Week 25

Bonjour,

Oh my has this been quite a week. It has truly been a week of many miracles, many surprises, set backs but lots of success. During our weekly planning for this last week, we decided to push ourselves a little bit and maybe put our hands in the fate of a couple of dice. So every weekly planning we decide how many of everything we want to try to have for that week. Such as number of lessons, how many people at church, just a bunch of different things. Well, one of those things is what we call snaps. A snap is when you talk to someone on the street and present the message and then when you get their information, like a number or an address, that's what we call a snap. So every week we set a goal for those too. Well for fun we decided to roll a couple dice to decide how many snaps we wanted to get for the week. We ended up rolling a 2 and a 4. So it was either 24 or 42. Deciding on 24 would really not be stretching ourselves since that was below the number of snaps that we had the week before anyway so we decided upon 42. That just seemed horribly daunting to be honest. That was 6 snaps each day for the week, something not super easy especially when you factor in giving lessons and everything else that we do each day. But, regardless of that, we fixed it and decided to work diligently towards that goal. And now, I must admit, that we were greatly blessed for our efforts in many different ways.

So on Monday, after I emailed, I had said that we had a rendez-vous with the girl named Stephanie who was a bit of a miracle the week before. She ended up not being able to come to the rendez-vous so we headed out to do some pass backs of people that other missionaries had found that we never really contacted for whatever reason. So we went to a couple without any success and then we went by one more who was not too far from where we live who I had actually passed one other time last transfer. The description said that it was a South American woman and it had her address and that's it. We could not find her name on the sonnets outside of the apartment so we pushed some peoples sonnets hoping someone would let us in so we could check the mailboxes for the name. Thankfully someone let us in and there was a mailbox with the ladies last name as well as like 5 other names written in marker along the box. Not knowing which apartment they were, we climbed the stairs and someone actually opened the door on the first floor. It was a little South American boy and we asked if he knew the lady and he said yes but that she didn't live there anymore. He told us to wait really fast. He runs away and goes and grabs his father. A man comes to the door, looks at us and tells us to come in and then walks away. It was odd but of course we entered. So we go in and he is folding laundry while four kids are all gathered around the kitchen table doing homework and there were posters all over the walls with Bible quotes on them. We sat down and talked and shared our message and it was incredible. We found out that recently he and his wife were divorced and that he now takes care of all 5 kids and he left the church he had been going to because it was not in line with the Bible. It was crazy! He told us to come by anytime in the evenings and he would be there. His house would always be open for us. We basically walked home on cloud nine and we were super pumped for the week. We had just found a slice of Brazil in Marseille! Unfortunately, we didn't find one snap that day, which meant that the rest of the six days of the week, we had to find 7 snaps each day...

On Tuesday the whole day it was rendez-vous after rendez-vous falling through until the evening when we went to Paul's house. He is the guy from Ghana that we have been teaching. He was there and he actually had a friend named Andrew who is also from Africa and very very receptive to our message and to everything that we said. It was such a great lesson and then he gave us his telephone number and told us to call him to fix another rendez-vous with him. It was amazing. On the way home, we thought, "Ok, how many more snaps do we need to try and cram in on the way home." We stopped, counted up our snaps and much to our astonishment, we had already gotten 8 snaps. It was a miracle. We still thought that we needed to find some more but we had not only met our goal, but had actually surpassed it.

On Wednesday in the morning we passed Jacque who we were supposed to have a rendez-vous with on Tuesday but he wasn't there and surprisingly he was home. We had an awesome lesson with him and fixed a rendez-vous with him for later in the week. From after lunch until five we didn't really have much to do because one of our investigators cancelled our rendez-vous with him. So we contacted like crazy in the hopes of getting all the snaps that we needed. At five we had a rendez-vous with Stephanie and it was amazing. We met her at the church and taught and before we even began she told us that ever since she met us, everything has been better and she has been so much happier. She also told us that just before Christmas, she was at the big Catholic church and wrote a note saying that she wanted to get closer to Christ and that she wanted help getting closer to him and then just a few days after we met her on the street. She said it was such an answer to her pray. After she tells us all that, she then proceeds to ask if we can give her a blessing. She said, "I am not sure if that's something you do or can do but I really feel like I need some help and I just feel like I needed to ask you for a blessing." Of course we said yes and we gave her a blessing. After all of this, we gave a small lesson and then engaged her to be baptized. She said yes and that she was ready to work towards that. It was incredible!! After that, we went over to Jeorge's house (the Brazilian man with 5 kids) and taught some more. It was incredible, all of his children (except the one year old) came over and all grabbed their bibles and were so eager to participate. Jeorge doesn't speak the best French and especially when he gets emotional, he jumps into Portugese and his oldest daughter translates for him. It was an amazing lesson. We found out that he definitely has some difficulty completely fully understanding some of the doctrines but all in all he knows his stuff. And the kids know the bible so well! They know the bible way better than I do! Ha! It was incredible. At the end of the day we counted up our snaps and we had only gotten six. But that wasn't too bad it didn't throw us off.

Thursday we had a full day of rendez-vous. As usual, everything that we planned went out the window. We did not end up seeing one of the people we had lessons fixed with. We ended up calling Stephanie to see if she could have a rendez-vous with one of the members and she said that she would be right over. We had an awesome rendez-vous and she told us how happy she has been and how much she has been touched by the spirit. We talked about the word of wisdom and she was completely in agreeance with everything. It was amazing. After that we ended up going around contacting and seeing our rendez-vous fall through and then in the evening we decided to stop by Jeorge's to give him a couple chapters to read in the bible and in the Book of Mormon and we ended up staying for a long time having a lesson with him. He told us that he already knew that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and it was incredible. It was another great lesson although he had a difficult time with the idea of authority. It is so amazing with the kids, they get so excited when we show up and they remember our names and when we show up the one little boy with a huge smile on his face says "It's Elder Boehme and Elder Kirkpatrick!" It's so funny. At the end of the day we evaluated and only had 4 snaps for the day. That meant that for the next day, we had to have 11 snaps to catch back up.

Friday was busy with weekly planning, the rendez-vous that we fixed and trying to find all 11 snaps. The morning we had a rendez-vous that fell through and we could not get one snap. After that we went home, ate and decided to not let that morning put us down. One hour after we left the apartment, we had already found 7 snaps and in fact someone called us saying that he was given our number by one of his friends and he wanted to meet us. After all that, we had a rendez-vous with Andrew, who was the friend of Paul. We met him and on the way to finding a park bench we ran into a couple Jehovah's Witnesses (who are EVERYWHERE here) and they started talking to Andrew because they had already been teaching him! After they chatted with him a bit we walked and started our lesson, and we were a bit worried that maybe he had already started to go towards the Jehovah's Witnesses but then he just randomly told us that he doesn't like what they teach and that it doesn't go along with what is in the Bible. He then told us that he wanted to go to church. We were super excited. Haha it's funny, he doesn't say all my name for some reason so I am Elder Patrick. It's pretty funny. After him we hurried and met the guy that called us (his name is Ali) and he happened to be hanging out with Andrew (I am not sure how he beat us to him but he did). We had no idea that they knew each other. We had a little lesson and then headed to go meet Joseph, the young guy we met at Paul's house a few weeks ago. We met Joseph with the other two Africans and had a bit of a lesson. They all said they were going to come to soccer on Saturday. It was so crazy how it all worked out. At the end of the day, we counted up the snaps and we had received 10 snaps for the day. Not exactly our 11 but pretty close.

On Saturday, we played Soccer with members and the three Africans came too. It was a really good time. We then planned with Joseph and Andrew to be able to come to church on the next day. We went home, got ready and headed out for the day. Not too long after that, we received a call from Stephanie. She told us that she could not be baptized because her boyfriend does not want her to and we weren't able to see or teach her anymore. We were devastated. We were totally thrown off and had no idea what to do. We pressed forward through the day anyway. We ended up teaching a less active member and our investigator Brigitte with a member, which went really well. Brigitte is very shy and introverted but she has been really good about reading in the Book of Mormon. The lesson went a little bit long so we ended up running to the closest metro because our next lesson was with Jeorge on the complete other side of town. We met the Rotterman family because she speaks Portugese and her husband came too and we went to the family. It was a really great lesson but Frere Rotterman basically talked the entire time and so that wasn't so great but it was still really good and it showed the importance of having authority. At the end of the day we counted up snaps and we only had two... ouch....

Sunday arrived and we had 12 snaps that we had to get to reach our goal of 42 for the week. Talk about hard! We got to church and went with a member to pick up Andrew. On the way the member told him, I was impressed by the spirit to put a jacket and shirt in the car this morning and I have no idea why but now I feel impressed that I need to give them to you. Andrew literally has nothing right now and it was so miraculous that that happened. The Lord works in mysterious ways. After church Andrew ended up meeting one of the members and she exchanged numbers with him and said she had food she wanted to feed him after church and that she could take him home and then she was going to pick him up Monday and help him. It was so incredible. We ended up grabbing him really fast and teaching him with a member and we quickly talked about baptism and before I went to give him the engagement to baptism, he actually said, "Elder Patrick, Elder Boehme, Madame Brook, I was never baptized in Africa because the preachers said it was hard and I never had the chance. Am I able to get baptized?" I was absolutely stunned!!! We of course said yes and then set a date. He was so happy, it was incredible. After that, we ended up eating lunch with the other missionaries at the church because an older couple every year feeds the missionaries at the beginning of the new year. She said we are like her grandchildren and that she loves doing it and they have to do it before they go and spend the other 6 months of the year on Sardinia where they have another house apparently. That sounds nice. Ha! The rest of the day we were going snap crazy! We talked to everyone and anyone trying to get all of our snaps. In the evening, we ended up stopping by Paul's house and had a good lesson with him and he surprised us by making food for us. It was very nice of him. We also called Stephanie and she said that she still wants to see us and continue despite what her boyfriend says because our lessons make her happy and feeling closer to Christ and that's what is most important. At the end of the day, we counted up our snaps and we had 10 snaps. So unfortunately we didn't get our 42 snaps for the week but we got much more than that. We truly we blessed for our hard work and I know that the Savior allowed us to see so many miracles this last week and Elder Boehme and I are so grateful for that.

Well sorry for this being so long but there was just so much that happened and I couldn't take stuff out. I hope that everyone is doing well and thank you so much for your love and support. I love you all very much and I hope you have a great next week full of miracles. Ciao!

Elder Kirkpatrick