So yep, I'm emailing on a Tuesday this week. Sunday afternoon Elder Pien and I left for Lyon (rather stressfully after being in Gex and having left important documents back in St. Genis) so I could do my legality. We were in Lyon for less than 24 hours and my legality went perfectly smoothly, so now I'm legal! I talked to a senior couple in the mission office who is serving their third mission now, having previously served in the Toulouse Mission and then the Paris Mission. France for days.
I went on exchanges in Gex and had a crazy experience! I was with Elder Loosle (loose-lee) from Utah, he's awesome. We did a lot of porting and had an unusual amount of success, but we ended with a straight-up miracle. We found a family of 4 from Spain who knew a little English and hardly any French, so we asked in English and broken Spanish if we could ask them some questions about family. They saw that we were Christian and invited one of the family members who was Christian to talk to us along with one daughter who knew English fairly well. We repeated the question and all of a sudden they all came out of the house and went to work straightening tables and chairs on the porch, wiping water off of stuff and grabbing cushions, all to the amazement of me and Elder Loosle. After everything was organized, we sat down with the family across from us and basically taught a whole lesson, albeit a scattered one. They said that they'd been to a Christian church once down the road but stopped because it was all in French and they didn't understand anything. We invited them to come to our church which was just down the road the other way, plus there are a number of people there that speak Spanish. They said they'd really like that, and then they actually came!! That doesn't happen too often, usually people say they might come and then don't. I didn't see them because Gex ward meets before St. Genis branch, but Elder Loosle and Elder Walters got to see them and apparently they liked church :D
On Tuesday we had dinner with an awesome family in the branch. The dad served his mission in La Réunion (island down by Madagascar) and his wife is from there, so she made us this delicious Réunionaise food with rice, vegetables, chicken, and peanut butter sauce. Little bit spicy and lotta bit awesome.
We keep trying to pass by less-actives and potential amis but they're rarely home. However, our old amis/potentials should be returning from their various travels now so we'll have people to talk to! We had district meeting in the Geneva Institute, it was fun to meet up with the district and the zone again and eat tartiflette :D
Transportation is nice usually but sometimes not. Sunday night, the train ride to Lyon which is normally less than 2 hours took close to 3 because of some weird stuff going on (honestly I don't know what it was), but I did learn a valuable lesson: don't ever ride trains on Sunday night! Every seat was filled and every aisleway was filled, there were sooooo many people on the train. It was kind of fun :) We had the same experience in the bus on the way back from the gare in Geneva to Gex, it was crammed full of people and reminded me of the Tube in London. I mentioned that to the woman next to me who was actually from London; she had questions about the church and about missionaries so I was able to help her out with that :) We also met some people from the Seychelles and Elder Loosle met a girl from Malta. Crazy.
I'm out of time and there are still things I want to say! Just know that the Church really is true and if you're having trials in your life, God knows what you need and He will always always help you. You are His child and He loves you more than you could ever know :)
I went on exchanges in Gex and had a crazy experience! I was with Elder Loosle (loose-lee) from Utah, he's awesome. We did a lot of porting and had an unusual amount of success, but we ended with a straight-up miracle. We found a family of 4 from Spain who knew a little English and hardly any French, so we asked in English and broken Spanish if we could ask them some questions about family. They saw that we were Christian and invited one of the family members who was Christian to talk to us along with one daughter who knew English fairly well. We repeated the question and all of a sudden they all came out of the house and went to work straightening tables and chairs on the porch, wiping water off of stuff and grabbing cushions, all to the amazement of me and Elder Loosle. After everything was organized, we sat down with the family across from us and basically taught a whole lesson, albeit a scattered one. They said that they'd been to a Christian church once down the road but stopped because it was all in French and they didn't understand anything. We invited them to come to our church which was just down the road the other way, plus there are a number of people there that speak Spanish. They said they'd really like that, and then they actually came!! That doesn't happen too often, usually people say they might come and then don't. I didn't see them because Gex ward meets before St. Genis branch, but Elder Loosle and Elder Walters got to see them and apparently they liked church :D
On Tuesday we had dinner with an awesome family in the branch. The dad served his mission in La Réunion (island down by Madagascar) and his wife is from there, so she made us this delicious Réunionaise food with rice, vegetables, chicken, and peanut butter sauce. Little bit spicy and lotta bit awesome.
We keep trying to pass by less-actives and potential amis but they're rarely home. However, our old amis/potentials should be returning from their various travels now so we'll have people to talk to! We had district meeting in the Geneva Institute, it was fun to meet up with the district and the zone again and eat tartiflette :D
Transportation is nice usually but sometimes not. Sunday night, the train ride to Lyon which is normally less than 2 hours took close to 3 because of some weird stuff going on (honestly I don't know what it was), but I did learn a valuable lesson: don't ever ride trains on Sunday night! Every seat was filled and every aisleway was filled, there were sooooo many people on the train. It was kind of fun :) We had the same experience in the bus on the way back from the gare in Geneva to Gex, it was crammed full of people and reminded me of the Tube in London. I mentioned that to the woman next to me who was actually from London; she had questions about the church and about missionaries so I was able to help her out with that :) We also met some people from the Seychelles and Elder Loosle met a girl from Malta. Crazy.
I'm out of time and there are still things I want to say! Just know that the Church really is true and if you're having trials in your life, God knows what you need and He will always always help you. You are His child and He loves you more than you could ever know :)
En avant, en avant, en avant,
江長老
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