Photos February 2014

                                 Singing in the rain with the knitted items from her Aunt Kim!

                                                      World War 2 War Memorial

                                                    Christmas Jammies on Christmas morning.

                                                          Christmas Jammies 2013!

Bordeaux Week #21

Dear Family,

So First HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! Love is the most important commandment. Matt 22:36-40. I love you all so much :)

This week was mostly filled with contacting, which I haven't done since Gex! We contact, but we are a lot busier here so we don't have hours of only contacting. We made a goal to contact more though and we talked to 471 people! From being really nice and pretending to be interested to being super insulting and pushing my tag with their finger (he was old and really grumpy, so I forgive him). But it was really fun. Thursday was absolutely beautiful weather but the rest were pretty stormy. The wind is crazy here! My umbrella flips inside out at least 5 thousand times a day. It was a challenge to contact in bad weather but it's fine.   We were walking by this store and the owner was like "Hey! He needs to confess his sins to you!" Obviously making fun. But they were nice and very funny. Never a dull moment contacting! :)

S is still doing well. We haven't seen him but the sisters in Angouleme are taking care of him. We are having an exchange with them Thursday to go over the interview questions :) We are very excited!!!

Cool Miracle. So Saturday we were supposed to have a lesson with this guy but he cancelled because he didn't want to go out in the rain. SO we asked the member if she could drive us to see this very sick inactive who can't come to church because of her health. She is actually the grandmother of the little girl (A) we are teaching. Luckily she was home and we had a great little visit and mentioned that we were going to visit her daughter that night (mother of A). So that night we go to teach A and her mother is right behind us and was like "my mom told me you were coming so I quick hurried home!" We were so happy. We were able to teach A all because that guy cancelled for not liking the rain. She is doing so good though. We are really working towards March 1 and we made A a calendar with scriptures to read each day for her baptism. AND THEY CAME TO CHURCH for the first time since forever and A loved primary. We were so blessed :)

B from Sri lanka who is also less active came to church too! We told her we'd pick her up before and go together. So we get to her house and of course she isn't there. So we go on our way and run into to her going home and she decided to come! She was coming home from a Catholic mass haha We love B.

Anyway, no much else. I'm going to tell you what my President told us last zone conference, "I think love and faith might be the wealth of heaven. The more you have here, the richer you'll be in God's kingdom." I liked that a lot. Anyway...

... I love you all. Read the Book of Mormon. And make sure you show your love. On that commandment hangs all the laws and prophets. It is pretty important. I love you all!

Love, Soeur Roberts

Week #20 Bordeaux

I have been here so long that I don't even remember what week I'm on!

But Dearest Family,

This week was rather wonderful and I will take the next several minutes to write you why! Lucky you.

So I don't remember if I told you or not about Guy from Cameroon? We contacted him about a week and a half ago. We were walking and he was staring at us and I was like "Do I know you?" He's like "You got that right, sista." So Guy actually met with the zone leaders a couple times before Christmas, but due to complications with papers, he moved. But he came back! We were able to have two lessons with him this week, and let me tell you. This kid is great. He has gone through some tragic experiences aka his mother died while he was carrying her on his back to help her at age 12 and had to take care of his family by himself since then. Plus other trials, yet he has never abandoned his belief in God and Jesus Christ. When we asked him who Jesus Christ was for him, his face just lit up. We gave him a Book of Mormon (because he gave the first one to his friend who was interested... already a missionary) and he read a bit. He has no doubt it is true and also has no doubt that there is a prophet today. He said, "They are God's elect." He just wants that conviction and confirmation that it is true. He is so spiritually prepared. We were able to give him a date for baptism that he wants to work towards. We really hope he can stay in France and pray for him. I'm telling you, Guy is incredible.

We dropped T! Sad. He was sad because we couldn't answer His questions. We were sad because he struggled recognizing the influence of the Holy Ghost. But that's that and maybe in the future he will be better prepared :) It was like breaking up. Soeur M had a hard time. She felt bad! We haven't been able to teach A in a really long time because he works a lot and we can never find a woman to teach with us which is a bit disheartening. We sometimes have difficulty finding people to teach with because we are sisters teaching a bunch of men. But we hope we can see him real soon!

The S family we were finally able to see! We taught the kids a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation and we brought little cutouts of the different stages which they really liked. A is 9 and her mom (in active) really wants her to get baptized and A does too. They just need to start coming to church! We asked A what she was doing Sunday and she looked at her mom and said "going to church?" She wants to we just need to help them get there and understand why it is so important to go. We love that family. We gave her a date too for baptism so that she can have a day to work towards, but it'll likely change. We are so excited for her though :)

We have a new family that we are teaching. They have a bit of a sticky situation that I won't go into detail about, but it keeps them from coming to our ward building so they'd have to go about an hour and a half to the next closest ward. They have been taught for a long while and the children are incredible, as well as the parents. They pray every night as a family and read from the Book of Mormon often. Our first lesson was wonderful. The daughters are really sweet and their little boy is a rascal that thinks we are awesome. We taught Faith vs Logic and they loved it. We want to help them want to make the sacrifices to travel to church despite the distance. They are basically already members, just missing the most important ordinance! So we are excited to be working with them :)

We had zone training and zone conference which was both very very good. A lot about love, and our focus this year is finding families. We NEED more families in France.

S is doing wonderfully. His date is pretty solid and we'll get to go up to Angouleme to teach him one last time before his baptism :) We are so stoked! And the best part is that he is too :) We love him.

We have a couple of potentials we hope to make way with this week, and less actives so we'll see :) It was a great week though. Full of many wonderful miracles.

Something I learned: Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles.

Moral of the story? Be obedient. I love you all so much and I hope you love me too, but love the Savior more. This Gospel is true and we are so blessed to have the restored church of Jesus Christ on the earth. Now share it with all your friends! I love you :)

Love, Soeur Roberts

Week 19 Bordeaux

Dearest Family,

This week was supposed to be super awesome with a bunch of lessons and great stuff, but unfortunately missionary work doesn't always go perfectly as planned. But that is okay because I am not mad at all! Life would be incredibly boring and worthless if everything went according to plan. 

Our member for A cancelled and so we couldn't go in to teach him a lesson, but we followed up and gave him some things to read for this week. He is still so great. We plan on giving him a date for baptism tonight :) Only the Lord knows if he is prepared. 

Al also cancelled and can't meet until the first week of February, L (a potential) had to cancel, Le (another potential) cancelled. Members cancelled or forgot we were coming and there were not a lot of people home when we passed! But it was still a great week. We were able to pass a couple members that were home and they were grateful. And we got to contact a lot. Let me tell you... contacting was quite the experience this week. First this one kid wanted to party with us and we're like,  we are missionaries. Then this other guy I met wanted my number to ask me out and you know how I have trouble saying no because I feel bad? Well after telling him multiple times I'm a missionary (he apparently didn't understand that part... yeah right) I gave him our card and when he called He finally understood that we only talk about Jesus and His restored gospel :) Then we met Uncle Jack from Jersey and Texas and like a million other places. I haven't heard someone swear like him in a long time! But he told us to be careful :) Funny guy. 

We visited our normal less actives and one seems to be making progress but we don't know what to do about the other. When we were going over the resurrection and kingdoms of glory, she stopped us and explained how we shouldn't talk about such a happy paradise after this life because unstable people will commit suicide trying to get there..... I love the less actives  :) 

We are starting to work with a new family whose situation is a bit complicated, we meet with them for the first time this week, and we are very excited to get to know them. We passed by and brought them a little treat and the kids already love us :) boom. 

Our lesson with T took a complete 180° turn from last week. Our member is a bit crazy sometimes, but she was the only woman we could find. He was going off and off on why we don't use the exact name of God, which they believe is Jehovah and all these things that really aren't important. The spirit was not there. It was out of control and we didn't know what to do. Finally we just said have you prayed specifically about the Book of Mormon. NO. (of course not because if you did you'd be a lot more teachable! duh) So we said you must do that in order to know. Because if that Book is true everything we are telling you is true. We were able to bring the spirit back. I told him we want him to feel the spirit and that I didn't feel it at all. He is so intellectually based. It's infuriating! People. If you knew the answers to everything you wouldn't have faith. Duh. So we don't know. We'll teach him at least one more time. 

On the other hand, S was taught this week up in Angouleme by the sisters there. That's his real home. And then at church he was taught by the other sisters in Talence ward. We do this thing where other missionaries teach the investigator for baptism, because we are all in this together! He is solid. He asked me at church if I would give a talk on the Holy Ghost at his baptism and he asked his best friend M who just got the priesthood last Sunday to baptize him. WE ARE SO EXCITED. We love him so much. I think I'll cry the day it happens. 

That's about it :) It's been raining non stop for like the past five days. BOO. I like looking at the rain, not being under it for 16 hours a day.... 

I love you all so much and I pray for you each individually. The Gospel is true.

Love, Soeur Roberts

Week 18 Bordeaux!

So I am going on to transfer 4 in Bordeaux and Soeur M is coming along with me! Three transfers together. Not really heard of but we are pretty happy. We have so many things to do and we get to do them together!

So we have quite a few people we are working on. 

  

Adam is from Madagascar and we met him contacting. I asked him about his hat and we talked a bit and he asked who we were and as soon as he saw our tags he said "come over!" and gave us his number and address. Turns out he has a friend in Germany (where he travels a lot for business) who is a member and had already talked about the gospel with him and given him a Book of Mormon in Malgasy, German, and French. COOL. So we go over for our first real lesson with a member from Madagascar and he loves her. I was a bit worried at first because when we walked in on his TV was some Muslim convention and I was like oh no. Darn. But he is not! He actually isn't super fond of their culture... But we talked about the Book of Mormon and Soeur M asked him how he felt when he read it ( He read weekly with his German friend until 2 Nephi 17!) He said "Good. I know it is true. It is the word of God." WOW. So Adam is great. He was in Germany the rest of the week, but we're seeing him this week and he wants us to teach another Malgasy family he knows! 

Alexia is doing alright. We had a lesson with a YA and it didn't go super nice. Not bad but I think she is confused. We wanted to talk about Priesthood and the right authority. Our YA kinda went off on things that didn't really pertain to what we had told him we wanted to teach. It's okay though. She is still meeting with us and next week we plan on having another YA. She has already been baptized Adventist and we wanted her to understand how it has to be done with the authority directly from our Heavenly Father. So we'll see. She is so sweet though :) And reading everything we ask her to read. And praying.

Théo is actually doing better! We went with a different member this time and it was A LOT more controlled. We answered his questions about Christ coming to the America's and then why God gave us both a bible and a Book of Mormon, then it went off on Jehovah and Elohim. They believe Jehovah is God, so that was sticky but Soeur M looked in the back of the Book of Mormon and it explains it and he read the scriptures in the bible about it and was kinda just like whoa that is completely different than what I have been taught. He is a True Jehovah's Witness though. They like proof and hard facts, they don't rely on the spirit. He likes to verify his info by Wikipedia. We told him that the only way he can know truth is by praying and receiving that spiritual witness. We hope that next time instead of him asking so many fact based questions we can focus on the spirit. 

S is getting baptized! The 22 February. He surprised us by coming to church yesterday, we had a great lesson. He is solid. He chose his own date and he feels good about it. I asked him if he felt ready and he said "Yeah,but don't you have to decide when I'm ready?" And I said S! You were ready ages ago! Ha ha so he is happy. We are happy. He is so great and I feel so blessed to have taught him. He understands the gospel so well. He's read the whole gospel principles book by himself! And He reads the scriptures all by himself. I love that kid. 

So those are our main progressing focuses right now. Going to be working with a couple of families soon :) 

Anyway, I love you all so much and I hope you are doing good on your New Year's goals :) This gospel is so true and I love it. I love you! Write me letters or I'll call you a loser. 

Love, Soeur Roberts

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

Week #16 Bordeaux

Dear Mom, Dad, and rest of the children,

So this week was really a great week! Like probably in the list of top 5 best weeks in France. Probably.

So Monday night we finally found this less active who we have been trying to get in contact with since last transfer! She was home and immediately she started talking about the gospel. It's been about 15 years or so. Maybe 20. But she is so nice and wants to come back. Awkward thing #1. Her ex husband, who she despises, is in our ward and #2 She has statues and paintings all over her home of nude women. Like some of it is not "art" if you know what I mean. Good thing the elders didn't find her! haha yeah we don't know how to handle that... But we were so happy!!! :) 

Then Tuesday we had another less active miracle. We regularly visit this sister from Bulgaria and this time her less active son also joined us for the lesson! He hasn't wanted to join us since I was first here in Bordeaux and it was a great lesson and he agreed to play ping pong with the elders :) we are pretty happy about that. He is such a nice kid. 

We were able to get three new investigators this week! First was A. We met him contacting on the way to a lesson. We talked about hats and then he was like WHO ARE YOU? So we answered and right away he was like oh! Come visit me. Here's my address. So we did and we found out that he travels to Germany a lot and actually met elders there who knew French. So then he met us. Miracle? I think yes. He is super nice. We got him a Book of Mormon in Malagasy and French and he was so excited. We'll be teaching him this week :) 

Then T our Jehovah's witness. We had a lesson with him on the restoration and the beginning was super good, clear, simple. He seemed to understand. Then he starting asking questions like who is the author of the bible? Where exactly was Christ killed? And he was very interested in the timing of the Book of Mormon.He wouldn't pray with us, which is strange, but he finally accepted the Book of Mormon and said he needed to do research about the timing, etc. So we have another visit with him next week. 

Then A! From Tahiti SUPER sweet. Was actually taught about a year ago, but lost contact. So we had set up a lesson with a member but he cancelled 15 minutes before the lesson. BOO. It's fine. We are waiting at the tram stop and we see cute Tahitian girls with flowers in their hair and assume it's her. That's great, she brought a friend! When we get to the institute building we go around and introduce ourselves. Turns out her friend is actually a member since 2008. Can you believe that? Miracle again. It was a great lesson. She has a whole lot of faith. We hope we can help understand the need for one restored church, because she is one of those "anyone who talks about God is good." Got another lesson for next week :) 

And then we are now teaching a very sweet 9 year old who's mom is less active, but living all the principles at home and her dad is Muslim, but not practicing. The mom really wants her daughter to be baptized, we just need to help them get into the habit of going to church :) They are a very, very sweet family so we are super excited about that. 

I think that's about it on exciting things. This week we are super busy, which is ideal for a missionary. I can't believe only two weeks left in this transfer! 

I love you all! I hope you are doing well :) I want you to know I love you and I know this church is true with all my heart. It is the only way to real happiness, I promise you. 

Love, Soeur Roberts

PS A is back in Bordeaux for a couple of weeks. Seeing her tomorrow! There is still a chance! :)