Week 8 "A Really Nice Week"

September 26, 2016

Our adventure in the rain to find Madame Gazagne's house

Hello again!

This week we had a sweet little miracle on the top of a green hill in southern France. Our mission president, President Brown, has really emphasized sharing the importance and value of the temple with people here in France. It is important to "begin with the end goal in mind." Which I think is pretty amazing. Because so often we picture baptism for our investigators as the end goal. Like "If I can just get them baptized then they'd be so happy." But baptism is just another step in the journey. In fact, it's really just the beginning step of faith. So when we teach, we have been trying to start with the temple.

Rainbow after the rainstorm

Show our ami's how amazing the blessings of the temple are. (You can be with your family forever, you can feel more peace and happiness here, you can feel of the savior's love here.) The coolest part, is that the Paris temple is being finished THIS VERY MOMENT. We show our ami's this beautiful temple video in French (Strength Beyond My Own) and afterwards tell them how in order to enter this beautiful house, you must keep the commandments, get baptized, etc. This way- baptism isn't this HUGE daunting goal. And they know our expectations and goals for them from the very beginning.

Paris Temple almost complete

This week we started teaching a new ami. Madame Gazagne is this sweet, 79 year old woman. It took us so long to find her house because it was literally on a random hilltop in Nice. As we walked to her house up a very steep hill, it started to rain. Okay... I love rain. I love it I love it I love it. And with the city of Nice and Mediterranean sea below us, just pouring rain, so unreal.

We finally found her house and just got to know this very sweet old woman. As we sat in her basement, with the back door open (the rain pouring outside and thundering), her orange cat napping on the couch, and us sharing the beautiful message of the gospel, and our savior Jesus Christ- time stood still for just a moment. It was indescribable. We showed her the video of the temple, and she just started weeping. The Holy Ghost flooded the room and I felt so much love for this 79 year old French woman next to me on the couch. When we finished the video of the temple, she looked at us with wet eyes and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm crying." We testified to her of the reality of this message. That God loved her and gave us temples because he loves us. We asked her to be baptized so that she could go to the temple and she nodded her head. It was just a sweet miracle. It testified to me that there REALLY are people who have been preparing to hear this message. Madame Gazagne has been waiting 79 years to hear this message of the restored gospel and is so prepared.

"Zone meeting!" (elders in Corsica are in our zone, facetimeing us in the bottom corner).

Hogan Blackham (my neighbor) is in the left corner.

Our Ward building looks like a temple.

"Nice" Ward

"Aloha"!!! Hugging a palm tree outside our ward building.

I LOVE THE NICE WARD. For some reason I had this stereotype in my head that my France ward would be all these proper French people drinking tea. Haha. But my ward is insane. Like the adults are all hilarious and just all over the place all the time. We had a ward lunch after Church yesterday. Now this lunch was no "throw our the Costco cookies and some cups of water" lunch". No- it was full on home cooked meal with all these delicious French desserts. A woman named Violeta in our ward made the best food I have ever tried. It was this creamy, yellow, chicken, vegetable dish that you put over rice. When I asked her for the recipe, she just laughed and told me she just threw some stuff in a pot. WHAT ON EARTH?! Why are French people magicians at cooking? They appreciate good cookin like no other. After our feast, Violeta passed out cantiques (hymn books) and we all sang songs as loud as we could. Oh man, I love this ward with all my heart.

Our friend Claude, took us out to pizza. The pizza was HUGE!

Also, someone SO awesome in our ward, is our DMP, Elton (in charge of the missionary work in our ward). He texts us everyday to keep up on how the work is going and gives us advice on how to improve. Elton is from New Caledonia and joined the church 3 years ago. (Shout out to hezzy in New Caledonia... Hez, I seriously meet so many people from New Caledonia here and I tell them about you and show them your tribal pics. They wanted to know what tribe you're in hahaha) This week he went out contacting with us. (Contacting is just where you basically go up to people on the street and bus and talk to them about the gospel and try to find new amis). Elton has no fear and just goes up to everyone on the street. He is so kind and just LOVES the gospel. He just is so easy to be friends with. We were able to talk to SO many people when he worked with us and gave 2 lessons on the road. Members are VITAL in missionary work.

"Elton", our DMP helping us contact. He has his original Book of Mormon

Funnies:

-Oh dear oh dear. This week we were all on the bus late at night. We were with the 4 other Elders in our district all standing up. I bent down for a quick moment to fix my shoe. As I was bent down, the bus came to a quick halt. I tumbled backwards in a little ball in the middle isle of the bus. I squealed on the ground in half French half English. I tumbled into Elder Peron (from Northern France) But he just looked at me and didn't know how to help me because Sisters and Elders can't really touch each other. And my companion, Soeur Holmgren was just dying laughing. Everyone on the bus was looking at me just helpless on the bus floor. BAHAHAHAHA. Bless my heart.

Souer Barras. She is a member in our Nice ward. 93 years old. So spunky and fabulous. She fed us ice cream

Another cute little thing that I love that French people do... Whenever we are teaching a member, or ami, or anyone, they love to give us treats. They ALWAYS bring out a tray with little baked goods on it. Or ice cream cones. Or homemade cake. I am embracing all the wonderful food here.

Patisseries!

Even though I'm living in such a beautiful place in the world, I'm still a missionary. And YES it is an amazing experience to be a missionary. But I also feel my self growing a lot, which means a lot of discomfort too. I must remind myself every single day to be patient with myself as a learn. As outgoing of a person I am, it is REALLY hard for me to talk to people here in France. It is so out of my comfort zone. I get so nervous to start conversations in a language I can barely understand. But this week (and for the rest of my mission), I am working on faith. And for the rest of my life for that matter. It is so hard to just put our COMPLETE trust in God and have faith in him. Because sometimes it doesn't make sense. I think "God, you want me to open my mouth to this woman next to me on the bus? But God... I don't even know French! How am I supposed to talk to her about the atonement of Jesus Christ when I don't even know how to say "Where are you from?" It doesn't make sense God!" But that's just it. That is where faith comes in. Sometimes it won't make logical sense. But we have to trust God that he knows what he is doing and he is a God of MIRACLES. We must have courage to take a step of faith.

Contacting

I love you. I love you. I love you. I also miss you a lot. But I wouldn't rather be anywhere else right now except for my mission. In France. In NICE!

Love, Soeur Jones