"Ask and ye Shall Receive"

Bonjour Tout le Monde!  I hope, once again, you have had a great week.  It's been a great week here and super busy.  This week we traveled quite a bit.  We had exchanges, a trip up to Caen in Normandy to do Elder Velazquez's legality so we traveled a good part of France and had some awesome experiences along the way!

After P-Day last Monday we had a rendez-vous with Francois.  We had decided that the Restoration film would be a good way to help him to better understand the importance of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  We showed up and as we started to watch the film one of his roommates, Eric who is 22, came out and said Hi and watched the film too.  After, we asked him what he thought and he said, "That was really powerful!"  We explained who we were and why we were there and testified of the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy.  He said we could come back this week...so cool!

We had an awesome rendez-vous with Vincent and Srdan and his family who are doing great and progressing well!  Srdan and his family always make us laugh because they often just start taking in Serbian to us and act like we understand.  (I wish we did!)  They are so awesome and we love them so much!

Elder Johnson and me on exchanges in Epinal!

During our exchanges this week I was with Elder Johnson in Epinal  He is a great missionary and we had a super night teaching recent converts and less actives.  The next day we had about an hour before we need to catch our train so we started contacting.  After a half hour, in a downpour, and no success we stopped and said a prayer that we would be able to teach someone  in the last thirty minutes.  The last person we contacted was Okel. We testified of modern day prophets and told him we knew if he would pray he'd be able to feel something and know that what we were saying is true!  We had a prayer with him and then asked if he had felt something.  He said, "Yes, but it's not something I can explain."  We told him is was the spirit telling him it's true and then we were able to fix a rendez-vous for later that day.  What a great way to finish our exchange and it testifies of the truthfulness of one of my favorite scriptures in Matthew 7:7-8:
     Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: For       every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be         opened."
I know prayer works and I know He listens and is always there for us.  This is one of the things that I've truly learned on my mission.

Last, but no least, on our voyage to get Elder Velazquez's legality we had to spend the night in Paris so we stayed in Nogent.  We got to see Jean Paranton again and he's doing great and wished all of you a Happy New Year full of happiness and good health.  It was great to back there with him and see how he is doing. We continued to teach Davis and celebrated Elder Ursua's 21st birthday by going to a BBQ restaurant, Papa Joe's, that was delicious.  I hope you all have a great week.  You are in my prayers and I'm so thankful for all that you do for me!

Love you all...
Elder Player

Elder Ursua's 21st birthday!

Jean Paranton in Nogent!

Ribs at Papa Joe's