WEEK 43

well this week was a whole lot better than last! thank you for all the prayers and love that is being sent my way! my heavenly father is watching over me and sending angels all around to help me. he does truly watch over us! and he knows what we need and when we need it! i am so grateful for him and the opportunity that i have to be here to serve him! well probably the most exciting news from this week is that our investigator has asked me to baptize him this saturday!!!!!!! i am so excited and he is so prepared! i love that man! i'll get down to the dirty details in a minute but i wanted to make that something for you all to look forward to!

MONDAY NIGHT

tonight we started off with some porting and then we had a rdv where we taught him our investigator about the temple, in preparation for his baptism, and what it is and what we do there and all that. we taught with our recent convert in the ward which was really good cause he just got back from the recent temple trip and so he was able to express how beautiful and sacred the temple was for him! it was good and needed cause at the end of the lesson, the investigator told us that he had thought this whole time that the temple trip that the ward took was something up in the mountains and all the people there took their tents and and pitched them and listened to the bishop for 3 days and then took down the tents and made their way back home! i thought it was funny! he's such a cool dude!

TUESDAY

today was just another day in paradise! i mean reims! we started off the day with some contacting and then stopped by the train station to find some train times for a meeting in paris that we had this week and then stopped by a boulangerie on the way home and then went in for lunch. after lunch was over we went out and did some contacting and then we stopped by the church to go and use the bathroom only to find out that the other elders were sitting there waiting for an investigator to come so we started talking with them and after a little bit they decided that the investigator wasn't coming so we all left together and then did some contacting on the way home for dinner. we decided that for porting tonight we'd go over to a building that has some of our members in it and do some work there. when we got there, the man next door to one of our members said no i'm not interested but go and talk to the lady next door. she goes to church every sunday! she might be interested!;) yes, so interested, that she's already a member!! so that was something funny!! we then came home for the night and the phone started ringing and i answered and it was a family from metz, my first area!!! they called and said they wanted to check to see how i was doing and that they were sorry it was tuesday night cause they'd been trying to find my number since yesterday afternoon! it was so good to talk to them and they said they might be calling me back later in the week;)

WEDNESDAY

so it was tonight at the lesson that our investigator asked ME to baptize him!! i am so happy and so glad that he chose me! i've seen him progress ever since march and i was just hoping that he would choose me! it was a good rdv with him!! so today was transfer day and Beef left for his new ville in st quentin. so after he left we finished up our studies and then went out to go meet a new investigator that we met on the road the other day and said we could meet. so we got to the place and he wasn't there and so we called him and he said that we planned to meet another time during the day! so we just went contacting and all that fun stuff and taught a lesson! we got a call from our investigator changing the time of the rdv for tonight so we just went contacting more and then in for dinner and made our way over the church for the rdv. tonight we went over the schedule for the baptism and he chose me to baptize him and my comp to give a talk on baptism and then he chose to sing Nearer My God to Thee for the opening and closing hymns! haha he said it was all for the memories and that he loves that song because whenever he hears it, he thinks of the titanic and when the ship is sinking...? haha he is so funny!!! i just love him

THURSDAY

today i think i found out one of the reasons why i was sent to france on my mission...i needed to meet a particular French family, whom I just fell in love with while I served in Metz! they are the most amazing people i've ever met and heavenly father has definitely blessed me to be able to know them.  we started the day off with french course from mustard man and his wife and that went well and was fun just as always! then we made our way home for lunch and half way through lunch i got a call from that family!!! The father asked me what time sacrament meeting was this week and i told him that we had stake conference this week...so he said what about next week and i said 11 and he said good! we'll be there! they've decided to come and see me and see what is going on. they are so amazing! he had put my name on the the swiss and madrid temple prayer rolls and i believe they said something about ghana as well but i don't know for sure. they are so amazing. we then went out for a very long contacting session and that was fun..but we made it through! we came home for dinner and then met an ami at the church and it was a very interesting lesson on the importance of the book of mormon and then met with our investigator that's getting baptized this week! he told us that he didn't have any white shirts so i told him i had one that was huge for me and that i'd give it to him so i brought that for him! we went over the baptism and had a mock baptism in the room and he was just smiling the whole time!! he then told us that he wanted to come to stake conference this sunday in paris so we started figuring out how he could get there with some other members

FRIDAY

i got a letter from the family from Metz today!! it was a cute little postcard with a quote that said the distance between you and your heavenly father is the distance between your knees and the floor. so that made me tear up a little bit! i am so beyond excited to see them!! we started off today finishing up the service that we had from last week and it was good fun! this member that we've been serving was so funny this morning! she just sat and talked to me in the living room while i was cleaning her window's and since missionaries are "special" people it is important for most members to use the formal way of speaking VOUS...not just the common family and friend way of TU and she was just using TU up the wazzoo!! it was cute. i cant wait to see her after the mission and use TU on her as well! we then came home and had some weekly planning and that is enough said. tonight was so funny though!! we went porting at this apartment building and were sitting outside at the doorbell and this dude on the main floor was just blasting music with his window open and i was thinking how funny it would be if he played a song i know and then all of the sudden RETURN OF THE MACK comes on!!!! so i pulled out my camera to record it and put it up to his window and all of the sudden i hear someone yelling at me saying what the heck! why do you have your camera? get out of here! and i got it all on video!! lol i was dying... it was so embarrassing...but i got the music so thats a bonus! hahah it was so funny

SATURDAY

so today went by really fast but it was really good...started off with some contacting and then went from there...not a ton. i wanted to stop by a post office but we never did so that was that... we came home for lunch and after that we went down to chateau thierry for the day! it was good today. not a ton happened. we tried to stop by a couple referrals but they weren't home and then we went to 2 less active houses and the one has a son who will be baptized in august and the less active father wants to baptize him. we were advised by the bishop and ward mission leader to teach them both the missionary lessons and that will hopefully make it happen. so tonight as we taught the restoration, the dad pulled out a cigarette and started smoking while we were teaching! ahhh!! i hope he prepares himself though! he really wants to baptize his son and i think it would be terrible if he couldnt so keep him in your prayers!!

SUNDAY

well today we told our investigator that's being baptized that we would call him at 6:30 am so that he would be at the church on time to make it to paris for stake conference! when i called him at 6:35 he said that he was already walking to the church! isnt that amazing?! so we got up and we got ready and then some members drove us to paris for stake conference! it was good! we pulled up and the way that they do stake conference is so much better than in utah! we had it in a movie theater! comfy seats and all! it was awesome!! i got a little too comfy a few times! but our investigator was there and said that he got to the church this morning at 7 just to make sure he wouldn't miss anyone leaving the church. so cool!! after the sessions of conference there was a fireside for all recent converts and investigators and i thought he had left by that time so we got to the fireside and i look up and he was sitting in the front row! and the area seventy that was there asked him to get up and bear his testimony since he was going to be baptized this saturday and all he said was "i can't bear my testimony cause we'd be here all day. but i know jesus loves us and that this church is true. grateful for the missionaries and all they do. in the name of jesus christ amen" it was so cool!! so then we made our way home and had dinner and went out porting for the night! we found a family that said we could come back next week so that was really cool!

my week was really good! i'm doing fine, but remember me in your prayers! i love and miss you all!! cant wait to see you again!! love you!

elder libby