When Life Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going

Dear family and friends,

My heart is so filled with gratitude today to be able to talk to you and tell you about the incredible work that the Lord is letting me be apart of here in Nogent, France. Sometimes I just don't know how to count my blessings because there are just so many. My heart is filled with love for the Lord and these great people and my awesome companion.

This week started off incredibly! We went and had dinner as planned with a French woman we met on the street, Chantal. She is incredible!! I love her to death. We went over to her HUGE French house and as we arrived, we noticed other people in the garden. We were having a little picnic with her and her husband and her best friend. They were some of the nicest people ever and throughout the night we sat and discussed our beliefs with these incredible people. They are in their 60's and are French and have a twin boy and girl that they adopted from Chile who are grown and moved away. We bore testimony from the bottoms of our hearts and we were all so open and loving and had such a nice time. It was a perfect night! Bernard, her husband had such interesting questions, but all of us just felt the power of the Holy Ghost so strongly all thoughout our dinner picnic. We were all best friends by the end of the night and even took some fun pics that I'll include. They are such great people and as Soeur Wynn and I were heading home that night, we both got the distinct feeling that this was not the first time we had met this charming couple. That we had been sent to them because in the life before this life, we knew each other...we anticipate seeing them again soon, I hope!

We had exchanges this week and so I was with Soeur Pulupuna! I LOVE HER! We had 2 incredible lessons with our 2 amis: Claudia (big curly hair) and Isabelle and her son Gael (he also has huge crazy hair). Both of these women are incredible! and BOTH came to the baptism and met and ended up being best of friends. We didn't have a ton of members at the baptism, but the both of them ended up helping us out a ton setting up cakes and refreshments after. They're so incredible! (I'm thinking they'll get baptized on the same day ;) October 19th!) Later that night of the exchange I ended up getting pretty sick..

After 3 days, I was finally feeling better and so we went on fast mode this weekend to make up for it. Even while I was sick, we still got tons of calls in a set up appointments and were able to get good planning in and such so it wasn't a total waste. The Lord blessed us so much for our efforts to go out and Soeur Wynn ended up getting pretty sick too, but after resting really well, the Lord strengthened us and back to work we went!

We had our first ward counsel this weekend!!! It was super awesome to show the ward that we are really trying super hard and that we have so many people who are ready for baptism and who are progressing so well. As we left that night, we felt so proud of the work that we are doing, the people the Lord has blessed us with. It's incredible to see how He has taken this area that was really struggling for a long time and has shaped it into a field ready to be harvested!!! And we are blessed to be the ones to harvest!

Our favorite bit of this weekend was the baptism of our darling Stéphanie =) it was such a great day, even though hardly anyone came! But that's ok because we had 2 of our amies come!!!! Claudia (who is our awesome amie who does all the family nights with us and a who will be baptized next month) is already fellowshipping all of our other amis! She has been coming to the ward for several weeks now so she knows the drill and so she helped us out a ton at the baptism and at church on Sunday when we had people come! It was so great to have her there and we are having a JOINT FAMILY HOME EVENING now with her and another amie at a member's house this week. It will be EPIC! We have set up 4 family home evenings for this week already all with investigators who were invited specifically by members! Can you believe that?! That's what we call a solid week! Through our ward counsel meeting we asked several members to invite our amies who come to church to their house and so they did! Look at that faith! This ward is ready to do some missionary work! I'm so thrilled.

The baptism was incredible though. Stéphanie is such a light and an example of purity. She's so darling! I love her to pieces! Her baptism was a sweet experience and watching her in the waters of baptism and being confirmed I have a joy in my heart that is unlike any other! Like I said last time, it's quite an addicting feeling! I can't imagine the joy I will feel as I watch my own children and family enter the waters of baptism. There really is no greater joy.That is the most joy we can have on this earth I think...closest we get to heaven. But Stéphanie has promised us to one day serve a mission and to be sealed in the temple as well. I look forward to watching her life play out in the next 10-15 years. She loves the feeling of the Holy Ghost and is so overjoyed to have it now. I love her!!!

We were able to visit our family last night. It was the mom's birthday Saturday so we made a card and stopped by. We had an incredible short little lesson and the dad expressed some concerns and right after we just asked if he had prayed to know...he made up a few excuses and then we opened up to 2 Nephi 32:8-9 and had him read it and then I testified with all my heart, with my companion doing the same, that our Heavenly Father loves us with all of His heart, more that we can imagine and He wants to talk with us. After testifying by the power of the Spirit for a few minutes we sat in silence and he looked up at us finally and said, ok, I'll pray. We are having a family home evening with the Lasa's (our African parents) on Sunday. So we look forward to that!

We also had a BBQ yesterday after church. Super interesting. French BBQs are NOTHING like American BBQs..it was fun though.

We have been so blessed this week and I could not be more grateful. I'm really bummed that Soeur Wynn is leaving me the end of this transfer, but Elder Oaks is coming this next Sunday so we will be at the multi-stake assembly for that next week.

This gospel is just so incredible. I'm so very grateful to have the opportunity to spread the good word that the fulness of the gospel is upon the earth! What a great time to be alive and growing closer to our Father in heaven each day. I know this church is true. I know we have a Heavenly Father who knows our weaknesses and our trials. He knows us better than we think and He wants us to talk to Him through prayer. He wants to pour out blessings. We just have to humble ourselves and ask.

Thank you for all the love and support. I pray that all is well and I know that you are in the hands of the Lord, right where I left you! I love you!

Stay righteous, be true, be you!

Avec amour,

Soeur Berge

C'est la Vie Missionnaire...

Chère Famille,

This week has been absolutely incredible. We decided to keep that fire going throughout this week, the fire that we had when we were both super new and just went out to share this gospel message. There was no end to the miracles and we are so blessed to be a part of this great work. My heart is full and I am so glad to be here. Soeur Wynn and I have decided to really go out and give it all we've got and talk to everyone because our time together is getting slim and we're so grateful for our awesome companionship.

We decided to use every extra minute that we had to find new people and share this incredible message of joy with them. One morning after seeing several miracles in the span of one hour, we were heading home for our lunch break when out of the blue Soeur Wynn said, " We are the luckiest people ever. We literally get to spend every single day of 18 months just trying to bring people happiness. That's our entire purpose. And not the kind of happiness that gets drowned out by all the problems of life, but the kind that really lasts. That pushes one through the storms and often hurricanes that life has to offer." She's completely right. There's nothing more I'd want to do with 18 months of my life than to tell people there's more to this life. All we have to do is love everyone we see enough to try to make them happier. We can make people happy by complimenting their shoes or saying their kids are cute or helping them with their stroller on and off the bus. But then there's the real happiness when you look someone in the eyes and say, "You know, you have a Heavenly Father who loves you with all of His heart and He sent His Son here to the earth for you and you can feel the power of the Holy Ghost who will be a source of comfort as you turn to the Lord and lay your burdens at his feet"...that's the kind of happiness that sticks. Or when we have the opportunity to tell a mom that she will see her son again, that she will have the opportunity to raise him in the next life, that this isn't the end. Or when we sit on the side of a river and tell a lonely widow that she can talk to her Heavenly Father and not feel so alone through the power of the Atonement. That's the real kind of happiness. That's the kind I want to share with people. And when I look at people with the eyes of the Lord, He helps me to see what I need to see in order to share a message He is dying to share with them. There is so much power in this work. So many people have been stopping us recently and I know it is a huge blessing for us trying to step out of our shells and trying to share this message with all the world. Here's the thing; it's true! This isn't just a good church, it's THE TRUE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST. This is His church. 

One of the highlights of this week though was definitely our family home evening with our favorite family, the Lethuaires and our amie Claudia. One of the best nights of the mission probably haha. We had an INCREDIBLE discussion on the plan of salvation, the plan that God created for all of us to be saved and live with Him again and become like Him. They have 4 kids and all of them were asking super deep questions so we had an incredible discussion and Claudia was just soaking it up. And then each family home evening this family has a talent minute where everyone in the family gets one minute to do whatever they want: tell a story, share something, show a picture they drew, sing or play a song, dance, play a game, silence, whatever! And so everyone gets one minute. Well, they always make us do it too and so they had Claudia participate as well. For her minute she explained how she met the church and then she bore her testimony of how she knew that it was by the Grace of God that she found this great church and that she knows it is true and knows she was led to it by God!!!! It was so amazing! We were all in shock and so grateful for her testimony. She will be baptized next month and we are thrilled for her, she truly loves the Lord and loves the Gospel. She says it's like a big huge family and she has grown to love the ward so much. I'm so grateful for these opportunities to watch people change and find happiness. Like I said, nothing better!

We got to see our family again! The Cazako family. They are super awesome! The dad is very intrigued and the kids love us like crazy and so does the mom. It's been such a great experience and we even ran into them at the bus stop the other day. They love us and it's so adorable. All the kids started screaming and waving at us. Made my day to see their sweet little faces. I know this family will be baptized and will one day be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. I have no doubt. We get to see the parents alone on Wednesday morning and we hope to do a family home evening with them as well. We'll see =) But for now, it's just awesome!

STEPHANIE'S BAPTISM IS THIS WEEK!!!! We are having a double and maybe triple baptism this weekend! We are thrilled. The elders found a man who was just literally ready to accept the Gospel so it's awesome and he will be baptized with Stephanie this weekend and we couldn't be happier. Stephanie is so darling, we love her to pieces and we have seen how her decision to be baptized has changed her home. Her mom sent us a text message this week that said: "Stephanie just finished reading her Book of Mormon for the night and her brochure on tithing. She came to me and told me that I needed to pay my tithing and that if I would start paying my tithing that the Lord would bless me and I would get out of debt! Thank you for all that you do for me and my daughter." It was the sweetest text ever, so touching! We sure love them so much and it's amazing the spirit that an 11 year old can have...

Speaking of young spiritual giants, this week we also convinced Godwith's parents to let her be baptized! When Soeur Wynn and her companion before me started teaching her in May, the parents were totally against it, saying she would have to wait until she is 12 (she's 9 right now, almost 10). We were so sad for her, but we just didn't give up and all these months the parents have been in Ghana, and Soeur Wynn and I have continued to teach Godwith and we finally had a lesson with the whole family back together this weekend. With all of our hearts, we bore testimony to the parents of the experiences that we had had with Godwith and the power that she had and how ready she was. So now all we are trying to do is have enough faith that their bosses will let them off work so that we can do the baptism this weekend! We really need prayers. If anyone feels inclined to pray for this little family, we would be so grateful. We know this is right and Godwith is beyond ready and we love her to pieces. I'm so excited for her!

We should be having several more baptisms coming up soon! Hortense will be coming to church finally this week and she is coming to the baptism and says she will pick her date there. We are so excited for her! Also we've made a lot of progress with our little Indian family Kashmira and Dany and Vivec who we've been teaching since I got here. Finally Kashmira opened up to us for the first time and told us she's been seeing missionaries for 3 years and doesn't know why she hasn't gotten her answer. So we explained the Holy Ghost to her and told her she had to do her part and then she would know...it was awesome! She actually read and prayed this week too. Big steps.

 One day last week we took our widow friend Christiane out for a walk around the river (pics included). We had a great lesson with her and talked about the purpose of life and then as we were heading back, a woman stopped us on the road. She's about 50's probably and was visiting with her mother who's in a retirement home. She stopped us and wanted to know more and so we chatted with her for quite some time! She invited over and so tonight we are going to have dinner with her and her husband. She wants to know what the difference is between us and the Catholic Church. 

I absolutely love being a missionary. I love being a missionary in France. Sometimes the culture makes it difficult to talk to people, but it makes it a LOT easier for us to distinguish the people who are ready for the gospel and those who aren't quite ready. It's so exciting when we meet someone for the first time and they have the chance to feel the Spirit so strong you can see them wondering why they feel different. It's because we have the knowledge that our lives don't end here. It's not just til death do we part. Families are forever and everyone here on earth is essentially my family. In a way, I feel like I'm inviting my own brothers and sisters to recognize that our beloved Father wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to show Him we can make it through this life back to Him. It's a big test and the answers are in the scriptures and listening to our Prophet today. We simply have to choose Jesus Christ and the Celestial Kingdom. Soeur Wynn has been using this theme that every day we wake up, we have to choose that we are going to the Celestial Kingdom. We ultimately choose where we go..through our actions, through our words, through our thoughts, and through the way we live life. Choose to return to our Father in Heaven!

I urge each of you this week to take questions to the Lord. No more empty prayers! Pray with your heart. Talk to your Heavenly Father and you will find comfort and peace more than you can imagine. I know, because I've done it, and I've been watching others do it. It works =) 

I love you all so much and wish you all the best week! 

Stay righteous, be true, be you!

Avec amour,

Soeur Berge

Catch the Vision

Soeur Lethuaire and Soeur LamYam

     Stephanie!

I found the "San France" ;)

Cher Everyone,

This week was great! Soeur Wynn and I were so blessed. This week we were able to see Stephanie twice. Man do we love this little girl!! She is just so ready to be baptized! She loves the church and loves the Spirit she feels so much. There is something so special about working with little kids. They can feel the Spirit so clearly and identify it without problem. I love watching that. We got to play some games to teach her some commandments. It's so fun that me and my comp are so in love with kids and so we always do fun things to teach the kids but the best part is, we end up using it with adults as well! Hahaha it's great. I love working with this girl! It's so great to see how fast she progresses though. Her mom is so incredibly proud and feels so happy knowing the decisions her daughter is making. We pray this will bring her mom back into full activity. Stephanie makes her mom read her scriptures with her every day before going to bed and her mom always teases us that we give too much homework! Haha but September 7th can't come soon enough! We shared her progress for our missionary moment of the week in Relief Society and Stephanie's mom was just beaming the whole time. She is so proud. Also Stephanie is dying to meet Kirstie. I told her I have a sister and I told her she would meet her when you come to pick me up. She is SUCH a sweet girl.

We got to have our interviews with President this Thursday. So here is a funny story, we knew about our interviews like a month in advance but the day of, we went up to Chelles, which took us an hour and a half to get up there. We went up there to find a referral we had received, but after we had just about arrived at the address, I looked at the phone and realized our interviews would be starting in 40 minutes and we were on a bus faaaaaarrrrrrr away from the train station and far away from the church where the interviews were. In a moment of terror, we hopped off the bus and started running to the train station. We were a good 4 miles from the station and we just walked/ran for a good 35 mintues back and then luckily got a couple of trains to line up and arrived only 20 minutes late (no worries, we switched our times with our roommate Sisters) but holy cow it was so stressful. We showed up sweating after going nuts for an hour and a half trying to get there. It was funny though. Interviews were life-changing of course.

I just love President Poznanski and Soeur Poznanski! We had our interviews with both of them. I did them both in French..which was scary, but I did it and I'm so glad Heavenly Father helps with language barriers. If I was learning french on my own I would literally know nothing. It's all the Lord. 

That night we had a huge impression to call the family Lethuaire. We had been asked to find a family like them that we could baptize and bring into the church and so we thought, what better place than to ask them straight up? So we gave them a call. They told us they would pray and think about it and by Friday we will go to their house and there will be someone there. So we went out to do our part as well. We ported their neighborhood of course. It was the only logical thing to do. We did find a family and we will see what happens...so much excitement in missionary work! It's all a big mystery!

The mission, after the interviews, has not been the same. Every day we wake up with a vision of what we want and we go out and fight for it. We have seen nothing but miracles since then. I know we were good missionaries before but now we have caught the vision again. We are on the search and we will not stop until we find a family!!!

Saturday was a pyscho day. It started off by helping a crazy less-active hoarder clear out some of her apartment, who was strangely obsessed with me and wouldn't stop talking to me. She was weird. Next we were picked up by this 80 something year old woman in need of eye surgery this november who nearly hit 40 cars and walls and stuff...so scary! I've never prayed during an entire car ride, but hey there's a first for everything. But she took us out for a 200 euro lunch no big deal!!! Haha she is really rich and doesn't get out much so...but it was a good time!  Right after we met up with Claudia. Wow...such an incredible lesson!!!!! The spirit just knows how to teach, it's nuts watching these people change based on the spirit that witnesses to their hearts that these things are true. Claudia is our amie who came for the first time to our church to Maria's baptism and then to church the next day. We've been teaching her ever since! Saturday the Spirit witnessed to her that she needed to be baptized so me and Soeur Wynn gave her everything we had and poured our hearts and souls out to her. We picked a day and then she was going to pray about that and come to church with that on her mind...to be continued...

The rest of Saturday was awesome, seeing Godwith who is so ready and also Stephanie, our two little girls. We love them! We hope that Godwith can be baptized the same day since they are friends with such similar situations.

Yesterday we fasted to find this family and to help Claudia know she was ready to be baptized. We are on the search. We know the Lord has prepared a family for us so we just have to do our part and ask for His help and then we will cross paths. It was a day of miracles. We had Stephanie, Susan and Claudia all at church with us and it was super awesome. Claudia was just showing all the signs of being ready. Susan, we are unsure still, but we will find out more this week. But Claudia is just so genuine in her search it's amazing! After church we pulled her in a room really quickly and talked about baptism and how she was feeling. She said she wants to be baptized but not yet. We talked and bore witness to her and finally we fixed a date. October 19th!!! We have faith that it will probably be before that, but this was what she felt comfortable with and we are just so thrilled for her!!! The miracles didn't stop there. We felt inspired to make cookies and use those as an excuse to go pass by a family we met this week on the street.

We originally met the mom and her 3 daughters on the way to an appointment. It was interesting because we got on the bus and the doors were broken so everyone in the bus had to switch to a different one (that took like 10 minutes) then when we got off the bus and  a mom got off as well with her 3 beautiful little girls all dressed in cute dresses and carrying groceries, helping their mom (so cute). I just started talking to the little girls a little because Soeur Wynn was on the phone. After Soeur Wynn got off the phone the lady called back out to us and asked us why we were in France (our accents are very american). While we helped her take her groceries to her house we had a great conversation. After a few minutes of walking with them I felt a tiny hand slip into mine and I look down at one of the girls with THE biggest smiles I've ever seen. She was absolutely darling and I absoluetly love this family.

She showed us where she lived but she wasn't answering our calls. We felt good about it anyways and so we went. When we arrived, she let us in and we ended up having an INCREDIBLE lesson with them on the spot! We bore solemn witness of the Book of Mormon and the Dad (who used to be catholic and then was jehovah's witness and now is lost) was so happy to hear about this book. He said it made so much sense that the Lord would help us to better interpret the Bible by having another witness of the same gospel. He absolutely was amazed by this and was so excited to read it. The mom (who is catholic) also seemed very intrigued. The kids just adored us to pieces it was hilarious. We fell in love with this little family and will see them again on Tuesday morning- tomorrow! Soeur Wynn said the closing prayer, just very simply blessed this family and the home and thanked the Lord for bringing us together and ended in the name of Jesus Christ. As i said amen the dad looked up at me and said he hadn't heard a prayer like that in 20 years (since the last time he met with mormon missionaries). He was so touched and they are so excited for us to come back tomorrow! It was an incredible day filled with the Spirit and with miracles. There's just something about that family that just feels familiar to me. I didn't want to leave their apartment. Those kids are my new best friends!

Once again Satan tried to stop us last night on our way home. It's so interesting that on our way back from bringing this family the gospel he tried to stop us and scare us. Satan comes in many forms but right now for us, he's just trying to scare us. But we are representatives of Jesus Christ and satan has no power over us. We will never give in and never stop bringing people this pure joy.

This gospel is just so incredible and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to learn more and more each day about our Maker.. As we recognize the touch of the Master's hand in our lives more and more each day, He will bless us more and more. Gratitude is the way we return love to our Heavenly Father. He gives us so many blessings and it can get really hard to recognize them sometimes because He is the ultimate anonymous giver of gifts.

Oh how grateful I am for the Plan of Salvation. What a blessing it is to know our eternal potential and divine design. I just love this gospel so much and I'm so lucky I get to simply offer the gift of peace, joy, and healing powers of the atonement to all the beautiful people here in France.

God doesn't really need missionaries to spread His gospel. He could essentially do it without us, but it is my priviledge to wear the name of His church over my heart and I am filled with joy with the opportunity to love and serve my brothers and sisters as Christ Himself was.

The church is true!

Stay righteous, be true, be you!

Avec amour,

Soeur Berge

Be a Friend To All

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a crazy one! It was so jam packed. 

Wednedsay was a day of English. We had 2 lessons back to back in English and they both went awesome. I'm so excited about our ami Susan. She is super solid. She really knows the Bible. She is from Cameroon and so smart! She really studies what we teach her and she asks awesome questions that make us think. She's only lived here for 7 months and is trying to learn French too so it's cool. I feel like we're on the same level which is nice. She's awesome though. I absoluetly love Susan. I just want to hang out with her all the time.

The next day we had a really cool RDV with Hortense and her sister and husband. We didn't know they were going to be there, but it turned out really cool because they questioned a lot of things we said and it gave us the opportunity to just testify over and over and over because people can't argue with the Spirit. It was good too, because that means they were engaged in our conversation! Good stuff.

We also had a cool FHE with a super solid family and an ami named Claudia. Claudia is just such a boss. She studies the Book of Mormon and she is just so ready for the gospel. She just thirsts for truths it's amazing to see. She even asked where the promised land was! She definitely did her homework. She's just such a fun lady too. While we were having our FHE lesson with the family, the little girl (about 6) just started playing with my hair and then she got excited and ran off and came back with two hair brushes and just brushed the crud out of my hair. Then she saw Soeur Wynn's hair and got excited and did the same thing. Too funny. Kids play with our hair all the time though. We both have super long hair and the little girls are just so intrigued by it.

We also taught Hermonse (Soeur Bennion talked to her on the train). I'm so stinkin' proud of Soeur Bennion! We taught Hermonse for the first time. I thought she was like our age, however we get to her house and turns out she has two kids and is 35! That's the thing with Africans. You can't ever tell what age they are becuase they all just look so young. A lot of French people are hard to guess ages too. 

Maria went to the temple this week! How incredible! We met with her the day after she got back and asked her all about it. She loved it! It's so amazing to watch her grow so quickly in the church. We made her a cute little book with all her baptism stuff in it and we gave it to her at church yesterday and she just cried and hugged us and was so grateful. She wants to get her patriarchal blessing soon! I'm so proud of her and her efforts in the gospel, and I know Heavenly Father is even more proud of her.

We had a super cool experience with our dear little 9 year old friend, Godwith. Lately she's been saying how she doesn't think she's ready for baptism because she needs to learn more. It's crazy because she reads the Book of Mormon so much and knows so much too! We asked her all the baptismal questions to prepare her and she answered them all fine, so we just decided to all kneel down and have Godwith pray and ask Heavenly Father if she should get baptized soon and she did. It was very spiritual and once the prayer ended Soeur Wynn and I might have needed some tissues. It was such a tender moment. Soeur Wynn then asked her what she thought and she said she was ready. The Spirit was so incredibly strong! Love it!

Yesterday church was incredible! Sarah, our member who just had a big surgery and was trying to quit smoking, came to church. She was in the hospital and had to have another surgery because she got an infection from the previous surgery. She's been in the hospital for about 3 weeks! She could barely speak, but man she had a whole new demeanor about her. Later she got an incredible blessing and told Soeur Wynn some amazing news! She stopped smoking and feels like she is a lot closer to Heavenly Father because of this trial she's had.  How incredible. She has such a wonderful attitude about it. I love Sarah with all my heart!

We also had a picnic at Kashmira's house with Fatumia (my 2nd mother) and their boys. Later Fatumia's other kids and nieces and nephew came over and it was just a big party. All I can say to describe it was just nuts. Haha

We also have another cute ami who is 11 years old named Stephanie. She is DARLING! She's been out of town my entire 1st transfer for vacance and just got back so I finally got to meet her. She's had pretty much all of the lessons. Her mom is a member and she has a baby sister named Chelsie who is THE cutest little girl ever. Oh my goodness! We had such a fun lesson with them last night. Stephanie set a date for September 7th and we are so excited for her baptism! She has such strong desire to do what is right I'm blown away. Her generation is just absolutely incredible! Godwith and Stephanie are going to be a big part of the church here in France as they continue to grow in the gospel. It's amazing to see such young people understand God and Jesus Christ and what they need to do in order to return to them.

This week I've really studied sacrifice. Thank you, Sister Mann, for one of the coolest letters ever! C.S. Lewis rocks. As I reflect about everything that goes on in life and as I've studied the words of the prophets both old and new, I've realized that almost everything relies on our efforts and our willingness to ask Heavenly Father for help. 

Just think of when Jesus called out to His disciples to drop their nets and 'come follow me'.  "We often cling to our sins, our pleasuers, and sometimes even our perceived obligations (our nets)..we then stand at the shore of our own Galilee, nets tighly entangling us. We find oursleves unable to leave them behind and follow the living Christ." Are we going to hold on to our nets or are we willing to let go and allow the Savior into our lives and change every day to be more like Him?

When we sincerely ask Heavenly Father for help and when we tell Him we would do anything He asks of us, we can't hold anything back. We must be willing to sacrifice and really intend on acting on His guidance. It's one thing to receive an answer from Heavenly Father..it's another to act upon it.

Something I learned this week that was a bit of a casser (burn) for me was to realize that when we get baptized and covenant to take upon us Christ's name, we promise to bear one another's burdens. We promise to be a friend to all. I never really realized it til now, but we made a promise to help each other and help our siblings return back to our Father. Sometimes it's hard because we make excuses for ourselves or tell ourselves they don't want our help...that is Satan! We must look for ways to serve each other more. "If we don't try, then we don't do, and if we don't do, then why are we here?"

Forgiving and changing should be an active part of our days. Although we must strive to recognize our shortcomings and realize when we fall short, we should always remember to love ourselves. "However many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infite light of Christ's Atonement shines." -Uchtdorf.

I know Heavenly Father's arms are always stretched towards us. I know with His help we can be whole and abandon the pain and guilt of being human. We each have a purpose. We each have a devine destiny to reach. If we strive or choose to make our goal the Celestial Kingdom each day, we WILL make it. We will all make it home, safe and sound, if we but strive a little more each day to be like our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I'm so grateful to be where I am today. I'm grateful for everyone around me who knows I'm not perfect and accepts me anyways. I love being a missionary each day. I'm honored to wear His name over my heart. I promise you all the Savior is near! 

Peace and blessings!

Stay righteous, be true, be you!

Avec amour,

Soeur Berge

Angels Around Us to Bear Us Up

                                               Us with Isabelle and her member friend Audrey

                                                                         Crazy faces!

Grandma Christiane lunch date

Soeur Lam Yam making chocolate gravy

Soeur Bennion's first baguette with our lovely grandma wall paper

Dear family and friends,

Soeur Wynn and I ARE STILL TOGETHER! Transfer 2 and we are loving life. It's so fun serving with my best friend.

It was sad last week to say goodbye to some of our favorite missionaries, Soeur Tollefsen, our roommate, and Elder Foley our District leader/elder in our area. We were sad to see them go but happy to be together with Soeur Wynn still!!

This week was awesome though, only 2 of our appointments fell through the entire week. That's a miracle in and of itself! We were so blessed but let's just say Satan tried all he could to stop us this week!

Maria, our friend who was just baptized, is progressing super well in the church. She went to several Young Adult activities and we even had a family home evening with her and a member family this week. She brought her best friend who is now investigating the church as well. She really just loves this gospel. I am so happy to say that as I write this letter now, she is with the family Lethuaire at the temple in Germany for an entire week, helping save lost souls who have waited for a long time for her to come. We are so blessed and grateful. This family is the greatest and there are no words to describe our gratitude for them. They have saved us on many occasions and will always be a family that I respect and adore for the rest of my life.

It is incredible to see how prepared the hearts of some of these people are that we meet. Isabelle, who was our referral from a member in the south of France is progessing so well. Her member friend was there this week so we had a lesson with the two of them. So incredible!!!

Claudia, who had come to Maria's baptism and church, had an amazing lesson with us too this week. She does all her reading and loves learning more about this gospel. She's even started sharing it with all her friends and family!

We had a fun lunch day with Christiane (photo included.) She has almost no living family at all so we have taken on the role of her granddaughters. She's a sweet lady!

A big miracle this week-- We had a random member call us up this week and ask if we could translate for her friends. They are a couple who live in the area and have been searching for a church. They decided to come check out our church. They speak English and are newly married. We adore them already and they absolutely love church!!! We have a rdv with them tomorrow. So fun! We had 5 amis at church!!! We were so blessed!

Yesterday Soeur Wynn had Belgium legality ( I don't even know how to explain it other than we have to do a physical for our residency to stay in France for longer than 6 months) There is a picture of me with Soeur Wynn and her MTC comp, Soeur Linton. Soeur Wynn swears we look alike. (cuz we're the same height) She's cool though.

So yesterday I was training for the day! :O I was with a sister named Soeur Bennion who just arrived 5 days ago. Yeah talk about bleu fire baby! We killed it yesterday. We both speak just minimal French and here we are going to our appointments and just somehow getting by. I can testify that when we rely on the Savior, literally anything is possible. We also made chocolate gravy with Soeur Lam Yam (our American mama away from home) She is truly awesome! We had a blast.

Also yesterday I heard some people speaking English on the way home from our last RDV and I asked them where they were from. MIAMI! Too cool! I was freakin out and was telling them about our church and what we do as missionaries. It was just a cool experience to be able to testify to Floridians as a missionary. They said they had heard about our church before in HAITI! How cool is that? I told them I loved everything about Haitians-the food, the culture, the people, all of it. And at the end one of them said, "Well are you married? Because maybe one day you'll marry a Haitian." It was so funny. We were all crackin up!

I love the mission and I know that there are so many miracles and angels surrounding us each day. We had some interesting experiences this week where we literal saw the power of Satan around us and it was super scary. We both received blessings from Frère Lethuaire that reminded us just how much power we have. President Poznanski warned us that Satan does NOT like the work that we are doing and will do everything he can to stop us. We just have to call upon heaven for protecting angels and we will be safe. It can be hard sometimes being so far away from my "safe places" of home and family, but I know that the Lord is right beside me all the time. The Lethuaire family has created a safe haven here and I admire them so much. I will never forget the way that they have taken me in and helped me. Their grandma pulled us aside and told us, there are so many more people who are for me in the armies of heaven than they are that are against me in the armies of Satan. We will be protected and the Lord will be on our side. I know that angels are there and the Holy Ghost can warn us of danger and protect us from all things.

I read some awesome talks this week and I'm just in awe every time I read the words of the prophets and the Lord's servants. I read one talk that changed my life. This week's theme for me is all about using the Atonement to heal and renew. We are not on the earth earning heaven, rather we are here learning heaven. We are preparing for it and practicing it. Heaven will not be heaven for those who do not choose to be heavenly. Right now we must choose to create our own heaven on earth. It is a commandment from God to build a 'refuge of safety' here on this earth. It's a commandment he gave to Adam and Eve and we must do the same. We must choose to recognize the need for the Atonement in our lives every day. We should be repenting for our mistakes and shortcomings every day. "Please choose to stay. Please choose to use the Atonement - not to be changed so that you WANT to stay. The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can go home, but that-miraculously-we can FEEL at home there."

I can testify that the only true way we can gain the most happiness in our lives is to recognize God in our lives and to also recognize Jesus Christ and the need for the Atonement in our lives. We must choose to change ourselves. We must choose to recognize our own faults. We aren't perfect and no one can hide from that harsh truth. We all have guilt. We all face that trial of feeling ashamed for something and that is why we have bad habits in our lives. We try to shift our guilt off of our shoulders through bad habits that often have effect on those around us especially the ones we love. However, I promise that the only way we can feel the guilt be taken away and forgotten forever is by repenting each day and calling upon the Lord.

Something I have learned from Soeur Wynn is: We must strive to give our all and at the end of the day when we are exhausted, we must ask the Lord to give us more the next day so that we, in return, may give it back to Him.

Heavenly Father is our literal father. His Son is our Savior and Redeemer. He atoned for our guilt, he atoned for our pains, he atoned for us that we may feel the touch of the Master's Hand in our lives in ways we could never understand without the power of the Atonement. I love this gospel. I love the work of the Lord and I am so grateful and blessed that I am a missionary.

Until next week...

Stay righteous, be true, be you!

Avec amour,

Soeur Berge