Hot!

Here is the latest email from Bethany in sweltering Paris! It sounds as if things are going slow but steady for her.   Dear Family and Friends,   Wow! So many things happening in the Ward! Congrats to everyone who had babies, new houses, new callings etc. A special thank you to Brother Hess for all of his wonderful years of service to the Ward. He has uplifted me and several others over the past 5 years. I also want to thank everyone who has sent me letters. We missionaries always love them, I'll try to respond asap, but sometimes that can take awhile. This week was soooooo HOT!!!!! The mission president had to text everyone yesterday to remind them to drink lots of water and do door to doors in the shade. Also there is no air conditioning in France except in cars, which we don't have. It's also been very humid, as in Alabama humid, which means our apartment is like an oven when we come home and it's hard to fall asleep at night. I wish we had some sort of fan to plug in, but we don’t. Then, to make things worse, the elevator broke and we live on the top floor, six floors of stairs! Today seems cooler though and we might go into Paris for P-day and visit my old neighborhood. Because the vacations are still in full swing we barely had any lessons and mostly spent our time contacting. I've got a watch tan now. Who knew I could tan? I took a picture, but I forgot my cord for my camera so I'll send them next week. We continued to visit our amie (by the way we call investigators "amis" which means “friend” in French), Mireille, and still couldn't get a baptism date from her, but she still loves having us come over and receive reading assignments in the Book of Mormon. We started noticing a pattern in the type of questions she asked.  They were mostly about adultery. I learned a lesson in listening to the need of our amis and not just thinking about what I’m going to say next. We managed to find out that she has been tempted several times since her divorce by a married man who wants to have an affair with her! She's been struggling with making a decision and by discussing it with us and having us testify of the importance of the Law of Chastity we hope there had been a bit of a break through. We also realized that she needs to be taught the atonement a little better.  We had a few other lessons and maybe some returns. If they don't cancel on us at the last second... Yesterday we contacted a woman on the street who was interested in what we had to say and gladly took a Book of Mormon. Soeur Dremeaux spoke to the mother and, in order for them not to have any distractions, I played with her 4 year old son Reuben who had a bunch of Spiderman toys (pronounced Speederman here). She said that her live in boyfriend (the father of her children) was of another faith, but left them and has been looking for some other religion. We prayed last night that the woman would show her boyfriend Moroni's promise in the Book of Mormon and that he would follow it. Her too of course! Another cool thing is that we've totally run out of copies of the Book of Mormon and it's only the 3rd week of transfer! The sad thing is now we have to be extra careful about who we give them to until our order comes in. Well, that's all for now.  Bethany

Contacts

Dear Family and friends, It's ok that you send long emails now because I have more time out in the field. Congrats to Ben Madsen for his mission call! And mom it's so great to hear about your cousin Linda. Was she able to finally get you some powdered coconut pudding? Was that meeting last minute? I don't remember you talking about it when I was home. How were Olympics? How did the US do? I've only heard about France's stats. Good news is that Mireille said she would get baptized! She's a shy woman and doesn't want to set a date yet, but she loves coming to church and has made several friends in the ward. She’s really excited for the single adult opera fireside happening tonight. This Sunday a woman named Madeleine came to church for the 2nd time. She came to say goodbye to the sister I replaced, Soeur Worsham, who was visiting the ward with her mother and sisters. However, since Madeleine had called a week before to say she no longer wants to see us unless she calls first,we considered it a miracle. She said she would be back next week. It was also lucky that we ran into her at the RER (railroad station) so we could tell her Soeur Worsham was coming. She's kind of a crazy lady, but she has a good heart. This week I had my first district meeting and met all four of the Elders in my district. They're amazing, fun and really dedicated! Picture to follow. We didn't have a lot of appointments this week because in August the whole of France goes on vacation. We spent a lot of time contacting. I'd like to tell you about two interesting experiences I had; one good and one...interesting, but informative one. The first is the interesting one. I saw a woman on the sidewalk and felt I should talk to her, mostly because I thought she was an American tourist. When she turned toward us she suddenly look very frightened, which surprised me because no one has ever been scared of me before. Annoyed, angry, curious, but never afraid. I heard her say something in French about a "cult" and her father and assumed her father had joined the church and she didn’t like it. Soeur Dremeaux kind of got upset and began explaining how we're normal people and what our message was about. After we left her Soeur Dremeaux told me that the woman’s father had taken a card from some missionaries and then killed himself soon after. She blamed the only people she could think of: the missionaries.I wish I had understood what was happening. Instead of being angry I would have said how sorry I was and testified that I know families can together again. It was a very good learning experience for me. I hope I'll be better prepared next time. That same day we were going to door to door and kept getting turned down. I kept having a feeling that someone was searching for what we had to offer. Finally at the 23rd house a woman who was gardening actually came over to the gate to listen to us! She had some good questions and as we were explaining her husband came out with his own questions. Once again I couldn't understand everything, but I could tell they were suspicious questions, even slightly accusatory. Luckily my champion of a companion pressed on as best she could with me doing my best to say what I could. After a while I realized that the type questions he asked indicated that he was searching for truth and had been hurt and betrayed by religion before. Soon, when he saw our sincerity, he softened. He listened to our testimonies and took a Book of Mormon! He also thanked us for being sincere and asked if I would teach his children English! How's that for a 180? I remember how often Katelyn would say her mission was the hardest, best thing ever. And it really is. I've been so exhausted yet so strengthened in my life. And it's only going to get better from here! Until next week, Bethany PS the pictures are me in front of modern art, more funny street art, me in front of lillies like Monet, me in font of hagrid's hunt (trash bin building) holding an imaginary wand and the Elders in my district.

Torcy!

As usual I don't have a lot of time. Also this key board is way different so if things look funny that’s why. The flight (to Paris) was way long and I was sitting next to several French students who were really chatty so I didn't get much sleep. We were picked up by the Mission President and his wife and daughter. While we traveled to the mission home we were told to contact (on the Metro). I, of course, sat next to a German family who didn't know French and all I had was French literature. After talking to them for awhile I went ahead and spoke about the Restoration (of the Gospel) and told them they could find out more at mormon.org. At the President's house we tried not to fall asleep, had a testimony meeting, interviews, dinner and then passed out at their house. The next day we went to Rue St.Merri where my study abroad classes were held. We street contacted with random sisters and learned we can't contact Muslims because it’s dangerous for them. One day Heavenly Father will open that door. Then we went to Notre Dame, since it's just down the street. I was excited because there was a giant screen showing the Olympics. Then we met our trainers. Mine is from Dijon and her name is Soeur Dremeaux. She's very patient and sooo good at contacting and explaining things. And I love that I can ask her all of my French questions. We live in Fontenay -sous-bois, which is 20 minutes east of Paris, but our area is Torcy, 20 minutes away from our apartment. We share the apt with two others sisters, Sister Alley who is new like me and Sister Emilcy who is from Haiti. BTW, Soeur Dremeaux has a friend who also serves in our mission with the last name of Paoletti. (A teacher at Grissom High School has the same name).He was surprised that I pronounced it right. Also I met that RM who took those really awesome pics of missionaries holding signs about our beliefs around Southern France; he's doing them in Paris now. Being a missionary is totally exhausting all the time. I get a full eight hours every night and it feels like I'm getting up for seminary every morning. We spend most of our time travelling to our appointments. Notable investigators (amis) are Vanessa who brought her coworker Stefan. Both were interested in the Restoration. They said they would read the Book of Mormon.  Mireille is progressing well and we're hoping to ask her this Wednesday to get baptized! Yesterday was her 5th time at church and she seems to enjoy it.  Corrine is funny because she's a medium...as in psychic....yeah. She prays to saints, especially her “spiritual guide Joseph”. I only met her for a few seconds on her porch, but my comp says Corrine feels peace when she reads the Book of Mormon.  She also described exactly what the house of the previous sister missionary looks like and told my comp she was going to have twins one day. The people here keep complementing me on my French. My problem is that its soooo hard for me to understand them. Elder Bednar told my president that if we pray 3 times a day for the gift of tongues to use toward teaching others then it will come sooner. He also says our families need to do so too. So please pray 3 times a day with me! I'm sad I missed Cyndie. Glad to hear about all the rain! When does Laura go back to school?