Spreading the gospel at home

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I'm sorry everyone, but this just isn't going to be an awesome e-mail. One, because we are leaving emails early to run and do something. And two, because nothing is going to beat that I have a new niece!!!!! Really, I just can't beat that thing. I'm super happy and excited, and I just think its wonderful.

The big thing that happened this week was a last minute conference with some general authorities. Because they only had 2 days notice they only invited the missionaries in the Paris zones. So I got to go. :) It was really cool, just giving us advice on missionary work. There was a really really funny video that we had to watch, for an awareness test. I want all you guy to do it. It was hilarious as missionaries watching a not church video. And they had 2 elders do an exercise competition. But what they didn't know was that one of the elders was a Navy Seal, so he blew him out of the water! Literally, he was a machine at the push-ups.

But it was really cool. We got a nice little discussion about the 3 D's of Ammon. Desire, Decision, and Determination. Basically you need those 3 things. :) And if you loose one, you do the other two and until you get the one. It was really interesting. So that was a really fun conference to go to.

They also talked about member and missionary work. And it got me thinking. So me and Soeur Walker are in the process of visitng all the ward and giving them a book of mormon and giving the the challenge to give it to someone before Christmas. It goes in line with the challenge given by Elder Ballard last conference for every member to invite a soul unto Christ before Christmas.

So I thought, if that challenge is good enough for the members here at Evry then why not my family and friend. So hear ye all who are reading this email. This missionary is officially inviting you to prayerfully give a book of mormon to someone before Christmas. (if there are some of you who are in Utah who say you don't have a not mormon friend to give a book of mormon to, start praying to make friends). Seriously though, I know that this could be a great blessing to each of you as each week you pray to recognize who you can give it. And it wont offend someone if you just give it to them in love, and explain how much it means to you. Then it is in there hands. Just as each of you know about the spirit of Elijah and all the blessings and joy that you can get from that, the spirit of missionary work is the same. And as Christ devoted his whole life in missionary work, why not follow his example? And as your Christmas gift unto Christ, place a book of mormon with someone. I know that it can make your Christmas more meaningful. (And don't forget to write you testimony in it!!)

24 Yea, and from that time even until now, I have labored without ceasing, that I might bring souls unto ^arepentance; that I might bring them to ^btaste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste; that they might also be ^cborn of God, and be ^dfilled with the Holy Ghost. Alma 36:24

You each have tasted of the joy, and have been born of God and filled with the Holy Ghost, now go labor and bring a soul to Christ!! :)

There you go, you all are engaged. :) And trust me each and everyone of you, I will be emailing you each to follow up. :) 

Love you all!! And I hope that you all have an awesome week! Keep being awesome. :)  

Here is the link: ....I think...I can't actually get to youtube on the church computer to make sure.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Acting as angels

Okay, so this week was a little hard for a lot of reasons. So by Saturday night we were about done for the night and ready to go home. But were like, 'hey we have 5 minutes left, lets be obedient' So we walked down the street to the Gare looking for someone to contact. Anywho finally we saw a woman, and I screamed 'Woman!' and drastically turned and started walking to her before she could ge away. Anywho so we go up to her, say why were here and that our message can bring hope to her life. And she starts crying. And I was like, wow this must be the best street contact i've ever done, nobody cries. High five Sarah. But no, her boyfriend had just broken up with her. And we were like 'oh no', and she turned to the side and we stood there awkwardly for a minute. And I was like (being me) 'Do you want to talk about it?' Because I mean who wants to sit out in the cold and not talk about it? She didn't answer for a minute, and I was like drats, and then she started talking. And said she was waiting for her sister, and I was like 'Hey! We can wait with you, we were just going to head home, so we've got nothing else' And she said yes, sat and talked for a bit, and I was like 'You know when i'm sad I say a prayer, can we say a prayer?' And she's like "if you want to" So we said a prayer. Her sister came, and we went home. Anywho, we had given her our number, but didn't think much of it because we didn't get hers. But about an hour later we got this text from her (And as I send this email to French speakers I will put the actual writing):

Je tenais a vous remercier. Je prend votre intervention comme un signe. On vous a mis sur ma route au moment ou j en avais le plus besoin. Vous m'etes apparu comme 2 anges tomber du ciel. Vous avez appaiser ma peine. Encore merci. Ludivine. 

For those of you who dont speak French that is one awesome text message. Like seriously. We read it and our mouths fell open. I mean i'm often called an angel ;) But seriously, such a sweet tender mercy from the Lord.

Also really cool thing. We got a new bishop this week, and he is a young guy from Portuguese. He used to be a missionary in Evry, and now he's bishop. Isn't that weird? He's super awesome.

Anywho that's about it. Hope you are all having an awesome week!! Love you all!!

Sarah

Oh my goodness! I totally forgot! haha and I can't believe you forgot about Skype!!!! Its like the shining moment in my life!!

Je tenais a vous remercier. Je prend votre intervention comme un signe. On vous a mis sur ma route au moment ou j en avais le plus besoin. Vous m'etes apparu comme 2 anges tomber du ciel. Vous avez appaiser ma peine. Encore merci. Ludivine. 

She's just saying thank you. And she taking our intervention as a sign. She thinks that we were set in her path in the moment that she had the most need of us. And to her we appeared as 2 angels from heaven. We eased her pain, and again thank you. :)

Baptism Scheduled!

For those of you who read this on Monday, sorry its getting out super late. But its getting out, so that's the bright side!

First thing first, they don't celebrate Halloween here, like at all. Isn't that the saddest thing ever? It was the lamest Halloween of my life. But we had a pretty cool day involving food, because we wanted to feel like it was a holiday. So that was nice. All my pictures from Halloween involve food....and that is why I have gained weight.....

Also we cut my hair. We didn't have a brush, so I stood there and Soeur Walker and Soeur Bernhardt eyed it, and just cut, with childrens scissors because we couldn't find the real ones. It was time. Except for it was a lot of hair. Oh well, it grows I guess.

Also awesome news!!! We have a baptism the 24th of this month!!! WOO HOO!!! She's super awesome. I didn't even have to do anything, she was all ready, and its just awesome. I'll send you guys a picture, I got one with her family (and since they are all very dark skinned I stand out ridiculously). Its super exciting. So keep her in your prayers you guys, Agathe Obel.

And as missionaries (and especially sister misisonaries) we get the honor (and that's not being sarcastic) of getting to work with non-pratiquants. So this one here in Evry, her name is Stephanie, and we just kind of clicked. So she was baptised 7 years ago, and went inactive like 2 months later. She has these 2 adorable little girls now, and one is called Shesha :). Anywho, missionaries have been seeing her FOREVER! But she has never been back to the church, or willing to really have lessons. So I saw her my 2nd week here for the first time, and we got her to say a prayer. And then the next time we watched the Joseph Smith movie and she cried. And then the next time we read some Book of Mormon and we both cried. Then she agreed to come to a family home evening at a members house!! So we did that. And now she has accepted a "church calender", like a baptism calender we give amis, but instead of baptism date, a get to church date. And the date she accepted and prayed about is the 24th of November!! It just will be an awesome day. So keep Stephanie in your prayers!!!

That's about it for the week! Oh, and I went to the Eiffel Tower today :).

Love you all!!! Miss you!!!!

Sarah

Missing Soeur Bernhardt

  

Worst transfer day ever. Soeur Bernhardt is getting moved. She has 3 more weeks to wait for her visa so she's going to another ville with a sister, and then when she leaves there wont be an equipe there anymore. Isn't that so dumb? We are all pretty upset about it. Its kind of setting off the whole p-day. Worst news, we might have called the mission president and asked if it was real, and then when he said yes somebody might have gotten on and told him how she felt about it. But I said it all in French, so maybe he was proud.......

So....I just don't have much to say at this moment, we are all in shock. And me and Soeur Walker are staying here. Its so weird. Its just the icing on the cake for my week.

Another random weird thing. I finally saw a car fire, it was HUGE. They happen quite often here in France.

Also I finally went to a French wedding. The bride was American and the groom French, so there were some Americans at the wedding. And man you could pick them out so easily, they were hilarious. And they were picking at there food like they didn't know what to do with it, and then one came running in 'I found one with just cheese!' It was hilarious. French eat weird sandwiches, but not that weird. And I don't think they appreciated they portions sizes. It was pretty funny.

The bright side to the week is we have this inactive member, Stephanie. She went totally inactive right after her baptism 7 years ago. She says she just got baptised for the missionaries. Anywho, I met her a few weeks ago and we just kind of clicked really well, I just love her. So we taught her a lesson and Soeur Walker said she never prayers. But she prayed at the end of the lesson. And the next lesson I got her reading the book of mormon. And then the next lesson she told us that she believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, and then this week we got her to go the a FHE with a member. It was sweet. To just see her progress little  by little. She says she's still not ready for church, but she told me we can set a goal, and she will work towards going that day. I'm not going to lie, I think she likes me. :) Her two little girls are adorable!! With there curly black hair, and the youngest, her nickname is Shesha. If that isn't a sign I don't know what it. So that was good.

So lots of random stuff this week. Sorry. But I hope you guys all have an awesome week. LOVE YOU!!!! Miss you guys.

And hey, i'm hitting my 7 month mark. Weird right? I know.

So random cool thing. We went this little place by Notre Dame to eat before Sacré Cœur, and to meet up with Sœur MacKay (my MTC comp) so that she could talk, and there were other sister missionaries there. So we got to all eat together, 8 sisters missionaries. It was pretty awesome. We had lots of fun, and the food was pretty awesome. Its like the missionary hangout in Paris, because you can get a panini and crêpe and drink for 5 euros, so its pretty awesome.

This week was pretty good, learning to teach with 3 in an équip is not easy though. So we are still all adjusting, and Sœur Bernhardt is getting up the courage to actually talk. There are actually shy French people, who knew? But we are slowly but steadily getting into synch. Although let me tell you, I already knew French people do things different, but I didn't realize to what extent, man French people are so different from Americans. haha And transfers are next week and we have no idea what will happen since we have Soeur Bernhardt, so it will be interesting to see.

We had some cool experience, and some sad ones this week. One of the awesome ones was I was teaching Nalde. She is one of our amis with a baptism date. She's super awesome.....but she doesn't speak French or English really, so sometimes is hard, we always need a translator. So I was teaching her with a translator, and Soeurs Walker and Bernhardt were somewhere else teaching. Anywho, we got to the end of the lesson and I finished explaining and bore my testimony and invited her to be baptised, AND SHE UNDERSTOOD!!! So awesome. The translator didn't even need to say anything. And Nalde said yes. And we have had tons of lessons where when the spirit is really strong she understands what we are saying without someone translating. Its really really cool you guys. She's super awesome, just having a really hard time right now, but I love her.

So that's my cool story for the week. Keep being strong and awesome, love you guys so much, and miss you.

Sarah.

Changes

 

    0/14/2013  

Its true you guys, sometimes the Lord brings us lower to make us bigger....although I don't know that i'm getting bigger.....at least not physically, which would be really really nice.

Anyways, we got our bleu! Her name is Sœur Bernhardt. She is from France of course, but also (and you will all laugh at this) German. But she's cool, its been interesting. Her mission call is to temple square, but she doesn't want to speak English because she thinks its 'moche', or in other words ugly, pretty funny. So we've been doing A LOT in French. I don't know that I feel like my French is improving, I just feel like my head is going to explode by the end of the day. And its totally weird being in a trio. And just in general living with a French person, sometimes French people are weird you guys, and have no idea what a grilled cheese is, and then your like 'how do you not know?!' And on top of that we had a VERY LONG conversation about Emu's. She didn't believe it was real because the translation wasn't in the dictionary, she thought I was making it up. And we just kept trying to describe it, and she's like 'a black ostrich? (snort) Yeah like a unicorn'. Pretty funny, when we finally got a picture to her she was like 'oh,yeah, i've seen that'.

 

Anywho...what else could have happened this week that I could write home about?....I don't know...maybe that WE ARE GOING TO HAVE 3 BAPTISM DATES!!!! Okay well we are already have 2, and the third one will happen in the next week or so. AWESOME!!! Its kind of super amazing how they each worked out, so i'll have to tell them each another time because it would take a long time, and I don't have that time. One of them will be a bit more difficult to get done then the others, because they might be here illegally (and oddly enough you can't baptise them). But we will see.

We're not emailing a ton today because were going to Paris to see Sacre Cœur. So sorry this is a short one, but I want to spend more time doing personal e-mails today too.

We finally got to hear Elder Ballards talk about missionary work, you all better be doing what he told you to, and share the gospel with someone before Christmas! If not this little missionary will be very dissappointed.

And Haley, its against the rules, but i'm trying to get permission to go to Disneyland so that I can check it out, and see if its Worth it. I'll let you know how that works out. I think eventually i'll break one of the AP's into letting me go. One of them played a prank on me, so he owes me.

Love you all! Have an awesome week. :)

 Snails and frog legs

This week we have enjoyed a lovely conference, as I sat and watched it with 4 elders I couldn't help but pointing out, it was very much directed about how women are pretty awesome....And I loved Thomas Monsons talk, I don't know what session it was for you guys, but it was pretty good. I spent most of the time finding talks to use with non-pratiquants that we have, so I have to go back and re-read them. Plus I wasn't able to watch all of them here, so we still have to see them.

But alas, the wonderfulness of conference was all an illusion, heavenly father gives you some awesome spiritual experience just to prepare you for something horrible. It would appear that the Lord has mistaken me for another missionary, as I specifically asked to never train, or at least wait until the end of my mission. But alas, the president has spoken. She will arrive this Thursday, but shouldn't be here long, she is waiting for a visa, so Evry just gets her for a few weeks. Hopefully I wont have to do the 12 week program again, because that was a rough 12 weeks. Anywho, she's French, which means that it will be French 24/7, so excited... Me and Soeur Walker are pretty bummed out, we really like our companionship and don't want it to change, but unforutunately as a missionary it is always changing. The Elders just think its hilarious. Elder Hall (our district leader who just got done being AP) just laughed, apparently I was on the list to be a trainer, but I told him that Lord isn't that foolish, and then 2 hours after this conversation we got the phone call.

Bright side, we got to go to the Arch de Triomphe today, so you know, thats cool. :) I'll get pictures to you guys.

Also on a French note, I have officially had snails and frog legs. I am very ashamed to say that I actually really liked the snails, I think if you like clams then your going to like well made snails.