I am so pleased to be writing you this crisp autumn day! The leaves are falling more and more quickly and winter time is here. This week I celebrated my 'One year since I've lived in Europe' day, and so now it has offically been a year since my feet touched American soil. Wierd. It was fun for me to read what I did my first day in Dijon last year....remember me telling you about my first contact with Soeur Madsen? I described it in my journal as a moment when I knew with greater surety, looking into the eyes of this French woman on the street and testifying to her, that we really are children of God. It is a great trial of faith to be a new missionary in a new land and a new language, and I am just thankful for all the Lord has given me, and I am just hoping that Soeur Bayles is having as a great a start to her mission as I did.
So, this week was great. Thanks to a bunch of recipes sent by (my Anut) Leigh Anna, we had all kinds of Thanksgiving miracles! The senior couple heros, the Johnstons from Washington, made the entire zone thanksgiving for our meeting on Thursday, with TURKEY and everything, and Soeur Bayles and I made the recipes Anna sent and used them to bring Thanksgiving to a bunch of people who had never had it before. It was really fun. We also got to eat with a family who recently moved here from Idaho.
At our zone meeting (in our mission we have a meeting with the zone the week after our conferences to really anchor in our hearts what we learned) we talked about what we learned with Elder Andersen's (of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles) visit, and how we are going to apply it in our work from here on out. Church leaders have the vision of doubling church membership in Europe by 2020 as I understand it, and we know that this is only possible through a lot of faithful missionaries and members, united in prayer and in work. Elder Andersen mentioned in his visit how the restoration requires that there be a righteous people accross the world and that it's an impossible task to bring the gospel to the whole world but we must do it! I think (Lyon France Mission)President Roney would add that things that are impossible for us are completely possible and normal for God and His angels, and so we just need to have faith, do our part, and allow them to work through us to get this done. We know that there are many people who are ready for this gospel message...some of them already know it, and have chosen to live lives without the blessings of the gospel for the moment. Others may have never heared restored truth. As Elder Andersen said we bear wistness of Christ to those who are members and those who are not...its our responsibility, we are His servants.
We also know that this is going to be a DELIGHT! Which is probably why President came up with a new mission activity called 'the missionary game' which is basically a game, yes like a board game except there's no board but there is a di, and we play it with members to help them come up with new, fun, simple ways to share the gospel with their friends. What we do is one person rolls the di and whatever number they roll leads us to a sheet of paper with questions. There are six categories of questions, with a number of questions listed in each category, so when we roll a six for example, you ask the first question in category six, and then the next time you roll a six you move on to the next one. bref. Each question starts with 'who do you know that.....' and then the second part is something like 'has recently moved to the area' or 'would make a great seminary teacher' or 'is stressed' or 'likes to play sports' or 'is a great parent' etc. They are great. So you ask the question to the group, and for each name they give they get ten points. After a while, you move to step two, where you all kneel together and say a prayer to bless each of these people individually. Then, we come up with a plan of action...what we can do to get these people connected with the missionaries (invite them to a ward activity, have FHE with the missionaries, give them something on mormon.org and tell them the missionaries' phone number, etc.) and we vote on the ideas, and the winning ideas get ten points each. Voila. I have no idea if that made sense but, it is really a working. We have played it twice, and we recieved 16 member referrals. 16!!!! To give you an idea of how enormous that is, in my mission I think I have recieved less than 16 member referrals in the past year....
This is a marvelous work. The success we have here doesn't have anything to do with us, but everything to do with Heavenly Father, and miracles that come from His hand. He lives. He loves us. He knows this work is true, and He knows that it can be done....and He has chosen dorky 18-20 somethings to do it (lets not forget our senior couples too....way to go mom and dad!) and I know that even though we are small and simple tools in His hands, He is using us to accomplish this great work of restoration. I love the gospel. I love repenting. I love seeing others repent. I love loving people and I literally love everyone here so so much. This is the last week of the transfer, and I normally never express a desire to stay or leave, but I would really love to stay for Christmas. I know that the Lord will inspire President with the right thing, though.
Thanks be to God for our bounteous blessings which He accords us everyday. I thank Him for His Son, for His gospel, and for my knowledge of it.
I love you.
Sarah
PS Landry is getting baptized December 22! NEAT! I would love it if you could remember him in your prayers
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