I made it safely to France without any problems! We arrived in France at about 11:30am on Tuesday. We were greeted by chocolate pastries and President & Soeur Babin. Let's just say I was already convinced France was going to be the ideal mission before I even walked out of the airport. We packed our luggage into cars and headed to the mission office. Apparently what usually happens is the missionaries get on the mettro and go directly to give out Books of Mormon in downtown Paris. However, due to safety reasons from the recent events we were all directly taken to the mission office in Les Vesinet. We filled out some paperwork and had meetings with President Babin. Afterwards, I went out contacting for the first time! The first person we contacted was so nice and I gave her a Book of Mormon. The second person we contacted had some choice things to say to us.. the nice part of not speaking French is I never know exactly what they are saying so I am not really offended when they say mean things. I am just super grateful for the tender mercy of my first experience of contacting in France going well. We stayed the night in the mission home and the next morning went to the church in St. Merri (Downtown Paris). We met our trainers (companions) and were told where we would be going. My companions name is Soeur North and she is from Cottonwood Heights. I am serving in Lille, France! It is located in northern France, right next to Belgium.
 |
| The pastry shop right by our apartment! |
After they told us where we were serving we had some lunch and headed off with our luggage to the train station. It takes about one hour on a train to get to Lille from Paris. We got off the train and took a bus to our apartment. When we got off the bus we noticed that this lady kept staring at us. We finally said "Bonjour" and started talking with her. Apparently, she used to meet with the missionaries but stopped awhile ago because she got busy with work. We shared a quick message and got her number because she said we could start meeting with her again. We left her with a prayer and they asked me to say it. My favorite part was that every time I would say something she liked or agreed with she would say "Mmmmhmmm." I was getting ready for her start saying "Amen" or shout "Hallelujah!" We have an appointment set up to teach her this week! Again, I was blessed to have such a good first impression of my new Ville (city).
 |
| Town of Lille |
I taught my first lesson on Friday to this cute older couple that are in their 80's. They are seriously the cutest! They are strictly Catholic but the wife is really scared of death so she likes talking with the missionaries. Every time she talked about the idea of being separated from her husband she started crying. They are a great example of the ideal love story! They met when they were 14 and got married after he got home from going to war. They have been married 60 years and we asked how they have been able to stay that in love for so long. (They are so in love you would think they just got off their honeymoon) The husband responded by explaining to us that it is impossible to fall out of love when you have two people are working on it. He talked about how love is not 100% of the heart. Love is a behavior we can choose and decide to control. It made me realize that we are fully capable of learning to love anyone. However, we can't love others when we are thinking about ourselves and being selfish. True love is when we are able to look outside of our selfish desires and become concerned with the needs and feelings of others. (Don't be fooled that I understood anything of what he was saying in French.. This is what the translator told me he said) I couldn't say much during the lesson but I was able to bear my testimony to them about eternal families. I spoke in really broken French but I think they could feel the spirit because they both were crying by the end. It was an amazing experience that I will always remember! Next week we are going to teach them about the "Plan of Salvation" so hopefully they are receptive. I never realized that the first lesson I would learn on my mission would be the importance of love from a cute elderly couple. I guess it's something I need to work on. In fact I think it is something everyone could always get better at! My goal is to better love those who I serve.
On Sunday that asked me to get up and bear my testimony. It actually went relatively well! When I got up I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I did get a little nervous though when the speaker who went after me spoke for about as long as my testimony was... And believe me my testimony was not very long. I was hoping that I wouldn't get called back up because I had already used all the French I know! I think I am going to prepare a talk so that if the missionaries ever get called on to make up the time I will be prepared. After church we taught a lesson to a girl named Ana who is atheist. The missionaries have been teaching her since September but they said she hasn't really been progressing. Except she came to church yesterday and was asking questions about the Book of Mormon at our lesson. I think she finally is starting to progress so I am exciting about that! The people of France have been prepared to hear the gospel and I am excited to teach them about the great happiness it has brought into my life. We had other miracles that happened this week but I will have to tell you about them next week. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
Soeur Johnson
(Sorry my pics are so bad.. I couldn't get them to upload so I had to just take a picture of them from my ipad)
No comments :
Post a Comment