Oh the contrast!

This week went pretty quickly. It started out with a great fiery zone conference in Rennes. I was asked to give a short little review of what we learned last zone conference. This is what I get when I know the zone leaders, @Elder McDougal haha. It was good though, the spirit was very strong and Sœur Franklin gave a great goodbye testimony. Life is moving very quickly and I can't keep up!

After zone conference we stayed in Rennes for a 2nd exchange. It was fun. I was with Sœur Pischer again and we had a great opportunity to visit an American family!!! They're from Ohio and have been living here for the past 3 or so months for work. The dad is very smart. He's working on his Ph.D. right now in the French language. So he's working at a university translating from French to English doctoral vocabulary for the students that want to be doctors. That's pretty cool.  It was such a stark contrast being with them and teaching them to any other French family. I didn't have to worry about speaking I just had to talk and have fun and get to know them! Then in the end, again I didn't have to worry about how things are said or how I was going to say it, but it went really well and the family is so, so awesome. The mom doesn't really speak French (little bit) but she still teaches with the missionaries and then they just translate for her to everyone. They’re so willing to do missionary work and help people be blessed by the gospel! So fun! It was a breath of fresh air haha. You need one every once in a while. So glad I was able to meet them!

We also saw the Giraud family again, twice. They're very generous in having us over and taking care of us. They fed us chicken and turkey stomachs, haha. Yum. We also played Telestration with them. It was quite hilarious to see all of us missionaries trying to Google translate the words that we were supposed to draw and guess. It was very fun and they're such a sweet family. So glad they're back in full activation in the church again, I don't know where I'd be without them.

We went finding, well, porting for a couple hours closer to our church because our President said he wanted us to maybe focus more on being closer to our church when we find. So we've been working on that. A lot of people didn't answer and some people weren't interested but they were nice about it. I remember saying out loud not quite serious but then at the same time being serious, I said, “Nobody is receiving us and we can't do it without you! Please help us!” So, then we went to a different neighborhood and the first door we knocked on was an older lady in her 60s and she was so sweet. She listened to us as we introduced ourselves. She said that she had been wondering what that church was for a while! We introduced the Book of Mormon and gave it to her and she said she'd read it and talk to her husband about it! We also told her that she was welcome to come to church whenever she wants. After we introduced ourselves and the Book, she asked us to come inside so she could show us her jewelry collection that she makes! She was so, so cute and we just got talking about life. We hope to go back and see her again soon and talk more! God answered my prayer!

We have some pretty sticking amis now! We were able to see Junior again. He asks great questions and is actually excited to read the scriptures after we explained it more in detail last rendezvous. Super sweet guy. We gave him the plan of salvation pamphlet and he was very excited to read it and talk about it next rendezvous because he said he's been having many questions about it lately!

We saw Ruth and Favor again and they're just so fun. We also taught the plan of salvation and it went really well! Ruth understood it well and it was just a fun time :)

Lisa is a new ami to us but old at the same time. She's talked with missionaries in the past, but had lost contact. She has a boyfriend who is a member in the St. Nazaire branch. Speaking of which, there was a baptism from their branch and so Lisa came with the boyfriend’s family! She has great support from that family. She's been reading and praying over the phone with the family and she's helping her boyfriend stay motivated and concentrate on preparing for his mission. So we went and saw her and she was happy to see us again! Lots more to go, but super awesome! Lots of potential!

On Sunday we were asked to be apart of the ward choir. It turns out that us missionaries ARE the ward choir. LOL so I hope we get more volunteers soon.

Last week of the transfer, bring it on!

Love you lots and prayers coming your way! Because we know God answers prayers! Maybe not all the time when we want it but He does. And I love Him for answering me.


Love you all!

Sœur Hunt

The heart of downtown Nantes

Zone Conference

She made Quinoa with chicken, zucchini and of course 

her favorite, Brussel sprouts

Street band

Street band and the fun barefoot man jammin and climbing the fountain

Happy late Halloween

How's everyone doing? Can someone please tell me how on earth it is already November?? I seriously cannot believe how fast the time is flying by! Crazy stuff. Well anyway, I know you are all dying to know how I spent the week of Halloween here in Nantes.

First for p-day last week we visited a little coastal town called Pornic with a member family. They we excited to show us around and spend more time with us. It was fun!

We made sure to make the best of Halloween! We ended up making little nature leafy things that a member gave us and told us to do something with them for fun.  So, well, we did! We drew little faces on them and surprise attacked a few members. It was super fun! This was a little difficult because lots of members live in apartment buildings where you must ring an intercom in order to enter so it was a fun little adventure. We figured it out and they loved them! They sent us pictures of what they did with them. Some set them up as decorations in their home. So, it was fun to see what they ended up doing with them.  I'm glad they liked it.

We went finding later the same day in the evening.  I was not expecting to see so many people dressed up in costumes (Halloween isn't that big of a deal here) and even some stores giving out candy to little kids! The biggest surprise of all was meeting one super sweet lady named Melanie. We were totally not expecting her to listen to us, but she actually listened and said she'd love to have us over.  She feels like having faith helps her be positive and happy despite all the troubles in the world. We also met a more hesitant woman who was unsure of us at first but as we testified, she became more willing to learn more. It was cool to see how the Spirit softened her heart just in a quick conversation that was less than 5 minutes. That night we came home and carved a pumpkin!

The adorable member from the Dominican Republic who only speaks Spanish asked for us to come over this week as well. We had a hilarious conversation with Google translate and decided we were going to help her practice her French. She is so funny and such a sweetheart.

We also were able to teach Ruth with Favor as a member present. It was such a good lesson! Ruth is going through some rough stuff, but Favor was able to testify that relying on Jesus Christ and accepting the gospel would bless her and help her overcome her challenges. She has such a strong testimony and is a great friend and example to Ruth (and me too!). Favor is such a boss with missionary work, I'm glad she's on our team now.

This Friday we taught a Nigerian Catholic Bonne Sœur (nun)! It was incredible. She was so nice and listened to what we had to say even if she disagreed with some of it. Initially she refused to take the Book of Mormon but in the end took it because it was a nice gesture and she even said she'd read it in her free time. I love meeting and talking to people of all different faiths and seeing how we can find common ground. It's so cool!

We also were finally able to teach Eliane who came to church a few weeks ago. She loves Jesus and had a lot of stories to tell so we didn't get through the entire lesson. She has been to many churches but doesn't know if we can find the true one. However, we definitely got her thinking about whether a restoration is possible, and she is interested in coming back to keep discussing it.

This brings us to church yesterday! So, we didn't think we would have any amis at church because Ruth said she wouldn't be able to come. But then she walked in with Favor! I told you she’s a boss and I’m pretty sure she helped Ruth come. It was a nice surprise. Then randomly during the last 10 minutes of Sunday school this lady I'd never seen before walked in and sat down. We are having class in English, so I moved next to her and was like do you understand English and she was like yeah, yeah (even though she is a francophone primarily). So, I waited for class to end and then started talking to her. Long story short, she just moved here from Angers and was looking for a church to go to and ended up at ours! She had to be home by 12 so left before relief society or anything but it was cool to meet her, and she said she'd come next week!

Anyways, I love seeing how the spirit changes lives and softens hearts. I love seeing how when we first start talking to people, they're very closed off and defensive, but in the end,  they come out and feel like they'd be willing to try something new. Our gospel really does change lives. It changes mine every day. I love you all and I hope you have a fun week!

Love
Soeur Sarah Hunt

Our little Halloween lanterns we gave as 

surprises to members

"We wish you a happy autumn! We love you. 

Kisses.

The Sister Missionaries"

"His name is Jacques O' lantern

"It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown"

The Fortineaus took us to the 

city of Pornic

The following photos are of the beautiful city of Pornic

"Irony at it's finest"

Another one of Sarah's dinners

Ups and downs

This week was a roller coaster ride.  We had some great days, some dreary days and we had some miracle filled days!!

We've been focusing on unifying the ward members lately so we've spent more time visiting and getting to know them. They really are awesome people and I really admire their strength and faith because it's not easy in a place that isn’t exactly pro religion. There is a lot of influences in their lives that make it hard for them to stay strong, but I guess that’s why we need to build our foundation on Christ so we won't fall ;) Anthoo, they're great! 

Recently, the past couple of weeks, we've been also focusing on doing more finding because our amis have not been answering our calls. So we haven't had a whole ton of success lately, but I believe it's coming soon! We went porting (door knocking) one day for a couple of hours and we had absolutely no success. People either took one glance at us and shut the door, or said they were not at all interested and SLAMMED the door. At least there were people who'd let us talk for at least 10 seconds ;) We got pretty discouraged after a while. We had the hope that if we went until the very last door on the street they'd be interested just how it's normally said, but still they weren't interested. So what we did to cheer ourselves up, we played in the leaves. That always makes me feel better :) 

BUT we did get a text from one of our amis that we had not yet met with. We met her the one day it was crazy hot and we were about to head back when I decided to talk to just one more person. That day we had yet again no success and the last person I talked to turned out to be awesome! She was the one from China who was actually really interested in meeting with us! She has been super busy lately so we haven't been able to meet, but she texted us saying she was still good to meet Saturday and that she was happy to have us over at her house! So we went and we brought a member with us. It turned out  to be a great discussion! She loved it all. She is very smart and made all the connections. We had to start out small and very simple because she had a background history with Buddhism so she doesn't know a whole lot. We gave her a Book if Mormon in Chinese and she was very happy! She's so humble and open to learning that it made it a great experience! 

We left and realized we forgot to invite her to church and to Kylian Giraud’s baptism! So we sent a quick text inviting her and she said that she would come to the baptism and bring her friend! It turns out that she and her friend loved it a lot. They said it felt very homie and very welcoming. They said the members felt like one big family WHICH has been our goal in this ward!! We've been trying very hard to help the atmosphere improve and it has. Our amis have been noticing too! It's working slowly but surely! Thanks for your prayers :)

Speaking of the baptism, it was super great. It all started way back with the wonderful Sœur Giles and Sœur Morrison who decided one day to stop by a less active family who lived very, very far away. They decided to take the time to travel to visit them. Long story short, the family (the Girauds) didn't know there were sister missionaries here. They were very touched to know that someone was thinking of them. The miracle was that Kylian, their oldest son, who is 8 years old had told his parents that he wanted to be baptized! So they invited us to come back and teach him so he could prepare to be baptized. His parents are now working hard to come back in full church attendance. Then we were blessed to see him baptized Sunday afternoon! The spirit was so strong, many people cried including a non member family the Giraud family had invited. The spirit really touched them and they all enjoyed being at our church for the first time! During the program us and the Elders were asked to sing (I told you I don't know why people think I can sing...) and so we prepared the primary song called Baptism. We started singing and since the family was sitting at the very front row I happened to look down at them, which was a bad idea, because I started crying and I couldn't sing. The spirit was so strong. I absolutely LOVED seeing their family so happy and together on Kylian's special day. 

Well, not much else happened, so I'll leave you with this and I hope you have a GREAT spooky Halloween for me! I'll do my best! ;)

I love you all very much, God loves us very much and really does care about how we feel. I can say that this week God showed me that there is still hope even when it doesn't seem to be any left. We just need to do our best to keep the hope and work hard knowing that God knows our efforts and loves us unconditionally. Find the good in things and God will turn your days into sunny miracle filled days :)

Love, 

Sœur Hunt

Kylian's baptism

Playing in the leaves

Tiny park bench.  Just her size!

The closest to Halloween they'll get in France

Wonderful people!

This week was busy! We met a lot of cool people! To start we had district meeting and then as a group with the ZLs and STLs we went and did the Book of Mormon challenge! It was fun!

Afterwards we started our exchanges here in Nantes with the Rennes Sœurs.  I had the wonderful opportunity to be with Sœur Crosby. She's a fire ball! We had a blast together. We had great conversations, exchanged many ideas and prepared ourselves to work even harder with the work! It was great to learn from her.  She's pretty darn awesome!

God knows that I've been practicing a little bit of Spanish lately (not really) so he's put some really cool Spanish people in our path! We met a student from Peru whose name is Juan Pablo (hehe) He's such a tender man. It was an amazing meet. He had a cute accent trying to speak French.  He is here in France to study the language with his cousin. We’re excited to meet with him again! We introduced ourselves in Spanish and it was quite funny. There was another time (last week) I stopped a lady who spoke Spanish.   I started to introduce us in Spanish and well, it didn't matter, lol😂, she saw Jesus Christ on the tag and said, “NO.” Ha-ha! You know what, I tried!

Lately with our ami, Happiness, she's fallen off the face of the earth. We thought her phone was weird or something, so we decided to stop by her place before we dropped her for a bit. It's a good thing we did because she was there and happy to see us! Her phone was broken was all! We talked and shared another message and chose a date for her baptism in December! It was awesome!

Another time we were finding, and I stopped a guy who really did not want to talk to me at the moment. Boy I was not expecting it ha-ha, but this is what went down:

Moi: bonjour monseiur ! Excusez-nous, on est les....         (me: Hello sir, excuse me, we are miss…)

Lui: est-ce que je vous ai interpellé ?                                 (him: Did I ask you to talk to me!?)

Moi: ....                                                                                (me: …)

Lui: laissez-moi tranquilles. *walks away*                          (him: Leave me alone!)

Ouch. My feelings were a little bruised but, THATS OK!

Afterwards we met this guy who was super sweet!  He was walking his 9-month-old baby girl.  He was actually from Vannes which is a little further north but still in our zone. He was open to learning more and figure some things out! He told us he has seen Elders in his area a while ago and was looking forward to talking to us again!

We saw the Giraud family again!! They're getting everything ready for their son’s baptism Sunday! We're excited for that!

We met with this guy, Hervé, who actually stopped us on a tram a little while back while we were meeting.  It was like he was preaching to us... which is what he does for a living. He goes proselyting all day, talking to people for 15 minutes about Jesus Christ. So, it went nowhere, and we were only with him for 20 minutes, but it felt like we were with him for an hour... while we were with him some other random people were listening in and trying to add in their perspective about Mohammad and the Koran. So yes, it wasn’t very efficient ha-ha. No one wanted the Book of Mormon and he just wanted to talk so we cut it short and left!

We had a wonderful night with a less active and his girlfriend (who wanted to know about what we believe) with 2 members! We had Raclette and we shared a little message about the Book of Mormon and the members bore their testimonies. It was awesome and fun, and we hope to see them again soon!

We also met with a man who moved here from the Congo 3 years. Soeur Crosby and I met him on the bus and yesterday we taught him! He's such a sweet man! It was awesome! We were able to have a member teach with us and we got the chance to invite him to baptism which he gladly accepted!

2 things I learned this week were 1st: members make a huge difference in a rendezvous (appointment) they can be very powerful! 2nd: when you find/contact constantly you open so many more doors to meeting so many more cool people, making your life so much more enjoyable AND helping so many more people learn more about our Father in Heaven.  It's a pretty lively work which is just so weirdly fun to do 😉

Love you all and please try to share your testimony with someone. Let's not be egotistical and keep the good news to ourselves 😉 if it's hard for you, the thing I recently learned is once you KNOW that the church is true, you won't be afraid to share its message. You won't be afraid to tell people that we are THE church of Jesus Christ. You will not be afraid once you know its truthfulness for yourself. Once you realize that it’s really super-duper important you won’t want to hold back telling people about it. So, if you're not at that point yet, then that's OK! Start by reading the scriptures and praying, I promise it works 😉

Love you all!

Sœur Sarah Hunt

Exchanges with the Rennes Soeurs

Soeur Crosby

"I made yummy crepes)

"dinner prep"

Adventure is out there!

Well we had a week full of spontaneous adventures, great tender mercies with learning experiences of course :)

First our miracle ami Sophie got back in contact with us because we haven't been able to talk to her for the past 2 weeks. She told us to wait at the gare (train station) for her but she never came. Comes next day and she called again from an unknown number telling us to meet up to eat and talk. At this point I'm bracing myself for the worst. We met up and she took us to a petit café and fed us 100% raw meat, which wasn't terrible if you didn't think about the texture in your mouth. The fries saved me. She told us about why she wasn't able to contact us earlier, and all of the crazy things happening in her life. All in all, she's still interested and loves us to death and wants her kids baptized too! Funny thing is that her daughter is in love with my straight hair and wants me to be her “mother in Christ” lol! Problem is that she is 7 and she won’t turn 8 until next year and I go home soon. So, Sophie wanted us to figure out how to baptize them before we leave... uhh; bref (in short) we figured it out and we were all happy go lucky again :)

We were able to see an ami that we haven't seen since the beginning of last transfer.  It was short because we didn't have a lot of time, but we talked about the Book of Mormon and were going to review the restoration with her (because it had been a while) but she remembered everything so well and understood it! I love it when they're like that. She said that when she went to Paris to visit her uncle who is also meeting with missionaries! So, they were able to talk about it :) at the end of the rendezvous she told us that she doesn't like letting religious people visit her unless she feels good about it, so she said she doesn't let the Jehovah's witnesses in. She told us that she loves having us over and she feels really good when we talk.  She said she would love to have us over all the time if she was more available! So yeah, she's cool. The only sad part is that she had to give us back the Book of Mormon because her husband isn't religious and doesn't like it, so if he found it he would throw it away and she would rather it get taken care of and not thrown away. That was a bummer, but it's all good!

We met and talked to two refugees that moved here from Africa a few years ago. We taught them, and they liked it, but we think they were more interested in having shelter at the church, food and money for education. So that's a problem that we will work out. Hopefully they will still be interested in our message even if they don’t quite get everything they want :/ Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, it is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

We were going to stop by a less active’s house, but when we messaged her many times asking if it was still good for us to come over, she never responded. It takes an hour to get to her place and I didn't want to waste time if it wasn't going to work out. But then the thought came into my mind. By the trial of your faith will you then see the blessings. Kind of cheesy but I went with it. So, we went, and she was there! Her name is Marina and she was happy to see us. She just hadn’t seen our reminder messages. We met with her and her husband who doesn't exactly like who we are.  He still believes but goes to a different church.  She has a great relationship with the members of the ward and hopes to have us over again to eat a real African dish ha-ha.

Favor was been able to get her temple recommend yesterday! Emanuel and Joseph and Maxwell (all African members) were able to make appointments to get their recommends and receive the priesthood so they too can go to the temple! The ward is preparing to go to the temple the 17th of November and we're so excited!!!

So other than all that it was a great week and I look forward to another one coming up! Stay warm, stay fresh! I love you!

Love

Soeur Sarah Hunt

Our raw meat dinner!

Looking at our apartment building from a cross the soccer field

Looking out across the soccer field from our apartment.

Playing soccer in the pouring rain.

Spirit

Oh la vache! (holy cow!) I can't believe another transfer has come and gone so quickly! Someone get my companion a walker because she's coming to the end of her life on the mission in about 6 weeks! As for me life is treating me very well! Sœur Franklin and I will stay together in Nantes for another! :)

Life over here has been going well and we plan to keep it up and work until the end!

So, let's start with going over to a wonderful older member couple’s house to get to know them and get them excited for general conference! They were very accommodating and very sweet. They teased a lot. They lived a city outside of Nantes, so we had to take a different kind of bus to come and go.  On the way back, we were stopped by this man who kept looking at us. He told us he had seen us around Centre Ville (Downtown) and this time he finally had time to stop us. He told us he had friends just like us serving missions around the world with the same badge, a part of the same church. I had to clarify hehe.  Anyways he said that because of Jesus Christ he's a new person and has a better life so now he goes around stopping people randomly preaching about Jesus Christ for like 15 minutes or less. We set up a time to meet with him again and it was cool!  At the end he shook our hands and told Sœur Franklin he loved her. So that was pretty funny.

You CANNOT convert anyone or even be close to it without the spirit. The spirit is the one that touches the heart. The spirit impresses on their minds the importance of the message. Not us!  So, when we met with our African family on Wednesday, it was such a great lesson. Best one I've had in a long time. I remember going in with the goal of helping them to really feel the spirit and inviting them to baptism and coming to general conference. We talked about the plan of salvation. They loved everything we said. When we got to the part about Christ's atonement we shared a video called "Il Vit" (He lives) which talks about his death and crucifixion. While bearing my testimony I got choked up and I knew for a fact that the spirit in the room was very tangible. I knew they felt it. We promised them the blessings they can have by being baptized by proper authority. We told them that the doctrine of Jesus Christ will add on to their faith with much more peace and joy in their family for eternity. I cannot even describe how much love was in the room. It was such a joy to be there in that moment sharing the beautiful message. We invited them to baptism and they said they would think about it. We offered them to come to general conference explain it to them and inviting them to come with questions and prepare to receive answers to their questions.

General Conference was absolutely amazing! I loved it so much. They're all so inspiring and I felt the spirit so strong that I couldn't help but tear up at some parts. I really loved hearing from Elder Oaks, Elder Holland. Then Sister Craig and Sister Franco from the General Women's session. They were the people that I was touched most by. But I LOVED all of them so much. By far one of my favorite conferences. I was reassured that "Your talents ARE enough in the sight of God" by sister Michelle Craig. I learned that we need to "seek, cherish, and make PEACE" by elder Holland. This world needs it especially at this time. I was especially touched by the missionary choir. It was so powerful, and It just made me think about how blessed and how happy I am to be one of them, a missionary in the France Paris Mission. I am so, so happy to be serving my Lord and Savior full time and helping him accomplish the greatest work in history. I couldn't ask for anything better at this moment in time.

Well, we had our sweet African family attend the Saturday evening session. I feel like it was specifically for them. They had many great speakers. It talked a lot about the LDM/BOM (Livre de Mormon/Book of Mormon) and Joseph Smith and baptism. I especially loved hearing Elder Uchtdorf who said with such power from the spirit. "Come. Come back. Join us. We need you. We cannot accomplish these marvelous things without you." I want my amis to join us. I want them so bad to taste the same joy and peace that I have right now. I hope they reflect and consider what they learned and felt and come join us.

So, I look forward to this new transfer full of waiting miracles to come to pass and more people to invite to come into Christ. I love this gospel and like many others I know; I'm so grateful for the tools we have, the prophets who guide us to keep us on the straight and narrow path so that we can have the best life possible and be closer to our heavenly father.

Love you so much and I hope you all are doing well. I would love to talk to you whenever you get the chance. Have a good week.

Avec amour (with love)

Sœur Sarah Hunt

 

"Scripture power!!"

"France seriously has a thing for cats!"

Brussels sprouts season is back ❤!!!! (another of her meals with her favorite vegetable)

"Funniest thing ever!😂"

Beautiful cathedral.  I love the lighting inside.