The Vision

Hello my dear ones,

We have had a blessed and wonderful week here in Bordeaux. Miracles occur and prayers are answered constantly around us, to my convincing more and more that God lives and He loves me. We can see these things every day if we will tune ourselves with our spiritual senses.

Last week we had our second disctrict meeting of the transfer. The 'super trainers' came and did a training to help us prepare for 'E-DAY' the 'E' standing for 'Endear.' Ever since President Roney got here, we have been changing the focus of the mission to really just love people more. We studied the story of Ammon from the Book of Mormon, and his interactions with King Lamoni, and just as he 'endeared' the king, we are doing the same thing with the members, serving and loving them. Yesterday was the big day where we all as an entire mission were to go out and love the ward with every possible effort we could make, and you could just feel how different it was. One of the things we did was something we like to call 'Post-lude!' where you find out what hymn will be sung last during Sacrament meeting and put a nice post-it note on that page for the person to find. It was so fun to see everyone find their little notes! We felt so sneaky! At church I felt like everyone was just an extention of my family, and I am just so happy and excited to continue to get to know the members here.

This week I did an exchange with the Soeurs in Lormont, which is just outside of Bordeaux, and I learned so much from Sr. Taylor, my companion for the day. We lived so many miracles together! At the end of the day we went and ate at a members home, and we discussed many delightful things together over a lovely meal of tomatoes, cheese, bread, couscous and chicken. Somewhere in our discussion, we discussed the great writers J.R.R Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, two incredibly enlightened men who loved Jesus Christ. One of the ideas I loved that Sister Fortina brought up was 'Il y a du bon dans ce monde, et on doit se battre pour ca' which means, 'there is good in this world, and we need to fight for it.' That is our calling. We live in a world of a lot of corruption and confusion, but as disciples of Christ, when we have His light with us, we will continue to shine brighter and brighter against this backdrop of filth. As President Monson said in his recent conference address, 'May we continue to oppose evil wherever it is found.'

Sister Kohler and I have spent a lot of time this transfer talking about the word 'Vision' and how important it is to have one. There is another conference talk about it that I read this morning http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/having-the-vision-to-do?lang=eng that I find quite incredible.

Another great talk is one called 'the forth missionary' Icant remember who wrote it, but a lot of my thoughts of late come from there.

I have learned that the only way to true happiness is by leaving behind all of our visions of what we think is best, and fully submitting our view and our desires and our everything to the Lord. He can't help what He doesn't have, and our talents, time, energy, and all of those sorts of things are things He gave us in the first place. The only thing we can really give Him is our will, and that is a little more complicated. I love the Lord, I want to serve Him my whole live. I love my family, and I want to serve you my whole life. I am blessed beyond measure, and beyond all things that I could possibly deserve.

I love you. Have a super week!

Sarah

August 20th

Bordeaux is lovely, and really really hot. At this moment I am sitting in the internet cafe with my companion, hair all braided up and a scarf around my head.We have one little fan which we prop up on our desk in our one room apartment, which provides us oscillating gusts of air on oaccasion through the night, but mostly we just expect to wake up dripping wet. Its great! haha. Hopefully it should cool down in a couple weeks.

We have two great amis who are progressing! Kevin, who will be baptized the first, is doing so well. He's 22 and just loves the gospel. We ran into him by chance on the road the other day, and he proudly showed us the contents of his satchel....the Book of Mormon and Gospel Principles...'Voila, J'ai tous qu'il faut!' he said....such a solid guy. He has nine brothers and sisters, and his parents live here in Bordeaux. They are originally from Gabon, I believe, which is close to where Stephane is from. Then there is Delphine, who is French, and also in her twenties. She's been looking into the church for about a year now, and we are just really loving teaching her. I think she is starting to make some big progress towards understanding who the Savior is, and what He has to offer us....and as we teach her, I am beginning to understand that a lot better myself. We just love her. This week we also did some service with the Elders for a less active lady from Shri-Lanka, who lives with her son. She has been pretty oppressed in her life, and we just have been helping her clean up her kitchen. We shared with her the scripture in Proverbs 31 about how special women are and how imortant they are to God, and that is a message she hasn't really heard in her cirumstance. We made her smile and she made us smile and we came out as the cockraoch champions of bordeaux! Dun dada! Haha, it was a good time.

This week we are really hoping to find some new people to teach, and to continue to get to know the ward. It should be great!

I know that God lives, and He loves us. We are His children and we were created in His image. All things tesitify that He lives, and the prayer of faith is the secret to a happy day, and a happy life. I have a lot of things to improve and repent of and I am thankful the Savior provided me the way to do that. I am glad that we have a prophet on the earth to lead and guide us. It makes me feel good to testify of these restored truths, and it helps me build my faith. Lets all pray for more opportunities to testify this week!

Love love!
Sister Sarah

August 6th

Hello everyone,

 

I've attached a photo that was sent to us by a couple who is serving their mission in Bordeaux. They are in charge of checking on the apartments that the missionaries are in. They went and saw Sarah and her companion and said that they are in a safe area and have a nice landlord. They went to lunch with them and took this photo.

 

There is some news in this email that we decided to let Sarah share with all of you.

 

Love,

 

Laura

 

 

Mon, Aug. 6, 2012 5:37 AM

Subject: The truth always sets me free!

FAMILLE!!!!!!

So. I had just sat down at the little internet cafe here near St. Cathrine (I decided that I am going to throw in some random location specifics juste pour Anna, that way she can imagine where I am and she can tell you all about it!!) and moms email was one of the first ones I read. I had just barely started reading when I got distracted buy the little box in the corner where it shows all of the pictures I've been sent recently. I saw that there was one of these two pieces of paper, and I didn't remember seeing it before so I stopped reading and clicked on it right away. (yeah, I'm still really easily distracted...some things never change.) I look at it and I read Sister and Elder Waldron, and assuming that you had just taken a picture of mine and Spencer's mission calls together, I thought that was cute and wondered if you had framed them in a special way or something. Upon further inspection, I read that Sister Waldron had actually been called to the Washington DC North Mission...and for a second I was trying to remember if for some weird reason I was in the wrong place or something.....and then it clicked, and the whole internet cafe (consisting of the one leaders, two random people and the guy who works here...) gets to hear....

"MY PARENTS ARE GOING ON A MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

Yeah. I had kind of a huge reaction. Ha. I AM SO EXCEEDINGLY HAPPY ABOUT THIS I CAN HARDLY STAND IT!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. You are going to be the best missionaries ever. I love that for the next six months we will all wake up at six thirty and put on the black name tag. I love that Spencer did that in Perufor two years of his life. WE ARE A MISSIONARY FAMILY!! That’s cool that you are going back to the east coast, daddy! I really am not sure how to express how perfectly happy I was to hear this news, and how thoroughly wonderful I think our family is, especially our Heavenly Father, who has blessed us in so many ways. I love that I have the best parents in the whole world, and that I have the single most awesome brother ever. I also love that I am serving in Bordeaux.....Anna, I love it here. I feel so at home. I love spiritually creating you here with your companion, it motivates me to work hard and to keep our legacy going. It is such a beautiful city, with so much culture and so many of our brothers and sisters waiting for the gospel!! I was able to bear my testimony on Sunday and I mentioned how happy I was to be here and how you had served here several years ago. A woman came up to me after the meeting she is from the Talence ward but just was visiting for the day. She asked 'Comment elle s'appelle, votre tante, cela qui a servi ici ca fait quelaques annees?' Me 'Dayton, Soeur Dayton (Dieton....haha, I love it the frenchy way) and she knew who you were RIGHT AWAY!!! !Ahhhh oui oui, je me souviens qu'elle avaiat une jolie voix!' Her last name is Verrieras, and she is an older single lady, who comes from a family of six or something. I told her you and I would come back and visit her someday. ha. By the way I think the elders are still in your old apt in Talence, I will ask them. Apparently its way past its time and they are looking for a new one, but I will ask them! Was there a tile backsplash in the kitchen? I am fully intending on nourishing and harvesting seeds that you have planted here...even if you were in Talence I know our paths will cross!!! :) love it

Man, email time has gone by way fast today. Just to close, I want to share with you my testimony that I know that Christ lives and He has established His Kingdom on the earth again today. The Church is still being restored every single day as we share it with our brothers and sisters. I know that this is true, and I'm really not ashamed of it. In a world where it is popular to believe in relativity and where people seek to remove themselves from all dogma so that they can have so called freedom, we are here to proclaim that truth exists, and that God wants us to know it! This simple truth does not make us closed minded, intolerant, or captive....for when understood by personal revelation through the Spirit of God, this foundational truth that God is our loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for us, Christ being at the center of it, inspires us to be more loving, more patient, to listen to each other more, to forgive each other more quickly and more readily, to speak kindly of other people and to respect them and love them unconditionally, to seek the welfare of our fellowmen, to do all things that are good. To repent. It gives us the desire to do everything we possibly can to work out our Salvation with God, and to help those we love feel of His goodness. 

During my mission I have come to know and understand a lot of things. Something for which I am particularly thankful today is the temple, because it has been a year ago today that I received my personal endowment. I read my journal entry from August 6th 2011 today, and it was truly the most wonderful day of my life.  I love the temple. I never could have imagined how much I would miss it during my mission. Those of you who can, will you just go to the temple for me this week? If you can’t go inside or if its far away from you, then just go sit outside or read about the temple on lds.org. I would love to get some emails next week about your testimonies of the temple. 

A scripture in the Book of Mormon that became really meaningful for me during studies today was in Mosiah where we learn that all promises the Lord has given to us are STILL promised to us only on condition of repentance. That is the great hope of the Atonement. As I reflect about the promises that I made that day, I think about how holy and pure I felt. I think about how deeply and perfectly I felt the gospel was true. I think about how desperately I wanted to keep my promises with exactness. And then, I realize that life is not perfect. Since that day, I have had good days and bad days...in other words I have been human. Sometimes I have struggled to feel that same joy that I felt, and I have fought against discouragement, fear, and doubt...things that do not come from God. But, even in those moments, I always remembered that I felt that way that day, and I had faith that the Lord would see me thorough. And He has. He does every time. So, if you feel any of the things I mentioned above, or things like unto them, if you have made covenants with the Lord through baptism, or in the Holy Temple, and feel like your desire and motivation to keep them has dwindled, or your conviction has been shaken,,,,or maybe you are just tired and a little lonely, I invite you with all of the love in my heart to just come back. Just do it. Look unto Jesus, the ‘author and finisher of your faith,’ leaving behind all of the sin and the weight which ‘doth so easily beset you’ (Alma 7:15 & Hebrews 12:1-2) and run towards Him, just flee from all evil and run towards the Savior who is standing at the gate with open arms to greet you and let us do it together. You can count me in, Let us repent and feel the overwhelming joy that comes from the eternal miracle of forgiveness. Let us forgive one another. If you haven’t done the invitation I gave a little bit ago to forgive just do it, you will be free.  

I love the Savior, He is my best friend. I love Him, and I know that He loves all of the people that I love, and that is really important to me, because I love some pretty great people. If I could, I would make a list of all the people I love. I would start with my parents and Spencer, and then I would go into my extended family and loves ones, I would start naming my friends ever since Jenny Graham in kindergarten, to my teachers in school and at church, all the way to my precious friends from university, to my companions, to my amis and convertis. And then I would keep going. If I could I would look you each in the eye and say thank you, thank you, thank you. I love my companion, and being with her reminds me of so many of you.

Daddy and Grandpa Ralph, I hope you have the best birthdays ever. Good luck with the race, dad, and be safe in all your adventures...the Lord needs you in Washington DC. Mom, keep on being the best smiler in the world. I really miss your smile and I can’t wait to see it again someday, as we see each other as returned missionaries.

Let’s be pioneers every day and put faith in every footstep!

Thanks for being the best team ever. We will fear not, for the Lord is on our side. He is truth, and He will always set us free. 

Love, Sister Sarah Waldron

PS We have great amis here and the work is going great :)))))))))))))