Week #8 Gex!

Family, my beloved family,

This week was great! I'll start with Monday. So we went porting in this neighborhood in the mountains and knocked on this one guys door. Him and his wife were older, but we got to talking. He doesn't believe in God but he said he is willing to let us come back in September when they get back from vacation. He said then he will try to convert us to atheism. Psh. Yeah right. But he was like you want to convince me and we were like no! just invite :) and then he talked to us about his family and how right before he dies he is going to send all his family history work to Utah so they can have their baptisms and temple work done. He said "you won't get me now, but you'll get me in the end." It was funny. He must have some seed of faith in there! He was super nice though :) We also got contacted by this guy in Ferney. He is from Canada. But we were walking and he was sitting down at a restaurant and started yelling, "Hey Mormons! Latter-Day Saints!" And we were like whoa. Who calls us that, especially in France?? So we went over and he was like let's have a chit chat and so we did. He said he had a Mormon friend and said he really likes what we do and has a lot of respect for us but we have too many rules and it's just too hard. Unfortunately he went back to Canada like the next day, but he was super cool and we talked a lot about the life of Christ and he had pink glasses and a beard. After that, we were about to go home and this guy starts to walk by and I take one look and think "wow he could totally be a member." then he says "Sisters!" He is a member and from Park City Utah and served in Argentina and here for a wedding and super cool. He said he'd send us a care package because we were the coolest sisters he's ever met. Duh. But he was super nice and it was so nice to meet a member on the street. Then on Tuesday, we contacted this old guy and he was like "I'm so annoyed!" Like super angry. Then he starts to talk about Mormons and he's like that's you! and Sister L was like "We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." And he was confused and was like no Utah! And I was like I'm from California but there are a lot of members there and then he was confused again and all of a sudden became super nice and we gave him a card and he was super funny. I love people. Then like five Muslim guys drove up next to us and were like "Hey we'd like to get to know you" and sister L just yelled "No!" and they looked confused and drove away. It was funny.

It's been slow the past week but starting to pick up as far as contacting goes. August is vacation month. So there is practically no one. Like I'm not kidding. But it has been a blessing because the people we do contact we are able to have really solid contacts. Just able to talk to them and really share things. So I'm not complaining.

Now to the good part. Remember M? She was a referral from JC. We taught her the Restoration and had to cancel the next lesson due to unknown reasons. But she finally wanted us to come back. She told us her brother just died. She explained how in the past three years her father has passed away, she got divorced and just recently her brother. She has so much faith. She said that is life. We read the verses from Alma that talked about Faith which she really loved. She also read Mosiah 3 from our last lesson and she said she was really touched! Luckily, our lesson was on the Plan of Salvation so we were able to really address her trials lately. JC was there to help so it was really nice. She really seemed to like what we said. She has Muslim background so she is still trying to develop a testimony of Jesus Christ. We read Alma 7:11-13 which really talks about Christ and His atonement. We continued to talk some more and the Spirit was very strong. Sister L looked at me at one point and it was just a solid Yes. So I asked M.  I asked her when she felt ready If she would follow the Example of Jesus Christ by being baptized September 14. She asked if JC could baptize her and where she would get the clothes, etc. She smokes and she has such a strong desire to stop. We have a brochure for her and are going to work really hard to help her progress. But she wants to work toward that date and I couldn't be happier!  I'm so excited! :)

And T is MIA. We waited by his bus stop so kinda stalked him a bit missionary style. He wasn't there! His phone keeps going to voice mail, so we think he is on vacation or fled the country or really we don't know :)

Last thing. Sister R brought lice from her last area. I spent all last night combing bugs out of her hair and sister C. Terrified of getting them into my hair. We are in the process of cleaning a lot of things. Don't worry. I have no lice! And i am determined not to get any. I love you all. Challenge for this week: read Ether 12. And think about it. Trials and Faith. Love them. I love you all! Get ready for school and study hard always :)

Love, Sister Roberts

Gex, Week 7

Hello :)

Monday I got my new companion, Sister L. She is super cool. Like super cool. Like I think we are going to be awesome together. She is a convert of three and a half years, from Ohio,she went to BYU, and she is 20 and so cool. She is only in her third transfer but it has already been really great this past week with her. We may not understand everything people say, but we try and I think some miracles are going to happen. I expect miracles to happen! I really love Sister L already though and we get along so well. I'm bummed we only have five weeks left this transfer! Anyway, it rained a lot this week, and August is notorious for vacation month here so there is like no one home or on the streets. Literally. We would contact maybe five people in an hour if we were lucky. And a lot of the members are gone en vacance so we had a hard time meeting up with them too.

Did I tell you we only have one car now? It is very challenging with two companionship's because we have places to go at different times and we have limited miles to cover a large sector. It's been challenging and frustrating at times, but we are trying to make it work the best we can.

We met with T on Thursday night for a short bit. We introduced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We decided we are going to work on is having him talk more. I have been told that the investigator doesn’t get converted when the missionaries talk but through the spirit and when they have the opportunity to talk. So we set up another lesson for Saturday and had a member ready to go with us to talk about the Gospel, BUT he wasn’t there. His phone went straight to voicemail. And today, Monday, it is still going to voicemail. So we don’t know where T is. I am thinking I might just go and wait by his door until something happens. Just kidding. But really. We don’t know where he is! I hope he is okay.

E is doing okay. We really wanted to finally teach her. We keep doing service for her, but we want to teach her. So we went and she talked to us about this friend she has who she wants us to visit. Score! Then I was like E, what exactly do you know from the missionaries you've met before? Then she starts talking about a thief that robbed her neighbor. We tried to talk about faith but that didn’t work really either because then she started to teach us how to count in French and the alphabet and the calendar stuff. Which we learned like in the MTC. Then when we tried to leave she had us make her bed for her... So... we've concluded that the next lesson we need to re-establish what exactly we are here for and maybe we can go from there. But we got a referral! :)

Friday I went to the Bleu's conference! All the missionaries who came in with me had a little conference; president Talked about faith which I loved. My faith has gotten so much stronger since being here. Without exercising faith we can’t grow. Everyone: have faith. Have faith in the Lord and in this work. We don’t know a lot. We don’t understand why things happen the way they do, but when we have faith, we don’t need to know why. We trust in Him and continue to endure. I CANT WAIT FOR ETERNAL LIFE. It was fun seeing all my old MTC buddies again.

Anyway, be prepared next week for an email of miracles. I love you all so much. Keep writing me letters. I love it! And I love you :)

Love, Sister Roberts

Gex Week # 6

Family,

Yes I am staying in Gex for at least one more transfer :) yay!! Sister C is too and we are both getting companions who are only one transfer older than me. Mine will be Sister L. Scared? I am. It'll be a house full of young missionaries. Which only means miracles are going to be happening like crazy. Also Happy Birthday to Dad and Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad! :)

Exciting news. I am learning to drive stick shift. It's not too hard just a little stressful. I'm afraid of dying.

This week was a bit up and down. We had a lot of random stuff to do which made it hard to be efficient but it worked out. Monday we were supposed to have lessons with T and M but they both fell through. M did come to English class though. We found out her brother just passed away so she isn't super ready to hear us again. But hopefully we can just continue to love and support her and build a relationship like that. She is very sweet and the Gospel could bless her life so much.

T is doing good. We taught him half of the Plan of Salvation later in the week and he expressed his concern about the law of chastity. He believes that if both sides are okay with it then it is okay. So we tried to explain to him a little bit and he said that is hard. So the next lesson we finished the Plan of Salvation. He believes that it is true. He believes in Christ and that He is always there with us. He didn't want to pray the first few lessons but this one I said T. Pray and ask if this is true right now. So he did. It was in Spanish, but I was so proud of him! He said he wants us to pray because we are closer to God so I tried again to explain that we make mistakes just like him. We all need the Savior no matter who we are. T is great. He is prepared. I need to have faith and he needs to have faith too. We gave him a law of Chastity pamphlet at the end so he is going to read that for next time when we have a member present too. 

E is doing great still too. She is so sweet. We gave her a book of Mormon and some scriptures to read and she loved them and we gave her some chapters on faith to read so the next time we go we'll discuss that a bit. She told us we were like her daughters. I love her!

Madame M read. Wow. She has been taking missionary lessons for 9 months now and hasn't read once until now. Unfortunately, she is going on vacation until September but that was a big step. Thank you Mom for the advice and the book pages! Maybe she will progress more after all!

We ported (door to door, got let in) into a nice home on Wednesday. The husband said his son almost converted but he had to put his foot down. The wife is catholic but very very nice. They weren't interested in our message, but we talked a lot about faith and just relying on the Lord. It was common ground for both religions. I said the closing prayer and just blessed their family. The spirit was so strong after and the wife teared up a bit. They are going back to the states though in a week or so, but it was a great little experience.

Not much else to say. I don't have a lot of time because it is transfer day, but I want you all to know that I love you. Strive to have Faith in the Lord. That comes first and then the rest come. Faith is so important to us and I am learning everyday how i can better strengthen and use the faith that i have. I love you all.

Love, Soeur Roberts

Gex Week #5

Dear my Lovely Family, 

Good Week. We got to teach M for the first time on Monday. She is very sweet. She has a Muslim background so she is not super sure about Jesus Christ, she's trying to quit smoking, and she is practically incredible. We taught her just the first lesson about the restoration. She seemed to really understand everything we said. When we talked about prophets, I asked her to read 2 Nephi 29:9. She said it really touched her. Our member with us was awesome too, JC.. He shared a story about his reactivation in the church. It was a pretty powerful story and I really hope she felt the spirit as well. I challenged her to read, pray and ponder about Mosiah 3 because it talks a lot about Jesus Christ and His role in our lives. I want her to have a testimony of Him as our Savior and not just another prophet. We are teaching her again later today about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope it goes well! 

Tuesday we got to teach Madame M again. Sister T came with us and she is an awesome member. Mme M struggles with the apostasy and she said I don't believe God would abandon and leave his Children and Sister T said He didn't. We didn't accept or listen to Him. Which was so good. We tried to teach her how to study the scriptures effectively and it went well. We studied faith together which is an easy simple topic. Then I wrote down some scriptures about the apostasy and told her to study like we did for our next lesson. She said she would but she always says she will and never does. After this next lesson we're going to have to drop her if no progress is seen. 

T is our pretty steady investigator right now. He is awesome. truly. We taught him on Friday with GP, sweet girl, about the restoration. We asked him how his reading was going and he said he reads a little bit every night! He's on page 23 already! He's my first investigator that keeps his commitments. So I was happy. He really seemed to understand the restoration too and when I gave the first vision we asked if he though that was possible and he said of course. Through God anything is possible. Sister W asked him when he came to know the church was true would he be baptized and he said he has to know. He said he cant tell us now because he needs to find out for sure. Which I think is wonderful. I know that if he keeps his commitments he will know that this church is true. On Sunday he came to sacrament meeting too. He really liked it and we were able to introduce him to a lot of the other members. I'm pretty excited to see where it goes :)

We got to help E move stuff around on Thursday. She is sweet. Her son is against the church so she couldn't come on Sunday because she is afraid he will find out. But we'll continue to go over and help fix up her house and give her some friends and maybe she'll come to church one of these days. She prays and in her prayer she says thank you for the sisters. Their church is the best church. She is so right! haha yeah. Love her.

I had my first district meeting too. It was good. We made some goals and ate lunch and it was lovely. 

Saturday we played a zone game of Bingo. We contacted 223 people. In Gex, that is not super possible. But we did it. We also got 223 No's. A little bit discouraging but that's the life of a missionary. T is cool so whatever! Also on Sunday, this random guy just walked in during sacrament. He only spoke Hungarian. He sat in the back for a bit and then left. I wish we could have done more, but hopefully he felt some spirit there. We met our goal of 500 people to contact. We are really stepping it up. Yesterday after church we went contacting in Divonne and the biggest storm hit. It was lightning and thundering and pouring rain. The rain drops were huge. I was on a split with another sister but literally we looked like we had just taken a shower. We didn't have an umbrella. Soaked. It was awesome. I think people drove by wondering what the heck was wrong with us. But we contacted 25 people? Worth it. 

This is the last week of the transfer. I don't want to leave Gex but I might if president needs Sister W to train again. We'll see. I think I'll stay though :) Not much else. It was a pretty grossly hot and humid week until yesterday. now pouring rain. I love you all so much! Have fun at the reunion and tell them I say hi!

Love Sister Roberts