everyone know, this is the last week of this
transfer! I can't believe how fast this transfer has gone by. (The transfer period is six weeks) We have
a super busy week scheduled for next week.
Now to let everyone know what happened this week, on Tuesday and
Wednesday we called a lot of people and we went around and ported.
Not too much success on Tuesday, but on Wednesday we knocked on the
door of a man who is evangelical Christian. We started talking about temples,
and then we started talking more about his beliefs. He was very kind
to us and he invited us to come into his yard and we stood at his bar
and we drank soda pop and talked more about our church. We started
talking more about what he did for a job, and his beliefs, and his
conversion story to the evangelical church. He was very kind to listen
to our message but at the end he wasn't interested. But he did say
that he loves to help people and he said that anytime we wanted to, we
could come and use his mountain bikes for a day. I don't think that
will use them anytime soon, but it was very nice to know that someone
would let us use his mountain bikes if we needed to! We gave him our
card and we told him that he can call us if he needed any help!
On Thursday, we had an exchange with the zone leaders. I was with
Elder Huntsman and Garside. We all walked down a super long road for about an hour to get to
the hospital where we had a friend to go talk to. His name is Jacques. We
talked to him for a bit and we found out how he knew the missionaries,
and we started talking a little bit about the Book of Mormon. He said
that he had a baptismal date a while back, but then he got in a car
accident and he lost contact with the missionaries. So we fixed a
rendezvous for probably next week and we will go and try and see what
we can do to help him come closer to Christ!
After that little rendezvous, all three of us walked the hour back to
the church and then another half hour back to our apartment to go eat
dinner. Once we ate dinner we went and visited the Ukrainian family
and we taught them a little bit of French for a few minutes. We then
talked about how they were doing, and we found out that their oldest
daughter who is about eight years old, was sick. And the mother asked
us if we would be willing to help give her a blessing.
The father Paul asked me to anoint the daughters head with oil and
then had all the missionaries help join in when the father sealed the
anointing. For those unfamiliar with this, you give blessings to
people when they are sick or are in need of comfort. The doctrine is in the New Testament, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” (James 5:14–15.) It was a really cool experience to help bless the daughter of this wonderful family!
On Friday, the zone leaders left and Elder Douglas and I got picked up
by a member and we were brought to his neighborhood and we did service
for his neighbors. This is the same member that brought Jean-Louis to
church!
For the service we started to scrape off the moss on the roofs of
small cabins in their garden-like yard. We then cut branches that were
over the cabins so that the roofs won’t get dirty.
After doing service the couple that we were doing service for
had us sit down and we ate some very nice homemade fois gras. We then
ate some really good homemade salad from tomatoes in the garden, some
chicken that we bought at the store, and some very French cheese!
Since we live in Basque Country, we have different cheeses and food in
this region. One thing they do is they take this cheese made from goat
milk and mix it with jam and they eat it! It sounds really weird, but
it was really good!
We didn't have the opportunity to really teach them much of the
doctrine of our church, but we did have the chance to tell them more
about what missionaries do, why are here, and just some of the very
basic beliefs of our faith. Now they have a really good point of view
of the church, because they said that if everyone had the same values
that Elder Douglas and I had the world would be a perfect place!
After the conversation we went inside and the man showed us his birds.
He then showed us inside a small box next to the cage and had a small
baby bird, it was so cute! This man was also a painter, and so he
brought out some copies of his paintings to give us as souvenirs! I
already packaged my paintings and I sent them home to my family.
We then got a ride home from them, and when we got home we did studies
and then we went with another member to go visit our investigator,
Gladness. Gladness is a Seventh-day Adventist. She doesn't read
much, so we are doing Bible study with her and going over Isaiah.
So we went over the first chapter and we scheduled another meeting for
this week!
On Saturday Elder Douglas and I cleaned the church. When we got to the
church we saw that the Relief Society was having an activity, and that
Dominique was there too! It was cool to see the sisters integrating her
into the branch! While cleaning, Jean-Louis then came in and started to
study the book of Mormon. We then sat down and we talked a bit about
some of the things for his baptism.
He asked me when I will know if I stay or not, and he said that he
wants me to be at his baptism because his first week of church was my
first week of church! I hope I stay so I can witness his baptism!
After cleaning the church, Elder Douglas and I did weekly planning,
and then we went and taught our friends the Longies. They nicely
dropped us when it comes to teaching them about the Book of Mormon.
So instead we're showing them Bible videos to teach them about the Bible!
They are super kind to us, and we're happy to teach them more about
the Bible. Hopefully more good things follow this.
On Sunday, we taught Jean-Louis and Dominique about keeping the
Sabbath day holy, and they said that they already try really hard to
do that! So that's perfect!
After church Elder Douglas and I studied and the weather was bad so we
couldn't really go out and talk to many people. But we did get some
things done in the apartment.
That's pretty much it for this week! I that I might stay for next transfer and
I will let you all know next week!
Tonight we are heading on a train to Bayonne for district meeting.
I love you all and I hope that you have a wonderful week. And I
want to wish happy birthday to my wonderful aunt Bonnie I love you!
-Love Elder Race Acheson
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