Elder Ian James Smith

 May 26, 2025 Laorana tatou! I've started learning Tahitian in my free time, I also got a cool Tahitian Shirt. I so far have had 2 Tahitian companions which is very good for my french. One of the craziest things to think about is that I am living my day to day life in a different language. It's very fun, not going to lie, but still bizarre to think about. I really love the members here in Saint-Quentin. They are taking very good care of us. We also have 3 new members who are all awesome. As far as missionary work goes it's a lot harder to find new people here than in Paris or other big cities. But it's a very cool city right on the river and we'll do our absolute best.  We had 2 crazy homeless experiences. One of them was from France but spoke perfect English and had a British accent, but he started talking about wild things like politics. (Apparently something is happening in the United States right now-haha). After we were done bro hobbled back to the steps of thi...

 Well I'm officially 20 today! Crazy how fast time passes. I've been alive for 20 years and I can confidently say I've learned more about myself in the last year than I did the other 19. If there's one thing I know it's that you have a Heavenly father and he loves you.  My week was good.This area is much different than Les Lilas where I was before here. There is a lot of retirees and cars, so the people we stop normally don't want to listen, so we adjusted and just started doing door to door alot of it. The ward here is awesome! Yesterday after church we went to the Bourroux's house. They're so cool. Their son is going on a mission here soon and the kids are crazy fun. They have two girls who are just bursting with energy so we built a magnetic house with them. Then Sunday night we get a call from our member Pascal who owns a pizza place. (If anybody comes to Saint Quentin, Bonjourno Pizza is the place to be!) Pascal tells us that he has lasagna for us s...

 May 12, 2025 Bonjour a tous! I'm not in Paris anymore I'm in Saint-Quentin (about two hours north of Paris). I love it here, we have such good members. Somehow I ended up giving a testimony and the closing prayer yesterday in church. This week there was a ton of journal material.  One experience in particular happened this Friday. We decided to go over to all our inactive member houses. The first one we went to was Maria and Antonio. We knocked on the door and this 5 foot 1 portuguese grandpa opens the door and with ferver invites us in. As wee walk in, Maria is there on another chair. Antonio gets us 2 chairs and maria (who's my new favorite person here shes like 4 foot 8) started talking and didn't stop talking for 4 1/2 hours! We got there at 13:00 and we left at 17:30 crazy! But she is a goat, she has her own missionary tag and all that. She has trouble walking so that's why they haven't been a church but she is so funny as well. This Sunday after church we...

May 5, 2025  Bonjour a tous! We just had a crazy week and it's over now and I'll tell you all about it. Two things happened to us that missionaries can all relate to: transfer news and a baptism!  We had 3 baptisms Sunday for Melissa and her 2 kids Kheleke and Meylianne. We actually went over to her house Friday night to talk about everything. I'm not kidding, every wall was filled with judo medals. I asked her which one is her favorite. She told me it wasn't there, then she went to the back and pulled out a different medal, the 2022 judo champion of the world! It was crazy cool. She is soo cool, I have a photo of their family down below before and after the baptism. Watching her progress from January to now has been an amazing experience. Our ward also did so much for them. Shout out to Souer Tancrel the GOAT. I've truly been blessed here in Les Lilas. We also were able to get 6 friends to church yesterday, which was a miracle as well.   Transfer news dropped a...