Seven in One Blow: Faith Generating

French fact: Bordeaux, literally translated, means the edge of the ocean. Truth be told, it's about an hour away. Close enough to be hot and humid. Change your shirt during lunch hot and humid, as Elder Taylor would say. Lovely.

I feel like as a missionary I get a broader view of things so that I can see a lot more parallels and types. Somehow, things I'm thinking about and studying are always exactly what our Zone Conferences are on. And I realized just how drole it is that my home stake gets to listen to an apostle roughly the same time as myself. I was reading dad's letters today on the aftermath, as I myself am in the aftermath of listening to a different apostle. With the time lapse called the postal service, it's like the same thing. 

concert flute-ist

Brief notes from past half a week- I am now a concert flutest. Mom, I hope you kept that flute you had. I did an exchange with my daughter after arriving back from Nice Wednesday afternoon. AKA Soeur Koyle. And I left again to go to Toulouse for another exchange where I felt like I was breathing expired air. Then, after some train difficulties, due to a grève, we are finally back in our sector and ready to work. 

Last Sunday, the saga began with twelve sisters sleeping in our tiny apartment. There was no place to lay your head. Or stand or sit or move. But I was impressed at the level of maturity and the solemn spirit of reverence that was brought into our apartment. We've been calling and assuring that each of them was preparing spiritually for this conference and you could tell by the atmosphere, by the air of expectancy, that prepare they did. Wowzers. Even more impressive was their ability to maintain this atmosphere during the thirteen hour bus ride. I was the worst one! We didn't stop for the first five hours and that last hour was rough. After sitting in the same position studying all the things I'd always wanted to, but never had time to study is draining! We made it, sanity in tact, trying hard NOT to eat the snacks we bought  in order to maintain our current body weight. (Because our leg muscles were rapidly atrophying and I wasn't sure they would be able to support much more weight than what they were used to...)

Tuesday morning, same ambiance of reverence still in tact, shirts freshly pressed and shoes shined, all 274 missionaries headed over to the Acropolis, the Nicean venue for the conference. It was amazing. Elder Andersen walks in and touches the flowers on the stage and says, These flowers are beautiful. It's like a funeral. Then we all got to shake hands quickly-taking under ten minutes. Not bad. I imagine it being a lot harder to organize a Stake Conference if only because the missionaries here were so dedicated to exact obedience and order that it was like we had role played it or we were a military drill team, I'm not sure which. BTW-I got to sit in the second row due to my connections with the special choir. 

Conference Notes: 

Soeur Roney talked about hands. We are supposed to be doing the same things that the Savior's hands would do. Our two hands are constant reminders of who we are and what we have. 

President Roney spoke on spiritual whirlwinds and the importance of trusting Jesus Christ over ourselves and our own logic. He related the beautiful story of his old mission comp turned Catholic that he was able to visit and love. 

Nice Odessy

The Kearons (sp?) then spoke. They were later voted power couple by our ZLs. Soeur Kearons spent a powerful four minutes speaking about the importance of becoming true messangers of Jesus Christ. 

Then Elder Kearons, charming Englishman that he is, spoke about a variety of subjects. My favorite quote was that "faith has a short shelf-life'. His point being that we always need to be preparing like we had and having spiritual, faith-building experiences in order to maintain our faith. 

After that, we sung our mission song. I have never heard it sung so beautifully. Like a literal choir of angels. We started off with a bit of Les Mis' Let Him Live on piano and violin, which turned into Va, Ne Crains Pas sung by a quartet. Soeur Buenanotte then started singing the chorus of our song over it. And then we all joined in with Les Anges Dans Nos Compagnons. Soeur Carter and I were singing the special tenor part. The most beautiful music I've ever heard. That's what heaven will sound like. 

Elder Andersen, prophet seer and revelateur, then spoke. IT is powerful stuff, that. Here are some highlights: Missions are a preparatory experience for life-you are meant to be changed. When people understand the Savior and the Atonement they will join the church. They need to have a faith-building institution, which is what we have. All missions are different, this mission makes you develop faith. We can baptize more. The opposite of faith is laziness and not wanting to labor, case in point, Laman and Lemuel. We need to learn how to generate faith. Fill your hearts with scriptures of miracles. Point out more miracles. Choose to have faith. Testify of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Plan of Salvation. He then left upon us an Apostolic blessing not to be forgotten. My biggest message from it was the necessity to be faith-generators. I have started researching in the BOM/NT how faith is generated so I can do it better. We've narrowed down our focuses to those three points and church attendance. And we are planning for, recognizing, and accomplishing more miracles. I testify that God lives, that He is a God of miracles, and that Jesus Christ is His Son, the Savior and Redeemer of the World. 

Running running running

French Fact: They're very particular about pronunciation. I just had language study with a French person and well, I don't speak quite as well as I once thought. Then again, I don't do anything as good as I think I do. There it is. 

Recap of P day last week-we came back to the ville we all love, to spend time with Soeur Carter, who we also love. And whose birthday was a few days ago. So we went to the zoo, vieux Lyon, and Fourvière cathedral. We ate ice cream and crèpes that were delicious. Emily will be going back  to the U.S. this week and she apparently spent a lot of time sitting at cafés and writing in her journal, so she wanted pictures of it. She really wanted Soeur Carter, the photographer, to do it. But halfway through, I got bored and so I took the camera and went crazy. Comedy relief, if nothing else. Soeur Floisand and I sent on temporary exchange that night to teach a woman named Lola. She is wonderful and really has a thirst for the living water. It's wonderful to help someone quench thirsts of this nature. 

Tuesday we had Fellowship of the Jedi. We talked a lot about Elder Anderson's Conference and the spiritual and physical preparations required. I think I never realized until this point what a big deal it is to have an apostle. In the church, we kind of think of them as celebrities where we want to go shake their hands and be edified by their message. I've come to realize just how ordinary these men are, and thus, how spectacular their calling is. As Elder Bednar says, this must be the work of the Lord, because these ordinary men could not do it. Their capacities must be greatly increased and they must rely a lot on their faith and testimonies of the gospel. C'est pas evident des fois. We have been doing some hard core preparation so that, unlike the Nephites in the Book of Mormon, we'll be able to understand the words the first time. I've never quite prepared like this, but I think I want to in the future. If we had a decent period of serious preparation before every general conference, we'd never stop! And our joy would be full. Interesting note Elder Andersen points out in one of his talks-RMs will never become inactive so long as they pay their tithing. During lunch, we celebrated Soeur Carter's birthday with chocolate cake, a chicken hat, pop rocks, and a Lyon pin. We studied. We enjoyed fajitas. And I got to spend the night with Soeur De Oliveira, my bleue. She's fun. I like that human.

Thursday we flew back bright and early and everything that could have gone wrong did. We woke up and left by 4:30 only to find that the metro was delayed 15min. We got to our stop and had missed the tram that goes to the airport by like 5min. So we had to wait 25 for the next one. There were unreasonably large lines in the airport. We waited to check our bag and finally it was our turn and the lady was being trained. The trainer made her check BOTH our passports even though I was the one paying for the bag being checked. Then she found out that the cart de séjour in Soeur Luthi's passport was expired. Trainer lady made a huge deal and said we couldn't travel, but made some phone calls and turns out we can. At least she believed us when we said we could speak French, because otherwise this would have taken a lot longer. I can never understand when they speak English. Anyways, they made us go wait in a different line to pay for the bag. We waited and paid and ran to security. Another huge line awaited. At this point, we technically had 3min until our gate closed. Some nice lady let us cut a bunch of people, but we still had a large group of travelers in front of us with an even larger number of carryons. Trumpets, iPads, you name it. We talked to the security guy and he let us put our bags in front of theirs. But still, the scanner lady was being trained, so it was slow. Then another lady decided I was a security threat and she patted me down for a good five minutes. Just enough time for our bags to get through. We threw on our shoes and ran for another ten minutes to our gate. Made it just in time. They let us in after the gates closed right before the flight was going to leave. That's another good thing about France-deadlines don't mean as much and people show up late all the time. And we made it. 

everyone wants my photo!

We got back and went on exchanges right away with Bayonne. We taught a lady named Valerie who came to church for a year straight and was never baptized because of her husband. They are now separated. Our Indian ami Vincent brought an ami, Rerinold. The only hard thing is that Vincent speaks English and Rerinold speaks French. They communicate via Tamil. But we have to translate into a few different languages. Thursday we went contacting all the livelong day and it was awesome. We have a new ami named Frenzy and stopped by Soeur Baquedano's for a quick drink, spiritual thought, and to talk about her friend she's going to introduce us to. It was pleasantly sunny. We were also supposed to meet with another member, but Soeur Luthi's half of our equip had an ami call last minute and say he could meet right then, so we let her take Baba over to the Vendassi's house to teach him. 

Friday we had Zone Training, in which Soeur Luthi and I talked about how cool apostles are and how important it is to obey the dress code. Then we took the whole second hour to teach our Zone how to sing. I was conducting. I've gotten a lot better ever since someone pointed out that you are supposed to go down at the beginning of each measure. Elder Heck kept telling me to smile. It was hard. After that, Sonia told Soeur Brimhall and I all about her family problems and we encouraged her to do the little things to remain strong. We had RCM and this morning we had language study chez les DeFranchis. It was a great week. I am tired, but I will have two 13-hour bus rides to catch up on sleep on our way to Nice. So, à fond la caisse quoi. Follow the prophet. Love.

Fellowship of the Jedi

May 26, 2014

French Fact: There's a restaurant in Vieux Lyon where you get a gelatto and they will put as many flavors as you want on it. I had chocolate, mint chocolate, coconut, speculos, banana, raspberry, and one other...But it was delicious. 

Well, I'm back. The land I call my home. Good ol' Lyon. Still have my same old email account at the Muslim internet cafe. Rewind. Fastforward style; sorry, it's gonna be short. Last Monday, I spent some time with Soeur Jones and Cherry and Paulo. I needed to get a few new shirts, so I sent them out into the store and they brought stuff to me and I said yes or no. Minions :) I like them. We dropped Soeur Paulo off that night at the Gare with her new companion and I had to stay with the Eysings soeurs because Soeur Luthi wasn't getting in until the next night. We had a fun day of contacting and street boarding. 

We ended with RCM and strawberry shortcake. Not a bad day, especially with people I love. That night we went to the Gare and Soeur Luthi's train was delayed an hour, so Elder Taylor entertained us with some boyband dancing to various hymns. It was hilarious. 

Soeur Luthi and I planned a lot this week. Now that's all done. We tried to stop by some members-Soeur Picard happened to have just made a chocolate cake when we stopped by. No complaints. Soeur Petit invited us for a lunch of chicken and potatoes. She is so cute and loves the gospel. I feel so bad for her because she has a ton of physical ailments. 

We had a few super powerful lessons. One was with Alain. We taught him about baptism and confirmation now that he's engaged to it, to help him feel more comfortable that he can do it. We followed up with the word of wisdom and he's still struggling. So I tried to commit him to live it and he said ok I'll start next Thursday. I thought to myself-Ehhhh. I can't tell him that I'm ok with that. I can't be satisfied with that. Apparently, Frere Jouault felt the same way, because he bore a super powerful testimony and committed Alain to live it NOW. He agreed. It's a struggle, and he's had some slip-ups, but he's engaged for real. 

Sonia has been struggling as well. She failed her exams and her husband has had some serious health problems and her daughter is still in shock from it. So she told us she doesn't have time to meet with us until after her exams. She's studying english, so we offered to help her. She readily agreed, so now we meet every day and teach her a short lesson and then help her with her English fluency. It was a tricky way of meeting more. Haha. But it's good and she is getting a lot better at speaking English. Now we just need her to see the importance of church. Hopefully with the broadcast from Elders Anderson and Uchtdorf at Stake Conference next week, she'll be able to make it. 

We met Baba again and got him to come see a baptism right before our meeting. Then he expressed that he often has doubts, wondering if he makes up his beliefs in his mind. After our lesson that we taught with our recent convert, Karen, he was satisfied enough to read the BOM and come to church, which apparently answered a lot of questions. At one point in the RDV, it was silent and the spirit was really powerful and Soeur Luthi and I didn't want to talk and ruin it, so we just waited for a while and eventually Baba was like, ok, it's good. Haha. 

We also met a Romanian guy who's pretty cool and super believing and promised to come to church. Then there's Vincent, the Indian guy we invited to come to church and has now come three times in a row. He's wonderful and talks to everyone. Today, Soeur Luthi and I flew out to Lyon for Leadership Conference, aka Jedi Council. So we spent a Pday in Lyon visiting our favorite places with Soeur Carter and Floisand. It's been wonderful. 

The Phantom of the Opera is here

May 19, 2014

Here's something cool about France-a lot of the Gares (train stations) have pianos in them. People just randomly come and play the piano. This morning, when we were helping people transfer, we had pro Elder Durante tickling the ivories and Soeur Beeny belting out some hymns. People cried. 

In other news, we have two amis who are scheduled for baptism right now. Sonia is so wonderful, but is facing a lot of opposition between failing exams and her husband in the hospital. It's just rough. Alain knows the BOM is true and is just having a lot of doubts about himself. He knows it's a serious commitment and really wants to be ready. It doesn't really help that his cousin told him that it's normal to wait 20 years before being baptized. Hey! Who are the representatives of Jesus Christ here? He knows he is ready though. 

Note. A lot of you may have heard that Jeffrey R. himself came to my home stake a bit ago. But do you also know that I used to be companions with his niece? We had planned it out really nicely so that Uncle Jeff would hand dad (his hangout bud for the weekend) a photo of myself. Then everyone would be baffled and it would be hilarious. Well for some reason, it didn't work out. I'm going to have to check the behind the scenes details and get back to you. Bummer. 

Last Monday we met a kid named Xavier for the first time. He is cool. And is it a coincidence that he works in LASIC eye surgery and that morning, my glasses broke? I think not. And also I think there's a mouse in our wall. Speaking of signs from the heavens, I think I need to reprendre Spanish. I stopped in Bayonne and taught ladies from Colombia and Venezuela. Later, I met an old man named Papi who speaks Spanish. (He's also 90 years old and I don't think I'd be able to understand him if he was speaking English.) Then I found a Spanish pamphlet in my desk. And I met a friend of a member who speaks and teaches Spanish. The time has come, the walrus said. 

I also went to Pau. It was cool and immediately brought to mind the scripture that says A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Because it literally is on a hill. There is a free cable car thing that transports you up there from the Gare. I spent a lovely day with Soeur Bagley. She is wonderful. And while my apartment may or may not have mice, theirs has spiders 'with legs so big you could pick your teeth with them'. We met with a nice Albanian family with adorable kids. Then we met with their ami Barbara. She is a teenager and she finished all they way up to Mosiah after a week of being taught. She knows it's all true. After she taught us the restoration of the gospel, I turned to Soeur Bagley and said why is this girl not baptized yet? We gave her a date and she literally jumped into Soeur Bagley's arms. I was surprised at her reflexes in fact. The other cool thing is that Barbara is studying in Pau, but she goes home to Bordeaux for the weekends. Thus, I too will have a chance to teach her and she will come to church in Bordeaux. Her mom right now is a bit opposed, but I think she's just shocked that it's so fast. It's sadly funny that the biggest opposition our amis have is family problems. All we want is eternal happiness and infinite togetherness for them! Is that too much to ask? 

Another interesting worldwide dilemma is the loss of emphasis on the family in society. For example, we met a Raelian couple this week. Part of their belief system is "freedom of sex" where they specifically do not get married, but change sex partners from time to time. It's much the same as what a lot of the world thinks, but I was shocked that this is part of a religion. Think of the impact that must have on their children! The values upon which society is built-the family, chastity, work, etc- are literally being torn out from underneath us. Do people really think they can tear out the foundation without having pieces of plaster fall on them? It's terribly sad and terribly silly. I'm glad we have leaders today in the church that provide the anchor, that maintain the foundation, and keep us from falling apart or drifting into perilous waters. But I digress.

Albeit the Raelians are a strange group. For those who don't know, here is a short summary of their beliefs: "All life on Earth had been scientifically created in laboratories by people from space....They will officially return very soon, along with the Great Prophets of old;;;who are being kept alive on their planet thanks to cloning, the secret of eternal life." Glad, once more, that I'm a Mormon.

Speaking of prophets, seers, and revelators, Neil L himself is making a personal appearance to our mission in Nice in a couple weeks. We are preparing by reading all of his talks. Ever. 

We had a sweet concert at church this week put on by the family DeFranchi (all professional musicians) and their friends from the Bordeaux opera. I quickly became friends with the opera singer David Ortega. I saw him walking around and stroking his beard and I knew he was cool. The concert was also really good. Normally, it's not really my thing. But I enjoyed it. And there's a group called On Va Sortir for all people new to the area, they sign up for activities and all go as a group. Pretty cool. They're all older and single, so I think it is also a dating thing. Anyways Ortega and Sr Baquedano's spanish ami sat next to us during the buffet afterwards. So we chatted in Spanish. They made fun of me for my terrible accent and extraordinary limited vocabulary. But at least I mostly understood what they were saying. We had a jolly time. Little does Ortega know, I already want to set him up with the pianist. (And the whole family agrees. Solid). You too. Have a solid week.