July 18, 2012 "Just another missionary week....you know with some trunky tendancies‏"

Well I won't lie, I just had some serious hyperventalating moments opening up my inbox. This is what I saw: -flight itenirary -baggage regulations -my interview scheadule with president -and lovely little emails from the family saying things like "next time I'm at home, I'll be with you"...or "I don't know if we're going to have internet in Greece the next two Sundays...so if we don't write you...we'll just see you!" Oh gosh. So for the sanity of my companion and the lack of tissues in this creepy cybercafé I'm just going to tell you about my week and box all the emotions about to spill out until I have to give that torturous thing called a homecoming. So this week was pretty crazy. We had interveiws with president, which ended with "see you trés bientot!"....btw I told president my family was trunky and he told me thats normal...so I guess I shouldn't be so hard on you guys lol. Then we had exchanges. It was good..You know other than we were doing exchanges with sisters in the most southern ville in the mission, and we are in the most northen....4 missed trains and 2 extra hours in Paris later, I spent a lovely day with Soeur Pymm from Idaho Falls, Idaho, we got to reminsce about potatoes and gave Soeur McGhie a break from listening to all my stories from my mission, and got a fresh pair of ears to talk to. We had some pretty cool rendezvous this week. There is less active that the bishop has asked to visit. We pass by maybe twice a week trying to get inside. Once in a while she will come out and sit on the steps while we a read a scripture to her. Well this week we actually got inside! We tried to make small talk and she was just quiet as usual...then we tried to share a story from the Liahona...but at the end she was like 'honestly, I didn't understand that story at all' ....then launched into a series of appologies about she's sorry that she's been so cold to us, and then pulled out pictures from when the sisters first taught her and told us all her memories about when she first was baptized. She told us how she just started working alot and she forgot about her testimony (she is currently living with a guy and is pregnant) but that she wants to come back to church. She ended with some encouraging words that we need to contact people on the street because we never know when they will accept. It was what you could say is a major breakthrough. Only took 10 weeks. We felt like we had a lot of major breakthroughs this week that 'only' took 10 weeks. We had an ami finally come to church, first time for us. We contacted this lady Zhara, and it was such a neat experience. At first she wasn't interested, but for some reason I just felt pushed to just keep talking. Finally we asked if we could just sit on a park bench and teach her for 10 minutes, she agreed. We explained the book of Mormon and she ended up telling us this experience she had with prayer when she was like 14, and ever since that experience she's asked herself "maybe there is someone who listens to prayers". The spirit was so strong there on the park bench right next to the loud construction. It was so neat. The sun even shone for us for like 10 minutes. She took the Book of Mormon, and said we could call her to fix another rendezvous...On Verra. And we had a cool experience with porting. So during interviews President asked why, I thought, we were having such a hard time finding new people to teach. I really didn't know, I honestly feel like we've been trying everything. We've been trying to apply everything our leaders teach us, we are doing finding all the time...we find cool people...just no one actually progresses. We've taught lots of first lessons and gotten lots of numbers....its just been frustrating to see nothing go anywhere. So he just encouraged us to do more porting. SO, we did. We found this one street where almost every door was an adorable family. Seriously, picturesque mom and dad with three little kids....at every door. And at every door they were very polite in telling us 'no, thanks'. But this one lady, she came to the door with 3 little boys...loud crazy little boys. We were trying to explain we are missionaries blah blah blah, and she was trying to battle these three wrestling boys trying to close the door in our faces. Finally I just said 'listen, I know its wierd to come to people's door and talk about Jesus, but what we really talk about is how to apply his gospel to our daily lives and how it can bless our families". She said "well that, I would be interested in, can you pass by another time?" Of course we said yes, and I barely asked her name when her sons succeeded at closing the door. I guess being blunt works. When in Lille, do as the Lillois? And we celebrated the lovely Bastille Day, which really the only thing that changed for us was that the buses were less frequent...I really think the French would die if they saw what the Fourth of July is like. Oh well, I was super spirted and wore blue, white, and red. haha It was a pretty good week, and while yes in the back of my mind I know the clock is ticking on my little missionary life, I also know that I still have alot of hours of contacting ahead of us...so pray that I can have emotional stability in the next few weeks and pray we find people! Je vous aime! à très beintot! Soeur Smith