point he made is that we all have weaknesses and hard times but if we don't act and do like Nephi, get up and act then we ultimately will be stuck  with no food! I challenge you all to get up and act this week! To stop sitting by and waiting for things to happen because often times that's not how it works!

Well love you all! Hope y'all have a great week! Miss you guys so much!

Avec Amour!

Elder Gautavai