Greetings mes chers,
This week has been jam-packed comme d'hab. I am just going to pick the best part of every day to tell you about, sound good?
Monday. We threw a big FHE for all of the single adults. it was a hit. We had about eight members show up and three amis! We taught the plan of salvation and ate yummy food. party party. Eric, Veronique, and one of the elders ami's were there and they all loved it!
Tuesday. We taught Ludivine. When she got to the church we could tell that something wasn't right. It looked like she had been crying all night. We asked her what was wrong and she would not tell us and just asked us to start with the lesson. We talked about Joseph Smith and his prophetic calling. It went well, but we could tell that this was just NOT what she needed to hear right then. we both sat there praying our hearts out to know what to say, when finally she opened up to us and told us that she was pregnant. We had just taught the law of chastity last week and were pretty bold with it, and so she thought that we would judge her and tell her that she had to stop seeing us and coming to church. Au contraire! she was soooooo grateful to see our reaction of pure happiness! We explained to her how she could still commit to living the commandments even if she has broken them before and encouraged her to continue on with these lessons because of the blessing they could be for her future family! It all ended SO differently than it started and we all ended up walking out of the church laughing. I could have cried I was so happy.
Wednesday. We went porting Wednesday night and found Christelle and Francois! They are a brother and sister who moved to France from Congo about 8 years ago. Their mom had consecrated their home as a house of prayer when they moved there and always told her children that if anyone wanted to come and pray in their home they could not refuse them. The first thing we asked them was if we could pray with them and invite the spirit into their home! They were just like yes of course come right in! haha. I love it when that happens! We prayed with them and talked a little bit about the restoration of the church and they were both very interested. We invited them to come and take a tour of the church next week! I feel really good about these two.
Thursday. We taught Eric. best and saddest lesson ever! He informed us at the beginning of the lesson that he is moving to Bretagne this week for two months! BUT that he had already looked up the address of the church in Rennes and wanted to know if there were missionaries over there. phew. He is so awesome and has such a genuine desire to know for himself if this is true, and he told us that he has already received a couple of very specific answers to his prayers. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the Bitangas and invited him to be baptized when he got back from the trip. He said, in English, 'Why not?'. haha. It is so apparent that he wants this and promised to send me pictures when it happens. He is going to be a HUGE strength for this branch. I have no doubts about that.
Friday. remember Elodie? the girl we met a couple of weeks ago who is studying English? well we went down to see her in Dieppe this week! Dieppe the cutest little town is about an hour away from Rouen by rail and home to one of the Normandy beaches! We taught her about the Book of Mormon and then she took us on a little tour of the city. yeah, so fun. She is moving to England in about a week and a half, but wants to continue meeting with the missionaries over there! ALSO, she told us that she just booked a trip to come to the great U.S. of A next year and made sure that SLC was on the itinerary! We obviously planned a whole day trip where Soeur Berge and I are taking her to temple square, city creek, and cafe rio. Maybe we'll all be able to do baptisms together by then :) who knows?
Saturday. Went out to Elbeuf to visit the lovely Teclaire. She is so prepared for this. Her friend is a recent convert from Paris and she had spent all of last week at her house (she even met with the elders twice over there). When we came over she was just like 'preach to me'. Haha. She is so ready to live the standards of the church and is praying to know that the Book of Mormon is true. She wasn't ready yet to set a date for her baptism, but I know she will be soon with her sincerity of heart to know and ask God if these things are true. She came to church on Sunday and all of the members remembered her name and it made her feel so good. These members are rock solid.
Sunday. Sunday night we went and passed by Rachel. She has been literally working EVERY single day for the past two weeks and we have not had a chance to see her. She was not home when we got to her house, but her husband, daughter, and mother in law were!!! It was the first time we had ever met her husband, Daniel, and we were just blown away by him. We walked out of that RDV and Soeur Berge looked at me and said, "we just found the next stake president for Kinshasa." Mark my word, he will be. He is ready for this and wants to study and discuss with us. He said that he had been looking at the Retab video that was sitting at his house for weeks, but thought it was only in English! When we explained he could change it into French he was like, "Ok. I'm going to watch this tonight and read the Book of Mormon and you are going to come back on Tuesday and we are going to talk about it." I love when amis give themselves their own engagements and set their own RDVS. what? he is so cool and everything that came out of his mouth was doctrine. I'm really excited for tomorrow!!!
As for me, I am doing well. I had a moment this week as I was sitting on my bed and realized that in 5 short weeks I won't just be able to take the train into Paris, or go grab a patisserie, or speak French to strangers, or ride the metro and I got so sad. I am going to miss this so much and that's not even counting the missionary side of things. Thank heavens it is not over!!!!! I am going hard till the end and not wasting one second! I can't say enough how grateful I am for the chance I've had to preach this gospel. It is beautiful and perfect and true. I gain a testimony of it all over again every single day.
