Loving the coast
BONJOUR EVERYBODY!
Happy hearts and chocolates and sparkles and love to all of you
this lovely valentine's holiday. :) I would love to thank you all for the love,
prayers, and support I have felt this week. Yall are just the best :)
For all who want to know I had a great valentine's with my one
and only valentine Soeur Sorenson. We bought each other chocolate pâtisseries
and wrote each other cute notes and ate our pâtisseries and about 6 bowls of
tresors cereal. We had an awfully romantic valentine's lunch with the Senior
couple at the local American Burger joint downtown. I could not ask for a
better companion to share all my mission holidays with.
Well, other than all that love, this week was actually really
hard. President gave us some counsel at a conference to try and branch out in
our areas and find people not just near the city. That is exactly what we tried
to do this week.
We have decided that this past week was the trial of our faith.
(Ether 12:6) There was a huge storm that was a brewing all week along the west
coast of France and boy did it give us a run for our money. It rained, hailed,
and the wind blew us over many a times, but our faith just can't be shookin up
:) Even when we're really sick, no one answers the phone, people slam doors in
our faces, people laugh, and just about everyone acts like we are no better
than the dirt stickin to the bottom of their shoe, there are always those
people that make EVERYTHING worth the long journey. :)
Tuesday we had exchanges. Although it was sad to part from my
little bleu bird, I was super stoked to be with the one and only Soeur Evans.
We went to Pornichet and after being rejected by everyone and their dog (we get
barked at a lot) we found one man who loved talking to us and told us to come
back with another cute girl that he can keep (he's in his 70's) I just love a
cheerful ol' man :)
We also got to see the Lucas family! Shout out to Manon :)
Coucou Manon! haha Manon is 11 years old and the most beautiful French girl.
Soeur Sorenson and I ported into them and sang for their family the day after
Christmas. We left such an impression that Manon literally googled 'soeur
berge' and found my blog haha! She is so cool and Soeur Evans and I shared one
of my favorite Mormon Messages with them called "Book of Mormon
Stories" with a Bishop in England sharing his testimony of the
truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. This week I realized how incredible
technology is and I gained a new appreciation for technology and for the incredible
Spirit that can be felt through videos, messages, and talks thanks to the
technology we have!
We also passed by our ping-pong family and Hanon, the Morrocan
lady we helped move in for 2 hours about a month ago. Soeur Evans and I sang I
am a child of God for Hanon and she was so touched that tears came to her eyes.
She has such a special spirit and is one of the kindest ladies ever and she
loves us. She also shared her side of the story that day we met her. She had
prayed to God that her move would go well and she was stressing all day and
then we walked by and offered to help and she was so grateful God had answered
her prayers. She said she is going to invite us over for some REAL Moroccan
Couscous really soon and she warned us to not eat the whole day because we're
gonna eat a lot of amazing Moroccan food. I'm excited :) :)
The next day we went to Savenay and after hours and hours of
porting in the coldest, windiest, most miserable weather I've ever been in and
being rejected door after door we found a cute young girl named Jennifer that
let us pray with her on the street and said we were really nice. Other than
Jennifer, everyone just avoided us and did not want to talk to us, but it's ok
because Jennifer felt the Spirit and that was worth all the frostbite.
(pictures attached of the coldest day ever)
Thursday we saw Tituoan and his mom with the Harrises. Tituoan
is still going strong with his Book of Mormon reading and his mom even prayed
for the first time and asked Heavenly Father to answer her questions! Wow. It
was cool. Even though they didn't come to church as promised, it was a cool
lesson and we are praying really hard that they can keep progressing so well.
Other than that our week was really rough, people here are
really down about the weather and almost everyone is in a bad mood. But other
than all the negativity, the gospel still shines brighter than ever and
illuminates our way through the darkness.
Yesterday we had a cool experience that made the whole week
worth it for me. We were walking along the coast where we normally go on
beautiful Sunday afternoons because it is always flooded with familes. Soeur
Sorenson and I decided to have really good attitudes and talk to everyone with
big southern simles and that twin charm we have going on and we met Giselle. We
stopped this cute grandma holding her grandaughter walking with her daughter in
law and her son. Before we even said who we were she blurted out, "You two
are just beautiful!" She was so sweet. She then told us she used to believe
up until last year and now she doesn't believe anymore because she just lost
her husband. We promised her she can live with her husband again and that she
can find joy in life with that knowledge. She asked us all these questions and
we gave her the plan of salvation brochure which I hope she read and she told
us thank you for your beautiful smiles. She told us there was an aura of hope
around us that brought her joy and she thanked us for giving her joy yesterday. Ok, watching Giselle be touched by the Spirit and the truth of the Plan of
Salvation made this entire rough week of rejection worth it. We didn't have a
baptism, and we didn't have hardly any success frankly, but watching her smile
and be touched by the Holy Ghost just made everything worth it.
This upcoming week we know with the right attitude we will see
the miracles! :) This week has been a trial of our faith, but we know there are
people here ready for the gospel and we won't give up until we find all those
who are searching. This glad gospel message of joy and peace brings me such
happiness that I want everyone to have it too! As Soeur Evans puts it, "We
have the best chocolate cake and we just want everyone to taste it" I know
God lives. Jesus Christ is our Savior. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints is true. What more can we ask for?
I love you all! Have a great week. Hugs and kisses for
valentines!
GROS BISOUS!
Soeur
Berge
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