Week 40 (11/4/19): A normal old week of weird and random miracles

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 

Week 39 (10/21/19): We live on a hallmark movie set

Hello everybody !!!
So when I said I was going straight from summer to winter, I thought I was kidding. Nope ! I literally went from summery dresses to tights and coats and scarves in one week. Which was definitely a shock to my body (I'm just finally adjusting to the cold), but by some lovely miracle I avoided getting sick ! Annecy is incredible. I'm living in the middle of the Rhône Alpes, which means the mountains are as tall or taller than the ones in Utah, but covered in trees like the ones in Virginia. Which is a pretty spectacular result, particularly in autumn ! Though the sun goes down pretty fast, which meant we only had like, twenty minutes of daylight left when I thought we had an hour... oops. 😂 We have canals all throughout the city (sadly unused), which all drain into the lovely lake that Anncey is built on. Which has swans. This led to Soeur Grindstaff's comment that we live on a hallmark movie set. She ain't wrong ! We went and visited a member (who is the aunt of a French girl who lived in the foreign language housing with me- the world is so small within the church sometimes !!!), and she lives in this wildly aesthetic little cabin in the mountains. The ride over in the bus was absolutely amazing, it's almost surreal how pretty it is. I thought of the quote "What are men to rocks and mountains ?" from Pride and Prejudice and had to laugh.
Sunday was super fun, the branch is a really inspiring group of people and I feel honored to get to work with them. I have a lot to learn from their selfless examples, I can't wait to get to know them better ! One family even invited us over for Sunday dinner, and it was such a wonderful tender mercy. I used to have Sunday dinners with my family, so it just felt right. And their home is such a spiritual powerhouse, it felt like a privilege to visit them !
I hope you all have had great weeks. I'm not gonna say mine was easy- moving is usually disorienting- but it's been incredible to see in a few small ways that I'm supposed to be here. I don't know all the reasons, but I know a few. And I have faith that over time, God will help me find the rest. I know that the same is true for each of you, so if you have challenges or circumstances that you don't understand, I'd invite you to look for God's hand in it, and if you don't see it, ask Him. I know He's there, and I know He answers.
Have a great week, and don't forget to smile 😁
Love,
Soeur Cate

Week 38 (10/21/19): Going Out With A Bang

Hey everybody !

1) we had 5 lesson 0's. This means we taught five new people and they had there first lesson with us. It was crazy cause usually we are lucky if we get one or two, but we had 5!! The work in perpignan is progressing rapidly! And last week was a little sad, but this week was great ! It was like 1 step backwards 2 steps forward ! We literally hit or surpassed every single goal we set. It was so good.

2) So every week we do weekly planning. One part of weekly planning is setting goals. We set a goal to have one engagé (someone with a baptismal date). We had no idea who it would be as we didnt think any of our amis were really ready. But as we were at a members house I got a text that read something along the lines of "hey. I'm wanting to meet with you and have the missionary lessons to prepare for Sunday. I've always known the church was true and have been wanting to join it for a while and my circumstances just allowed me to do it." We were soooo shocked. We set up a lesson with her but the time she wanted we already had a lesson planned. So we asked the elders to teach it. They taught it, engaged her to baptism, and then gave her to us to teach ! We are so excited and she will be baptized the 9th of November. But it was so cool to see how our faith to put 1 for engagé brought results even if it wasnt in a way we were expecting. Our engagé is 23 and has been watching general conference for years and reads and prays. She speaks English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and lingua. She is sooo cool and I'm so excited for her to make covenants with the Lord !

3) Transfer calls !! So I'm actually in a train right now. The first train of... 3 ? And then multiple buses and possible car rides, shoot me. 😂 I'm headed to Annecy, a city in eastern France, not too far from Switzerland ! Apparently it's really pretty (I've obviously never been there), so I'm excited to see what happens ! My new companion is named Sœur Grindstaff, and she's just finished being trained. I've never been the senior companion before, so that'll be weird !

4) Our ami Bruno, called us ! He explained how he has been struggling a little with school and stuff. He said good bye, and then we read 1 Nephi chapter 10 in the book of mormon. It was a really good chapter and at the end we asked him what he liked. He said "all of it. I just want to read the entire book!" And we were shocked. We thought he was about to drop us but now he says he wants to read it all ! We are hoping this progress will continue and that everything continues to go well !

I'm so grateful for the time I got to have in Perpignan. I feel like I grew a lot as a person while I was there, thanks to incredible members and missionaries. My French has DEFINITELY improved. My understanding of God's plan has increased exponentially, and I'm a lot more willing to trust Him and accept whatever comes. It will always be a special place for me.

Love y'all ! And next week I'll be writing from ANNECY !
Sœur Cate

Week 37 (10/14/19): Zen, rain or shine

Hey everybody !!!

1)it was a kinda rough week actually. We had a lot of people fall through or putting off meeting with us. Most the time, missions aren't just sunshine and rainbows. But it meant that we did a bunch of contacting this week, because we had a goal to contact for an hour every day, and it really showed me how much I've grown. I used to be really nervous to talk to strangers, but now it's become second nature ! And we ended up having some really fun conversations though people that we might end up teaching, you never know !

2) we had a really fun service project. We got to paint someone's house and the other missionaries had some fun with paint (while I cleaned the windows, because I'd rather do that than paint). But it was super fun. When we went home we took off our clothes and threw them in the washer. My companion realized that she'd left her watch in her pocket 10 minutes into the cycle, but by some miracle it was fine when she killed it out. It's not supposed to be waterproof, but it's impressively indestructible !

3) we were on our way to a members house when I realized we missed our stop. We got off and the members had to come get us from where we were. We were waiting in the parking lot when this Van across the parking lot starts honking and the people inside it are waving us over out the window. Me and sœur Cate thought it looked like them so we start walking over to the van. We then realized it wasn't. So we stopped and they kept waving and screaming at us to come over. They got out of the car and started coming to us. I prayed and was like "yo heavenly father.... save us" and they got closer and closer and they were about to get close enough talk to us and right then the member pulled up and we hopped in his car vite fait (with the mom also #notapostate) and drove off. Exciting stuff. Thank goodness for members !

4) It wasn't an easy week for the work, but I'm feeling fine. I'm feeling totally balanced and stable, very zen. The atonement definitely supports us as missionaries, and the recent theme in general conference of trusting in God and His plan and His timing has made it so I'm actually doing just fine ! And then we had several members feed us, and the family atmosphere is really amazing, we're so blessed to have them.

5) my favorite spiritual moment of the week was at a member's house, when we talked about John 15 : 13-14.

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

In french, the translation says "...that a man GIVE his life for his friends." The mom talked about how Jésus gave his life for us, not just when he died on the cross, but ever since the premortal council when He decided to be our savior, and He helped create the earth and when He sent prophets, and then taught His gospel. Every time He resisted temptation, every time He gave up what He wanted to give us what we need... the gift He gave us was infinitely more than just a few days of suffering, and it continues today, right now, and will always be there for us. That is the friend Jésus has chosen to be for us. And we ended up discussing what we could do to be better friends to him, and it's one of my favorite spiritual discussions that I've ever had. So my little challenge for y'all this week- how can you be a better friend to Jésus ?

I love y'all, and hope you have insanely good weeks !
~Soeur Cate

Painting fun 😂
AND CASTLE PICTURES FROM LAST WEEK (because obviously i'm still freaking out)

Week 36 (10/7/19): CARCASSONNE round 2 cause I love castles

Hello everybody !
I feel bad for y'all, I'm not gonna get the good pictures of today until later (because I'm not a particularly gifted photographer), so the pictures of visiting Carcassonne again will be lower quality. My apologies...
So this week was super busy again, which is honestly really fun as a missionary !
1) we had a "calm before the storm" moment on Wednesday, and we were able to do a BUNCH of contacting. We'd made pass along cards specifically for conference, and we handed out a whole bunch ! We met one man who spoke perfect English, and though he's not available this weekend, we're meeting with him this week, and I'm super stoked !!!
2) We had some members invite us and one of our friends, Bruno, over for dinner, which was AMAZING !!! It was so nice to have a less formal time for him to get to know them, and we talked food (we are in france after all...), which was super fun. The dinner was amazing, oh my goodness. I need to learn to cook.
3) Conference was incredible ! One of our friends came, and it was his first time ever going to church. That kind of blows my mind, but it just made me stop and think how grateful I am to have the complete gospel of Jésus Christ at the center of my life. I had a really good time listening to conference, and I know that I'm a better person for it. Even if it is a bit of a struggle sometimes, especially when I'm listening to it in french, or when they asked us to translate Jeffrey R. Holland into french (do not try to translate that man, just say no).
4) We went and saw the Carcassonne fortified city again, and honestly, it's such an experience ! I could go back a dozen times and not get bored, because it's just so incredibly impressive. Massive towers, extensive walls, a complex history... the nerd in me can't get enough !!!

I love y'all, and hope you guys got a bunch out of general conference, and that you have great weeks as you start applying what you learned!
❤Soeur Cate

Week 35 (9/30/19): The missionary version of a day at the beach..

Salut tout le monde !
This week was pretty normal. We had some good contacts and good lessons. Nothing too crazy happening at the moment, but lots of good things !

1) we got a referral from some missionaries in Nimes. Apparently they met a guy who lives in our sector. So we texted him and set up a rendez-vous. We had a lesson with him a couple days later, which actually went really well. He was curious about how people saw life so we taught the plan of salvation. At the end he said "how do I get to the celestial kindgom?" So we taught the gospel of jesus christ; faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and persevering to the end. The entire lesson was on a bench not too far from the beach, so we could see the ocean. Where he lives, the mountains go right up to the ocean, and it's ridiculously pretty. It was funny, because he was just like, "yeah, for me that's normal, but the tourists do seem to find it quite stunning." I got a laugh out of that 😂

2) We've been doing a lot of less active work here recently. And it's going really well! We had 8 less actives come to church yesterday and it was amazing ! It's cool to see so many people making their way back towards God. I love seeing the people become more and more... light? as they realize what they have been missing.

3) We went contacting one day and we stopped a man. He said in French "I'm English. Do you speak English?" Luckily, we do. 😂 So we had a good conversation in English and talked about life and missions and all that fun stuff and we invited him to church ! It was a super fun contact. And less than a minute after that, we were walking and Soeur Flora heard two people in front of us speaking broken English. She spoke louder, so they would hear her speaking English. Sure enough, they turned around, stopped us, and said "where are you from?" We talked to them and they were Nigerian and were speaking pigeon (broken english is so much fun), and we got to have a conversation with them and invite them to church too !

4) the new book of mormon videos are amazing ! We've been using them to teach people and the visual element has been so helpful. It helps them see the book of mormon as a real event and not just scriptures. It's also changed my perspective a bit- I have way more sympathy for Laman and Lemuel. They really were going through hard stuff, and like, I've complained way more about stuff less difficult. Néphi really was next level. 😅

5) we are so excited for conference ! We are making cards to invite anyone and everyone to come watch some so they can be inspired too !

I wanted to invite everyone here to do 2 things this week, because they've made me really happy 😊
1) watch the book of mormon videos that have come out (they release a new one every friday)
2) prepare yourself for conference. Ponder questions, pray, and ask God to give you answers to whatever you're wondering about. Conference is an incredible blessing as we got to listen to people called of God to guide us in our day.

Love you all and have a great week!!!
-Sœur Cate

The sign i'm next to says "bravo, you looked up from your phone." We couldn't resist staging that.

The lake we go running at

Me and Soeur Flora 😊

My companion organizing... all I heard was a crash 😆

The beach across the street from where we taught a lesson

Week 34 (9/23/19):Toulouse and insanity

Hello friends and family!
This week was really crazy because I was in Toulouse for half of it so we had to try and fit all of our regular lessons in Thursday and Friday, it was pretty exciting.

1) we were in Toulouse, surprise ! Haha we had zone conference and exchanges. And our exchanges were super fun ! There was a baptism that we went to with them, which was super uplifting !  Also, it was funny because the TV for bible videos wasn't working so they ended up just playing African gospel music while they got changed and it was so funny because everyone who was there just sang along to that so it was so fun. Missions are so random and amazing. And the buffet afterwards had a mix of french and African food, such was amazing !

2) we've been working more and more with our ami Bruno ! We have taught him almost everything, and we try to read the book of mormon every night with him! Last night we were reading and we finished. He told us he liked what he read but he was going to reread it just to make sure he got all that he could out of it and wow it was just amazing to see this man want to understand the word of God and yeah! Bruno is pretty cool and we are excited for his baptism which we are hoping will happen the 12th october.

3) it has been pouring rain here. Like hard. We had to go to the church the other day to meet the elders for something. As we were walking there the islands in the middle of the roads were flooded and so no matter where you walked you ended up getting water up to your ankle at least. It was... exciting Haha.

4) the other day we were going to a members house. We missed our bus and as we were waiting for the next one, this lady comes up with the cutest baby. My companion, who loves babies, started making faces at her. She started giggling and it's the cutest thing ever. We told the mom her baby was cute and it sparked conversation and we took the same bus, went to the same stop, and walked together for 10 minutes. She told us she would come to church sometime and she has beliefs close to ours ! It was super cool! Like God lined us up missing our bus to meet this lady. It was pretty exciting.

Yeah... not a lot of crazy things happening this week as we were gone for most of it. But I hope yall have a really really good week !
Love yas !
Soeur Cate

My previous companion soeur Roy came back to visit- I've been here in Perpignan that long 😂