Monday, January 13, 2014

Bordeaux Week #17

Can you believe I've been here 17 weeks?? WOW. I think I am staying at least one more transfer. We'll see

Anyway, 

This week was up there again with my favorite weeks. We did some really great things. 

Tuesday we actually got to see A before she goes to Paris, so we gave her a little lesson on the Holy Ghost that went well. We are giving her to Paris and hope that she progresses there. I do miss her though! 

Wednesday we actually were invited to a members home to help her with a bit of service. We had a bit of time beforehand so we decided to see if this random inactive member lived by. There are so many inactive members in France that we weren't sure if she'd be open or not, most of the time if they are open missionaries are already visiting them. But we rang. Then rang again and an older woman opened her window (a totally french thing to do. maybe they are just too tired to walk to the door?) and we asked her if she remembered us and she vaguely remembered the church but she said we could come back! so that's awesome! We are so excited to get to know her and see what we can do to help her come back :) 

We had a bit of an awkward situation with a less active we visit on a weekly basis. She really likes faith, love, miracles, God, etc, so we'd always kinda tailor to her likes. But we decided to teach her the restoration. She wasn't too happy. Turns out she doesn't have a testimony at all of the restored church and she doesn't believe Thomas S Monson to be the prophet. She for some reason was under the impression that he uses the tithing to get rich and says he is a prophet to get fame. We were very patient and you'd be proud because I didn't bash or anything. She did tell me not to be naive though about the tithing thing, which was a bit biting, but at the end it was okay. We invited her to read the Prophets talk from last conference as well as Uchtdorf''s. We'll see. It can be really tough to see that the only thing that keeps people from truth is a lack of understanding and application. 

We had a lesson with T, our Jehovah's Witness buddy. He is nice, but this lesson was an interesting one. It was the plan of Salvation and they have a different belief about Adam and Eve. He is clever.  He is good at twisting words you say in the slightest of ways, especially because it's in French so it's a bit more challenging. He asked why God gave us two books, Why did Jesus go to the US to visit the Nephites and teach them if he already taught the same thing for the Sermon on the mount, and prayer. So anyway, there are some things that I'll be studying this week! He told us he knew his church was true by researching on wikipedia. He doesn't really pray for knowledge so he was reluctant to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true, etc. We'll see!

And Al is so sweet.We taught her with a YSA also from Tahiti. He testified so powerfully. We focused on Prophets and she said she would pray to know. She understands prayer, and God, and Christ, it's just a matter of understanding the fulness of the gospel. She said she will pray to know :) She is so sweet though. She said that she wants me to visit her in Tahiti after my mission. Mom....? :) 

Then highlight of the week! We found another less active. She let us in and we gave her a short, sweet message, and invited her to church. She was a bit hesitant, but agreed to come. We told her we would meet her before hand, which i think helped. So Sunday comes and we meet her and we go together. The members are VERY good to her, a lot of them she knew from when she was still active (like 30 years ago). I could just tell the spirit was working on her too. In Sacrament, she started crying during the sacrament hymn, like sobbing. Yikes! I tried to comfort her. Then during a musical number she ran out crying and luckily the RS president ran after her. She is okay :) I talked to her a bit after church and she just said it's tough. I think she has gone through some tough things in her life. She smokes too which she said she is not ready to give up. But we have a dinner appt with her and a member family and another lesson, so we are very excited to help her on her way to getting back to the church :) Anyway, that's about it. 

Funny story: we were looking for this other inactive and her house seemed basically abandoned. This group of people yelled from the other side that no one was home. Then this one guy was like trying to help us find her and then he went to like eveyrone's house and basically by the end the entire neighborhood was helping us find this woman who moved! haha and half the people helping were a bit drunk haha funny!!!!!!

I really love France! The people are so funny :) so wonderful. Anyway, I love you all and I hope you are praying. Heavenly Father loves you and He wants to hear from you. I love you too :)

Love, Soeur Roberts

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