Week 28

Hey,

I hope that everyone is doing very well. It has been another busy crazy week full of plenty of things to do and some big new information, which I will get to a little bit later. Some other news, I am still in Marseille! We got our calls on Friday and I was a bit worried that I would be leaving, but I am here for another transfer. I am so excited because we have such solid investigators right now and its awesome. I can't wait to see their baptisms!

So on Monday it was our normal Preparation day and then in the evening we had a lesson with Walter, who we hadn't seen in several weeks, which was partially our fault. It was a good lesson but he has a hard time feeling like he can balance everything that he has on his plate and a religious life too. We explained to him that to develop a relationship with God does not mean that other things have to be pushed out of our lives and that it truly becomes a way of living our life everyday and having God be apart of it. It was a good lesson and he said that he would come to church if we could find someone to take him because he lives far away and doesn't have money to take the bus. So we said that we would and we were pretty stoked to finally get him to come to church.

Tuesday, we had our rendez-vous with Maria and we continued on with the Plan of Salvation and it was a pretty good lesson. The member who came with us bore a great simple testimony about how he knew the church was true and how he was converted, it was really good. She really feels the difference in her life with the things we are teaching and how she feels that it's true and that she wants to have that same kind of light that seems to illuminate out of us. The next rendez-vous was with a lady name Diallo who is from Guinea in Africa and it was a super cool lesson. We contacted her quite a few weeks ago and she said that ever since then, we left an impression on her and that she felt like she needed to talk to us and so when we called her to schedule something she said that she dropped everything so that she could meet us. It was a really good lesson and she really opened up about the hardships and trials that she has had in her life. She said that she really wanted to learn and talk more. As we were heading to the metro after our rendez-vous, we received a voice message on our telephone. It was from President Carter and he gave us some BIG news. We all knew that he was going to be finishing his time as mission president in July but we didn't know what was going to be happening. He sent us all messages saying that beginning July 1st, the Geneva Switzerland Mission would be dissolving and that the Mission President would become our new President. Not only that, but we our now going to be the France Lyon Mission and that the mission home is moving to Lyon and that we are taking more area in Nothern France and then part of Switzerland! It is so crazy that our mission is changing. A lot of us were expecting some kind of change but it is even weirder now that we know instead of just hypothesizing. So that was the big news for the week. With this change, we will be adding 3 more stakes to our mission, which will be pretty cool. In the evening we then had a lesson with Jorge and his family, he is the guy that is from Brazil. We started the Plan of Salvation with him and unfortunately we didn't get through too much of it just because everything he also has a comment or a story or a scripture to share but it was still a good lesson and it is amazing to see how little by little he is gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It is awesome!

On Wednesday, we had a District meeting and then afterwards, I had an exchange with Elder Cunningham. I stayed with him in Marseille and then Elder Boehme went with Elder Meservy to Toulon. We had a rendez-vous with Daniel, who is the older man with his date for baptism on the 12th of February. We taught about the word of wisdom, which he had a hard time with last time when he was being taught by the missionaries. He doesn't even have a big problem with it, for him it is more of him having committment issues. He told us that he would "try" to keep the word of wisdom, which wasn't exactly the best response but we got him to commit. After him, we had a rendez-vous with Brigitte, who is also our investigator engaged for baptism on the 12th of February. We taught abour Mondern Day Prophets and how important it is and we watched a little video that shows all the Apostles and the Prophet and they bear their testimonies of Christ. Afterwards, I asked her how she felt and she said that she felt like it was true and that everything they were saying was completely true and that they were inspired men of God. It was so incredible. After her, the rendez-vous that we had fixed didn't really work out and we ended up doing some contacting and passing investigators and less actives and stuff like that.

On Thursday, I re-exchanged with my companion and then we had a few lessons fall through until our lesson with Brigitte. We taught about the Law of the Dime and she was totally in agreeance with it. We actually made a cake to show how that God gives us all of these many blessings and that even if we take 1/10 out of it, it is still more than we can really use, or eat, in the case of the cake. The cake was not bad but the frosting that we made had a lot of butter in it... and so it kind of just tasted like butter. Haha so we wiped off as much frosting has we could, and it was pretty good. Definitely not Betty Crocker but not bad for what we had to work with. After Brigitte we were supposed to go to see Jorge aith Frere Fidalgo but Jorge called and said that he couldn't which was a bummer. But, we were able to go pass Paul, who is our investigator from Ghana and we had an amazing lesson with him. We watched the Restoration video and then talked about everything and how he needed to find out for himself the truth in religion and God and how he needed to come to church. We have had the church discussion several times with him but we really laid everything on the line and gave it everything that we had and he said he would come. It was incredible. It was such a good lesson.

Friday, We had our weekly planning in the morning and then we had a rendez-vous with Maria and we brought one of our members. Maria ended up telling us some personal information about some medical condition and we didn't really end up following our teaching plan. It was a good lesson and it was good that she felt that she could open up to us about all of that. It was a really good lesson and she said that she would be coming to church on Sunday. Afterwards, we went to go and see Jorge and we had a little rendez-vous with him. It was pretty good. Afterwards, we received our transfer calls and I found out that I was staying in Marseille, which I was happy about. We also heard that Elder Bown, in the other companionship in Marseille is going to Vitrolle, which is only about 20 minutes away and that Soeur Walter also in Marseille would be transfered to Bourdeaux. We then went to Serge's house, who is the recent convert, and he had actually invited his friend to be there too so that we could talk to her about the church! He has been talking to her quite a bit about the church and we had a great lesson with her. It is incredible how Serge had just taken to the gospel. He has only been a member for 6 months but he is already telling his friends about how incredible the gospel is. It is so awesome to see that.

On Saturday, we ended up having a little bit of a rough day and we only had one lesson. It was raining all day so that kind of hinders the contacting and such. We ended up having a rendez-vous with Jorge and it was very interesting. He has some very Evangilical views on things in the Bible and so there is some confusion as far as how things can be done. He very much believes in people just starting to yell out strange tongues and such like that. So we got on several interesting topics with him and to be honest I was getting a little worked up. I just had to stop talking because I didn't want to say something that I shouldn't. But it was ok because he understood that there was some confusion for him as far as how things are done, such as how the Holy Ghost is given. So that was basically all of Saturday.

Sunday was a good day and was really a good sign of how our week was. We had 8 people at church!! It was awesome. We had Jorge and his 4 kids, Daniel, Brigitte, and then the miracle... Paul! He actually came to church. It was amazing. Elder Boehme and I were so ecstatic. After sacrament meeting he came and shook my hand and said See, look, I came. Haha it was pretty funny. What was also incredible was Brigitte. She asked me after church had finished, "So how is everything going to work after my baptism?" It was so cool to see that she is really thinking about it and I really feel like she is so prepared. We taught her a quick lesson after church about fasting and she said she would fast with next Sunday and to really fast with the desire to know whether the Baptism is right for her. She honestly would be ready to get baptized this week but with her, it is totally fine to give her some time. She is not someone who would do well with rushing. It is good to see how she has really grown to love the Book of Mormon and understand the truth of it. After Brigitte, we didn't have too much going on and ended up doing some contacting until we had dinner over at a member's house.

It was another great week here and it has been incredible to see the miracles continue. I hope that you are all doing well and having a great week. I love you all and thank you for everything that you do for me. Ciao!

Elder Kirkpatrick