Dear Family and Friends,
We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We got to talk with Sarah for a few minutes from the airport before she left the country! She sounded great! We also received a few photos. I attached a couple that were taken at the mission home in Geneva.
We were so excited to receive this email yesterday! We had quite a laugh while reading it since there are many errors which are due to her typing on a French keyboard where some of the keys are different. I decided to go ahead and just send it as it is instead of correcting the whole thing. There are also some French words here and there! I put in just a few notes in bold colored font.
-Laura Waldron
Remember that song from the nineties? It was stuck in my head for the first couple of days I was here....I am SO BLEU! ("greenie") A greenie is a new missionary and in France they call them bleuThqnk you mommy and dqddy for the e,qils; I love you and I q, so thqnkful for you1 Qnd I q, excited to heqr about the races! Fun!
(It looks like the 'a' and 'q' have traded places and the 'm' and comma --this will help you in reading this letter)And how is my wonderful brother doing? I m iss you Spencer! writ me if you get a sec?
Well, here I am in Dijon, France! Can you believe it? IT is beautiful here...the houses, the streets (except for the dog poop), the courtyardsm every thing is just TROP BEAU (so beautiful)! But you know what the most beautiful thing of all is? The People. NEver have I known with such a surety that every person on this earth is a child of a loving Heavenly Father as I have looked into the eyes of the people here in Dijon, and testified to them in the streets. BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST!
Ok, so heres a few tidbits about the voyage here. The flights didn't seem too long and I had some great conversations and gave out some pass along cardsm but I couldn't sleep AT ALL! peut etre (maybe) I was able to sleep like an hour...needless to say my first few days were the most tired I have ever felt in my entire lifem everm
I know you got a little tidbit from the mission home, ps i; glad you looked at it on google earthm isn\t the mission home beautiful? I need to send you some pictures of it. Soeur Madsen (her companion) is the best trainer in the world, she has an incredible testimony and is practically fearless when we go contacting, such a good example to follow.
A little bit about what our assignment ism So, we are here in Dijon for an undetermined amount of time until we can get an apartment in Montpelier. I know we are here for a specific reasonm and that we will go to the south when we have done what we need to here, and so we are just praying that we may be able to follow the spirit and that the people in Montpelier will let us buy an apartment sometime soon, It would be kind of nice to stay here the whole first transfer and then go. So, we are basically opnining or "whitewashing" both of these villes, which means that we neither of us were in the ville before (there are three other equipes of missionaries here, but its not like we replaced any of them....and there are no sisters in montpelier eitherm so we will be opening that too) so basically, instead of getting here with a bunch of references and an area book full of amis (investigators) we get to start from scratch....WOO! This is a pretty unique experience, and I am thankful that the Lord has trusted us to do it! And like I said before, I am learning how to contact from an EXPERT!
A few good experiences:
The first woman I bore my testimony to on the street....it was our first night here in Dijon, and I was EXHAUSTED but, we were working anyway. hadn\t even unpackedm Anyway, I bore my testimony to her, I barely understood a word she saidm and I struggled through my French, but it was powerful and I totally criedm ha bien sur. Butm that was one of the most powerful moments I've had so far....I know that I am here on God's errand, and that I am doing His work, and that I have been assigned to labor among these specific people.
We are visiting a less active member named Giselle. She is an older african ladym who is very sad and lonely, and we are helping her to pray and and know the Savior is there for her. We have had a couple of redezvous with her and are excited to help her more.
Two sisters were baptized last week, and their confirmations were on sunday. The Sabbath was a powerful day, I loved church, and have a new gratitude for faithful members who helped my parents raise me in righteousness...THANK YOU! They had a primary program. and I was truly touched as the children testified of missionary work and talked of preparing to become a missionary....how did I grow up so fast?
Something we like to do when we plan is "fixer des rendevous avec Dieu" basicallym since we are starting from ground zero, we decided in our weekly planning session to set aside specific times where we expected to fill with rendezvous with people we found on the streetm or we would set up a specific route to tract and commit that path to the Lord. We have been able to fill many of these rendezvous, and hope that the people will keep the,! The most miraculous on was with a young man named Nicholas. We had just talked to a grumpy old ;an who told us to go and find someone who believes (which, doesn\t really phase us, its ok to be rejected....sometimes its discouraging, but people like Nicholas make it all worth it) anyway, we found out that he had grown up in really hard circu,stances, but one day just found God, and converted to Christianity on his own. Our brief encounter on the street turned into a two hour long conversation in a cafe! Oh it was so edifying, I wish I had the time to tell you all about it....anyway, we are meeting again with him tomorrow....please keep him in your prayers! Words can not express how wonderful this work is....I am so thankful to be in this beautiful country, with these beautiful people, who speak this beautiful language, which I am sure I will understand someday! :)
real quickly....I now am allowed to email for an hour, which is great, and I can revieve and send emails with any family or friends I would like. Letters are still better since there is no time limit, but I will do my best to respond to whatever emails I can after I do this big one each week, k?
Ok, time to sign off. sorry for the spelling errors I am still trying to figure out the french keyboard.
I LOVE FRANCE! I LOVE THE GOSPEL! This work is true. We are children of God and we have a Savior who loves us.
working hard and loving it!
love soeur waldron
ps yes we had thanksgiving with the othermissionaries at church...we even found someturkey! delish
PPS I might or might not have misplaced my passport...I know you are suprised. Will you cobine your prayers with mine to find it? I know it is somewhere :)
OKLOVEYOUBYE!
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