The one where we got contacted by babies

A recurring theme this week has been babies contacting us. We're busy, or it seems like a bad moment, or we're just distracted, and these kids are like "Yo! Mom needs to know about eternal families! I remember you people, I know what your job is, get over here!" 

One of the latest babies tapped my back and grabbed my dress a few times on the bus to play peek-a-boo before I got the hint (thanks, kid) and her mom said "I'm so sorry I don't know why she's doing this!" (It was adorable!) And we figured out her mom is from Peru (there's a pretty big franco-peruvian community. Who knew?) and she didn't speak, like... any French or English, but we spoke enough spanish to talk a little before our stop, and invited her to visit the Visitor's Center where the sisters speak fluent Spanish. Soeur Sedrick was talking to her older kids on the other side of the bus who took a Book of Mormon (in French, but hey) and they thought seeing Sister Missionaries was pretty cool. 

The last week hasn't been stunningly productive as far as movement goes  because of my badly behaved leg but I finally got sick of waiting with my leg wrapped and up so we braved the French medical system and figured out that I have a little bitty torn muscle in my left leg. Now my leg is still up, but we have a course of action to get it better! I'm not supposed to really use it for a few days (this does not work well as a visitors center sister) but for p-day my companion has me on loving lockdown so I won't use it. The doctor also wants me to get tennis shoes and couldn't figure out why we walk so much in nice shoes... He's got me there. Cobblestones/Hobblestones, same thing, right? 

I'm also supposed to wear compression stockings for two weeks and possibly longer, but turns out they're a lot more stylish and comfortable in France and kind of a go-to treatment so all in all, not half bad. My legs will never see the sun again. The other Soeurs get some entertainment watching me put them on in the morning. 

Blessings have come from it with ward members talking to us a lot more because "what did you do to your leg??" and doing a lot of phone calls and texting to improve my French and invite people to this AWESOME BYU event we're having soon. Whatever pride I've tried to hold onto is lost in the form of compression socks and French grammar. We've also met some amazing people on trajet, calls and phone calls, and even at the doctors! 

I love the talk from conference called "Take the Holy spirit as your guide." The part that says "what can I do?" especially! We have a new member that people can be confused with because she's very blunt, but one of her amazing gifts is to find the elephant in the room, shine a spotlight on it, and say "hey does this belong to anyone???" which can be very very needed sometimes. We're grateful for her and the love she shares. She shares it in her own way and we need her, right now, where she is, and my gosh do we love her. 

Song reccomendations of the week: 

Where Can I Turn for Peace? -The Lower Lights

The Bonner Family's Be One performance, especially the "I am a child of God" part. 

CHALLENGE: Be still? Read "Feel Disconnected? Try Slowing Down." From the July 2018 Liahona. Get a friend or someone you love, go to a park or a hill or a hike or your backyard or something, a cup of herbal tea or lemonade is nice, bring your paper scriptures, and pray to be able to "Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10) To turn this into a missionary opportunity, invite someone along to just relax and be still too for a minute. 

This is hard as a missionary because we are always moving and have 50 things to do, but we've had to practice this the last week. It's been a weird kind of blessing. We're studying more effectively, keeping in contact with our amis and ward members who might just need a scripture now and then, and learning. The Lord has plans for everyone, sometimes it takes us a minute to figure it out.

So, have fun, be safe, make good choices, read your scriptures, I love you all, talk to you next week!! 

-Soeur Alyssa Amott

The best gift ever.

 An ami of the St Ouen soeurs brought Bissap and Jus de Gingembre and it is a great day 

stairs stairs stairs

garbanzo, millet, sweet potato

Digging out the rocks?

This week was busy, but good as always. I did something weird to my leg so now I'm the reason we're doing area book finding for a few days, but we've found a few new amis from it so we're good! 

The members I mentioned in the email last week were awesome, and they surprised us with dinner after the lesson which we hadn't planned for but it was cool. They made us "completos" which the mom described as "a little like hot dogs but a whole lot better," and we taught a 7 year old about the gospel of Jesus Christ and Baptism with a butterfly. It was a good time. 

Zone Conference was this last week and it was also great. We watched President and Sister Nelson's youth event and applied the 5 challenges to missionary work, and then we had an activity on Family History and how it can help people stay active, feel the spirit, and find blessings in every part of our lives. We also got called out with "you can't bear testimony of it if you haven't done it yourself" and we were challenged to find one of our own relatives, cousin or grandma or anyone, who hasn't had their work done yet and to send it to be done or take it to the temple next time we go.

After that I found out that our family tree work is really, really, really thoroughly done (good job, family?) So I'm still looking during mealtimes but mostly I'm just finding out stories about family. 

But honestly though, we take it for granted so often that baptisms for the dead are a thing and then someone finds out they can be baptised for their dad who died when they were a kid and they thought they'd lost, and they find out that they can be a family forever, and they can record stories and photos and share it with their brothers and sisters and it changes everything. Letting people know why we have temples, why it really matters that we can go in them, and that it's the way to come home, etc.

So, explanation of the title for the week: We've heard a lot that some missionaries are teachers, some are finders, and some are baptisers. So, some plant the seeds, tend them, and harvest them. But the new quote I've heard is "somebody has to go get the rocks out of the field first." That's... a lot of we've been doing lately with visitor's center and online work. And, as always, family history. Peoples hearts are softened, members or visitors or friends, and they have a greater desire to work together and find more of that peace and the bit of the spirit they felt there. 

I really loved the talk from the last conference, "Family History and Temple Work: Sealing and Healing," by Elder Dale G. Rebound. ALSO! The super cheesy but cute "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" video on lds.org. 

Aaand happy father's day! Tell Papa we taught someone online from Salzburg, Austria, and dad knows about Peruvians. 

Fun random things of the week:

-Michelle came to Church and surprised us with african Beignets (totally not healthy but greater than any patisserie) 

- We had a Veillee and the elders played "Oh my Father" on two violins and piano and it was amazing, if I find a recording I'll send it next week.

-An ami of the St Ouen soeurs brought Bissap and Jus de Gingembre and it is a great day 

-I found out the only branch in Senegal is literally 10 minutes from where I lived for a month 

Challenge of the week: Okay so long story short here are 100 ways to do member missionary work that Soeur Oulès, Soeur Sedrick, Soeur Marteeny and I came up with. Follow the instructions and have fun and send me am email to follow up on how it went?

100 ideas for member missionary work

Every member is a missionary, right? Most of us just need to know where to start. Remember the advice given in Alma 37:6-7, that by “Small and Simple things are great things brought to pass.” This list of 100 ideas for member missionary work has small and simple things, and some things that might take a little more faith and courage, but the Lord will help with those too!

HOW TO START: Read 1 Nephi 3:7, pray for guidance, and highlight 5 things you can do right now to start helping your friends. Pray again, and mark 5 things you can do by the end of this year! Keep this list somewhere easy to see to help you remember that missionary work is fun, easier than we think, and blesses us and all those around us! Remember the blessings promised in Mosiah 18:8-10.

1. Give your friend a Book of Mormon
2. Give someone a Book of Mormon with your testimony written inside
3. Share a Book of Mormon story with someone
4. Take a selfie with the Book of Mormon and share it with a a favorite scripture on social media!
5. Ask someone to help you memorize a Book of Mormon scripture and quiz you on it
6. Read your scriptures on the bus- share a scripture with someone sitting near you
7. Set a few nights a week for phone scripture study with a friend
8. Have a scripture study with a new investigator, convert, or less active member
9. Give a missionary pamphlet to a friend
10. Study a missionary pamphlet, and give a missionary pamphlet to a friend as well as sharing a message from it
11. Learn to talk about the restoration/Plan of Salvation in under a minute- the missionary challenge- and share it
12. Draw the Plan of Salvation for someone
13. Plan a family service project
14. Invite a friend over for dinner and talk about a gospel principal- For example, why we pray over our food.
15. Invite your friend over for dinner- And the missionaries!  
16. Invite your children's friends to family home evening
17. Have a family home evening with a friend
18. Have a family home evening with a new convert
19. Invite an investigator over for family home evening with the missionaries
20. Offer to help someone hold their own family home evening
21. Share the “Proclamation on the Family” with someone!
22. Share “The Living Christ” with someone
23. Have a family history night with someone
24. Have a family history party with several friends or neighbors!
25. Have family history night with the missionaries or ward FH specialist
26. Invite them to make an account on familysearch
27. Invite them to the family history center
28. Talk to someone about why we care about family history, and eternal families. This is a great chance to share your testimony of the Plan of Salvation!
29. Bring a friend to the temple grounds
30. Go to the temple with a new convert or less active member
31. Share a temple pass along card with someone you sit next to on the bus or train
32. “Check into” the temple on Facebook next time you go
33. Share a temple pass along card with a friend
34. Invite someone to a ward party
35. Have a picnic with a friend by the temple
36. Invite someone to a veillee at the temple
37. Invite someone to another fireside
38. Invite someone to attend church with you, and sit with them there
39. Invite someone to a church service activity
40. Have a movie night with a church movie and invite a friend, or several
41. Openly talk about one of your principles
42. Explain to someone why you don’t drink alcohol the next time you refuse it
43. Share a church event on social media
44. Invite a friend to a church event on social media
45. Share a favorite gospel oriented quote on social media
46. Share an LDS media library video on social media
47. Share that video with a friend in person
48. Invite your friend/child’s friend to a primary activity
49. Talk about baptism to someone
50. Invite friends to a/your baptism
51. Do an act of service for someone
52. Bake cookies for someone who needs some love
53. Call someone you haven't talked to in a long time
54. Go and visit someone sick or elderly
55. Listen to someone's stories
56. Visit someone who didn't come to church today
57. Visit a less active or part-member family, see how you can help them
58. Go to a lesson with the missionaries
59. Help the missionaries teach a lesson in your home
60. Welcome the missionnaires’ investigators, introduce yourself
61. Befriend a new investigator
62. Post a selfie with the missionaries, mention who they are
63. Post a favorite hymn or sacred music on social media
64. Send a favorite hymn to a friend
65. Send EFY music to someone
66. Sit next to someone sitting alone in church
67. Sit next to someone sitting alone on the bus or at school
68. Volunteer to do a musical number in Sacrament meeting and invite someone to watch you
69. Record yourself singing a hymn and post it to social media
70. Sing a hymn on the bus
71. Go on splits with the missionaries
72. Have a General Conference party
73. Talk about mormon.org to someone
74. Invite someone to visit Mormon.org
75. Invite them to chat with missionaries on Mormon.org
76. Share a gospel topics essay on lds.org with someone who has difficult questions
77. Do a school project on our church
78. Invite someone to Young Men’s/Young Women’s
79. Share a conference talk with a friend
80. Draw a favorite scripture or quote and share it with someone
81. Share that drawing on social media!
82. Have the article of faith in your bag (or memorize them) and share them with someone who have questions
83. Make a card for someone and write a scripture/Gospel quote in it
84. Like and share a General authority's post on social media
85. Pray with a friend who is having a hard time
86. Be nice with someone when others are not
87. Have a picture of Christ as a background or in your wallet
88. Give someone a picture of Christ with your testimony written on the back
89. Bear your testimony to someone
90. Make a craft (that shares a gospel principal) to give somebody
91. Teach a friend how to pray
92. Have a scripture study with your friend
93. Help a new investigator or less active member have nightly prayers, over the phone works great!
94. Bring someone to English classes held by the missionaries
95. Invite a friend to come with you when you go on ministering visits
96. Pray for your friends, and to have love and charity for them,
97. Learn to greet someone in a new language so you can talk to a new neighbor/convert/investigator
98. Talk about blessings to someone who needs help
99. Give someone a chapel tour with the missionaries
100. Invite people to Saturday sports with the ward.

In Which I Am a Currant Bush

The video that helped inspire the title: 

First things first, Jose has been baptised and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! It was amazing, and literally nothing worked out like we planned. Not a single thing. Clearly the Lord had plans more specific for J and our other amis and members that we hadn't figured out yet. I won't go into detail on all of it but the amazing thing was that he felt comfortable standing to bear his testimony of his conversion and his sister (who isn't a member yet!) got to translate it into French for everyone. His close family in France all came, and to his confirmation the next day, and his closest friends in the ward were there who all spoke Spanish, and the baptism and confirmation were in Spanish. So, I have no idea what was said, but he was very touched. Everyone loves him, and they're keeping in touch with him while he is in Peru. 

We got to see another baptism that day, same chapel and just a little later, which our ami Michelle came to. The young man being baptised had a very large extended family visiting so there was a lot of joy, a lot of tears, and afterwards a lot of food and music. At one point I ended up eating a large portion of raw onion with vinegar, and some sort of unknown spicy green paste, and lots of plantains, which Michelle thought was pretty funny to see us try, but it was great and I'd love to learn to cook more west african food! (She says she's making ginger juice next time we visit.) Honestly, though, of all the baptisms she could have possibly seen, that had to have been the best one. She's missed the one she was planning on seeing, Jose's, but because of that we were able to give each of them our full attention and they had the people they needed present. We were able to stay for that baptism, she made new friends, and it was beautiful! 

Then the next morning for church one of the buses decided to be off schedule, and naturally it is the bus that both of them take. We have a beautiful ward who loves people so, Jose was able to be confirmed after the sacrament when he did arrive (as Soeur Sedrick and I tried not to have a heart attack)  and he brought all his family (and the other surprise new people at church, good job members!) to the Gospel Principles class. New Convert A is absolutely awesome and decided help an ami of a different ward who came to our ward today, even though she was very nervous, because her new motto is "Love thy neighbor" and she is really just absolutely a shining star and went for it. We love her so much. She is going to be the world's best missionary someday.

There's a million small things that happened this week that, to summarize, were not what we had planned, but they all worked out. We did our best, we planned, we worked, and at the end of the day we had done what we really needed to do. We just.. got lessons on humility, too. 

I know I talk about "Lead Kindly Light," like, all the time, but I just wanted to mention that in French the title is "brilliant star, star of the morning," and the lyrics are totally different, but I love them too. 

I didn't ever plan on going on a mission. If you told 10-year-old me what I'd be doing now I would not have believed you. I had plans, and different goals, and things kept changing, but somehow I ended up here. To be honest I'm still not certain what I'm doing afterwards since I only have a year of mission left (ack!) but I know right now I'm doing what I need to. I'm grateful for this chance to "invite others to come unto Christ," and for all the things I've been able to learn, too. I'm grateful that I'm not the gardner here, and that God loves me enough to cut me down from time to time so I can grow in the right direction. 

Mom! Can you find "Baba Yetu" and the Be One link for the mission blog? Thank you!

Baba Yetu

Be One Celebration

Challenge: Watch Be One, its awesome

Aaaand we just found out that the members we are visiting today live an hour away by car so we're cutting our p-day, I've got to go, I love you all and have a great week! 

 (Rainy every day!) 

 Murals here are beautiful

Il Faut Manger du Chocolat

(Grandpa and Alyssa photo added by Mom) 

My Grandpa Petersen passed away this last Wednesday, and all of you know I'm really just getting a gold star in efficiently expressing my emotions, but honestly I'm going to miss him. I could write down a million things about him but then p-day would get a little weird for my companion so that list will come after my mission. So, if all the family who can could record some of his memories or stories on Family Tree that would be really cool. 

It's not a coincidence that the Book of Mormon starts with "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents..." and we've shown that to a few people this week. Our investigator J was amazed by one of our family pictures from almost 20 years ago that I showed him yesterday, because he wanted to know how such a big family could still know each other and love each other so much. He wanted to know how Grandpa and Grandma held our family together. 

Yesterday was a special stake conference with a broadcast to all of western Europe. J really only speaks Spanish and we didn't have someone to translate for him so I had to summarize all the talks into one or two sentences with the 5 words of Spanish I've managed to learn. "God is our heavenly father, he is a good father, he helps our families," kind of things. The talk I could help with the most clearly, and the only one I understood completely, was the talk by Sister Joy D. Jones, the Primary president. She talked about the importance of families, and how parents can be strengthened and receive revelation for their families to protect and love them, and know that there is also a Father in Heaven that loves them and wants to help you. 

Then the Veillee (fireside thing) at the temple was about roots, family roots and being rooted in the gospel. We talked about why family history is so important, how temples are a blessing because they tie us in with the gospel, anchor us in God's family and also in an eternal family that can love and support us more than we can imagine. A few of our amis and new converts want to do family history now, and a few that can't really for various reasons would love to help other people do baptisms for their ancestors. (Speaking of, if anyone in the family can submit some names for baptism we're getting A to the temple soon and she is SO EXCITED to help with "ancestor missionary work" since "then they'll have the chance to choose to accept it too!" And basically this girl has the concept DOWN.) 

So, this is why we need to study the Plan of Salvation. I miss grandpa, a lot. I have letters waiting to be sent that he isn't going to be reading next week. I have little science experiment toys on my desk at home that he gave me, and stories I'm not going to hear for a long time. I'm going to be watching his funeral over streaming (than you again, president!) Instead of in person, and I can't hug my family and talk about him together for another year. But, I know he isn't gone. He's with our Heavenly Father who is taking better care of him than anyone else ever could, and he's always going to be my grandpa. And yes, Gracie does sound like Crazy, though that is an interesting last commentary for a video. 

(note from mom, I tried to get him to say hello to Adam and Gracie so he said "hi Adam, low Adam" and then I said, "now Gracie" and he said, "you have to be a little crazy if you're in this family", misunderstanding my words with his hearing almost gone. So, Alyssa's goodbye was basically calling us crazy. Grandpa had a funny thing for messing with names.  Just a few days before he passed, he introduced himself to the new CNA as Poo Lederson instead of Lou Petersen. He thought he was hilarious.) 

CHALLENGE 1: Talk to a family member about some family history stories, and enter them on Family Tree so everyone can read about it and get to know a little more about where they came from. "Ancestor missionary work" is a great thing for anyone of any age to do. 

Challenge 2: Invite a friend or family member who doesn't do family history yet to learn about it with you, or even make a family search account. They're free, and you don't need to be a member to start one! You'd be surprised how many family history centers there are, too!

Challenge 3: Eat chocolate. (Email title of the week.) 

Connect. Belong.: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2018-02-0100-connect-belong-rootstech-kickoff-2018?lang=eng

Also, at the Veillee we sang the "sisters in Zion/Armies of Helaman" thing in French, just the missionaries. I love the scripture that says "we do not doubt our mothers knew it." (Alma 56:48)

Oh, and Soeur Oulès is being transferred after 6 transfers in Versailles! I'm now the companion of Soeur Sedrick who is also the new Sister Training Leader for the temple Soeurs. Soeur Marteeny is training! We don't know which one of the new Bleus she's going to be training. So, I'm still in Versailles and at the same apartment, which is very good. 

(note from mom, she sent an email after this that she found out she's actually moving apartments. Still four Sisters, smaller apartment, but closer to the temple which will be nice)

Love you all! Have fun and be safe and read your scriptures!