30 September 2013 email

Pictures: Smurf ice cream by the eiffel tower. 

Hello,

I sooooooooo am going to be involved in missionary work during the three weeks that I'm home. I'm just going to say "you need a member?, you got one!" my first Sunday there. I wish they could make me a temporary Ward missionary while I'm there. I've even thought about wearing my tag, but it's in French and that would be confusing. ;)

This week Soeur MacKay and I decided that we needed to get to know the members better. Because the public transport in this part of Paris is sort of crazy (I don't have time to go into why) the members understand that for most of them it would take more than an hour just for us to get to their houses. Thus, we don't get invited over too often, thus we feel a little disconnected.

In order to get to know the members, while using our time wisely, we've gone to their homes for just a few minutes to pray with them and then we do contacting in the area. The members we did it with were really happy to help and excited that we were working in their area. They kept bringing it up at Church. We were glad to see that this is already helping them have more confidence in us.

Unfortunately, this was one of those weeks where you set up a lot of appointments and people just keep fruging. When that happens you get frustrated, not just because you couldn't see that person, but because you now have 1/2 or an hour of nothing to do. It's fine if you're in an area with a lot of apartments or houses that you've never ported, or with a ton of people on the street, but if you're not you're kind of in a pickle.

However, I've come to realize that a lot of times that's when you meet that one person that just might be interested. The St. Ouen Elders have an interesting story that I think you'll like. They were going to go contacting and then randomly decided to go left instead of right where all the busy streets are like usual. At first it seemed like a bad idea because it was a bunch of empty streets. They saw one man though and went to talk him. Turns out he had recently prayed that God would show him where to find His church. The night before he dreamed that he was in a dark country and needed to get out. He woke up and decided that God was telling him his life was in darkness and needed to find a pastor or someone to help him. So he grabbed his bible and decided to just wander the streets and asked God to send someone to help him. He walked out the door and who did he see? The Elders! Such a good story!

And despite our slightly harder week, we did have one day where everything went according to plan. All of our appointments happened and we were able to get members to teach with us! It felt good going to bed that night knowing the Lord is really on our side. Days like that can keep you going through several difficult days. When it seems like you're alone, just remember all the times when you saw His hand in the work!

Other good news is that Laurinda got confirmed and her husband wants to surprise her by taking her to Versailles to watch General Conference. He's a good guy, which I told him several times.

And, Chriso's wife actually opened the window and said hi when we passed. She seemed happy to see us, which is great because she was never too happy before. Little miracles are really big miracles.

Bethany

Awesome parisian art work on the side of an apartment building.