Hello everybody !
I hope y'all are doing well !
1) We had the coolest Halloween miracle ! My companion said, "it's Halloween. Let's make a goal to find 2 new people to teach." I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical, but I responded, "sure, let's do it !" Well, we headed out to buy bus tickets to go to Geneva the next day, and then got ready to take our usual bus home. At the bus stop was a man that my companion had talked to before in English, so she said hi to him. He was excited to hear English, and asked us if we had a bit of time to go grab coffee with him and his friend (who did not speak English, but did speak French). Why the heck not ? We're missionaries, we can turn practically any discussion into one about the gospel. So we went to this café and had an hour long discussion (mostly in English, but also partially in French) about who God is, and the purpose of life, and what our church believes. It was really cool because we were being really respectful and open to their thoughts, which led them to ask us a lot of questions about our beliefs. The French speaker was tuned out about half the time, but my companion pulled out a book of mormon about halfway through, and he started reading that. It was so cool at the end, when he said, "we've gotta go, but that's a really cool read" and we said "you can keep it !" "Seriously ???" "Yep !" "Seriously ???" "Yeah, it's all yours" *immediately pockets book*. And then the English speaker asked us if we could get him one in English. We didn't have one on us, but my companion was prompted to grab one when we got home, and then later that day we just happened (miracles) to be on the same bus as them, and she gave him the English book ! And they asked if they could have our number and see us again, so that was pretty incredible. My companion is kind of the best 😁
2) We went to Geneva for district council ! Honestly, I love that I can say "we'll just pop over to Geneva tomorrow" like, what is my life ? It was super fun getting to know my district though. The senior couple is awesome, they've got some great stories, and the Elders were both in my previous district (that's weird), so we're bros. The other sœurs are so cool !!! They're from Italy and Switzerland, though the Swiss sister spent the last ten years of her life in Dubai. I responded, "I don't even know where that is" and one of our zone leaders, who served with me in Écully before literally everything in my brain that doesn't relate to Jésus was deleted said, "Yes you do !" with very exasperated incredulity, and basically, mission brain is real. On a completely related topic, I hit my halfway point this past week, so that's traumatic.
3) Church yesterday was absolutely amazing. An American guy was visiting from Idaho, and guess what ? He said he served in Portugal, so I introduced him to our Portuguese member, and lo and behold they'd served in the same mission almost 30 years ago, at the same time ! So that recognized each other's names, even if they didn't recognize each other. But that made her day, and was pretty cool for him to have a friend while he's in a foreign country. I was translating for two of our English speaking friends during Sunday school, and he was sitting behind us so he could hear it too, and oh my gosh. They derailed hard core right in the middle of the lesson, "Why is there so much suffering ????" So we had an impromptu lesson about God's plan and all that, in English in the middle of a French Sunday school. The american guy was an excellent co-teacher, thank goodness for random visitors. And then those two amis, who have never tried to meet with us before, were asking to meet with us during the week to ask more questions, which is awesome !! And one of our other amis totally came to church early, and read the book of mormon until it started. It's beautiful to see his desire to learn from the scriptures !
4) Other than all that, it was a pretty chill week. We had a lot of rendez-vous that canceled, but we got a fair amount of contacting done. I'll be honest, I way prefer teaching to contacting (most missionaries would agree), but it's been good to push me outside of my comfort zone and force me to rely on the Lord more. I've been reading Jesus the Christ this week (even though I told myself not to... because it's hard to put down, but I haven't let it interrupt my normal studies yet), which has been really beautiful. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to learn more about my savior, and then put it into practice every day as we do our very best to follow him. I am so grateful for the blessing of a pretty miraculous Sunday after a kinda slow week- God has blessings and miracles ready for us ! It's just not always exactly when we want them 😅. He has promised us that they will come though, and I trust in that.
I love y'all, and hope you have great weeks !
Sœur Cate
No comments:
Post a Comment