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

Week 4, Gex

Family, 

This week was a bit crazy! But really great. I had an exchange in Geneva. I decided I am really grateful I can't serve there because the people in Suisse hate me. Seriously. Every person I contacted was mean and said no! But I forgave them. It was a good exchange though anyway :)

Wednesday It rained a lot, but we still contacted 104 people! Funny story. We have a new investigator named T. He is great. From Spain. He speaks Spanish mostly but he speaks french very well too. I haven't gotten to meet with him for a lesson yet because I was on the exchange, but I'm excited to! I hope things go well with him but we'll see :)

Remember A? The guy I talked a bit about last week? Well, we had been trying to get a hold of him a lot and he kept missing appointments or not answering, etc and Sister W wanted to drop him. For some reason I just didn't want to. I said we have to try at least one more time. So Saturday night we decided to just contact for the little time we had left. We had just waited at the church with a member for a lesson that fell through, so we were feeling a bit down. But we decided to contact for the rest of the time we had left. We contacted two people and the,  A pulls up next to us in his car! That means he likes us! If he didn't want to meet/see us ever again he wouldn't have done that. It was a miracle! So Sunday we finally had our first real lesson with him. He is great. He believes in something, but he isn't super sure. He said when he is going through a hard time, he prays. He lived in Suisse before and was in the army, but got accused for something he didn't do so he ran away to France. He has had some struggles. He seemed to really understand the restoration though. When I recited the first vision, the spirit was so incredibly strong. I really hope he felt it. He said he wants to continue another time so I really hope he does. He seems so prepared.

We teach English on Wednesdays and JC in our ward brought a friend! She met with the Jehovah's Witnesses (they are abundant here in France and sometimes people mistake us for them) but she stopped. She said she is trying to stop smoking and wants to learn more about our church. Her name is M and she is divorced but so sweet. Our first lesson is tonight :) Then we also met E who is 83.We offered to do some service for her :) come to find our her daughter is a member in the United states and she went to church over there one time and really liked it. When she came home elders were ready to teach her but her  preacher said she couldn't and that we were a secte again. So I'm very excited! We found her again! I hope we can do some good for her :)

 Also we got 503 contacts this week! Unheard of in my area because it is so small. It was also a miracle because literally at the last minute we were driving home and sister C saw a group of people. We needed 12 more and there were 12 people. It was awesome. No one was interested, but it was great to finally reach that goal :) over 1,000 people contacted by 4 sisters in G

ex! :) 

Anyway, I love you all so much! Keep writing me letters! I love them. But not as much as i love you :) 

Love, Sister Roberts

Geneva Zone Conference

Gex, Week 3.

Family,

 How are things? :) I'm great thanks for asking! :) This week was good, tough but good.

Tuesday was my first zone conference. We discussed five things: obedience, faith, prayer, simple teaching, and members. President Roney talked. He is awesome. one thing he said was that faith is trust. It is trusting the Lord  that He is accomplishing exactly what He wants to through you. I thought about that a lot this week. It is hard here. People don't always want to talk to you, if ever, and when they do and you set up a rendezvous (lesson) and they don't show up and you had a great lesson planned and a member even came to teach, it gets discouraging. But I was like no, I am here doing what the Lord wants and if these people aren't ready to hear the gospel, I am going to keep searching and searching and teaching and smiling and enduring until I do. It's okay because I am doing and accomplishing exactly what he wants me to as long as I do my part and then some. It was a great conference.

Monday we took the P girls G and i and their cousin A contacting with us. They are in the ward and 15 and 17 and 17 but so incredible and awesome. They loved it! and they want to go again : )They are really pushing us to have a member at every lesson  so that means we need to get more members to come contacting with us so we can make that happen.

IDK if i have told you about Mme M? She is an investigator of 9 months, not really progressing, but a friend of a ward family who really don't want us to drop her. We see her every Tuesday. This past Tuesday we went and we brought G with us, our WML and had a lesson where she just went on and on about Buddhists and Jews and Hindus and Muslims and every religion in the world.I was like oh my gosh if you want a testimony, truly, then all of that shouldn't matter. All of a sudden I was hit! like by the spirit. He said Sister Roberts, tell her to listen and testify oft the Book of Mormon and how the only way you can know is by reading. So I was like yeah because i speak french... but I did it. I told her. I was like THAT DOESN'T MATTER. THIS BOOK IS TRUE. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, READ IT. So i think she is finally going to read and if not, idk what because i cant help her unless she does her part. So yeah. we'll see next Tuesday :)

Sad news. We had to drop K. He is kinda Muslim and so this month is Ramidan and he cant meet with us. I don't think he understands. I think he wants to understand but wants to put the LDS beliefs and Muslim beliefs together. It cant work like that. I think he knows what is true, but for some reason he isn't ready to take that last leap of faith. I didn't think he was ready, but maybe another time. Sister W was pretty upset... I was like no worries. We got to find someone who is ready. It's okay. We just don't have any investigators now. Sad. Just means we have to work that much harder.

So the new goal is to get 500 contacts a week. Our goal is at least 80 a day. It was getting late Wednesday night and we hadn't had dinner and thought about turning in for the night, but I just wanted to get nine more. And then go. We were in Gex and like no one was out. I was like oh this is going to take forever. So we split up on the roads and no one was on my side but Sister W met a man who I would've looked at and said he would never be interested. But HE WAS. He wanted to learn more and wants to read the Book of Mormon and we had a quick lesson right there. I felt really impressed to talk about trials and how they are here to help us grow. Oh, I thought he said he had a son die, but he didn't. OOPS. HAHA. I saved it by saying oh I mean you can be with Jesus Christ again, not your son, the son of God. Yeah :) embarrassing. lucky I have the I'm learning french excuse. :) haha But it was a miracle! We almost left! so we haven't had  another rendezvous with him yet because there has been a lot of miscommunication, but hopefully tomorrow. And even if it was just a one time thing I learned once more how important it is to follow the spirit.

I also had my first exchange with the sister training leaders in Lyon. I went with Sister B from Italy who speaks like 9 languages. She is awesome and all work. We had two lessons and she totally let me teach so it was awesome. The spirit was so strong in both of them. And we contacted and served too and it was awesome. I love her!! and i learned a whole bunch. I'm sad because she leaves next transfer

Anyway, not much else. The language is coming. If i don't get it I just stare at them. i love contacting. You have to make it fun. I go Bonjour! How are you? i like your watch. Do you believe in God? Awesome! Do you want to get baptized? Just  kidding,  not the last part. Or hey do you want to learn more about Jesus Christ? Or hey its a beautiful day! Do you love your family? I try to mix it up and when they tell me know i usually laugh and I don't know why so i should probably stop that. Oh well. I'm happy! I love it.

Love you all bunches. The Gospel is so true! Read your scriptures!

Love Sister Roberts

Gex. Week 2

Family! Bonjour! 

How's it going? Hope all is well.  

First, this week was tough but good. I'll tell you why.

Monday was a good first PDAY. We went to Geneva to shop a bit. It was nice.We met up with this 19 year old kid, Ambdouchacoure, who is Muslim. I don't think he is interested, but we still taught him the first lesson. He was nice and fairly funny. We met with Kassimo too. He is funny. He loves to talk with us and he understands, but for some reason he tries to kind of mush the Muslim and Christian faiths together. And he doesn't read the Book of Mormon so I told him HE NEEDS TO READ or he cant know. If he doesn't read next time, we're reading with him. That's it. He is also trying to find a job so we are trying to help him find somewhere with computers so he can apply but we aren't getting any luck. He loves church though and he loves learning. I just wonder if he wants to learn to learn or to find truth. We'll see :) 

We also teach French and English. So we taught English to John Christoph in our ward. He is awesome. He has cancer and went inactive but he has an incredible reactivation story. But its fun to teach. A lot of people speak English here and there are a lot of Americans and Canadians here in the ward. I love my ward though. Its huge which is not common in France so i got lucky with my first area. 

Tuesday I went to zone training. My ZLS and DL are all super cool and they push us. They want us to contact 500 a week. Which can be tough here in our sector because its small. We contact on streets in the towns. Door to door is super ineffective because everyone lives in apartments. And a lot of times people want to speak English but that's okay. I just speak french to them anyway! ha! The next closest missionaries are in Geneva, so we are alone in little Gex. Its beautiful here though! The weather is bipolar though. one day it rains and is cold and the other its like hot. and humid. But I like it. its been warm for a while now. I have a shoe tan and a watch tan! :) 

They don't refrigerate milk here and it tastes funny. Sad because I love milk at home. People carry baguettes around everywhere too. So french. We drive a car because it is hard to walk to other towns because they are so far away, but then we park and then contact. The members feed us more then I thought! and it's super good, and they feed you a lot. Like a lot. 

Anyway, on Thursday I contacted 29 people all by myself. like alone. Only one person talked to me and I couldn't understand a whole bunch, but I'm pretty sure he was talking about mother nature being the supreme force here. I gave him a pass along card anyway. He was super funny and it made me happy :) 

Friday was super tough. We contacted 120 people but no one talked to us and all of our meetings fell through and it was super discouraging. 

Saturday was good though. Well, kinda. The S couple kinda dropped us, but we might go back in a couple of weeks. I was sad, but not too much because maybe later! :) but we got 5 numbers! 2 guys wanted to learn more and we set up a meeting for Tuesday and another said he'd go to church! He didn't but that's okay. I really hope they want to learn more. If they do we are here! and i want to encourage them to find truth. 

Sunday was good at church. A less active came that we were trying to contact this week so we are meeting with her too. Shes awesome :)

I'm understanding little by little and trying to speak more!  It's getting better! I know Heavenly Father will bless me with the language. I'm practicing patience :) anyway, running out of time, but I love you all so much. I am working hard to get the truth out there even if people can't understand me. The Lord loves all of us and he wants us to be happy. I love you all!

Love Sister Roberts

Gex (pronounced jecks... easy) week 1!

Dear Family,

Yes, I am in France now. The keyboard takes some getting used to so sorry for any errors! Gex is small and so pretty, 20 minutes from Switzerland. So yes. I've been to Switzerland too! And going again today :) let's see. The plane ride was long but very fun. I was so glad I got to call you a couple times. it was so good to hear your voices. You saw the pictures when we arrived and that was fun although I looked horrible! haha  then we drove to the mission office for interviews and I discovered I really like President Roney! He is so personable and very nice. He'll be my mission president the whole time I'm here so that makes me happy :)

After that we had fajitas that sister Roney made at their house with the AP's. It was delicious. Definitely nice not to be eating MTC food anymore. Then we left and they let us go to bed a little early and that was nice because I was exhausted. The next day we just did legal stuff in the morning and then we got our areas and trainers! Gex is mine and it's in the Geneva Stake. It's so pretty here. I'll send some pictures next week :) Sister W is 22, small and very sweet. Apparently she is like super obedient so I was scared that she was going to be mean or something, I don't know why, but she is not mean, she's very sweet and I like her a lot. She's from Idaho, near Boise and has been out a year in august.  Our apartment is in Crozet and we live with two other sisters who are also in the Gex ward with us. It's fun! the other sister have been out six months in August and they don' t know french super well either. So my first full day we did a lot of contacting. I've discovered most people here are Muslim (Muzulman) or Catholic or "non believing." I contacted a few people on my own. One guy was really funny and he would spit every few words. He didn't believe though and I said do you want to believe? he said no and I said ça va God loves you. And he laughed. It was funny. Later I said bonjour to a couple, S and N, but they didn't answer until the wife turned around and we discovered they speak English. They were so interested and they wanted a book of Mormon so we set up a meeting to meet with them to teach them more and give them a English Book of Mormon. SO that was awesome.

Saturday we went over and taught them the first lesson and got to know them a bit and they are from India and Hindu and absolutely incredible. So open and willing and loving. They loved our message. When I got to the restoration part I asked them what question they would ask if God appeared to them. Both explained how they want to know why they are here, what is their purpose, so I testified to them that the BOM can and will answer every question and concern they have if they read it and I shared with them Moroni 10:3-5. They invited us back. They are so sweet. We invited them to be baptized too which was scary for me, but they said their parents wouldn't like that so they might practice in secret, funny. I know they are prepared. N told us that when his Grandma was dying she said "I forget all the gods. I believe in Jesus." Powerful. Anyway, I really love them.

I don't have much time, but we have another investigator, K from Madagascar. He is Muslim but went to a catholic school so he loves religion. I don't know if he understands a whole bunch yet, but we are working with him. he has been to church twice and has a date for baptism in august. We'll see how it goes!

So that is my time so far. I get rejected a lot, but it's okay. I can't understand and speak a lot but that is okay too. A lot of people smoke here. It's ridiculous.

Also, the ward is awesome. There are a lot of young families but it's a pretty big ward. They are all very nice. We ate at the C family yesterday for dinner. The mom is inactive and her and the father don't speak french, but they have two daughters who are super funny: age 13 and 15. We ate spaghetti noodles with french fries and meat sauce on top and then these really good bread stick things and then this purple warm apple soup stuff. It was delicious! brother C I guess used to be a pro chef.

Our ward mission leader cane home from his mission in Montreal six months ago and he is super funny and awesome. His name is G. Anyway, I love you all so much and I miss you all very much. I pray for you everyday! Don't forget me and have faith in Christ and his work. I love you.

love,

Soeur Roberts