Hello my darling mother,
1. I have..............n't gotten the package yet....mmmmmmm (also, the number one key on this keyboard has something sticky on it............)
2. I have not thanked yet, but I didn't know either, so I will
3. It's still difficult, especially with people who speak INCREDIBLY fast, but that's not everybody. I'm getting a hang on it, and I can understand most, and the Frenchies, for the most part, can understand me. It's always super old guys that can't understand you, but I guess that's the case in all languages
4. When we don't talk gospel, we talk about funny experiences in our last villes. We talk sometimes about funny experience back home, too, but we're trying this week to not because we're trying to follow that tip of not thinking about home for at least one whole day. Surprisingly, I have enough fun little things from Gex to share that I'm still sharing new things. Sometimes also we talk about our familles and how cool they are
Funny that you say it felt like two weeks, because this was one of the fastest weeks in the mission so far. They need to stop going so fast or I'm not gonna be able to baptize anyone!
How often do you go skiing without me that you bought your own? Getting a little taste of the retired life, are we?
When does Zachary go to Germany?
This week was pretty good, don't know why it went so fast, but, uhh, it was good.
Also, I forgot to tell you, but on lundi, for p-day, we took a BOAT because it's part of the public transportation here in Bordeaux. It's pretty pointless, it would be much faster to take the tram, but, it's a boat, so we took it up the river and back. the whole city system is called the La CUB or La Communauté Urbaine de Bordeaux, and the boat is called BatCUB, so the name is really cool, and so we took it. Then afterwards we did some contacting, and then we had a leçon with André over the phone, because we didn't have time to see him in person, because he lives about two hours away...but it was good
Then mardi, we took the train out to see André and teach him. Guess what we taught him..........It was CHASTITY. Wow, what a leçon. I thought it would be more awkward and difficult to teach, but it went well and smoothly and he accepted to live it. Then we had a missionary meeting that evening, and that's all we could do because we spent a total of almost four hours on train and bus. WOW. But also now André is in Paris until the end of the month, we'll maybe be able to see him one day when he gets back, but then he's back to Paris. He's starting a business with his Mormon friend, and that's how he found out about the church. We planned with him to have some more phone leçons with him while he's there, because there's no way we're letting the Paris elders take him and baptize him (unless it comes to that, and then it would be fine, because it's more important that HE is baptized than I specifically baptize him....who am I kidding the Paris Elders aren't allowed to touch him)
Mercredi we had lunch with some membres, went out contacting, taught Tommy et Kéziah, and talked to Kéziah about baptism. She has a testimony, she comes to church all the time, so we asked her what's keeping her, and it's her boyfriend. Nooooooooo. She says either they will both be married Catholic or both Mormon, and he doesn't want to be Mormon. Nooooooooo. Looks like she's gonna hafta dump him. He's from South Africa, he doesn't even seem that cool. But anyway, she's tried talking to him and he doesn't like to listen. Reason number two to drop that fella. We'll see. Kéziah is awesome, boyfriend, not so much.
Jeudi we went out, busted up the streets with our testimonies of the Restored Church, and then ate dinner with Tommy and Kéziah. Also, we had district meeting that morning and we talked about when contacting familles how to soften the heart of the father so you can sneak into the famille. Sometimes it's the mother, too. Never the children, they're always little saints.
Vendredi, more contacting (CONTACTING) followed by a soirée familiale with the famille Maillard, with their less active daughter Tess. We watched Finding Faith in Christ, good film, and played UNO. Tess loves the games, and she listens to the leçons pretty well. She may be mentally challenged in some way, and we're afraid that maybe someone offended her at church and that's why she doesn't come. Working on it. Also, during the day, we stopped by Tommy and Kéziah again (third day in a row) to invite them to a young adults activity on Saturday. That was a quick in, invite, out.
Samedi we went on exchange with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Cardall, and we played soccer with some membres and their friends in the morning. It felt like a waste of time, but then this less active guy came, named Bouba, from Togo, and we said "it will be worth it if Bouba comes to church tomorrow." More news on that, later. Also, I was goalie for a little bit, blocked a couple shots, embarrassingly missed some others....then we went and tried to pass some less active members, followed by going to Tommy and Keziah's (fourth day in row) because Elder Cardall had a question for them about one of their amis. Then we shared a spiritual thought with them, and then we cleaned a little of their appartement because we offered service. Neat. One of the first times we've offered service and it was accepted...yay!
Dimanch......BOUBA CAME TO CHURCH!! very cool. He's an awesome guy, and the missionaries used to work with him, a lot, but something went down and he stopped coming. But now he's back (and we hope to stay). Then that evening we saw la famille Maillard again for another soirée familiale, because Tess enjoys them so much and they seem to be helping her. We shared a message about forgiveness, and Tess talked about how it's difficult often to forgive, and there are a lot of people who have done wrong to her. So that just about confirms our concern, we just need to find out how to fix it....We invited them to think of someone they can forgive, and then forgive them, and think about how they feel different. We'll see. Then we played this game, it's French only, sorry, but what you do is you sit around in a circle, and everyone is a "cow number (1, 2, 3...)" and you go around calling each others cow number (like Big Booty :)) and saying "la vache numéro un sans tache appelle la vache numéro deux sans tache" (the cow number one without stains calls the cow number two without stains) and when you mess up, you put a big old stain on your face and then you are "la vach numéro * avec une tache" (cow number * with one stain) and then it keeps going and people keep getting stains, and it was really fun, and I've never spoken faster French in my life. Tess was having a HOOT. I only got three stains in the end, I'm pretty proud of that. I got the see the primary, too, this week! O
n Sunday we went into the Primary and got them stoked about missionary work. Talked about Ammon and his great faith and testimony and courage to stand up to so many people, and how he sliced some arms off. We told them that while we don't often slice of arms, we do have to have a lot of faith and a strong testimony and lots and lots of courage to talk to strangers all day and tell them about this amazing plan. It's such an amazing plan! And it's perfect, too! there are no flaws in this plan. If something doesn't go right in the plan, it means you weren't following it, crazy Frenchies!
Then today we hit up a few of the Soldes, bought myself some fancy French shirts for 50 percent off. Not bad. The soldes will just keep getting better as the month goes on, so we'll probably go back next week. Yeah.
I cut my thumb pretty bad one of those days there, it's a pretty cool wound, and I've only been using bandaids and neosporin to heal it, so I'll probably earn a pretty sick scar. So here I am, I have a big gaping wound on my thumb, and hopefully won't contract a disease from this nasty keyboard.
Something I thought of this last week:
The phrase "redeeming power of the Atonement." What in the world does redeeming mean? And then I realized that it's like when you redeem and coupon or something. And I thought, ...maybe...and then I realized the word in French is "racheter." That means "to buy again" or to re-buy or to by back. So. The redeeming power of the Atonement is the fact that Jésus accomplished this huge sacrafice so that we can be bought back again. We were owned by our Heavenly Father, then we left Him, and the only way to be rebought is through the Atoning Sacrafice of Jésus. Wowie. French really opens my eyes. And also it helps me understand big words in James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ.
I have to give a talk at the end of the month. Get. Get to give a talk. Should be pretty dang fun. I'm gonna practice a lot.
Love you all, even Sam,
Love,
Elder Liechty
No comments:
Post a Comment