WEEK 69

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!! oh wait..too early... DANG IT! CHRISTMAS CANT COME FAST ENOUGH. 🏻 (cause fries make me happy too) so this week was super amazing cause i got to go into PARIS for a conference and i got to spend some time in the city of my dreams!! people always say that you fall in love IN Paris but i think i've fallen in love WITH Paris...but you all know me. i'm always the odd one out that does all the weird stuff...so i guess i'll just deal with it. i'm hoping and praying that my turn to serve in that beautiful ville is coming up soon!

MONDAY NIGHT

well we had an interesting night. We went and tried to see an old investigator that me and Jorgy found. Khadijah...do you remember her??? She told us that she wants us to come back when Christmas vacation starts and that she was thinking of us recently and would love to talk! Then we went to a random apartment building and started ringing doorbells and someone let us in. This older man who was just a complainer! Who ranted on and on about how God doesn't care about us cause we have all the immigrants.....oh la la. Anyway. He let us pray with him and then we got out of there and elder Sorensen realized he'd left the computer on at the church! So we ran to the church to turn it off.

TUESDAY

I had a really cool experience during my studies today! It's really crazy and personal and it involved my patriarchal blessing so I can't really share it just like that, but let me say that I got a new respect for my patriarchal blessing today! It was super cool! And I know that my Heavenly Father has special blessings in store for me! I challenge you all to go and read your patriarchal blessings tonight and find something that you can relate to your life now and thank the Lord for it:) so this morning we went and contacted ALL over and went and tried to find some less actives. We were out walking and talking to people for about 5 hours haha it was a super long time!! But we had some good times and found a couple people's houses and made our way all around Dunkerque! After we had come in and taken lunch we decided to go out and try to go and see this less active who used to be the branch president. He works here in Dunkerque and the branch council had told us to go by sometime and try to see if he was there. As we went and did that, Jean Paul stopped us and asked us to come over to his house tonight so that we could sing some Christmas songs and share a little message. So we then made our way to this dudes work and when he opened the door, we just knew it was him haha he talked to us and was nice and told us some of the reasons why he stopped coming to church and told us that we could even try to fix something up to see each other again. It was good! He was nice. Then as we were leaving we got a phone call from the Golding's, the English less active family. They told us that they really wanted us to come over tonight but we didn't have the time so we asked if we could come now. So we went and talked and played a couple games with them and passed a little time with them. They invited us over tomorrow night to have dinner with them before their son moves back to England with his Dad. After we had finished with them and left them with a prayer, we went to our weekly rdv with our less active and active member family. We watched the restoration video with them and they told us that they liked it and are learning a lot more about the restoration and that its helping them to understand! So that was cool! Then we went to Jean Paul's house and sang and shared a message about the sabbath day cause we were inspired to do so hahah it was a good time and Jean Paul told us that he always keeps the sabbath day holy cause he wants to keep the spirit with him so that he can have a relaxed spirit;)

WEDNESDAY

Today was super good. We had a busy day working the whole day long and I was TIRED at the end. But that is the kind of tired you want. Because we all know that serving makes us feel that much better. Haha we woke up this morning with some studies and got ready for the day. Elder Sorensen didn't make me go running so I just chilled in bed and watched some Ephraim's Rescue. After we'd finished up the studies and stuff we headed out to do some work. We had to go and print out some tickets to be able to go to Paris tomorrow and then we went walking all around trying to find some less actives and some new investigators! We found all the less actives that we'd been searching for and left cards at their houses cause even though we'd found their houses they didn't answer the door....so we'll just have to go back!;) hahah we also found this really cool park with some DUCKS in it! I love ducks! We stayed and played with them for a while, but sadly I forgot to take out my camera:( and so I don't have photos:( after we'd finished up that we stopped by the boulangerie for a baguette for lunch and then headed in for lunch. We had a little bit of time to eat and then went back out to do the same old thing. #contactandfindlessactives haha we went and contacted this one lady named Muriel. She told us she was just depressed about humans cause of what we were becoming and that she didn't really believe in God cause of that. She told us that tons of stuff like this was going on that made her just depressed and we told her that we believe we have a divine potential and that we can make it to those expectations to become the better people that God wants us to be and she gave us her number. As we walked away we dialed the number to let her have ours and a man answered! She had given us the wrong number! And since that was not the first time it's happened, we decided to go and get her back;) we hopped on the bus that passed right then and made our way down a couple blocks right next to her and told her we lost her number. She then gave us the same number, and watched elder Sorensen type it in, so we don't know if it is a fake or not! Maybe it's her husbands phone?? Haha then we went to our rdv with Jean Bernard and taught him the word of wisdom cause he's trying to quit smoking as well and he told us that he's planning on being done by February! So hopefully that works! Then we went to the Golding's house and hung out with them. We ate some dinner and played monopoly deal and they LOVED it haha they were asking me if they could buy it from me before I left;) it was a fun night. Keep them in your prayers. They sure do need it!!

THURSDAY

well I didn't have to go running this morning either! Which makes me happy. You all know me, if I can find a way to not exercise, IM GONNA DO IT;) haha I did decide this morning though that I need to start a dream journal! Can you just imagine and think about how fun it would be to go back and remember all your dreams?? We were talking about it and it's so funny how as soon as you get up and going, you just forget the dreams. So I decided I'm going to have to start one! Well this morning after studies we went out and tried to find the last couple of less actives on this list that we had. One no longer lived in the apartment building and the other didn't have a name or number on the house so we aren't sure if he lived there still or not. We walked all around to try and find these guys and tried to contact some people but something that I've noticed is that when the weather is cold, EVERYONE is either really busy and doesn't have time, or is just plain rude! Haha so I don't really like this whole contacting in the winter thing. But we still do it cause the Lord has blessings waiting for the righteous. After we'd finished that, we made our way in for lunch and we took the bus that my bus driver friend was driving! You remember him from all the way back in Jorgy's days in DK?? It was fun to see him cause I hadn't seen him since elder Sorensen has been here. We then went in for lunch and I had a package from the ROYERS!!! They are the coolest!!! I'm not gonna open it til Christmas though:) Then we made some calls to some of the less actives that we'd tried to go and see recently. None of them answered and so that was a bummer. We then went out and went contacting for a while. It was a good session. We talked to lots of people, none that were exactly interested or ready, but there were a couple who talked. Then we made our way to the church to do something on the computer really quickly and then headed home to get ready and head out to Paris for the night! We ran home and changed and pack our overnight bags and then ran to the boulangerie to break some bills for change for the metros in Paris and then headed to the gare, only almost getting ran over once! Haha we got in and caught our train Paris and headed in and met up with the guys in Paris and made our way to the apartment for the night. We played a couple rounds of monopoly deal and then went to bed and stayed up talking for a while. It was a good night!

FRIDAY

today was probably the best day that I have had in a WHILE! I loved the Christmas conference that we got to have! Today our main focus on what we talked about was the temple, which should be our main focus always. We learned so much about the temple in Paris and it is coming along! We woke up this morning and got out of the apartment to make our way to Versailles for our conference! When we got into Versailles we met up with a ton of missionaries and I saw a ton of my good friends that I haven't seen in a long time! I saw Soeur Hudson, and Soeur Hansen and Elder Empey, and Elder Quist! It was a really good day! We started out our day by having a couple formations. The first was about the temple and the temple couple was here!! They shared pictures of the progress of the temple and told us some interesting things that are going on in the temple building process. Something I found interesting was that the sister in charge of the temple history told us that EVERY single slab of stone going on the temple is numbered. They think about where each piece is going to go to make it beautiful. She related it to us and how we ARE important and how she wouldn't be surprised if each of us had a number of exactly where we needed to go when our Heavenly Father was sending us on our way to earth to make it beautiful here. It was touching:) then we had a formation given to us by president Babin reminding us of our potential. Cause it is big. We can achieve our potential as missionaries, as children of God, and as Latter-day Saints by following the laws of the temple. Obedience, Sacrifice, the Gospel, the law of chastity Chastity and Consecration. He told us that each day we make the choice of keeping those, right at 6:30 when we decide to get up or not, by sacrificing something good for something BETTER, by living and teaching the Gospel, keeping the law of chastity in EVERY way we know we should, and trying our best to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. It was a great conference and the spirit was so strong. We then ate a delicious dinner and had a blast with our friends and took pictures, and even SANTA came to visit!!! Sadly we didn't get to see him....but he left us presents and I got a couple Christmas packages from you all;) thank you!!!! Even some members I met in the Paris area a couple times! How nice are people??! A present from someone I met twice?! President and Soeur Babin gave me the BEST Christmas present ever though. I'm sorry, thank you for all the presents, but nothing beats what they gave me!!! They gave every missionary a temple recommend holder with the Paris Temple on it!!!!!! I was so happy!!!! It's probably my favorite present I've ever gotten! :) After we'd finished eating and finished getting our pictures, we made our way out to catch the metro back to the gare to catch our train home for the night and sadly....we missed our train! So we had to just sit and chill in the gare and go pay to exchange our tickets to a later train home for the night. We then all had to split up (which is SO hard for missionaries....I hate going my own way and having to leave my friends:( but such is life) and me and elder Sorensen headed home to Dunkerque for the night and made it into the apartment in the wee hours of the night! (9:30;) )

SATURDAY

if we compare today to yesterday then today was LAME! But that happens...today there isn't a ton to report cause we had to weekly plan and that just makes for a boring day. We got up this morning and studied and then went out to go contacting. We had to run to the gare to check out train and bus times for district meeting and exchanges this next week and so we did that and then got a call from Jean Paul asking us if we could make it to his house cause he had a 'Christmas check' for us so we made our way to his house only to find out that it was a couple pictures from the other night that he had printed out for us hahah if I could count how many pictures this man has printed out for me! Haha he's a silly goose. Then we went and took our lunch and I had to sew my pants back together cause yesterday they tore and it was a bummer....after that we planned and that took a while and we talked about the temple...I really want to go! The missionaries here are going to be so lucky to go when the temple is open. I'm honestly a little jealous...but I'm trying to work on my bad habit of coveting so I'm trying to accept that the Lord needed me here in France before the temple to prepare people to get there, cause He knows I'll have plenty of opportunities once I get home. SIDE NOTE: I want to volunteer at the temple when I get home....does anyone know how to do that??? Just once a week....don't know when or where yet, but let me know:) then after planning was over we went and had a quick rdv with Mike! He told us he wanted to learn more about the creation and so elder Sorensen took over that lesson by going into some nasty deep doctrine! Haha but he took it well and we all decided we'd read Abraham before our next rdv. We then went to our rdv with Mado and we had decided to read the Christmas story with her to remind her a little bit about the season. Anywho, we finished and got home for the night

SUNDAY

We had a really good Sunday! It was super full that it almost felt like we didn't have time to breathe. But we got it done and things went well. We woke up and got out to church and had a pretty good turn out of people! The Deslypper's had some family friends invited over for the week that were from Germany that spoke only German and English and so they asked me to do the translation during sacrament meeting and the nice old lady told me I did a good job! She also told me she understood 1 word in 10...I honestly have no idea if she was talking about my English translation or the French she heard as I was translating! I don't know what she meant...but we'll hope she meant the French!;) after sacrament meeting we had a quick meeting where we all talked about who we all wanted to go and see while we all did this finding activity next week and so that took a little bit and then we went and did this little spiritual with this one member here who is trying to learn some english...not really sure why? but she asks us to always share a little thought with her in english so that she can get better at learning her english. then we went and had some lunch at home and after lunch we went and had a rdv with this potential investigator that turned out to be super dope!! apparently he has met with the missionaries before and from what he was telling us, it sounded like he had a baptismal date! so we are going to try and start teaching him again and we'll see what that leads to cause he seemed really cool! then we went out and elder sorensen wanted to go and see bruno cause we hadn't seen him all week and when we got to his apartment, he told us that he'd been in the hospital all week cause he has these episodes like once a month that make him pass out randomly and so he'd been in the hospital cause he'd been out walking and passed out...so we fixed a rdv with him for next week and we will see what comes of that! then we had a rdv with our investigator from last week, Julien. we got to his place and he wasn't home...so we went out to go and contact and we met this lady named Antoinietta. she was such a cool lady! she told us that she was really interested to learn more and she spoke fluent english cause she lived in england 7 years and so we will be teaching her in english hahah then we made our way out to a rdv that we had with another potential investigator named Francis. he is so cool! we met at his new apartment and met his girlfriend and cute little daughter and they are all interested in learning more! so looks like i might have to get someone married! then he gave us a ride back home to the apartment for the night.

this week was super solid and we are that much closer to christmas! words cannot describe how much i need to talk to my family! i am so excited to do it and im grateful that i have the chance to! but i am also grateful to be here in france at this time, preparing a people for a temple, and bringing souls closer to my heavenly father. THE GOSPEL IS TRUE! CHRIST LIVES! #REMEMBERTHEREASONFORTHESEASON merci beaucoup pour tous les prières et pour tous les colis de Noël! je vous aime tous!! (Thanks much for all the prayers and for all Christmas packages! I love you all!)

 

elder Libby