Hello everyone!
It's really starting to get hot here. Today it's a little more cloudy so it should be better today. So, this last week started out pretty slow. It didn't really get fast until Sunday... Yeah, it was one of those weeks. It ended up on a great note though! So to start off, on Monday we went to the Antiques Market and we were looking around and I saw a old English Bible. It was printed in 1836. I asked the owner how much it was and he asked if I was a "Student". He pointed to my missionary plaque and said that I could have it for free! It was very kind of him to give it to me. I decided that I will read the Luke 2 Christmas story every year for Christmas out of this bible with my future family for Christmas. (Sorry for the random detail).
We finished Monday by visiting a member who comes to church frequently but not all the time due to work. He gave us a name of a less active that we want to try and pass. After seeing him we went and got a sandwich with him for dinner.
On Tuesday while contacting I gave a Book of Mormon to a lady who didn't want to talk to me at first. She was really nice and told us to keep up the good work. While walking, some drunk guys on a bench called us over. I decided that I love talking to drunk people. We sat down with them and I became friends with two of the guys. I gave them a Book of Mormon and one of the guys said that he will start reading it. We sat for a little bit and talked about the restoration. Since they were wasted, I don't really know how much would stay, but they were really nice, and since then we have passed them a few times and they remember us.
On Wednesday we were walking past a snack shack, and a lady that Elder Williams contacted a few days ago invited us to sit down and have some water. So we sat and talked for a bit. She is Swiss and doesn't seem too interested to learn more about the gospel, but it's one person that wants to talk with us, so we took up the offer to talk to someone.
We continued on our path and saw some friends that we made the week before. There are all these people who play Pitonque. It's France's version of bowling. Throw a small ball and roll your balls as close as you can to it.
I played with one the guys and it got pretty competitive. I made some good throws and got close and almost won. I lost 9-13. The guy I played with was pretty impressed. So was I because I haven't played that much.
After spending some time talking to the people and becoming friends we left to go try and talk to more people. We find that there are lots of people who are nice to us, but they never seem to let us get to the gospel. So we are trying to be friends and be good examples and set up the future missionaries that talk to them.
We walked more and came across our 3 friends that always are on a bench the same time every evening. Jack, a really cool old guy who makes his own canes. He's atheist. Guy, a French man who speaks really good English because he worked for Boeing and Microsoft in Seattle for a few years. He knows Mormons and believes in science. Then there is Frederic who is the youngest of the guys, he's about 40 and loves to hear the funny stories we have as missionaries. He was surprised when we said that we don't watch tv or listen to the radio, and even that we don't go on dates. It's funny because we are now good friends with them. If we ever need to take a break from contacting we go over to them and talk with them.
On Thursday we had 3 lessons planned but they all fell through. So we decided to spend some time contacting. I played Pitonque again with our old friends, and still lost. One cool thing that happened was when we were contacting and I saw an old contact so I went up to him because we had a hard time trying to call him. I scheduled a RDV with him for the next day (didn't show up). It was cool to see him again, and he seems interested, but he is just sketchy and doesn't show up. At the end of the day we had a great conversation with a hippy nature obsessed French lady. She was nice to listen but was more interested in nature and all those things. Nice lady, and we gave her our card.
On Friday we tried to pass an ancient ami. We got in contact with her father and he gave us her number. Since we had a little time before the bus came, we tried to contact people in the small town. There was no one, so we went back and took the bus back. When we came back we contacted until we came to Jack, Guy, and Frederic. We talked for a few minutes and then had to head back home.
On Saturday we went to the church to play basketball, and Fr. Bell was the only one that showed up. So we played around for a little and talked. He gave some advice on things to do to help the ward, and to make Missionary work more effective..
We went and contacted and I gave a gospel of Jesus Christ brochure to a guy on a bench. He was a little out of it, but he started reading it though, and that was good. He didn't want to give his phone number. We passed an old ami and walked across town to knock on the door, the lady who answered said that the person we were looking for is not there anymore. So we walked to the Gare and took a bus to go pass a potential. We got to the outer ville and we knocked on the door. The potentials husband answered and told us to come back another time. He wasn't interested to listen. So we ran and caught the soonest bus out of the town to try and get some last contacting in for the day.
Sunday was the fast day of the week:) We had some visitors at church. A French guy who served his mission in Arizona. The church really makes the world small. After talking for a minute I found out that he was my Cousin Mitch's old companion. The church really makes the world a small place!
There was an American family visiting from Utah and I sat behind them and translated. There was a girl that wanted to give her testimony so I translated for her when she gave her testimony. It's really hard to translate into English. There are some members who have big speech slurs and hard accents, so it's hard to understand, and then on top of that, in French you say the same thing 5 times before they get the real meaning out. So it was a good language practice!
Ricard, our Ami, came to church. He usually does a really good job coming by himself. He read a little in the Book of Mormon and we had Emmanuel Prunin teach with us. We read 1 Nephi 8, which talks about the Tree of Life. We connected it to our lives here and what we need to do to reach the fruit that is on the tree. Emmanuel was pretty bold today about the Book of Mormon and that was great because I think Ricard took it well. We haven't had the chance to see him this past week, so it's been hard to help him progress. He was our first lesson for 2 weeks. We haven't really been able to teach at all these last couple weeks. Because of the strikes with the trains it's been hard to see one of our Amis, and then the other 2 are always busy. We find people usually everyday but no one responds to our calls and it is kind of disappointing.
Anyways, after church we did studies and weekly planning. We were invited to come over to the Bells for dinner so we went and started contacting before we went over to their house. While walking "Elder" Sullivan Quinn came running up and surprised us. He was with his family and we got to meet them all. We walked around town a little with the them and took pictures and some videos of us all together. It was weird because the "Trio" was back. It was so great to see Sullivan again and his family. Sadly we had to run to the bells after because we were late.
We ate BBQ and was with Gautier and Stephanie again. We all ate and talked about the Bells moving to Utah. We told them what it was like to be members over there and how many stakes and wards there were. It was funny to see their eyes when we told them that in a small city there were more Stakes then there were in all of France.
Well, that's the week for us! We plan to have some lessons this week so that should help it go by faster! It's also the last week of the transfer, so we will find out what happens this Friday!
I love you all and hope that you have a good week!
-Love, Elder Race Acheson
No comments:
Post a Comment