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%)
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)
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