WEEK 66

Well the news is in and I am staying in Dunkerque for Christmas!! Mixed feelings and I don't really know what's going on in my head cause I think I was expecting to leave and so its gonna be interesting!! So in other words, send all the Christmas packages coming my way!! I can't wait to get them:)

 

Elder Tanner Libby

150 Quai Des Anglais

59140 Dunkerque

FRANCE

 

so here was my week

MONDAY NIGHT

so tonight was pretty cool! I don't know if I told you all but President Babin has set the challenge for our mission to have a 40 day fast, a purification fast if you will. He has asked us to pray every hour from 10-10 every day from last Saturday, the 14th of November til Christmas Day and asked us to search for one new investigator a day. He told us that as we are worthy, willing and ready to recieve these new investigators that we would get them! And so that has been our goal! We are going to get 40 new investigators! So after we had finished emailing and eating today, we changed and headed out to do some major searching. We went to an area that I wasn't to familiar with and went deep into the neighborhood and started knocking doors. The second door we knocked was a lady named Frédérique. She was very happy to see 2 missionaries outside her house. She let us pray with her and asked which church we were from, and we gladly told her l'Eglise de Jesus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and then told her we are sometimes known as Mormons and she goes OH! I know your church! I had a friend who used to be president of the branch in Dunkerque! And told us her friend was one of the old branch presidents. (He's dead now. So I have no idea who he is) she told us that seeing us tonight brought her peace and she said that that is what she needed in a time like now. She asked us to come back again and took our number to fix something for next week. It was a miracle!! We were also let in to pray with another lady who told us she was in charge of arranging the hymn books for her Catholic ward in Dunkerque;) lets just say she wasn't quite ready for the gospel quite yet! But she was nice we'll try to stop by another time. It was a great night of porting! We ended the night with a little spiritual thought with Jean Paul. He gave me a Christmas card tonight that KILLED me. And he told me he received a call this morning from Heavenly Father telling him I wouldn't be leaving Dunkerque this transfer;) he's a funny old man!!

TUESDAY

Today was a good day. President and Soeur Duez told us that they weren't going to be at church this Sunday because of a meeting and so they invited us over for lunch cause we didn't know if I'd be getting transferred or not so they invited us over to eat. We ate REALLY well and had a fun time! We went to President and Soeur Duez's house for lunch and I am going to tell you something here and now. MOM AND GRANDMA FOOD IS THE BEST KIND OF FOOD ON THE PLANET. There is not a ton more that I miss than some of my mom and grandma's cooking! 🤗 but I can wait another little bit for that. Soeur Duez makes some amazing food and we ate well! We had some studies this morning and then had to get up and catch our train out to their house. We had a decent train ride with nothing too crazy but we got out to their house and President Duez came and picked us up at the Gare. As soon as we walked into their house, it REAKED of tartiflette! And my stomach almost screamed for joy. Someone should go to Costco in America and tell me if they have the cheese 'Reblochon' or 'Tartiflette' because I am going to make it for you all when I get home. Tartiflette is the best French meal. So I was like super happy and Soeur Duez had us sit down and brought us a tartiflette and it may have been the best one that I've tasted since being in France! It was amazing and I ate until my stomach was about to explode haha which isn't a ton with cheese and potatoes! But still I ate as much as I could!! Then for dessert she brought out....THE APPLE AND RASPBERRY CRUMBLE SHE'D MADE JUST A COUPLE WEEKS EARLIER! She said that she knew we loved it and since it might be the last time they saw me she wanted me make it again. Words cannot describe the amount of hate and love I had in my heart at the same time!! I was so happy but my stomach was so mad! No I wasn't mad at all. Just counting my blessings;) after we had eaten we shared a little message for our home teaching and then president Duez took us back. Before I left Soeur Duez gave me a little bisou and she told me to keep in contact on Facebook and so that was cute. And I forgot to ask for a picture:( We mad our way home and once we had gotten home, the ZLs were here for an exchange and so we went with them. I was with elder smith. He's new this transfer and he was nice! We went and tried to stop by a less active but no one was home and so we went porting in his neighborhood and we were let in by this one dude who told us he'd pray but didn't want anything more...so that was crummy. But we ported a whole street and so that was good! Then we came home and ate and played some monopoly deal #bestgameever

WEDNESDAY

Today was pretty cool! The Lord prepares souls. That is for certain! But to make matters better, I finished off my second journal tonight!! I haven't missed one day of writing in my journal from day one and I am currently starting my second journal. I have truly gained a love for record keeping and because of it, I have decided to try and write a little bit in my journal every night for the rest of my life. So I hope that that works out. Going back and reading what was up is a lot of fun! So this morning we woke up and had our studies and then sent the ZLs off and then went and did some contacting. We were just walking around talking to people and stopped this one man and we were talking to him and he all of the sudden goes, 'why me? How did you know to stop me? I just left the church praying asking God for help and direction and you just stopped me. How did you know to stop me and not someone else?' #godanswersprayers!! We were talking and fixed a rdv for tomorrow! It was a really neat experience! Then we went and finished up contacting and then came in and took a lunch break. After we had finished we went and had our rdv with Mike. We taught Mike about the creation and gave him a gospel principles book and told him that we were just going to teach him out of that from now on. It went really well. He's a fun kid. Then we decided to go out and try to get some passbacks that we had and so we went out and tried to get them and none of them were home so since we had nothing better to do, we just went porting! We knocked and we knocked and we knocked again and people were telling us no. But the whole time we were porting (WARNING!!! This next sentence is going to sound super missionary and not 'Tanner' like at all!!!) we were talking about how much we are realizing the power of the gospel in our lives and how really the only desire we had was to end up in the celestial kingdom with our families. I hope I make it someday! Cause I'm just starting to realize how much I want it and how great it is going to be. Sorry. I know. I'm pretty surprised too. so I had this idea in mind the whole time we were porting and we got to this road and we both thought we'd already done it, but we weren't sure. So we just went and knocked. And on one house that we were ALMOST sure we'd knocked before, we knocked and the husband answered. And as he answered, his wife pulled up in the driveway in her car. As we asked if we could pray he stood there with a smile and was speechless. As his wife came up he explained that we wanted to pray and they both finally said why not. So we went inside and we prayed and talked a little bit and then they agreed to have us come back! The crazy thing?? Many people in this neighborhood had told us they'd seen the Mormons porting there before, but these 2? They've lived there for 25 years, 5 minutes away from the church building, AND HAD NEVER SEEN OR HEARD OF MORMONS BEFORE! They told us that many times, they'd turned the Jehovahs Witnesses away, but they'd never seen us! It was a miracle! So we fixed another day to come back and see them and left them with huge smiles on their faces!! It was amazing! The spirit works in amazing ways. His presence makes us happy and I'm grateful for that! Then we went and got some drinks at the store and because of the great winds and tumultuous rain we decided to call it a night for work outside and end the night with making some calls.

THURSDAY

Today was kind of a rough day...it was cold and wet and rainy all day and doing the work was just a little sad. I know...#complainer but we did it anyway and we did it with a smile. No matter how wet or cold or tired we were! And the Lord put those blessings right in our path! So this morning we got up and had studies and yesterday the ZLs told us that the rules for studies had changed and that from now on we were supposed to be out of the apartment at 10. And so we left the apartment and made our way out to contact. We first made our way to the gare to print off some train tickets and then we went around and contacted, for what seemed like hours! But we did it and the last person we talked to invited us to come to his house. He let us in and discussed with us for a little bit. It was an interesting discussion and I don't know if he will become a legit investigator, but we shall see! He told us a lot about how his sister had told him not to talk to us and how he lets the homeless people sleep in his house and how he had been to an evangelical church before...so we'll see! Those crazies are all around us! ;) then we went home for lunch a and after we went to go meet up with our miracle from yesterday! We went and got to the meeting spot and waited, and waited, and waited some more...and sadly he never showed up:( and the sad thing was that he didn't have a phone number and so we couldn't even call him. So we left the area after a half hour of waiting and we were just a little bummed. But we went out to an area where we had received a referral from a less active member and so we went and talked to her and she told us that we were nice but that it wasn't necessary....so we were already in the apartment building and so what did we do?? We knocked all the doors! We went knocking and talked to some nice people but nothing really. These two Arab women let us in to pray with them but didn't want anything more so instead of insisting we just left our card in their mailbox. Then we had to get going so that we could try to stop by some pass backs. We got to their houses and they weren't home...but we were in the same neighborhood as a less active and so we went and stopped by his house! He let us in and talked with us for an hour or so and we shared a little message to get that home teaching done. After that we had received a call from Jean Paul and he was asking if we could come over to his house tomorrow night, but tomorrow night was really full for us and so we asked we could come now and he said yes. So off we went;) we just sang some hymns and he shared a little thought from what he read in the scriptures this morning.

FRIDAY

We woke up this morning and headed out the door to make it to district meeting on time! We got into Calais and had to go into the store to buy some baguettes OH OH OH NOUS SOMMES FRANÇAIS (oh, oh, oh, we are French!)! Haha after that we headed to the chapel and had a great district meeting that was based on fear. It was great and I learned a lot. We then took some pictures and then ate. After we had eaten we had to leave and catch the train back to Dunkerque. On the train ride home l had to go to the bathroom and so I went to the bathroom and as I opened the door, there was this 12 year old in there just sitting on the toilet and he freaked out!! Haha he took the door and slammed it shut and I just laughed! I know I'm terrible and rude but it was so funny! Once we got back, we went out and tried to contact some of our pass backs from a few nights ago but none of them answered. So we finished up the area and got all the houses done and then decided that since we had some home teaching that we needed to get done, we'd go out and get that finished. So we made our way to a members house to teach her and she told us her life story me we found out that she was the oldest member in the Dunkerque branch and she had a crazy story. But she is super nice! Then we made our way over to Mado's house for a little rdv and we read in the scriptures about charity and let's just say she knows she has need of improvement haha but don't we all?? Becoming Christlike takes some time. Then we went in for the night and called some other elders to do some TRANSFER PROPHECIES! 

SATURDAY

well we started out the day studying and I tried my hardest to stay on topic...my brain goes all over when I'm expecting something! Haha so after studies, we went and did some contacting and taught some interesting people and tried to stop by this one dudes house from the other day and he told us he couldn't see us right now but that he'd call us soon to be able to fix something so we could get together. So after he'd finished we headed over to macdo to get some lunch and then headed over to Jean Paul's to look at transfers! He was SO happy when he found out I was staying. He told me 'Père Céleste m'a appelé ce matin et il m'a dit que vous restiez! Je le savais!' "Heavenly Father called me this morning and told me that you stay! I knew it!" Lol he kills me. Staying for a fourth transfer in Dunkerque will be good for me. I was kind of expecting to leave and so it was weird for me to see that I'd be staying. But I'm ready to finish what the lord needs me to do here. And with the miracles that we saw this week, I'm super excited to be here!! Plus we are having thanksgiving as a branch on Thursday! So that will be good:) why don't the French have thanksgiving?? They sure do love it hahah. After we finished looking at the transfers and eating we headed out to the less actives house that has been hospitalized in her house for a long time. We go see her every Saturday and she likes our visits and so we'll see if, when she is able to move again and get out of her house, she'll come to church or not. It will be interesting. We shared the little video about continuing in patience and she commented, as does everyone, on the cute little girl that gets the 2nd marshmallow in the end haha she told us that that is what she's had to do with this whole hospitalization. She said that it really has been a test of her patience. So it went well. On the way home it began to POUR rain and hail hahah it was great. So we decided to go in for the night and weekly plan and make calls. The wind was blowing and the rain just wouldn't stop! I kept thinking to myself 'Master! The tempest is raging! Linger, oh blessed Redeemer, and leave me alone no more' it's crazy to me how much the scriptures and hymns can relate to our daily lives today! So after we had finished planning we had a rdv and had to go out in the tempest! And I then thought 'carest thou not that we parish? How canst thou lie asleep?' Haha no I'm kidding but I may have complained a little in having to go out in the tempest...we went and waited and sadly he never showed up...so on the way home elder Sorensen stopped and bought a pizza from dominos!

SUNDAY

well today went well! Remember how last week we found that one lady from Romania and she didn't speak a whole ton of French?? Her and her husband came to church today!! They couldn't stay for sacrament but they came and we taught them during Sunday school cause right now we are in the middle of revelations and it is CoNfUsInG...just imagine trying to have to learn it in French....OH LA LA. So that went well and they told us that they wanted to come back next week! So that was a tiny miracle in itself! At the beginning of church all the members came up to me asking if I was leaving haha it was cute to see their little anticipation, and it made me feel special when the cry for joy was when they found out I WASN'T leaving! I was a little scared it might have been the other way around. During priesthood we talked about the talk from Neil L Andersen 'Thy Kingdom Come' and talked about the second coming of Christ and it went well. Then we taught our Romanian friends and then we had sacrament meeting where I had to give a talk because they all thought I would be leaving. I was asked to seek inspiration on what to talk about and ended up using my moms talk from my grandpas funeral on how to live a 'Jolley' life. It went well haha it's just had to translate and I don't know if I will be doing that in the near future;) hahah after meetings Mike, our recent convert, had expressed how he wanted to have general conference and the DVDs that we had made for him didn't work. And so we put all of the conferences on an SD card instead. After that we headed home and ate lunch and finished weekly planning and then we had to go and catch a bus to make it to St Omer for the night cause we were going to be spending the night to hang out with them for PDAY! And so when we got in for the night we partied. It was fun!

Well start sending all the Christmas goodies! I can't wait to hear from you all! Christmas in Dunkerque will be interesting...it's gonna get cold!! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Libby:)

 

      

WEEK 65

Bonjour à tous!! I know your question....am I dead? And the answer is no! True be told you all knew about everything in Paris before I did so congrats;) and to be honest, I still have no idea what happened...so you'll have to tell me! Was it bad? I know like 120 died or something and there was a bomb? Anywho...this week we find out transfers! So we'll see if the lord has me finished in Dunkerque or if I haven't done enough damage yet;) PLEASE SEND ALL MAIL AND PACKAGES TO THE MISSION HOME UNTIL NEXT WEEK. ITS NOT WORTH LOSING IF I GET TRANSFERRED. Thank you!! 

 

La Mission Française de Paris 

Elder Tanner Libby

131 rue boulevard Carnot

78110 Le Vésinet

FRANCE

 

Voici ma semaine:)

MONDAY

today was such a fun zone PDAY!!!!! We had such a blast just hanging out together and having the challenges that we did. And to make things even better, I won a gold bar! Let's just say I'm rich;) so this morning we had to get up super early and head to the church to do emails. We were there til about 8:30 and then we headed to the gare to catch our train and make our way into Lille. We got in and headed to the chapel where a bunch of missionaries were already and so we went and chilled with them and looked at emails more and what not and then we started to help the ZLs get ready for the big game. We had to make food and set up games and all that fun stuff so it was really fun I guess. We had a super fun time playing though! We had an obstacle course that was made that we had to go through and answer questions in French and then we had a game about family history and had to put a family tree together of some random people based on clues that were given after a scavenger hunt! It was way fun. Then we had a race and had to do fun things as we found answers to questions of the soul in the Book of Mormon. Things like, walk with a egg on a spoon, or crab walk, or somersaults until we got to the other side of the room to find the answer. Then we ate and had awards ceremonies and my team won so that's how I got the gold bar;) haha it was great. Then we all just chilled and hung out with each other til our trains left. We headed to the gare and got our train home and after I sat down, I was OUT almost the whole ride home!! Zone pdays are so much fun! We then got home and still had to do our grocery shopping and clean our apartment so that took up the rest of our night....it was weird to have a PDAY where we didn't work....

TUESDAY

Well today was LITERALLY packed and we did so much and were running all day. Like legit the day FLEW by it was crazy! We had a couple rdv's and a lunch appt with a member and district meeting...AT NIGHT! Lol so we woke up this morning and had some studies and stuff and had to stop about half way through them cause we had a rdv with the blind man that we met last week while less active hunting. We had tried to call him a couple of times to confirm the rdv cause he told us to but he never answered...OH and by the way, we had absolutely no other time during the day that we could have gone back to the apt to grab our stuff to go to district meeting or anything and so what did we have to do all day?? We freaking had to lug everything around all day long while we were running from appt to appt...LOL LOOK AT THE MORMONS. it was great. So we headed out the apt and had to stop by the store to buy some syrup cause we forgot to buy some last night for our French toast that we were making for district meeting. So we did that and then headed to the blind mans house but he didn't answer...his phone or his door...so we hope he is ok...he told us last time that he was afraid of the dark...and he's blind so it's really unfortunate...I know that isn't supposed to be funny, AND IM NOT MAKING FUN, but I think it's ironic that he's scared of the dark so when he didn't answer we had an hour to kill. Today was this weird French holiday where like all the kids go around in the street and ask for candy with lanterns or something?? And Jean Paul had asked is we wanted to go with him but since we were going to be in Calais we couldn't. So since it was early in the morning, and we couldn't go to his house tonight, we went to his house now and shared a little message with him! And boy was he happy! After we finished with him we made our way to the lunch appt we had with Soeur Foutrein and she made us Muscles!! And this yummy meat stuff with potatoes. Haha I've found that that's what frenchies love. Meat and potatoes....WITH BREAD! #cantforgetthebread so we ate and it went well and then we went to the church for a rdv we had with Dominique at the church. Soeur Foutrein is the branch family history consultant and he was interested in getting started and so she agreed to come and help. We got there and Dominique didn't know his parents and so obviously he didn't know ANYTHING about them and so it was hard to try and get him started. But we showed him all the sites and he said that he was going to go to some town halls and try to find some birth and death certificates. Then we had to go to catch a train. Soeur Foutrein drove us to the gare and we got on our train to go to district meeting. We took the same train as the elders from St Omer and so we were talking the whole way in. We walked to the chapel and had a really good district meeting actually! And then ate French toast, bacon, and orange juice for dinner! It was really yummy:) then we headed in for the night and elder Jouffray gave me a haircut cause my hurr was wayy too long and was getting wayy to crazy.

WEDNESDAY 

We had a good day today. It was a French holiday so....VIVE LA FRANCE as you can tell, almost every other day is a holiday here... so it was a really good day for finding;) that was a joke lol but we do our best with what we've got. We woke up this morning and had a little bit of studies but not a ton cause we had to go and catch our train. So we left Calais for Dunkerque and got home sooner or later! After a good 2 hours of trains and what not we got home to our apartment where we planned and got ready for our day. We were given a bag of walnuts from the branch president on Sunday and he asked that we stop by a less active and give them to her cause she'd asked for some when they went to go see her in the hospital. So we called her up and she told us we could come over to her house. She's the one who likes it when we sing to her. So after we'd finished planning we went and headed out to her house and talked a little bit about lightening our burdens through Christ and she loved it cause it was a video on our iPads and she's just so fascinated with our iPads! After we finished with her, we did some porting in her neighborhood. Since it was the big holiday, there was no one outside so we decided that our time would be better spent knocking on some doors. We knocked and we knocked and we knocked and we knocked and then!....We knocked again;) haha we spent the whole afternoon asking if people needed service and asking if we could leave them with a prayer or what not and we kept getting some no's...but it's ok. One day they'll get the chance! So anyway we headed to the bus stop and went our way to our rdv with Mado. She is just the cutest, most confusing, lovable, grudge holder I've ever met. AH! She makes me crazy! But I guess that is good for me to have to learn patience...we talked about standing up for what we know to be true and shared the video of Thomas S Monson when he was at marines boot camp and had to go to church and he stood as the only Mormon and she loved it! But then told us that coming to church on Sunday is not as important as helping a friend in need...so we are still working on that. Any good ideas on trying to get people to know coming to church is important??? Let me know:) after that it turned to the usual gossip fest that happens when we go to her place and we left and got kebabs to end the night. It's been a while since I had a kebab! And it tasted good and made me want to kill myself, that's how you know it was a good kebab!

THURSDAY

today was a pretty long day! But we got what we needed to do done. Can I just tell you that people who think the church is going to change make me crazy?! I'm sorry there is my little complaint. But anyway. It was a day full of stuff to do. So because we are trying to get general conference on some DVDs for some less active members, we spent this morning at the church to download some conferences to put on the DVDs. We got there and waited for all the members to arrive for branch council. When everyone had gotten there, we started and had a really productive branch council, for the missionaries! Haha after we had finished we were talking about how the branch council was almost not productive at all for the members, but helped out the missionaries a ton cause they were telling us all about some of the less active members that they knew and thought it would be good to stop by, but we planned like nothing special for the branch. But they were all happy and so we hope we are doing good things here!:/ after the meeting, Miguel had been waiting EVER SO PATIENTLY (I say that very sarcastically, cause he was texting me the whole time telling me how mad he was cause we were late finishing) for his home teaching. For the moment, we are his home teachers with one member present at the church. So we went in and shared Yielding Our Hearts unto God from the last conference and then talked about changing our lives to let God help us. He told us that his 2 goals were to make it to the temple and get a job. So hopefully that works out for him! Then we went home for lunch and then went out and got some contacting in to try and get some of those lessons! But no one was there for tonight haha we were walking and talking to lots of different people, but none of them were quite ready for the gospel in their lives yet;) so we then went to our rdv with the less active man that we found and that we've been working with lately and we taught him about scripture study and he told us he'd been praying morning and night and that he was going to start reading one page of the Book of Mormon a day! So I'm really hoping he sticks to that! We then made our way to our little miracle from last week. On the way there we contacted a man who told us that he didn't believe in a god BECAUSE of the complexity of the universe. Which is weird cause that is one of the reasons I do believe in a god! I thought it was interesting! We got to the miracle less actives house from last week and they let us in the apt building but told us that they couldn't let us in tonight but wanted us to come back next week! So we exchanged numbers and she told us thank you for coming and that it meant a lot to see the missionaries after so long and that she couldn't wait for our rdv next week! We then ended the night contacting around and porting a couple houses.

FRIDAY

well today seemed a little long. And it was Friday the 13th. I made it out alive and I was glad when it had finished! You know those random cravings you get for macdo at 9 at night? That was happening to me...lol I just wanted some macdo. But I was a good missionary and headed in for the night on time. So this morning we started off with some studies and it's funny cause today was the first time all week that we had had normal studies all 3 hours! #busymissionarylifeyo so I took advantage! It's amazing what a good study of the gospel can do to help you out through the rough times. After we had finished our studies we went out to contact and do some less active searching. As a missionary I've realized that that is what I do best!search for some less active people! So we went and found a house of some people and their names were still on the mailbox so we think they still live there. So we left them a note and asked them to call us. Then we stopped by a store on the way home cause we got the thought to make our branch president a cake for his birthday this Sunday! So we got some cake mix and some ice cream and we are going to celebrate his birthday! It will be fun. Then we made our way home for some lunch. After we had eaten we started to weekly plan and that went LONG. Like usual:) hehe but we do what we must. After spending PLENTY of time on that we decided to go out and try to stop by some pass backs. On the way there we stopped by the church to continue downloading general conference and getting it ready to put on some discs. So after we  had started the downloads we went out and ported/stopped by our pass backs. We got to one who told us that awkwardly enough, they were Jehovah's Witnesses and that she was sorry that the man told us to come back. Haha so we said thank you and off we went! We then tried the others, but no one answered so we just ported to finish out the night. We got to another lady who told us that she wouldn't mind praying if we stopped by next week cause she was the only one home right now and she needed to take care of the baby. So we'll see about that! Then we headed back to the church and got our DVDs made and headed home for the night. On the bus ride home, there was a lady that sat down right next to me and asked me if I was Mormon and I said yes! Haha so we talked for a little bit and then she told me she would maybe stop by church one time 1) if she had time and 2) if God wanted it to happen;) #SI.DIEU.LE.VEUT (yes, God wants!) lol

SATURDAY

So today was the day that we found out about all the attacks...we were just a little confused on what was going on. We woke up to a text from the zone leaders that said we were to stay in our apartments all day until we received further notice. So that was interesting! We were like what the heck happened?! So we studied and then called our district leader who happened to be at the church and he looked up what was going on in the Internet and told us a little bit about what he could see. So that was scary! We then got a text from the zone leaders saying that president had told them all that we were to stay in our apartment all day long unless we already had a rdv planned and that we were not to contact at all this weekend and that we couldn't wear shoulder bags or anything and so the rules were like strict haha! He also said we were to all go to the church to send a quick email home to our families and tell them that we were safe and ok. So we called up Jean Paul and asked if we could go and stop by his house really fast and send an email home to our families really quickly before we headed to our rdv and he said yes. So we went to his house and when we got there, I already had an email from home saying they knew everything! So it wasn't that much of a shock to anyone I don't think! I'm pretty sure you all knew about it faster than I did! So we sent a quick email home and then we headed out the door to our rdv with a less active. We watched the conference talk from Neill F Marriott and she LOVED it. She said that it was probably the best conference talk that she had ever watched and that she got a lot out of it. So we headed home but on the way home we stopped by the store and grabbed all that stuff we needed for the cake. We then headed in and chilled in the apartment for the day. We made cake, and read scriptures, and watched funny videos on our iPads and took a couple naps and called people from the area book and cleaned out the area book...haha it was a long day! But to end the night we went and had a rdv with Mike and it was good. We talked about the temple and he said he was excited to be able to go one day. He's a pretty cool kid!!!

SUNDAY

so today was good. We woke up and got all ready and headed out to church. We had all the cake and ice cream and got there and put them all in the fridge and had some really good meetings. During Sunday school Soeur Foutrein talked about the love of God and how much he loves us. She compared it to the love a parent has for the kid and we made a big table on the chalk board of different traits that parents have that are similar to God and it was a really good lesson! We then had sacrament meeting and right after we cleaned up and then went and got all the cake ready and grabbed the branch president and went in and sang to him and ate some cake and ice cream and everyone said that the cake was good. Sorensen told them that if it was good, he made it, but if it was not, I made it. So he took a lot of the glory on that one;) it was good though. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the rest of the day. We were to stay in the apartment all day long, unless we had a rdv and we didn't have a rdv so we were just going to go home and chill. But as we were about to walk out I went up to Soeur Deslypper and, she had told me earlier this week that she was going to invite us over to eat this week, and so I said we will see you sometime this week? And she said you can't come over today? And I said if you invite us we'll come! I explained to her that we'd just be sitting in the apartment all day and so her husband said well then you'll spend the day with us! So we hopped in their car and off we went to their house! We are with them and talked and sat in their living room and played the piano and they decided that us and them are going to do a performance in the Christmas sacrament meeting and so we chose to sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and they were just a little too excited about it;) they were cute. We then got talking about transfers and I told them how I don't want to leave Dunkerque quite yet and Soeur Deslypper told me that out of all the missionaries she'd seen come and go, none of them had a ton of success here and so leaving wasn't sad for them, and so to see a missionary that was sad to leave really touched her heart and made her happy. She told us that for the past few months she'd seen a change in the attitude among the members and that we all seemed a little bit closer together and she was grateful for that. So that made me happy and made me not want to leave, that much more! We are blessed as missionaries! We shared a little video called Men's Hearts Shall Fail Them by Russell M Nelson and they loved it and then brought us home for the night.

So there was that week! Don't worry everyone. I'm doing fine. NOTHING happens in Dunkerque;) we are ok here and all is well. The lord is watching over his missionaries. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here at this time. I'm grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the happiness and comfort that it brings to me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary for my savior. I love him and I know he lives. His wish is for us to accept him to be able to live with him and his father again someday. 'Que ces mots réchauffent le cœur, je sais qu'il vit mon rédempteur!' (French version of I know that my redeemer lives) I love you all and I'll let you know about transfers soon:) love you! 

Elder Libby

What's your verse?? My was 1 Peter 3:14-15

 

         

WEEK 64

Bonjour à tous!! Comment vous allez?? Sorry for not being here this Monday if there were any of you trying to chat...we had a zone activity today and so that is why I was on at a different time. I hope you are all healthy and safe in the good old USofA and that all your wildest dreams are coming true! So here was my week...tell me yours:)

MONDAY NIGHT

So tonight after emails we went for a little walk to the game store where elder Sorensen bought this one game called like Magic or something?? It has to do with cards or whatever? I have no idea. He told me he was going to get me hooked on it and I told him that he wouldn't. I was also looking for monopoly deal but I couldn't find it, so I'm just gonna have to keep looking! We came home and since it was soo cold outside, I had to put my thermals on and get my big coat and scarf on! Then we went out and did some porting. We ported into this one lady who had 4 little kids that let us in really quickly to say a quick prayer. She was nice but told us she was Muslim and didn't have any desire to change and that she was content with life. We went back and caught out bus and then headed over to Jean Paul's for a little message where he gave me some pictures that we'd taken forever ago, that he'd already given to me before none the less! he's a funny dude! Then we came home for the night and I called up elder Jorgensen to ask him how he was doing. Keep him and his family in your prayers :)

TUESDAY

Well today went pretty well! I spent the day with elder Jouffray on an exchange and it was a very fulfilling day:) we got a lot done and had a really fun time together. So this morning we woke up and got all of our stuff ready and had to head out pretty early so that we could catch our train into Calais for the day. We got out and to the gare where we waited for our train and checked our emails #thankgoodnessforipads then we got on and the entire way over I was working on my MY FAMILY booklet for family history! This week we have a challenge from the zone leaders to fill it out with all the information necessary of our ancestors and use it while we do some contacting to find those investigators! So that's been super cool to learn about my ancestors and find out some of their stories and where they come from. #familyhistory #iamdoingit when we got into Calais, we made our way to the apartment of the missionaries and hung out with them until studies were over. Then me and elder Jouffray went out and had a rdv with the same member from last week! The one that fell right in front of me. She remembered me and was sweet. We talked about our potential with her and showed the Uchtdorf Mormon message with her. It went really well. We then left and went to a grocery store to try to buy some ice cream for this pie thing that me and elder Sorensen were making for district meeting. Well let me just say that France is weird cause the store didn't have ANY ice cream. Sad huh?? So instead of buying some ice cream, me and elder Jouffray bought some pains au chocolat and the walked home like true frenchies and ate our pains au chocolat on the road :) we got home and took lunch and got to playing Rubik's cube and then had to head out for a rdv with one of their investigators. When we got to her apt she wasn't home....so we walked and found this less actives house and went and talked to him. He let us in and ranted for a whole hour and 15 minutes about how hard life was and how he didn't like it and it was a long meeting....then we finally left and got home for dinner and then left for one last rdv that we had with one last investigator. This investigator is getting baptized this Saturday! So we went over the baptismal interview questions and answered any last questions that she had and then left. We went and bought some Coke and then headed in for the night and played some monopoly deal:)

WEDNESDAY

Today went pretty smoothly. We had an interesting time hahah we woke up this morning and went to work on making a raspberry and apple crumble for dessert at district meeting! When we had it made we headed out the door and caught the bus. As soon as we got on the bus, elder Jouffray realized that he forgot to get the stuff for their salad and so we hopped off and walked back into their apartment and grabbed the stuff for their salad and headed to the church. When we got to the church we checked emails and played on our iPads and then played monopoly deal while waiting for the other guys to all get here. We started sooner or later and had a lesson on being a successful missionary. Then we ate and me and Sorensen had to leave to be able to catch our train. We got home from district meeting and came home to plan. We then went out to work and as soon as we had been outside about 5 minutes it began to rain. So we came back inside to get umbrellas and I remembered that the umbrella that I found in this apartment that I had been using had broken...and so I had to go without an umbrella for a little bit til we got to the store and I bought an umbrella! Once I got my umbrella though, the sky decided to stop raining....we had planned on showing a conference talk to Mike for our rdv tonight and so we went to Macdo and used their wifi to download it. After being there for a good 20-30 minutes waiting for the dumb thing to download, it had stopped! And didn't work! So we called up Jean Paul and asked him if we could stop by his house and use his internet to download a video and he told us yes. So off we went to his house and downloaded the conference talk and then he showed me a picture he had found on the Internet...it was a picture he found on Facebook of elder Jorgensen!!! He had found one of Jorgy's prom pictures!!!! It was so funny!!! He had it printed out and was so proud he found it!!! I was dying. Then we left and did some contacting and then had a rdv with a less active and so we went and had a little lesson on prayer and it went well and he prayed for us and said he'd be coming to church this Sunday! So after that we went home for dinner and then went to mike's house for our lesson. We shared the talk, What Lack I Yet? And he really enjoyed it and asked us if we could somehow get all of the conference for him so that he could watch it. So we need to figure out how to do that! Then we came in for the night and headed straight to bed!

THURSDAY

you know, random people who invite you over for dinner we the greatest! Especially when then lady makes a really good tartiflette!! Remember a couple weeks ago when we were porting and some people let us in to pray with them? And then they invited us over for dinner? Well tonight was the night and it was super yummy! I love eating legit food! Well this morning we got up and had some studies and then we went out and did some contacting and while we were doing that, we walked past a tiny little grocery store that had pains au chocolat for .35€ each and so elder Sorensen wanted to go in and buy some so we did. They were yummy! Then we went to our rdv that we had with Dominique! It went well. We talked about prayer and the importance of it and why we do it and asked him if he'd commit to pray every morning and night and he said.....no. He said I'm going to be honest and say no because I'm not gonna say yes when I know that I won't do it. So that made us a little sad. He said he'd pray when he needed to...:/ so after that we made our way home for lunch and ate and then went out and contacted for a little bit. We contacted 2 people that could really have some potential that told us to call them back another time to talk and so we hope that that is going to work out well. We then took a bus up to the Belgian border and went to go and teach some REALLY old people that let us in last week to pray. They were super old and didn't really understand why we were there and what we were doing, but we still tried to teach the plan of salvation a little bit and they then told us they'd call us if the ever wanted to have some questions answered. Then we left their house and went and did some porting in their area for a little bit until it was time for us to go and catch our bus. We made our way home and went over to the other couples house and they let us right in, and she had made a tartiflette and said that she had never made tartiflette before! But it was super delicious and we spent a good night with them. They asked us tons of questions about the US and what it was like and then we got talking a little bit about religions and they asked us what we believed happened when we die and what happens during the life after death and so we were talking about that when all of the sudden the husband just says, 'I didn't invite you over to talk about religion, I invited you over to be nice.' And so we were like sorry! We were just answering your questions! So that was interesting. But in any case they were really nice and the food was really good and they told us next time they want to make muscles and fries for us! So that will be good!

FRIDAY

Well today was interesting...haha! We had some interesting rdvs with some interesting people. We started our studies this morning and then went straight into contacting. We were walking for a little bit and then elder Sorensen decided that he wanted to take a bus somewhere. So we went and got on a bus and then while on the bus, some drunk people started harassing us a little bit and telling us that they were going to steal our iPads and how they 'loved' Jesus...haha so we hopped off the bus and went contacting while searching for some less actives in the area. We found this one who let us in and when he opened the door he was a small little Indian man, who was blind and partially deaf...IM BBBLLLLLLIIIINNNNNDDDDDD! #guessthemovie so he let us in and we prayed and fixed a new rdv with him so that we could really prepare something. So we then left and came home for lunch and watched some meet the Mormons. Then we started weekly planning hahah yay!....we did some planning for a good 2 1/2 hours and then had to get going because we had a rdv with the guys that came to the church with us and the Norby's last week. He owns a kebab shop and so we went to his kebab shop to teach him. We got there and were sitting there waiting for him to come and then him and his friend sat down and we decided to explain the Book of Mormon and so we did and as we were doing that, his friend started getting super mad and super defensive and I was getting a little nervous haha...he was telling us how there is no way that that was true because he already knew the Karan was true....ahhh so I was like explaining that we were here just to explain what we believe and he was just telling me that I have to read the Karan and it was just a mess. There was no spirit there and it was just hard to teach him...so we left and made our way to the church cause tonight we had a visiting night with the stake where a couple members from the stake came in to spend the night with us and go and find and teach some less actives. So I got to go with the branch president and it was really good! First time on my whole mission that I've done splits! Sadly we didn't get let in by any of them and that was mostly because it was so late. After we finished we all met back up at the church and then we got a ride home for the night.

SATURDAY

Today was good. It blows my mind how fast the week goes! It was crazy for me to think today that we were almost finished with the week. So we started out today with studies and then a little morning contacting. On our way out we ran into Mado and we stopped and talked to her for a good 10 minutes and she was telling us that for our rdv tonight she had found cottage cheese! And so I was really excited. Then she told us where the best boulangerie in France was and so we went to that cause believe it or not, the best boulangerie in France is in DK ;) so we got some bread and a little patisserie which was delicious!! And then headed home for lunch. After we had finished we had to go and pick up Jean Paul so that we could go to a rdv with this less active that we see regularly. The one who was in the hospital for a while. The rdv went really well! We talked about reading the scriptures and she told us that when she was able to read the scriptures and read anything again that she would read them but that she wanted the general conference that we were making for a couple other members and so we are going to get that to her to watch. We then made our way home and went and did some less active finding. We went and found this one family's house but the son was the only one that was home and he let us in and was super nice! They are an English family and so obviously they speak English and he was telling us all about his crazy life back in England and how the reason he moved to France was because he wanted to change his life. #thatswherewecomein hehehe he asked some questions and then told us we could even come back sometime! He's 21 and so that will be super cool to see him again. And the best part is that he isn't a member (yet!) so that was a little miracle in itself that he let us in to talk!

SUNDAY

Do you all remember the miracle that we had last night with the English kid?! God is working little teeny miracles around us and giving us the help that we need little by little! It is so amazing to see the ways that God works. I can't believe that I am so blessed to see the hand of Heavenly Father in my life. He truly does work miracles! And that alone gives me hope! During church today, Soeur Foutrein gave a talk and shared a talk given by Josh Groberg from November 2004 GC and it really touched me and really applies to my gratitude: 'I know He lives. I know He loves us. I know we can feel His love here and now. I know His voice is one of perfect mildness which penetrates to our very center. I know He smiles and is filled with compassion and love. I know He is full of gentleness, kindness, mercy, and desire to help. I love Him with all my heart. I testify that when we are ready, His pure love instantly moves across time and space, reaches down, and pulls us up from the depths of any tumultuous sea of darkness, sin, sorrow, death, or despair we may find ourselves in and brings us into the light and life and love of eternity.' Isn't that beautiful?! It is true that Heavenly Father loves us and is there to always help us. So that was amazing to hear today. After church today we made our way to Jean Paul's for lunch where surprisingly I didn't die! Lol it was kind of nasty though...his oil for fries is BLACK I kid you not...so we played around with him and were looking at things on our iPads and then we headed home and changed our clothes and went out and did some real work for the night. We went out to the same area as last Sunday night to try to stop by all the passbacks and none of them answered:( so we're just going to have to try to go back. We ported around for awhile and then had to head in for the night. On the bus ride home, we were just chilling and talking when someone came up to us and said, 'Hi my name is Nina and you guys came and talked to my brother yesterday at my house.' IT WAS THE ENGLISH GUYS SISTER!! And so she was talking to us the whole way home and telling us how happy the whole family was to hear that the missionaries had come back to see them cause it had been a couple of years since they had last heard from them. How is it that God prepares people so well!?! We told her to tell her family we'd be passing by next Thursday night and that we'd love to see them all and she said she would be there with them! It was so cool! Just like the quote from earlier, when we are going down the deepest and darkest slopes, gods love and peace can bring us back to where we need to be! And I'm excited to be able to start working with this family who seems super prepared!!

So that was my week! Pretty fulfilling! We are getting close to transfers so send all the packages and letters this week!;) I can't wait for them! Je voulais vous dire aussi que j'ai décidé qu'après la Noël jusqu'à la fête des mères, que je vais faire une jeûne d'anglais! Ça veux dire que je vais parler que le français pendant 5 mois sauf les e-mails et mon journal! Donc si vous voyez les erreurs dans mes e-mails, elles sont à cause de mon jeûne:) à bientôt!!

Elder Libby

What's your verse?? Mine was Isaiah 53:3-5

 

     

WEEK 63

How does time go by so fast?! Lol I seriously can't believe it. It's actually kind of funny cause this last week I was complaining when it was only Wednesday, and then it got to be Saturday and I was like oh my gosh it's already Saturday! Before we know it, I'll be home with 12 little kids! No I'm just kidding. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to get married ;) well this week was great, just like all the rest. The Lord was helpin' us out!

MONDAY NIGHT

well after emails today we had to go grocery shopping still so we went and did that and then made our way home. When we got home from that, we had about an hour and a half let of PDAY and so I climbed into bed and I decided to take a little nap. I didn't bother taking a nap cause elder Sorensen was writing in his journal and so I knew he'd wake me up. When I woke up I looked at the clock and...it was past 6! And I looked at elder Sorensen and he'd fallen asleep as well! So I yelled at him and he woke up and we hurried and got ready to leave the apartment. We went out to some apartment buildings and ported them up and then saw this old Muslim lady who seemed to be struggling with her groceries and so we asked if we could help and she said yes! So we carried her groceries to her apartment and then guess what? She paid us with a pomegranate and some almonds so funny!! So that was the funniest thing ever. Then we stopped by to grab some kebabs and the owner told us that he'd looked up our religion on the internet but had always wanted to meet with some members to know more and was wondering if we could meet with him, so we said yes and we are hopefully seeing him later this week! Then we went to the gare to print off train tickets and then to Jean Paul's for our rdv with him. It was a pretty good night!!

TUESDAY

Today we had district meeting and we had to leave pretty early this morning so we woke up and got ready and had to head out to be able catch our bus. We got out and to the gare and hopped on the bus that took us to St Omer. When we got there we made our way to the church and then we got into the car and the elders there took us to the store so that we could buy some baguettes for a part of our side dish. We got back to the church and we started district meeting. It was....interesting....today. None of us really understood what the point of the lesson was and so we were really just confused on what we were supposed to take out of it. But after it was over we ate and the elders of St Omer made this Nutella cake thing that was SO rich. It gave me like an instant headache. Wow it was SO sugary!! We then had to head to the gare so that we could make it home. When we got home, we came and figured out what we were going to do for the rest of the day. So we went out contacting and found some nice people and taught them and some let us pray with them! It was cool. Then elder Sorensen has this idea that if we make cookies for investigators it will fix any situation or something lol and so we had to go and buy some chocolate to make some and then we came in and took a half hour break to make them. We made some cookie dough and then put it in the fridge and then went out to go porting. Tonight we had decided to go all the way up to the Belgian border and port at the border! It was like close to a half hour bus ride, but we got there and were porting and this super SUPER old couple let us in to pray with them and told us we could come back! They are super old and I think they were just excited to have some new people in the house and that's why they said we could come back. We'll see if they even remember us when we go back next week! Then we made our way home for the night and we were watching the Face2Face event with Lindsey Stirling.

WEDNESDAY

We had to go into Calais today to do exchanges with the district leader and it went pretty well! We woke up and had to get going to catch our train so we left and made our way to Calais. We found out that they were still in St Omer cause they had done an exchange yesterday and so we had to just chill in Calais for about an hour while we waited for them. We checked our emails and stuff and then went out and did some walking around and contacting. When they got here we went and stopped by the patisserie shop to by a few little snacks to eat for breakfast and then went in to their apartment to plan for our day. Me and elder wells took lunch first off cause our day was full of lessons and appts. So after we had finished lunch we went to a member lesson with an older member who was baptized a few years ago but doesn't understand the gospel so much. The missionaries go ever to see her to explain little principles to help her understand little by little. We talked about the Book of Mormon to help her understand the story a little bit better and she seemed like she understood what we had to explain! As she walked us out she went to get her mail, and on the way back in, she tripped on the curb and fell down! So me and elder wells ran and helped her up and after the tears and shock went away we walked her up to her apt and she told us she'd be fine. So we left her and went to our next rdv. Sadly she had been in the hospital all the night before and had forgotten to call us and so we had a member there and just had to walk her home. On the way home, we ran into a friend of the members and we started to talk and the friend told us that she'd been searching for God in her life and would love to meet with the missionaries to know more! It was super great! So we prayed with her and then made our way to the gare. We had to take a train to a different investigators house and when we got there he let us in and we had a really good discussion with him. Things seem to be going well between for the ward in Calais! When we finished that we made our way home and met the other elders at subway where we had our dinner and then went home and ended the night with some monopoly deal :) it was a fun day!

THURSDAY

We spent our day today with the new mission couple in Brussels, the Norby's, from Lehi Utah! They were so much fun and so nice and really helped me and elder Sorensen out a lot with missionary work for the day. We woke up this morning and got ready to get out and make our train to get home to Dunkerque. When we got home we went and tidied up the apartment a little bit and got ready for them. Remember how we made some cookie dough the other day? We may or may not have thrown some cookies in the oven for them when they got here ;) #tryingtoscorethembrowniepoints so that was fun. When they got here, we let them in and we had some small talk and got to know each other. They looked at my photo wall and were asking questions about all the photos and it was fun to explain to them my family! Then we had to get out of the apartment cause we had scheduled a couple of rdvs with some members and investigators for them to help us with. We had our first one with Dominique, a recent convert who is struggling with his testimony a little bit, but has been reading in the Book of Mormon!! We got there and had felt impressed to talk about the Aaronic Priesthood. We were talking about the duties of this priesthood and why it is important and we got talking about home teaching and the spirit was there! We then asked sister Norby to bear her testimony and she had elder Norby translate since she doesn't speak too much French, and her sweet little testimony about the priesthood was so amazing!! The spirit was so strong and Dominique was just so happy!! It was amazing! The Norby's then took us out to Subway for lunch and we were talking and having some fun with them, and then had to head out to the church for one last rdv with the man that we met at the kebab shop this Monday night. We got to the church and he even remembered about our rdv and brought his friend! We gave them a quick tour of the chapel and then had a little discussion. He told us that he had lots of questions cause he wanted to know if he was on the right path or not and so he started asking, and a ton of his questions related to the plan of salvation and he was wondering why God needed to send his son to die for us and pay for our sins and he wanted to know why we couldn't do it ourselves, and so I started to testify that Jesus Christ was going to help us when we were judged and all of the sudden, I just started to bawl my eyes out! The spirit was like a brick wall! Lol it was amazing. I KNOW Jesus Christ died so that He could know how to help us on that day when we meet our Heavenly Father. Isn't that great that we are going to have help?! So after the rdv we headed home and the Norby's finished up their inspection and we took some cute pics and then they were out. We then hurried and filled out a progression sheet of investigators and less actives that we had seen lately for branch council tomorrow and then went and tried to stop by Anna's house....keep her in your thoughts and prayers! We don't really know what is going on right now, but we are trying to see her. Then we decided to go and try to see some other less actives that we had found with the help of a member from the St Omer branch. We got to their apartment and left some cookies and then on the way home they texted us and asked us not to come back but thank you for the cookies. So we will try to figure out what is going on there haha we came in for the night and we played a round of phase 10 and I kicked butt thanks to all the practice I had from camp outs with my family back home

FRIDAY

Today was super cool cause we figured lots of things out for less active members on the ward list. We had the time today to go searching for a couple and we found out that some of them had moved and we knew their new addresses and so that was a pretty successful day in my eyes. We also had our big branch day, which includes going to the chapel and cleaning, having branch council, eating together and having an activity. Today we didn't feel like it would be a great use of our time to go to the activity and so we went and had branch council and ate with the members and it was a fun time. A member made this AMAZING apple and raspberry crumble and oh my heck it was the greatest thing that I think I have ever tasted. It was funny cause I asked her for the recipe and she said yes and then started putting all the rest into a Tupperware for us and then I told her that I just wanted the recipe and she goes oh really? Well take this anyway! So I even got the leftover crumble!! #BESTDAYEVER After we had finished eating and got all cleaned up, me and elder Sorensen came home to drop off the food that they gave us and planned a little bit more for the day. We decided we'd go and find some less actives. We found one house, had a number in our phone for another, found out that one had passed away a couple of years ago, and found out that another one moved to another town away from Dunkerque! So that is 4 people right there! We were pretty happy about that. So after we had done all of that, we found ourselves in front of this really nice, old less active lady and Sorensen wanted to go inside and talk to her...so we went in and spent some time talking. She is so cute and so nice! She told us that her son, the one who had moved to another town away from Dunkerque, had moved away and that she didn't remember exactly where he moved to. So we shared a little message with her and then got going cause we had a little meeting with Mado tonight. When we got over to her house we talked for a while about lots of different things and she was complaining for some things and saying how grateful she was for other things...so pretty much just a normal rdv with her;) we talked to her about prophets and it went well. She told us that she always had a problem believing in prophets and understanding why we have them, so we explained why we have them and at the end she seemed to understand why God would have someone be a prophet, to reveal his word unto his people. So when she had figured that out and we had answered all her questions, she ended with a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help her to forgive the others who had hurt her in the past! #stepsintherightdirection then we came home for the night and I kicked butt in phase 10 again!!

SATURDAY

Today was supposed to be a killer day full of lessons! Until about 11 this morning we were supposed to have a member present lesson and this one lesson with an investigator from forever ago and some less active lessons but the member present lesson and the other lesson with the old investigator fell through....#itslippedrightthroughourfingers #namethemovie so we were at the church waiting for the member present lesson when they called and said they wouldn't be coming and so we decided the walk home and contact along the way since we didn't have anything else to do. On the way home we stopped by the store so that I could buy a Coke and have it for when I finished my fast tomorrow afternoon. We came in for lunch and then started our weekly planning and then had a rdv with a less active that we had found in the phone a couple of days ago. So we went to that and it was #awkward lol like he let us in and we kinda tried to have a conversation and stuff but it wasn't working and so we shared the Because of Him video as a spiritual message and then left and decided to contact to another less actives house cause we didn't have anything else to do. So we walked for what seemed like a lifetime and then we found his house and he didn't answer...so we started walking towards Mikes house cause we had our rdv with him tonight. We contacted this one man who said he was going to try to call us....he had hair on his neck that was longer than the hair on his head!! No joke! So it will be interesting to see if he calls us. Then we got to Mikes and he let us in. We started talking about school and movies and then I showed him some funny videos on my iPad and then we started the lesson. We talked about the articles of faith cause he had never heard them before and we just explained each of them. We had to finish up our weekly planning and so after we finished with him we made our way home to finish that up and that took the night. I ended the night calling up my good friend Pierre from Reims! Do you remember him? He's so cool! And he's doing ok, just in case you were wondering.

SUNDAY

if I can tell you one thing that I learned today, it is that when you follow the spirit, the Lord will bring you the blessings!!! It was such a cool night and I just wanted to say that. When we follow the counsel that we are given by our Heavenly Father, and have faith in his plan, he guides us and helps us find what we needed. Today was a good fast and testimony meeting. At church today, during sacrament meeting, Jean Paul kept leaning over to me and saying 'Allez frère! Témoignez!' So with there only being 8 members there yesterday with us 2 missionaries making 10, I went up and bore my testimony. It was a good Sunday! After sacrament meeting, the branch presidents wife gave me the recipe for the killer Apple raspberry pie thing that she made for us the other day during branch council and so I decided that I was going to make that for district meeting this week. IT IS SO GOOD! So that got me excited lol when left and made our way home to break our fasts and then to eat and I made a ton of this pasta stuff haha when I had finished I realized how much I had made and probably have lunch and dinner prepared for me for the next 2 months haha it was a lot of pasta. Then we went out and contacted and tried to find some less actives and stopped by a few houses but nothing...so after we'd been out for about 3 hours we decided to come in and take a little break and rejuvenate a little. When we were getting ready to head back out we were trying to figure out where to go porting and so I said a little prayer asking where we should go. As soon as I opened my eyes after the prayer to look at the map, my vision just zoomed in to this little area at the end of a bus line that I'd never been to. I didn't hear a voice or anything, but my eyes closed into this area so I said lets go! So we went and we were knocking and knocking and then this one lady let us pray with her! And then as we were walking to another house I said a little prayer asking Heavenly Father to lead me to where I needed to go since I was sent out here, and the next door we knocked was a lady that answered that told us we could pray and after the prayer she began to tell us how her brother had just passed away and how his funeral was tomorrow and how she was very sad, but really thankful we'd passed and told us we could come back next week!!! It was probably the coolest night of my life!! I got an answer to prayer just like that! I know that Heavenly Father listens and answers prayers, and that when we pray, we are communicating with our Heavenly Father. We are so blessed as his children! After that we came home and I wrote some letters and we made it to bed.

So there's my week!! I can't believe how fast time goes! Believe it or not I've already been in Dunkerque for almost 3 and a half months....time goes by too fast for me sometimes! Thank you all for you love and constant support. You all mean a ton to me and I can't wait to see you again sometime! Vous êtes constamment dans mes prières! N'oubliez jamais que notre père céleste est toujours là pour nous bénir et de nous aider. Il nous aime, et je vous promets que c'est sur. A bientôt! Que dieu vous bénisse!

Elder Libby

What's your verse?? Mine was Deuteronomy 31:6