Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: This week's forecast; rain, rain and more rain

Well, this transfer feels like it was split into two. When I look back, it feels like it's been going on forever, but surprisingly the weeks go by swiftly. My days consist of waking up before the rooster and exercising after I've finished my crying session from a lack of sleep. Don't be alarmed I'm doing just fine, I've learned how to maybe get rid of the bags under my eyes. Then we get ready and spend an hour doing our personal studies. I love personal studies. Lately I've been reading the Book of Mormon more and I find that when I read it, I get lost pondering about my life and faith and how it all connects. If you don't mind terribly, I'd like to share one of my thoughts that maybe might be a little bit interesting for you this time.

While reading the scriptures I was thinking about my death. I asked myself, if I died right now, how would I feel? Prepared? Scared? Excited? I would say definitely not scared. Lately I've met with a lot of people from different denominations. I’ll be honest, those experiences make you think and ask questions. I ask myself, what if this church isn't true? What if there hasn't been a restoration yet or what if I haven't found the right church? Then I look back on my life. It’s not a bad life at all. I realize that I have good feelings with me all the time, I have hope, and a goal. I'm treating my body well, I go to church every Sunday. I have made and keep sacred covenants, and I'm always striving to be a better person. Everything I'm doing is good. So, no, if I died right now, it's just another adventure. I’ll see you on the other side. Even if there were nothing after this life, I wouldn't think I had wasted anything. I'm not sheltered, I'm not deprived of having fun. I'm living my life well and I have no regrets. We live in the dispensation of the fullness of times, we have the fullness of the gospel and all our questions can be answered, we can receive personal revelation directly from the Lord. So, when I think about all that I realize that I know this church is true.

I hope I didn't alarm anyone. I don't think about death that much, I promise. It’s just a thought that I had when reading and I thought I’d share it with you. I love reading the Book of Mormon because I get wonderful thoughts and insights. I say read and take a minute to think. You never know what your mind will come to next when guided by the Spirit.

Moving on to my super exciting week. There were a lot of people/amis that fell through. Tough life. I guess you just move on and go finding. That’s what we do. But lately it's been a little more tough finding. It's hard when 30-degree winds are blowing at 60 mph in your face. When it's times like that, it's hard to keep going. The weeks have been about the same, study, find, teach. But no one really stays. It's difficult, but like I always say, you learn so much about yourself, and how to handle situations. It’s not all that bad after all. You’re figuring out who you are and why you're doing the things you do. Like I said before, "missions help us find out if we can be happy being disciples of Jesus Christ..."

The STLs helped us find one of our pretty cool amis. His name is Luc and he's about 50 something. He is very Catholic... he loves everything we've taught him. He agrees with pretty much everything we've taught him. He believes the Book of Mormon and has come to church. He talks a lot, but it's good! He is understanding, and I would ask you to pray for me and my companion to know how we can best help him to progress and understand. I really want to help him and see it spark. I want to see him change and thrive in the gospel. I'm excited to see him again this week and help him come closer to our Heavenly Father.

Our ami that is having the affair with the married man with five kids is a different story indeed. We finally were able to see her after 4 weeks. We were going to teach her the law of chastity and holy cow it would've been a doozy. Instead we decided to ask her if her baptism was still something she wanted and then talked about repentance and the atonement. We asked her and she said, “I was already baptized and I don’t understand why I need to again.” We felt like we were in the film "The District." feeling awkward and not knowing what to do. Except we do know what to say, but how to say it without hurting her feelings? I figured I had to say the truth as nicely as I could with boldness. I told her the process of authority again and then told her, that her intentions with getting baptized were very good, but that it wasn't with the proper authority. That is why she needed to be baptized again. Well, I'm pretty sure she didn't like that. Afterwards she left her house, with us still in it chilling on her couch, for 10 minutes while she went to get her son... it was very weird, and we didn't know what to do. We decided to finish up quickly once she came back. We asked her if she wanted to act upon the things we've taught her then she could call us. We told her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She said she had prayed about it but hadn't had a response yet. Afterwards, when we were walking back to the bus stop, I realized she hadn't received an answer because she hadn't even started reading it! Fact for the future: If you want to know if something is true, you must test it first. Well, the lesson was a train wreck, but we have no regrets and we taught the truth.

Narek is Armenian and is 21 years old. We had our very first lesson with him and we've never met or seen him before. We were going in blind. What we did know was that he's Pentecostal/orthodox and worked somewhat like a pastor in Belgium before he came here for school! Yeah, we taught him. Or I should say we tried to. It was more like he was teaching us. There is no way we can change his mind. His mind is set on the Bible and Christ. His life he is living is very good. Props to him. He said we fulfilled one of his dreams for him. His dream was to be a missionary and teach like us. Well I realize now why he said that, because he literally taught us. It was hard to get a single words in. There was no bashing. There were just a lot of opinions from him. It was nice meeting him, but sadly we won't be going anywhere with him.

To finish up about my week, we had English class again and this time it was 3 new men that show up. It was really fun, we taught some cool things and they really liked it. They gave us certain things they specifically wanted to work on for next time, so now we have a little more prepared for them. Yay!

So, that's all folks! Love you and I hope to maybe hear some of your adventures from back home! Thanks for your prayers and love. I feel it and you all keep me going every day. Stay strong 😊

Sœur Sarah Hunt 💙