Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: Missionary work is the best!!

This week was pretty fabulous. I never would've imagined how crazy, cool and full of miracles it would hold for us. I almost forgot what missionary work was! This week was so jam packed full! We barely had any time for studies. It was so, so fun and awesome.

I’ll start with Monday evening. We went to an amis house. It was super cool and the spirit was very strong. They are crazy devout Catholics and love God a lot. They are seeing other missionaries from other religions to see which one is correct. I don't know if I ever told you, but, teaching Catholics is VERY HARD. They also speak English. They are the ones that came from Pakistan. They have a meeting very soon that tells them if they can stay or if they have to be deported. They're very nervous. Anyways, planning for their lesson was a little difficult, because they said they had many questions and we didn't know what they would ask. We did plan to ask them to be baptized though, but we for sure weren't thinking they would say yes, or they would have a hard time understanding because they’ve done every single little ritual you've ever done in the Catholic church and wouldn't understand why they would need to do it again. So we said to ourselves, well, it's our duty and we would be depriving them of promised blessings if we didn't invite them. So we were going for it. They kept asking us if we believe in Saints or if we prayed to them. They asked us to explain the 3 kingdoms again because they don't really hear a lot about the afterlife in Catholicism. When the time came to ask them to be baptized. We said, "If you came to know of these things to be true for yourself, would you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by the proper authority?" Without hesitation, Joseph said, "Absolutely not." Well there ya go, REJECTED! Lol, it's fine, we were expecting it. They said if they decided to get baptized it would look like they gave up on this Catholicism. They weren't sure yet. But we continued our lesson and we started reading the Book of Mormon with them. Towards the end, they softened up a little and were more easy going. I think with time, they would get baptized. Anyways, they're such sweet people, very nice and we enjoy them a lot.

Tuesday was fun, we had district meeting from 12 until 430. The Épinal elders missed their train and had to take a 2 hour bus ride here so it would've started at 1030. But it was all good. Afterwards, we found this really nice porting (contacting) place just 30 minutes outside centreville (downtown). The people there are so awesome and nice! Even if they don't want to hear from us or are not interested, they're still very polite about it. And it's in the country side and on a hill with beautiful scenery.

Went to a museum. We got some tickets from a very nice member. This furniture was what defined and developed the Parisian culture. Some of which they don't make anymore. It was a very beautiful house and the gardens were pretty amazing too. It was fun to learn some interior design of Paris! Haha, neener neener mother! ;) Afterwards, we went back to that porting place in the country side to finish up the night.

Now Thursday is the magical day. The Luxembourg Sœurs came down for another exchange for this transfer. It was going to be a finding day and we didn't have any rendezvous until 5 and they were leaving at 5 for Paris for a mission conference. So to keep a long story short, pretty much, Sœur Staley and I found 4 new numbers and 1 new ami! We also got a couple of 5 Facebook followers to teach. It was actually really fun. Their method is really good. I want to be able to do what they do some day. But first I need the vocabulary for it. She just captures the people’s attention! Anyways, when we got back together with the other companionship, Sœur Giles and Sœur earl they had found 5 new amies! Side note, it's very difficult getting new amies finding right off the street. Anyways, we were so, so excited to actually have someone to teach. Our goal for the week was 4 but it turned out to be 5 new amies. It's all thanks to the Lord and the prayers we have received. Thank you all.

Friday we found one girl all by ourselves by using the method of the STLs (Sister training Leaders). IT WORKED! I stopped this lady on the street and our conversation went like this:

Me: "Bonjour! On est missionnaires pour l'Église de Jésus-Christ et on est ici pour aider les gens à trouver la paix et fortifié votre relation avec Dieu. Est-ce que vous êtes quelqu'un croyant ?"

(Hello, we are missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ. We are here to help people find peace and strengthen their relationship with God. Do you believe in God?)

New Amie: "oui." (yes)

Me: "qu'est-ce que vous croyez ?" (What is it that you believe?)

She didn't really know, but we asked her if she believed in Jesus or God and she did. Then we just chatted and got to know her a bit. Told her why we were here and where we were from. Then we asked her if she'd like to know more. She said, "pourquoi pas ?!"(why not?) Then she said she'd come by our church some time and we told her it's only open on Sundays, but we had the keys and would show her around. She said ok yeah lets meet at 12 30 and we can go together! We finished by saying a prayer which makes what we did a lesson and a rendezvous. Because a rendezvous consists of a principle taught and finishing with a prayer. And getting a new ami is doing all of that AND setting another day and time to meet. That's why I said it's hard getting new amies when finding, because usually it just ends up being hello, would you like to learn more, no I'm busy, ok well how about next time, yeah sure, and then they just walk off. So we have to figure out a way to actually commit them and engage them in wanting to know more. And what we did was just that! We got a new ami and she was super sweet and awesome and we see her this Wednesday! We were so happy to be able to do that by ourselves without the STLs help.

We had DMP later and then started to set up for our Ward Halloween party but then, we then got a text from another ami that Soeur Staley and I met finding Thursday. She said she wasn't interested, but her friend was. She also said that she was in the process of moving. Then Sœur Staley said, oh! We can help you! Then she said, really? We love doing service; there aren't many occasions where we can help like that. But she texted us and asked if we were still willing to help her move. We said yes... here comes the crazy story... We told her we would be ready by 730 to help her and she said that worked just fine.

So we headed over to her house and remember we don't really know her, we just met her once. So we had no idea what to expect. We got to her place and they were pretty much done taking things out. She said that they were heading to her new place now. So we were going to drive with her... But as she walked away Sœur Giles and I looked at each other and Giles said, "can we even ride in a car with an ami??" I shrugged and said, "check the white handbook!" (White handbook are the rules of the mission). So we did and we were all clear. Phew! But told her we couldn't be in the car with only men. She said it's fine we will be together the whole time. Great. We got in the car with her husband. And he was taking out chewing tobacco to stuff in the side of his cheek. Great! What have we gotten ourselves into... Then the husband asked us what kind of music we like, and again me and Giles just looked at each other and shrugged.. I said, we like all music you pick... Then he handed us his phone and said, here you choose. So here I am holding the phone with YouTube on and I'm supposed to pick a song... I look at Sœur Giles and she whispers frantically, "I don't know MoTab?!" Then I said, "oh yeah! Let's just put some Mormon Tabernacle Choir on, they’ll love it! No we can’t do that!" All the while he’s waiting for us to pick a song. I’m trying to think frantically on what kind of song to put on. Then Sœur Giles says, "just put something on from the radio from back home!" But I couldn't remember any songs! Then I finally remembered... Paris by Chainsmokers. Yup I just did that.

So then we started driving over and got out to what we thought was their new place, but they were taking stuff out of that apartment too. They had such a tiny little truck to stuff everything in. It was like playing Tetris. Those poor couches... so while they were trying to stuff everything in, we were getting to know her friend. She is 26 and was married when she was 15 and had her daughter when she was 16. She asked us if we had any kids and I told her no, but I didn't catch what she had said about having her first kid in high school, so I said no I had just finished high school.... (implying that that would be outrageous...) well... It's fine. She gave me a weird look and its fine... she is from Italy and her husband from Algeria. So they were stuffing the couches for 30 minutes before we headed to their actual apartment. We had to be home by 9 and it was already 8:30. We drove away from the city and I thought to myself, cool this place is very far out and they’re going to take us to a secluded place and kill us. No we were fine, :) but it was out of range from our bus pass. We got there and we helped them unload and put their things into their apartment within 15 minutes. We got done around 915 which isn't bad. We can't be out any later than 930. Well, she bought pizza stuff and she was going to make some for us. So... we couldn't say no. Each pizza took 20 minutes to make... by the time it was done cooking and we had eaten it was 1015. CRAP. We were both freaking out a little. The husband during which was asking us a bunch of questions about what we do and why and other questions. Then we told them we had to leave. So they took us home and it was about a 15 minute car ride. We arrived at our place by 1035. So it was past curfew and past bedtime. Yikes! But we had no idea what to do. We've never been in that situation before. But it ended well and they even invited us back Sunday to help them finish up a bit. But this time we won’t do it in the evening.

Next morning, we had a rendezvous with another ami which Sœur Staley and I met Thursday. She is from an island near Madagascar. I can't remember which. She was interested and she has a little girl named Mia. So we were heading to their house Saturday morning at 1030. We got there and it was an address to a deserted house where no one lived. Great! I was a little angry. All she had to do was tell us she wasn't interested instead of sending us to a deserted place. Its fine, we dropped her. We called her and sent her a text but she never responded, its fine we have others to attend to.

We then went to have lunch at a members with our ami and her friend. It was very good lunch, but she always makes me eat so much. I thought I was going to throw up at how much I ate. But the lesson with the friend went well. We taught the Word of Wisdom and she said she'd stop drinking coffee. So it was good.

Well the rest of the week was average, but very awesome! Thank you for all the help. The work is progressing and I could see the hand of God helping us. Keep having fun and working hard. Love you all a ton. This week will be very busy as well; we pretty much have a rendezvous every day. Pray that none fall through.

Talk next week!

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