Life as a missionary

Wow this week flew by and boy oh boy was it just awesome. So many things happen when you're on the mission.

Let me start with my dear friend Favor. We've been working with her to prepare her to go to the temple, but we thought it would be even better if she had names to take! So, on Tuesday we got together with a member to get started on her family tree! She was able to find a lot and she was so excited. There was such a sweet spirit in the room. We found her sister and grandma that she could bring to the temple to baptize! We ended by sharing the video called The Blessings of Family History which is found on lds.org and it was incredible. The fact that we were able to help our recent convert find family members to baptize at the temple and doing it with a member and having the spirit very strong in the room, felt like a dream. It was one of those times where I can say I was so happy. The member came up to us afterwards to thank us for the amazing experience.  I could tell everyone who had participated had been touched and was radiating with happiness.

Another thing we did for Favor was order the triple combination of the BOM, Pearl of great Price and D&C as well as the Bible. We ordered them for her and we gave them to her when we saw each other Tuesday.  She was absolutely thrilled.  Her reaction was about the same as when Soeur Giles, Soeur Morrison and I gave her chocolate during one of her lessons haha!

We went finding later that night and we had some funny experiences. I stopped this man who looked pretty friendly, LOL. He got right up in my face and yelled words I didn't understand. I don't think he was interested... We think he was from Poland. I definitely wasn’t expecting that to happen. Then as we were about to cross the street to head for the bus stop to go home, I saw this man who obviously looked drunk.  I didn't want to draw our attention to him. So, I kept my head low and didn't look at him as if that would've stopped him from coming over.... psych! he came and started saying weird things to us which then turned into a drunk rapper serenading us LOL.  Although we had weird things happen to us we did find a man who was actually really nice. We gave him a Book of Mormon with a challenge and he was super open to it.  We set up a time to meet on Saturday. Saturday come around and we had a great lesson.  He even had started the 21-day-challenge but afterwards he said it was a nice discussion and he'll keep it as a great memory, but he said he wasn't really believing otherwise he would've met with us again. So that's too bad, but I believe one day he'll come back around.

Later we met with another member, Roxana, because she had just bought a karaoke machine and wanted us to sing with her.... LOL!  I can't sing, but whatever it was just us three and we sang in English a primary song, scripture power. She only wanted to film us 2 minutes because much more than that is way too long... right. But it was actually really fun and we shared the scripture, Ether 12:4, 

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.”

I love this scripture because it's ONLY through God that we can have a better world.  It’s through our faith and our hope that we can have that sure base. I WILL NOT let my actions neither my thoughts nor my faith be changed for the things of this world. It is too valuable for me to give up. I know who I follow, and I will do my best to make sure nothing will get in my way of that.

Saturday night we were with an elderly member couple who were very adorable. They had us over for dinner and told us about their conversion story that took place almost 50 years ago. I loved being at their home because it was a house that really had the spirit. They're the kind of elderly couple I'd like to be when I'm their age. Oh, also they're great missionaries, they invited all of three of their neighbors to church!

Just to wrap things up, a member asked me and my companion to help sing in the ward choir because they're practicing for their ward conference the next Sunday. They were short a soprano... there were only 3 girls and 10 guys haha. I don't think people take me seriously when I say I can't sing. But I guess when you're a missionary people ask you to do a lot of things even when you're not necessarily good at it.  But it's great!  You get to help and serve in any way possible.

Anyways I gotta run, I love you all lots and have a great week!

Love Sœur Hunt

"It's feeling like fall"

Doing family history with Favor!!

"Gotta love the creativity in the world"

"Free pears"

Neighborhood bakery

Japanese gardens and flute quartet

A light and an Example

Bonjour tout le monde! (hello everyone) Now as Sœur Franklin says, "The people are great, the city is great, God is great, and I am doing great!" There is always something to do here in Nantes, wait or should I say in St. Nazaire and Rennes too?

We did a lot of traveling at the beginning of the week because we had district meeting in Saint Nazaire and right after headed to Rennes for exchanges. I had the amazing pleasure to work with Sœur Pischer. She actually came to France with me and she's awesome! That night we set up the stand for the 21 day Livre de Mormon challenge. The Rennes elders were on exchanges too with the APs so there were 8 of us total in downtown Rennes with tons of books talking to everyone about the challenge. It was tons of fun and the highlight was when a Romanian man playing the accordion stopped us as we were all walking down the street carrying the stuff and asked us who we were. He said he wanted to come to church and then because we were Americans he started playing Hotel California on the accordion just for us. It was hilarious! It was awesome sharing the book with people and some of them even accepted to take the challenge! Then afterward we ate Poutine which for those of you who don't know is a Canadian specialty that is fries with gravy and other stuff on it. And it was pretty delicious.

The members were so sweet this week. Soeur Front couldn't figure out how to unlock her tablet so we went over to help her and she was so happy when we figured it out. (It was all a matter of pressing "suivant" (next)) Then another member wanted us to stop by her house because she had made a "gâteau" (cake), turns out it was actually banana bread and mmm it was so good. 

I visited the Giraud family on Thursday and boy are they just the most amazing family ever. I'm sorry but I don't remember if I ever mentioned them in the past, but I'll say it again. They are a less active family and we've been teaching their son Kylian, their oldest of 8 years. Then 2 adorable younger daughters Kristen and Gaell, and a 4 month old cat named Oops (that they just adopted). Teaching Kylian is a dream, he is so attentive and funny and smart. We are preparing him for his baptism the 28th of October and his grandpa will be baptizing him. Afterwards we ate dinner with them, mussels! They were good and man we laughed the entire meal. Seriously love all of them so much! And they came to church yesterday, hooray! 

Also this week's random discovery in Nantes...a quartet of four men playing the flute in a Japanese themed park. It was pretty cool. It's so peaceful, you know I wouldn't mind being Budist... I mean, like the meditating and finding inner peace part without forgetting God and all...  Hahaha it was great and they were actually really good!
Then yesterday during finding we were walking around and nobody really wanted to talk to us. Then we stopped this family and they actually stopped to listen to us! The mom said they were Catholic non practicing. We explained about the Book of Mormon and the 21 day challenge and how it's helped us. We weren't sure how they were going to react. We offered to give it to them and there was a pause when the parents were kinda hesitating when all of a sudden their little boy took it from me and was like "je veux le lire ! (I will read it)" The dad was so surprised and was like, "Tu vas le lire, toi? (You're going to read it? You?)" And he was like yes of course we're going to read it together! Then Sœur Franklin shared how reading together with her family helped strengthen them and bring them together and they were like OK we will try it! They were just in Nantes for vacation but they were super sweet and it was just a special moment when the little boy took the Book of Mormon. Kids are so much closer to the Spirit! We have lots to learn from little kids. 

At church in relief society they shared a quote from Elder Wirthlin's talk, The Virtue of Kindness. Sœur Franklin showed the talk in English to Favor and Tessy and they loved what it said and started reading more of it. Here's one of my favorite parts from it: 

"The Church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father."

It's very true, because we are all part of this adventure together in building the kingdom of God. We cannot get through life on our own, no matter how strong you think you are. We need support from others and especially our Father in Heaven. Church should be a place where we feel safe and loved, separated from the world. Because like we all know, we are different from the world. 

Love you all! Have a good week!
Love Sœur Hunt 

PS all rights reserved to my dear companion (for the 98%)

21 Day Book of Mormon Challenge!

Exchanges in Rennes (Soeur Hunt is in yellow)

Poutin, a Canadian specialty dish

Rennes is so pretty

Beautiful Nantes

A Nantes floating home

"Hello my babies" (Sarah's favorite macaroons.)  She'll be thrilled when we take her to Gourmandise Bakery & Cafe, an authentic French cafe here in Salt Lake.  It's as close as you can get without being there. 

FROM LAST WEEKS EMAIL.  Les Machines de l'île Nantes (Machines on the island of Nantes)

                                         

The Atlantic Ocean, mechanical elephants and fun people

Well, well, what very fast week we just had. Everything I did this week felt like I did it 3 weeks ago. I guess that's good right? Means we're filling our days ;) Anyways this week was a riot. A week of spontaneous things and adventures.

We had nothing planned on Tuesday so the morning of we decided we would take a 2-hour train ride and desert ourselves to an island. Sadly, the boat trip to the island was not within our budget so we ended up finding along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, a ville called, St. Gilles Croix-de-Vie. We ended up walking for about 3 hours a total of 4 miles, talking to people and admiring the view. We sat down for a breather at one point, so our legs wouldn't turn to dust, and while sitting we tried using our amazing directional skills to figure out where Spain was and then where America would be and figure out how long it would take us to swim back home. It was a great time. The people were so nice even when they rejected us! I blame it on the serenity of the ocean. I thank God for that wonderful opportunity I had to be able to have that experience. It was refreshing.

Wednesday, we had such a miracle! Throwback to me and Sœur Franklin on our very first week together. I remember one of our first finding sessions, we had been walking for a while and stopped lots of people, but no one was receiving us until we stopped the last person before going back home. We stopped this African lady who was a wearing a bright orange boo-boo (traditional African outfit) so we just knew we had to stop her. We did and set a date to meet again. She had told us briefly that she had a family, and that she wants her kids to know who God is because they're coming to the age of asking questions like is God there and who is Jesus Christ. So, we told her that our gospel blesses families and we are here to help people receive their own revelation to their questions. We were so excited to see her again.

Wednesday comes around and we're going to go see her. We get to her place and it's a house FULL of kids! I guess 'family' didn't quite register in my brain when she said it the first time. We were so excited to see them all! She told us that she had made sure everyone was home from school and work to be here to listen to us preach. She said she didn't have enough time to prepare us something to eat so she said next time she would. She was so sweet! As she was gathering all the children together we had a chance to talk to the dad to get to know him and we asked him how many kids he had. He said tiredly, "we have 6 kids. I never thought I'd have this many, but we don't believe in abortions because we're Christian..." we had the opportunity to share the restoration with them and they really liked it. When we talked about the Book of Mormon they said they had one already! She said that she was given one a few months ago from other missionaries like us. It's a sign from God! They're supposed to be meeting with us! Anyways we're going to see them again this coming week and we are excited to see them! What a sweet family.

Another time during one of our finding sessions we decided to be a little more creative and go to a place we've never been to before. While there, we stumbled upon the most random thing I've ever seen on my mission. As we're walking down the street we see a fairly big crowd. They're all just filming and taking pictures of a ginormous elephant machine walking 10 miles an hour. It was a pretty cool invention, it was just so funny. Afterwards I realized that that it was one of the famous sights and things to do here in Nantes called Les Machines de l'île Nantes (Machines on the island of Nantes). They have these GIANT creature machines that people can ride around on. One is a spider, and another is a hummingbird. So that was cool while out finding.

This week we've been focusing on making calls of all the people in our area book (our database of a sort) making it all organized and cleaned out. We were seeing if people were still interested and what not. Many interesting conversations came from it which some ended in people wanting to marry us or confessing their love. What a riot! They don't even know us!! One person we ended up talking to about the difference in our church and the catholic church and we were trying to explain it, but he just kept interrupting us saying he didn't understand and started speaking English thinking that the conversation would go better if he did. But he ended up going off on a tangent which made no sense, but we let it go and told him he's free to come to church whenever he wanted. He ended up coming to church pretty drunk the next day saying the American sisters invited him. Riiiight, but you know what, glad he came haha.

I gave another talk in sacrament that all the other missionaries volunteered me to give...True friends 😉. Anyways it was a pleasure and I really enjoyed speaking.  It was a calm Sunday. We didn't end up translating because none of our Nigerian friends came, but we are totally counting on them coming next week!

I really love being a missionary because I get so many opportunities to learn so many things, meet some cool/nice/weird people, broaden my perspective of God's plan and find true happiness by serving others. So sad that soon this will be coming to end, but I tell myself I'm going to go strong until the end.

I love you all and I invite you all to either call someone or write someone a card who needs it in their life right now. You never know who will need to hear from you in this moment.


Avec Amour, (with love)
Sœur Sarah Hunt

 We went finding in the beautiful town of St Gilles Croix-de-Vie

The Atlantic Ocean

"The beach houses in St Gilles are beautiful"

View from our apartment

Feels like I'm serving in Nigeria now!!

Well another week has come and gone, and life is moving on! I'm in full swing again with my new companion!

*Sœur Franklin*

From: Cleveland Ohio,

Been serving for: 1 year and 3 months

Fun fact: she's a twin and her other half is serving in New Caledonia

One of her talents: plays the piano

Life Ambition: she doesn't know

Something she loves: the movie Legacy

There you go! I'm excited to serve with her! We've already seen so many miracles and awesomeness lately!

Our first miracle together happened when we were on the bus heading towards our first rendezvous with an ami from Africa who met the missionaries à little while ago. She has really cute kids. We had a good rendezvous with her. Anyways on the bus a Nigerian stopped and talked with Sœur Franklin and told her she'd been wanting to come to our church! She was introduced to the church in Nigeria by her friends and her brother goes to church in Japan.  He told her to search for the church when she got to France and well, she found us! Her name is Happiness and she's very sweet. We saw her later in the week.  Her kids are nuts but again very adorable. Fun fact: Africans have such cute kids. We were able to set a baptismal date for the 20th of October.  We’re excited to work with her!

Second miracle was the referral from a recent Nigerian convert that was baptized a week before our amis Favor’s baptism. He was the ami for the Elders and his name is Joseph. Another fun fact: Nigerians are super good with member missionary work and give awesome referrals. So, we met with his friend Ruth who is of course Nigerian as well. She's super shy and super cute. She was surprisingly very interested in our message.  She even came to church the next day! We're going to see her again this week.  We set a baptismal date with her also for the 20th of October. We're so excited for the work that is coming our way!

We are also working with Tessy, Favor’s friend.  And we’re working with Favor so she'll

be prepared to go to the temple! So yes, the work is going very well, and we're thrilled to be serving the people here in Nantes!

I know God loves us and cares for us. He's made the promise that he will never leave us comfortless. I believe it. I know that anytime that I've felt down on my mission I've always counted on my Father in Heaven to be there and give me strength to get through anything I needed. He's given us peace but not like the world gives.  Its real and I've felt it. He loves us more than we can comprehend. His spirit is the best thing I could ever feel in my life. And I'm forever grateful for it.

Love you lots,
Sœur Hunt

New companion, Soeur Franklin

Nantes Botanical Gardens

They told us it was a small...

"When you come upon a carnival you should take advantage"

So sad to say goodbye!!

Language study!

One last dinner with the 3 of us and a member