HELLO!

Ho hum, where to begin? It’s been a great week. GREAT! very, very busy. This is a good thing. We taught a lot of amis{people they have contacted}, members, and part-member families, and were privileged to have some very edifying experiences! I'll recount a few of them. 

At church last Sunday (by the way in the seminary anniversary broadcast you guys watched I am 99.9 percent certain that our paroisse{parish or what we call a ward} in Montpellier is in it, as well as a young woman named Morgan, who is adorable and sat by me at church two weeks ago. neat!) and a member came up to us and said 'why haven't you come and visited us yet? There are young women in my family, you need to come over!' This is a kind of question missionaries love to hear. This family has been through A LOT to get from Africa to France...they have waited four years to be all together, and now all six of them are together in a one room apartment. We shared a message about prayer with them that night, and it was beautiful to hear them testify how they knew that prayer is what allowed them to be together. 

We are teaching a woman named Dina, who has been meeting with the missionaries for quite a while. Her son has been sick for a long time and she is content because he is no longer in the hospital. Both of them have lived through trials that I can not imagine. We taught them about how through His Atoning sacrifice and resurrection, Jesus Christ provided a way for us to return and live with God and our families forever. Because He understands us perfectly. It was one of the most powerful teaching experiences I have had so far. When we asked her son what it meant to him to have a Savior he said, 'It means a lot, it means I have a best friend.' I liked that. 

We met a man at the bus stop last monday named Rene. We started talking with Him about God, and after a couple of minutes he told us that his mother had passed away just 10 days earlier. He told us he didn't feel ready to talk about it quite yet, so we gave him our card and told him we'd pray for him. He called us from a payphone two days later, and we arranged a time to talk. We taught him that he could see his mother again someday, and helped him remember how to pray. 

We are teaching another man named Mussole, he is from Angola, which is a Portuguese speaking country inAfrica. He is awesome. There is a Frere {Brother} in our ward, Frere DeBarcellos (from Brazil), whose family we have gotten to know really well. He came with us to teach Mussole last week (I might add, that he was having a hard time finding the bus stop, and it was the greatest sight I have ever seen to see this 50something year old man triumphantly running toward us in his white tennis shoes was a sight to see. There are few things more inspiring to me than these simple, honest acts...like a fellow church member running to help the missionaries teach someone about God) Mussole came to church on Sunday, and he said he wants to come back every week! We told him that would be great. He has lots of tests in school this week, will you please keep him in your prayers? and Dina as well?

We visited Aime a couple of times this week, who of course thought it fit to buy us two huge grocery bags of food and cook us a giant pot of rice. We didn't have much we needed to buy for groceries this week.

We had a ratte-vous (when someone doesn't show up) and met a woman named Lawrence who was in our path on the way home. She wiped the nutella off of her face and swallowed a huge chunk of crepe as we asked her about her belief in God. She tearfully told us that she had just recovered from a huge stroke, the kind that causes most to die or at least be handicapped, and it was her first day to go out of the house by herself. She told us that she knew that she had a mission to fulfill and how she wonders why she has been so blessed, why she was provided this second chance. We gave her a brochure, and scheduled a rendezvous with her which we had at her house earlier today, with her husband too. We had a wonderful conversation, and talked about many important truths. We testified that we had found the answers to life's questions by reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and applying the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. 

Well, there is a little taste of the goings on here in Montpellier. Aren't I blessed to be here? Isn't it wonderful that God allows us to help us in His work, to serve his children quietly, one by one. 

Thank you to Sister Curtis, the Littlejohn’s, Anna, and Brock and Judy for the emails!

Brother Cardiff - you and your family are in my prayers, I received word from many and I am glad to hear all is well now. You are loved by many!

This week is transfers, and I have honestly no idea if I will stay or not. Whatever the case may be, we are going to make it the best week ever. :)

I know that God lives and that He loves us and our families, and provided us a way to have the fullest happiness possible in this life and in the life to come, and that is through the principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ - faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End (which includes the wonderful temple!) Christ's grace is sufficient for us all. 

Let's all have a happy week!

Love Soeur Waldron