Monday, October 14, 2013

Bordeaux Week #4

Hellllooooo!!!
This week was great! Probably better than yours. Doesn't matter, can't compare.
We are starting to do this cool thing with members where we go to their house during the day when we want to get some contacting done. So we say hello! tell them about how we are going contacting in their neighborhood, ask them to pray with us before we go, pray for us during the contacting and then come back to share with them miracle contacts! So we did that on Monday. The members gave us chocolate caramel cake, which was a miracle in itself. However, we prayed, then went out! We didn't talk to a whole lot of people and one women told me she didn't want to live with her baby forever and another started running away from me, which of course I started to run with her and successfully gave her a pass along card. Besides that we met this lovely lady from Asia who had met with the missionaries like 10 years ago. She wouldn't give us her number, but she asked us if she could have a Book of Mormon because she loved the picture of Christ in the front of it. It was pretty cool :) Then we went back and shared our mini miracle with the members who gave us cake.
Tuesday was FIFA, aka Former investigators  Found again. I went through all the old investigators
papers and called for like an hour straight. People who had been to church at least once. I set up 2 lessons, and scheduled later times to set up rendezvous for next week. Sad, but I felt the most successful that day than I had my entire transfer here! It was great I was so happy. Kinda like in the Movie Annie when they sing who cares what you're wearing as long as you have clothes... you're never fully dressed without a smile! So i was fully dressed that day.
Wednesday was a bummer because I was on a train all day going to Pau and then back for exchanges. We didn't get home until 10:12! But then Thursday was wonderful. I was with Soeur D and she is great! Her first area was Bordeaux so she was excited to be back. We went to visit an inactive, who we decided needs the missionary lessons again because she has forgotten or didn't understand in the first place basic principles. Then we went to find another inactive who wasn't home but we left a nice note for them. And after we had a lesson with a YA who is a little over a year baptized. We helped him decide whether a mission is good or not. We also contacted great people on the tram and bus. I met this Portuguese kid who took a book of Mormon and was super excited. He doesn't have a phone so I couldn't get his number. BOO. But it was great. Literally we were going from place to place and our time was filled with productive things and I was so exhausted at the end and happy again.
Friday I was reunited with my companion and we had a lesson with M. She expressed her concern with the Book of Mormon being of the devil because it is not written like the Bible. I explained to her that it wasn't written by the same people in the Bible, so it was going to sound different. They are different people having different experiences. Then i shared Ezekiel 37:15-17. She doesn't know. She wants to read the Bible first, the only problem is, she isn't worried about finding an answer right now. Kinda eventually, which we tried to also urge her to read the Book of Mormon as soon as she can and pray because she can and will know sooner than she thinks. That was M.
Saturday we had a rendezvous with E, an old Ami. It was all over the place. First he told us how our church was no different than any other christian church. It took about 15 minutes for him to understand that no other church has the BOOK of Mormon and we have Prophets and Apostles. We then went into why we needed those things. I went over Eph 4:11-14 (thank you Calvin!) and he answered all the questions we had correctly to help him understand, but it was like he didn't want to understand, and then started throwing out why did he need to be rebaptized. Holy Moly. So we said look, we can explain that later. Finally we closed. Our member was great, but it was just with someone who refused to listen. Tough.
That night, X called to ask about church! So he came on Sunday. He was very well integrated into the ward, the members were great! He went to all three hours and after he said he liked it, but he definitely likes catholic mass better. He said the churches are more sacred. It is a very superficial thing that is keeping him now. So X is coming along, we'll see. He has little concerns that really don't matter. Still cool guy though :)
Anyway, this week was really good :) K who we taught on exchanges wants us to come teach his mom and family so we are going on Tuesday to do a family lesson, so I'll use your plan Calvin, thanks again! :) And O finally set up another lesson with us from like my first week! Anyway, I learned how hard work gets you happier. There is no way to be truly happy if you don't work hard on a mission, especially for the Lord. I do not want to sit back and think about people that aren't getting the Gospel because I am not doing enough. I love this Gospel and I know it is the only way to eternal happiness. I love my mission, i love the people of France even if sometimes they smell bad and have a hard time smiling. I love my Savior and my Father in Heaven. The gospel has been restored in it's fullness! I love you all!
Love, Soeur Roberts

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