Well....
Alright. So this week I'm feeling spazzy (whats new) and stressed about writing an email. The past week was crazy...the coming week will be crazy...and best of all...THIS SUNDAY IS CHRISTMAS!!! Ill try and organize my thoughts into some sort of email...
I'm feeling alot of pressure to make this week the CHRISTMAS experience of my life (thats alot of pressure on one little day)...but so far its turning out to be that way. This week was amazing.
I'll start off with Tom...who's real name is Kedenettse (Tom is her family name...but its easier for americans to say...but we finally had her teach us how to say her really name lol). She is amazing! We taught her the word of wisdom and law of chastity this week. When we came back later in the week she had given up coffee no problem, and called her boyfriend in Africa and told him they have to get married...and he said OK! (I will for sure be flying to Botswana for that wedding haha) I love investigators who WANT to keep commitments! My favorite part of our rendez vous are her prayers...that seems to be the best time to really see what investigators are understanding. She said things this week like "thank you God for sending the sisters and helping me feel like one of them" and "please help other people to understand that God comes first in life". She is just so good. When we first met her we thought she wasn't understanding things because she is very quiet...but she is just really thinking things over...and gets it! This week she told she's been thinking about what we talked about at church (spirit world) because her brother died and she wants to know what happened to him. Now she wants to go to the temple with his name. Im sorry if Im just oozing with random stories...but I feel like I can just see the light shining inside of her and its amazing. We love her.
I also had exchanges in Versailles this week. The houses are huge!!! (you know and there is that really big one where some dude named Louis the 16th lived or something or other....) ya it was my freak out over real houses on steriods. But ya..good exchange lol.
Random brain thought: So you all wrote about the gernande guy in Liege. I'll tell you what I've heard from the Liege missionaries. So sisters were serving in Liege until the middle of last transfer when a sister had to go home for health problems. So this transfer there are two elder equipes there. Well the day of the bombing was district meeting day...and the missionaries should have come out of thier meeting and gotten on the bus and would have been near the bombings right at that time. But there bus never came...they waited and waited...and just decided to go back into the church and eat lunch. Little did they know they were being protected. So there were no members, investigators, or missionaries near the event... It is a very sad thing (we don't even really know the extent of it..we just heard the missionaries side...and from talking to people on the metro) but I feel blessed and protected knowing that the missionaries were protected. Keep those people who were hurt and killed in your prayers (I hear there are some in the hospital?)
This week has also had its very funny moments. I have to start with explaining an inside joke. Last transfer there was a missionary here would say "your absolutely right" in a very funny way...and somehow its just got on in our district and when you have admit your wrong...you just say "your absolutely right". OK...so we have had a bet going with the elders of when it was going to snow. The elders guessed it would snow on December 16th and we guessed the 21st. Well the morning of the 16th I have to admit I ran to the window and saw....rain. BAHAHAH. For some reason or another we talked to the elders several time that day on the phone...and everytime we would tell them we were still winning because it hadn't snowed yet. So finally one elder said "I bet by 8:30pm it will be snowing". Well Soeur Murray and I were outside from about 6 to 8 and it was slushing...but you cannot call it snow. But the wind was blowing...and my umbrella broke...to the point where it could not be used. So here I was standing on the street corner, with a broken umbrella, soaking wet, when Soeur Murray told me to look up. And what did I see. SNOW. Then a little girl skipped past us singing "le niege! le niege!" It was just all too ironic. We were killing ourselves laughing when the phone rang at 8:27. It was the elders. All I could say was "your absolutely right".
Another funny moment(s) this week. Soeur Murray and I have been trying to take advantage of the Christmas spirit and have been calling everyone we can, old amis, less actives, etc. and asking if we can come over and share a Christmas message. Well I kid you not...almost every single "christmas rendezvous" has resulted in people telling us that in FACT Christ was not born in December, and so they don't understand why we were are talking about Christ's birth at Christmas time....ya! At first we would defend ourselves...saying things like "ya we know, he was born in April...but its tradition". But after a lady told us that's silly, her birthday is in May, she doesn't celebrate her birthday in October, we got a little sick of it. Now we just say "Your absolutely right...but we're going to share a message about Christ anyways". I mean really...I didn't think the meaning of Christmas was THAT lost.
But it is not lost for us! The miracles keep coming and I just feel so blessed to be a missionary right now! We had stake conferance a couple weeks ago and an area authority from Germany shared a story about just after the end of the Cold War. They had been in eastern Germany...and after the war his family moved to western Germany. There in the middle of the square of the town they moved was a giant picture of Karl Marx with a speach bubble that said "Sorry...it was just an idea". He spoke of how much damage trusting in the ideas of men can be; be we can be sure that the Prophet will never, ever say "Sorry...it was just an idea". I am so grateful for Christ's church. That I live in a time when it is on the earth, and I that I get to be a little part of sharing that with the world. I love my Savoir Jesus Christ and I am so grateful for this time of year to yet again reflect on Him and His wonderful life. When those confusing and tempting ideas of the world come along...I know I can look to the Light of the World and say "your absolutely right".
Joyeux Noël!!!!
Soeur Smith
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