End of October

Dear Everyone,

Well Dad, France DID actually change hours this weekend and I got to sleep for another hour. A missionary's dream (after baptisms that is)! Sadly, it was really windy all night and it kept moving the windows back and forth. It sounded like someone was slamming their body against it for 9 hours.

Yes!! Keep doing all that you can with the missionaries Mom and Dad!! I can’t wait to work with them when I get home!

Tee hee! Mom, I promise not to spill the Paxton Family cupcake recipe. And I'm planning on making those pumpkin cookies for Halloween! We also found pumpkin sausages at the store today. I'll tell you if they're any good. And I'll pray for your talk next weekend Mommy!

Last P-day we met up with the Evry sisters, another suburb of Paris, for lunch. It was my birthday lunch because we were supposed to do it for my birthday, but they missed their train that day so we delayed it. The Evry Soeurs were (I say "were" for a reason that will be revealed momentarily) in a trio because they had a French visa waiter, Soeur Bernhardt, with them. When I saw her I said, "Have we met before? Turns out she was in Arras every Sunday because her boyfriend was in that Ward. AND she’s from the same town where Soeur Dremeaux (my trainer) worked before her mission. It was nice to finally get to know her, since she wasn't really in the Arras ward I really never got to talk to her much.

Soeur Bernhardt is going to the Temple Square mission, which I had heard she wasn't too excited about. When I asked about it, she explained to me that she's happy enough to go there, it's just that she REALLY wanted to go to Madagascar. I told her that I'd try to visit her when I got back to Utah.

You're probably wondering why I've spent all that time talking about a random visa waiter. Well, I was 99.99 percent sure that I was going to stay in St.Ouen for my last transfer, but lo and behold what do I see when I check the transfer list today...Blois! And guess who my companion is? Soeur Bernhardt!!!! Now I'm DEFINITELY going to visit her while she's in Temple Square. Actually, she could be getting her visa anytime now, maybe even before transfer day. Whenever it does happen, I'll probably just become a trio with the other companionship of sisters that's already there. The fourth trio of my mission!

Blois is a smallish town (50,000 people), kind of in the middle of nowhere, but it has huge significance for our mission because that's where President Poznanski grew up. Most of the Branch is comprised of his family members. No pressure right! Blois is also located in the Loire Valley, which is known for having many famous castles. I hope I get to see a few!

FYI, Soeur MacKay and I went to the Champs-Elysée, Concorde and the Arc of Triumph for the rest of P-day. Even though I've been before it was always cloudy and cold this time of year, last week it was glorious! Lots of good pictures, if I can get them to load...

This week we went to Laurinda's with the Assistants because one of them could give a blessing in Portuguese. It was a good moment for her to see how the priesthood works...and her husband too. He stayed in the kitchen the whole time, but I saw that he was watching. Our problem now is that she's missed every week of church since her baptism, two weeks was General and Stake Conference, one week she was visiting her son and this last week she was ready to come, but there was a miscommunication on trying to get her a ride to church. And sadly, she says she can't go next week either. The first few weeks after a baptism is crucial for a new member so we're trying our hardest to get her to church.

Tuesday was a “miracles” day for us. As we began planning the night before, we realized we had no appointments set up, which is a bummer for missionaries. Soeur MacKay said, "Well, when you have nothing in your life, that's when the miracles start. So I started calling old investigators and potential ones to see if any were interested. The first woman I called was a woman named Hary who approached us a few weeks ago while we were grocery shopping. Turns out she was VERY interesting and we set up an appointment. We were a little disappointed though because we realized that she actually lived the area right next to us. We called the Elders in that area and they told us to teach her once and then pass her to them during the second lesson.

Then just as I hung up another companionship called and said they just realized that their investigator actually lives in our area. So while we had to give one great investigator away, we got another one in her place!

We had to talk with Aisata last week about why she isn't reading and coming to church. She says it's because she's never read anything about Joseph Smith in the bible and so she's not sure if she wants to research something that might not be true. We explained that research is how you find out something is true. Luckily, Aisata is really awesome and sincere and she admitted that she already knew that. She promised to really put forth an effort, but also said that if after a few more weeks she still doesn't feel that it's true then maybe we shouldn't see each other so often. We agreed. The thing is that I KNOW that if she does read, pray and attend church, she WILL know. It's the promise of the Lord! The question is: will she really do it? We're going to see her tonight and try to set up a FHE with a member for Wednesday, after I leave. :(

Things are going great with Alicia. What I love about teaching with her is that while she's is preparing for baptism we can see how the lessons are reactivating her mother, Joyce, little by little. Last week we talked about Sustaining the Prophet and Obedience, which worked because that was the subject the prophet spoke about during the April 2013 General Conference. It was a simple lesson, but I saw at the end that Joyce was crying tears of happiness. It was another moment when I said to myself, "This is why I came on a mission".

Love, Bethany

pictures 1- Last visit to Arc of Triumph 2-Missionary district 3-Alicia's family