Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 大家。I hope you are well :)
Last Monday night Elder Beck and I were on exchange and were supposed to go see a member, but we had to cancel because it would have taken about 5 different buses to get there and they were all messed up because of strikes. Sad :(
The next morning we went up past the church (and randomly ran into a super awesome member from Ghana) to get on a small bus (more of a van than anything) that took us deep into the countryside along these narrow roads through the forest to help a French member who speaks perfect (literally native level) English 的 father-in-law put a corrugated metal roof on their newly constructed carport because 2 weeks ago a crazy hailstorm came though and shattered their car's windshield and put dents in the roof and hood. It was an adventure. Plus also, if you've studied French (Kellie) you'll enjoy this part: this father-in-law was more the farmer type, so he said funny things like "oh la vache" or "vachement." Don't google translate those by the way, you'll get the wrong idea! Ask someone who speaks French.
On Wednesday, we were on exchange again, this time with the Elders from Tarbes. I was with Elder Peterson who is the first person I've ever known to be from New Hampshire (the only state besides Oregon with no sales tax WOOOO)! He's great. In the evening Elder Peron and I (having exchanged back) went and visited a brother in the ward from Angola. His native language is Portuguese, but he speaks practically perfect French, just with a really peculiar African accent. A lot of people in the ward thought he was less active, but that's just because he went back to Angola for a month and didn't tell anyone he was leaving. Easiest reactivation ever :)
Thursday: busy day, but buckle your seatbelts for the three days to follow. A few days before we had contacted a girl that we thought was Chinese but turned out to be very very French with Vietnamese roots, and today we had our first rendez-vous. Turns out she had met the missionaries already about two years ago, so that's cool. We also got contacted by this awesome loud African dude from up Rennes or Nantes or somewhere like that. That night we went to MacDo with our ami who's going through some hard times, we're trying to just be a support to him and help him a) not lose hope, and b) make a plan for how he's going to make his life better.
Friday we were helping a less active move aaaallll daaaayyyy. There were even two fridges still full of food that were super heavy. We managed though, exercise is always good! That night we treated ourselves to MacDo (no we don't go every night, this week was special).
Saturday: we had planned to go to Montréjeau to help the 9-year-old kid prepare for his baptism, but our train got cancelled because, again, strikes. Bummer. In the afternoon we met a Chinese guy 🇨🇳 in the park and got to know him a little better, he's super nice :) that night we had a rendez-vous with our recent convert moving to London this week in a café right behind the Basilique St. Sernin.
Okay, Sunday: SO FLIPPING NUTS. First off, it was Fast Sunday because the week before we'd had the Western Europe broadcast from Salt Lake. In the morning, we get a call from the bishop that there was some sort of complication with the baptism and we weren't sure if it would even happen. We made a lot of calls to the zone leaders, the bishop, the ward mission leader, one of the stake high councilors, and our mission president. Slowly but surely it was all getting taken réglé, and when we got to the church one of the bishopric members was already filling the font. All well and good. We ducked out of the meeting early to check on the font, and discovered that it was very full and very green. You could barely see the bottom, it was like a swamp. We learned that it was probably because of the roadwork they've been doing on the street outside the church, but there was nothing we could do about it but hope for the best. We emptied the font, took off our suit jackets, shoes, and socks, rolled up our pant legs, scrubbed out the font really well, and started refilling it. This time, it was clear and beautiful :D miraclessssss. There were still other complications to worry about, but they get resolved just in time and we had a baptism! It only started 5 minutes late too :) the kid that got baptized comes from a member family, he was only being taught by us because he was already 9 years old. He and all his siblings are so smart. They know so much about the gospel, they ask really good questions. It was a really good baptism!
I have to go, but here's my spiritual thought, about gratitude: while visiting the frère from Angola, I had a thought come to me: think about the relationship between us and God like a college student and his parents. College is hard! It can be really fun, but there are a decent number of hard times too. However, we're grateful to our parents for allowing us the opportunity to go to college because we know it will be worth it in the long run. It's important to our progression. In the same way, this mortal life is really important to our progression! It can be fun but also really hard, but we should still be grateful to our Heavenly Father for giving us this opportunity for growth. Life is a good thing :)
Love you all bye!
江长老
Last Monday night Elder Beck and I were on exchange and were supposed to go see a member, but we had to cancel because it would have taken about 5 different buses to get there and they were all messed up because of strikes. Sad :(
The next morning we went up past the church (and randomly ran into a super awesome member from Ghana) to get on a small bus (more of a van than anything) that took us deep into the countryside along these narrow roads through the forest to help a French member who speaks perfect (literally native level) English 的 father-in-law put a corrugated metal roof on their newly constructed carport because 2 weeks ago a crazy hailstorm came though and shattered their car's windshield and put dents in the roof and hood. It was an adventure. Plus also, if you've studied French (Kellie) you'll enjoy this part: this father-in-law was more the farmer type, so he said funny things like "oh la vache" or "vachement." Don't google translate those by the way, you'll get the wrong idea! Ask someone who speaks French.
On Wednesday, we were on exchange again, this time with the Elders from Tarbes. I was with Elder Peterson who is the first person I've ever known to be from New Hampshire (the only state besides Oregon with no sales tax WOOOO)! He's great. In the evening Elder Peron and I (having exchanged back) went and visited a brother in the ward from Angola. His native language is Portuguese, but he speaks practically perfect French, just with a really peculiar African accent. A lot of people in the ward thought he was less active, but that's just because he went back to Angola for a month and didn't tell anyone he was leaving. Easiest reactivation ever :)
Thursday: busy day, but buckle your seatbelts for the three days to follow. A few days before we had contacted a girl that we thought was Chinese but turned out to be very very French with Vietnamese roots, and today we had our first rendez-vous. Turns out she had met the missionaries already about two years ago, so that's cool. We also got contacted by this awesome loud African dude from up Rennes or Nantes or somewhere like that. That night we went to MacDo with our ami who's going through some hard times, we're trying to just be a support to him and help him a) not lose hope, and b) make a plan for how he's going to make his life better.
Friday we were helping a less active move aaaallll daaaayyyy. There were even two fridges still full of food that were super heavy. We managed though, exercise is always good! That night we treated ourselves to MacDo (no we don't go every night, this week was special).
Saturday: we had planned to go to Montréjeau to help the 9-year-old kid prepare for his baptism, but our train got cancelled because, again, strikes. Bummer. In the afternoon we met a Chinese guy 🇨🇳 in the park and got to know him a little better, he's super nice :) that night we had a rendez-vous with our recent convert moving to London this week in a café right behind the Basilique St. Sernin.
Okay, Sunday: SO FLIPPING NUTS. First off, it was Fast Sunday because the week before we'd had the Western Europe broadcast from Salt Lake. In the morning, we get a call from the bishop that there was some sort of complication with the baptism and we weren't sure if it would even happen. We made a lot of calls to the zone leaders, the bishop, the ward mission leader, one of the stake high councilors, and our mission president. Slowly but surely it was all getting taken réglé, and when we got to the church one of the bishopric members was already filling the font. All well and good. We ducked out of the meeting early to check on the font, and discovered that it was very full and very green. You could barely see the bottom, it was like a swamp. We learned that it was probably because of the roadwork they've been doing on the street outside the church, but there was nothing we could do about it but hope for the best. We emptied the font, took off our suit jackets, shoes, and socks, rolled up our pant legs, scrubbed out the font really well, and started refilling it. This time, it was clear and beautiful :D miraclessssss. There were still other complications to worry about, but they get resolved just in time and we had a baptism! It only started 5 minutes late too :) the kid that got baptized comes from a member family, he was only being taught by us because he was already 9 years old. He and all his siblings are so smart. They know so much about the gospel, they ask really good questions. It was a really good baptism!
I have to go, but here's my spiritual thought, about gratitude: while visiting the frère from Angola, I had a thought come to me: think about the relationship between us and God like a college student and his parents. College is hard! It can be really fun, but there are a decent number of hard times too. However, we're grateful to our parents for allowing us the opportunity to go to college because we know it will be worth it in the long run. It's important to our progression. In the same way, this mortal life is really important to our progression! It can be fun but also really hard, but we should still be grateful to our Heavenly Father for giving us this opportunity for growth. Life is a good thing :)
Love you all bye!
江长老
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