Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: I speak Spanish like a baby...?

I have come to the point in my life where every time I see a lake or a river (I don't care how dirty it looks), I just want to throw myself in it. This describes how I feel 99. 5% of the time. It's so flippin' hot.

Hope you all are taking great care of yourselves amidst the perspiration. I know I'm trying! But besides all the heat waves in our apartment and our often semi heat strokes as we walk the streets, we had a pretty great week!

I'd like to start by talking about the wonderful people I meet called my amis! First there is an 8 year old named Kylian who we saw last Thursday and he's so cute and pretty darn smart. He's already starting D&C. His family is a less active but they're starting to come back to church. They're all so amazing. The dad is preparing himself so he can baptize his son! They served us Escargot (snails) so my companions could try it for the first time and I could have it again. It was a fun time :)

Later that week we saw an ami who was seen before by Sœurs but had lost contact with them. His name is Antoine and he's from Africa. He has great, great faith. You could tell in his prayer that he really was grateful to meet with us and that he really wanted to know just like Joseph Smith the truth for himself. We taught him the whole restoration and it went so well. I can say that it was one of the times that I had the gift of tongues. The words just flowed and more came to my remembrance when I needed it. I felt like I could’ve expressed myself so well. We were all so happy on how it all turned out in the end. The spirit was so strong. The only problem is that he has a bunch of health issues that prohibit him from coming to church so I ask all those who take an interest and read my weekly novels, to please pray for him so that he will be able to come :) thank you beaucoup. (very much)

We also met with Mary and Bryce again (our amis progressing to baptism) and it went well again. They live really far from the church as well, and they don't have a car. The transportation doesn't run very often at all on Sundays so it makes them have to wake up early so they can take 50 trams and buses to be to church on time, barely. So also please pray for them!

I'd love to share more about all the people I met but you might try and find a way to block my emails from coming somehow. So moving on to a wonderful family home evening Friday night with a couple of members and our amis except our amis didn't come. But it was still really great. Remember when I said that our ward is very diverse? How we have Spanish and English and every African dialect... Well these two members are from Peru and the Dominican Republic. One speaks pretty alright French and the other speaks like none. So we really wanted to accommodate them. We sang sweet hour of prayer in Spanish and one of the Elders who's crazy smart did his whole spiritual thought in Spanish. He only took Spanish in high school. I don't know how he knew that much from just learning in high school... No one learns that much from just high school. Anyways it was awesome and I bore my testimony in Spanish as well: “Yo sé que Dios le ama.” (I know that God loves you) Yup I'm fluent! Then afterwards it was a bad idea to tell them that I was partly from Spain and that my grandparents and my mom speak Spanish fluently because they interrogated me about why I didn't know any Spanish! I responded back sheepishly saying, “Yo Hablo Español un poquito”... (I speak a little Spanish) One responded back saying that I spoke Spanish like a baby... I'm not sure the meaning behind that but I'll take it as a compliment.

Something that I learned this week is that God really does work through small and simple means. Every time I go contacting on the street and leave a contact I always wish that I could've left that conversation knowing I did more, could've said something that wouldve convinced them, or just something crazy that would’ve shocked them into believing. But then I think, us humans are always looking for some big miraculous miracle or vision where we see God... But it's not like that. I learned that people have choices. All I can do is testify so they can be convinced by the whispering of the spirit. All I can do is strengthen my own testimony to help them more fully. There is no other way. It's a trial of faith. We must learn by faith and act on what we know. I'm very thankful for the choices I've made that have put me where I am today. I can't even begin to explain my gratitude for this gospel and all that it has done for me in my life. Take time to bare your testimony this week to someone who might need it, or take time to strengthen a part that is lacking in your testimony so that you will be able to help someone who is struggling themselves.

So yeah that's my week! Love you all tons and tons. I hope you all had and have an amazing week.

Love

Sœur Sarah Hunt

P. S. I really love art museums