Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Miracles Come AFTER the Trial of Your Faith







Bonjour tous le monde!
Well this week was just another week in the mission life. Thank you everyone for all your prayers, love, and support! I can really feel the love :) Today we went to see the Eiffel Tower and hang around Paris a bit. That was fun. We got some amazing food from a vendor right across from the Eiffel Tower. YUM 
This week we had a lot of less active rendez-vous. Although, on Sunday we only had like one ami at church. Bummer, but we're supposed to have more this Sunday coming. Speaking of Sunday, yesterday I got to present myself to the ward and bear my testimony. That was scary, but kinda fun. Our ward is just awesome. We met with a lot of members this week to lay out our 4 week plan (plan for them to find a friend of theirs to invite to the gospel) unfortunately our ward out here missed the broadcast :( Frustrating. We've been fasting and praying so hard for our amis.

Last night was super interesting. Poor Soeur Wynn..I love her. This lady we tried to contact was so rude to her. She said we were a cult and she was very rude. We just tried to defend Jesus Christ as much as we could, but after a while she was just being nasty so I said, "Passez une bonne journee!" And we peaced outta there. She was super rude to Soeur Wynn. Our night last night was rough. Our appointment fell through so we decided to go visit some less actives and contact. None of the less actives were home and everyone we contacted was super rude and just shut us down hard core. It was definitely humbling and a test of our faith. All of our amis are African except for a few. Seriously though the Africans are so






beautiful and so loving. 

We do get some funny contacts though. People think were CIA or secret agents or they think we're just plain evil. It's quite entertaining. We meet some awesome people though. We met this lady named Sabbienne. She was walking home and we just talked to her about faith and how even if you have a little faith like a little seed, it can nourish and grow. She said we we're just awesome and marvelous people. That was sweet.
The missionaries here are such a trip. Our zone is hilarious. We just had zone conference/district meeting on Thursday and we all ate our meal together (Soeur Wynn and I made the meal and it was so good). Soeur Wynn loves to cook and we eat vegetables and fruits with every meal. It's awesome because I'll help her chop stuff up or cook some things while she makes most of the meal and then I usually try to do the dishes and clean up and it's great.
Soeur Wynn is the best companion I could've ever asked for. She is honestly like the older sister I always wanted. She's becoming one of my best friends. Soeur Pulupuna says that the rest of my companions will be terrible because we have such a great companionship now. We just agree on everything and where I have weakness she has strengths and vice versa. She's such a hard worker, yet we have a blast. We are always laughing so hard in our apartment.
We had a good lesson with one of our amis named Hortense. We got there and we talked about the plan of salvation and the atonement more because she just lost her son a couple weeks ago. She started to cry and said it's really hard to lose a child. The lesson was going well and then she said she needed to go pick up her daughter, so we walked with her and it was just ok after that. I think we have another appointment with her this week. She's doing her reading though, so hopefully she continues to progress.
Last night after 3 hours of walking and being shut down by people Soeur Wynn and I just decided to sit on some steps in a little field (It's her favorite spot in France) It was really peaceful and we read some chapters out of the bible and just decided that we had to have faith. We're doing everything we can do to be good missionaries. We're obedient, we're faithful, we're hard working and we just decided that Heavenly Father is bound to help us when we are doing what is right. We  decided to pray to find that special family that we came here to baptize and now we're just really focused on our progressing amis and finding our family.
Your banana muffins are a hit. Except we make it as banana chocolate chip bread instead because we don't have muffin tins. We've made it like 4 times now. We took some over to the Monrier family during our lesson once and the kids devoured it! The oldest (16 year old boy) wanted the recipe! haha. We also took it to our zone conference and some elders just devoured it too. We made it again last night and it's pretty much gone today.
This week I've been studying a lot about the Atonement and recognizing the Spirit. How wonderful is the Spirit? We're so lucky to have that in our lives. And to show our gratitude we have to be worthy at all times to receive that inspiration and comfort.

Today I was reading in the 'faith in Jesus Christ' section and it talked about how faith in Jesus Christ is knowing that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you. That made me think that every time we are down on ourselves or beat ourselves up about mistakes or flaws in our nature, that offends Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They spent time and effort creating us in their own image and likeness. Our faith can grow stronger when we learn to accept our natural tendencies and strive to be more like the Savior and change our bad habits. When we learn to love ourselves, we show Heavenly Father that we love Him and we are grateful for creating us personally.
Soeur Wynn and I have created a Miracle Wall. We write down little miracles at the end of the day and stick em on the wall. It's been really helpful because it's a constant reminder that Heavenly Father helps us in numerous ways, we just have to have diligence to write them down and recognize them.
We've also created a quote wall for our apartment. Because we're missionaries and have that crazy missionary schedule, sometimes we say crazy things haha..we decided we should totally record them so we have a quote wall in our kitchen. I'll take some pictures soon. There is never a dull day with Sister Pulupuna! She's awesome. It's kinda funny, Soeur Wynn and I are both SUPER new to the mission. Soeur Tollefson and Soeur Pulupuna are both almost done so we always learn a lot from them and we're always excited about little things every day and that gets them excited too. It's a nice balance.
Oh my I LOVE SOLDES!!! The massive sale here is just fabulous. We have to come back and visit during soldes! All of the stores just have this huge sale every year and it lasts for like a month! It's awesome.
Ashley! I hope she's doing well. I miss my roomie! Actually, I miss all 4 of my roomies! I miss everyone! People write me some letters! :)
Our schedule is just like everyone else. We wake up get ready, eat, study, leave, meet with people, contact, come back for language study and dinner (we miss that a lot because we have so many lessons) then we go out more and then come back around 9-9:30ish and then clean stuff up and get ready for bed, write in journal, have some snacks, talk to the other sisters, we usually end up doing some crazy wierd stuff like see if we can put Soeur Wynn on Soeur Pulupuna's shoulders or scare each other or just make each other laugh. its a party! GRANDE FETE! :) Well until next week..I love you all..

Stay righteous, be true, be you!
Avec amour,
Soeur Berge



No comments:

Post a Comment