Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: Start of something new

My New Companion!!

»SOEUR DORTON«

From: Missouri

Served in: Nogent

Been out: 7 months

Life Ambition: To be a spy

Fun Fact: She can belly dance

Other Info: She's “The princess of the world, perfect, light of my life and hilarious” (not my own words)

Basically, we're the same person except she has the “energy of a sparkly-rainbow-bubbly-unicorn-hippopotamus with 3 Red Bulls on crack” (not my own words). I thought Sœur Daines had a lot of energy... But nope! I'm so incredibly blessed to have her in my life. We've seen so many miracles in just 3 days.

Before I continue, I want to say that I loved every minute with my wonderful companion Sœur Skouson and I wish her again luck in Rennes. Life moves us on to new and greater adventures, making more memories with new people around you.

Here in Calais we've been incredibly busy. BUSY WITH MIRACLES!! Soeur Dorton and I have set up a great plan for the ward and have made amazing goals for our amis which has progressed the work along immensely and quite quickly.

First, I'll explain our goals and then tell you of 3 miracles that have happened in just 3 days. I'll tell you everything I'm about to say would not be possible if it wasn't for the Lord. He blessed us for our hard work. I owe everything to him and my heart is full of gratitude.

We set a goal of finding 7 new amis per week. Every first lesson we’re going to ask them to be baptized even if we don't think they're super ready, and by July 7th to have 5 baptismal dates. Wednesday, we spent the whole day making plans and setting goals, so Thursday was when the action started. We went finding for 3 hours straight. The next day we went finding for 3 hours and Saturday for 2 and Sunday 3 hours again (bear with me I'm getting somewhere with this). I've never been finding straight for more than 2 hours. So, it really pushed me.

My first miracle of the transfer. Thursday, we went finding for 3 hours and we found a couple of amis. But mostly just rejections. Friday as we were finding and were about to head in with 49 invites. My comp didn't want to end on an odd number, so we were going to find one more person to talk to. I saw this lady across the street, the sun was shining on her and I just knew we had to talk to her. We did, and she was so sweet. She was engaged and was really interested in learning more. We gave her a reestablishment brochure and a Book of Mormon and asked to have her number, but she didn't have her number memorized and she didn't have her phone with her. We didn't have a way of meeting with her again because no contact but also, she didn't know her schedule to tell us when she was available. She said she would call us the next morning. We were going to pray real hard that she would... Next morning rolls around and no call. We were really sad but didn't lose hope. Now it's Saturday and we went to do service at L'Auberge, but it was supposed to be Friday that we went. We also missed the bus while talking to someone, so service was on a day we don't normally do it and at a time we don't normally go at. Timing worked perfectly. As we were walking back we saw the lady in the exact same spot that we met her the night before! We talked to her and she asked if we could meet at 14h and it was 13h. We said sure and went home to eat quickly and then went to the church. She showed up right on time! We gave her a church tour and then taught her the whole Reestablishment lesson. Soeur Dorton and I were very united in teaching and it went so smoothly. The spirit was real strong, and we knew it was a great time to ask her to be baptized. She said she would!! Our new ami, Arlette, gave a wonderful prayer to finish off. It was amazing and wouldn't not have happened without the Lord!!

Second miracle happened when we were finding less actives and regular finding in between on Sunday. We spent 3 hours and got to this apartment building that this less active lived in but didn't know which apartment, so we just started pressing buttons trying to find the right place. This Indian man came to the door. We asked him if he was Patrick (the less active we were looking for) he said he wasn't. Soeur Dorton and I just looked at each other and then back to him, "En fait nous sommes les missionnaires pour...." (In fact, we are missionaries for…) we just talked about the church like regular porting. He turned out to be really interested. It was a great contact. We asked to explain more about our message and he said, “Yeah sure come in!” We went in but couldn't go into his apartment because there was no other woman. So, we talked outside his door. He, Ranjit, has one little boy and his wife left him recently. He is just going through some rough situations. When we went into his place for a few seconds Soeur Dorton told me she felt really good with inviting him to baptism right on the spot. So, we did. He agreed! He was going to meet with us again and work with us towards baptism!! To finish up he asked us to pray for him and his little boy. We told him we would and that he could also pray for himself too! We taught him how and then demonstrated a prayer for him. I gave the prayer, just super simple and when I finished we look up at him and he was crying. Tears just streaming down his face. It was such a spiritual experience. We could tell he could feel this connection with God and the love of God for his child. He was so grateful. We testified of the spirit that he felt and told him that he could feel that all the time after he is baptized. The little boy was like our best friend right away. I was grateful to find this man and his little boy in that moment at the right time in his life. I'm so grateful to have been able to give him that.

Another goal we are working on together is to say gratitude prayers after each miracle we see. In the prayer I said all we were grateful for and then I asked for the sun to come out soon because this whole week has been pretty chilly and dreary. 3 hours later we had the sun out and we could feel God's love for us. I just knew he was there and that he was proud of us. Again, nothing would've been possible if it wasn't for our Loving Heavenly Father.

A couple other things I'd like to say is that Vincent came to church and is in chapter 11 in 1nephi! He even took notes. I'm so happy to see him engaged and trying to learn new things to come closer to Christ!

One other thing is Jennifer who had the 3 girls (the one lady who I thought had 2 girls and a boy, but she had 3 girl...) and one child on the way. She's from Cameroon if you remember. We called a couple weeks ago, and she said she'd meet with us after she had her baby. So, we decided to call a couple nights ago, and she just texted us back saying that she lost the baby. That was a shock for us and quite sad. We hope everything is going well for her and we hope to be able to help her with anything in the future. On another note, she said she's been reading the Book of Mormon and is now in Helaman!?!? Wow. So proud of her.

Anyways, to sum up our week. We got 8 new amis and have 2 baptismal dates and everyone is progressing amazingly! Calais is coming along so well and again, I owe it all to my Heavenly Father for leading us to the places that we will best help the people here in Calais. Also, I'm so blessed to have Sœur Dorton with me every step of the way.

Love you lots and have an amazing week!!

Sœur Hunt