I have officially completed my first transfer! A transfer lasts 6 weeks and it is the period of time that you stay with your companion in your particular area. Every 6 weeks they come out with a "repertoire" that lets every know if they are staying or transferring areas/companions. Nothing is changing for me this transfer. I am staying in Lille with Soeur North! We will be getting a new sister in our apartment though because Soeur Proudfoot got called to open up a sisters companionship in Luxembourg. This is the first they have had sisters in Luxembourg in a long time. Now it really is possible to serve in 3 different countries by the end of my mission! It is an exciting time to be in the France, Paris mission.
This week went really well! There has been a less active lady who has recently started coming back to church with her 3 children. We have been trying to schedule an appointment to come to her house to teach her family but she wasn't really interested. Finally, this week she called us and told us that we could come over! She has a daughter who is 14 and a son who is 11. The aren't members because they have just recently started to go to church. We taught them the first lesson on the Restoration and they are going to get baptized! They are seriously the cutest kids and I am really excited to get to teach them the rest of the lessons. We taught them the Plan of Salvation the day after the Restoration and they loved it. We made paper cut outs of the Plan so that they had a visual. They were super excited about it and said they were going to show their dad (he isn't a member). The Mom was really into it as well and had lots of good questions because she was really concern about what is going to happen to her husband if he never accepts the gospel in this life. The day kept getting better because she took us out to lunch in Belgium! She literally lives right next to the border so we drove 5 minutes and we were in Belgium. She knew I really wanted to try the fries so we went to a Belgium "Friterie." It was so fun! She said next week she will take us to go get Belgium waffles.
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| Belgium Friterie |
We also taught another child this week named Lucille. She is preparing for baptism but she is 8 so she isn't a convert. Her mom wanted us to teach her all the lessons before she got baptized so she had a better understanding of the choice she was making. We taught about the law of tithing and had such a cool experience! Last week, the mom was talking to us and started sobbing because they are really struggling financially. They can't afford to put gas in the car so they can't go to church or really leave the house. The only time she left her house last week was to come pick us up from the train station. Her husband can't work because he hurt his knee and they don't have enough money for the surgery. For the lesson I brought 10 pennies to help demonstrate that we pay 10% of our income to the church. It was really cool to watch the mom testify of the importance of tithing. She ended up teaching more the lesson than we did! She kept telling her daughter, "Are you listening?? This is so so important." It was really cool to see how much faith and testimony of tithing she had even though I am sure this is a very hard commandment for her to follow. At the end of the lesson we gave the little girl a penny and we also gave one to the mom. (They think it is cool to see American money) We told them that every time they look at it that it should be a reminder of the importance of tithing and the blessings that come when we pay a full tithe. The mom immediately ran out of the room to grab her wallet. She taped the penny across the top of the wallet so that every time she opens it she can see the penny. She had a big smile across her face and kept saying thank you. She reminds me of the scripture in Mosiah 2:41 "...ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness." She is a good example to me of the happiness we have when we keep the commandments.. especially when it is hard. Her circumstances haven't changed but that happiness comes because she has a peace of mind that because she is keeping the commandments that the Lord will bless her family both temporally and spiritually. She is a good example of a woman of great faith.
On Saturday the Elders in our ward had two baptisms!! The spirit was so strong and it was great way to start off the new year in our ward. They met one of the men by contacting on the road. They taught him a couple and lessons and he said that he also had a brother that might be interested. They started teaching both of them and they both wanted to be baptized. The Elders were a little worried because they had a smoking problem but as soon as they taught the Word of Wisdom the men gave their packs of cigarettes to the Elders and haven't smoked since. No doubt, miracles are happening in France!
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| Valentine's Dinner |
Spent my first Valentines Day in the country known for the "City of Love!" We had to celebrate accordingly so we had horse meat, mashed potatoes, baguettes (of course) and chocolate cake. It was such a fun night! Made me really thankful for all the great people that I love in my life. I feel so blessed to have such great family and friends. I hope everyone had a wonderful week. Love you all!!
Love, Soeur Johnson
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