The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

Hello, everyone! Sorry about that two week pause for those of you who do read this! And also an apology for my future posterity who are going to get to read my weekly emails instead of the journal that I'm still not great at writing in!

A lot of things have happened in the last few weeks. I'm just going to bullet point them for now in order of how important they must be to my memory. 

-Elder Neil L. Anderson of the quorum of the twelve apostles came to visit and all the missionaries in the whole mission were in the Versailles chapel to listen to him. He has the same authority as John or Thomas or the other apostles of Jesus Christ in the new testament, so this was a really exciting day for us. He was a missionary in France, then directed a mission in France, so he has a very unique understanding of how missionaries work here and gave some amazing insights that I wish I'd known my whole mission. I got to shake his hand and he made jokes about Bountiful, Utah, where he's also from. 

-It snowed a LOT that day and this part of France is confused and distressed by snow. Everything shut down again. Just for a few days, instead of a week like last year, we had no busses and couldn't drive to Mantes so we made a lot of cookie dough and called lots of people.

-We've tried a new approach to visiting members which is "we have American cookies and we're in your neighborhood, would you like us to come now or in an hour?" and it's been very successful so far. 

-Related: Using this approach, we had an awesome "Come Follow Me" lesson with the Bishop's family, using the new program for home study that the church made to help us spend more time together and get a more personalized understanding of the scriptures, and it was super cool watching the kids put it together. Their daughter was a hundred times more excited to scripture chase when she got to use the missionary phone. The bishop liked it so much that he asked us to visit a few other families with kids to help them get excited about this program! 

-A year ago, soeur Oulès and I met this cool security guard at the mall who walked right up and said "hey, you're missionaries! You've got Jesus Christ on your name tag! I want my daughter to meet you!" and he gave us his phone number and name but was too busy to meet so we paused talking to him. Now soeur Oulès are together again, in a different city, and we got a referral... For the same guy! He actually lives in our new area and we're still going to get to teach him and his daughter!

-An Austrian company was doing some detailing on the temple buildings and we ran into two of their workers in the grocery store. They didn't recognize us but we talked to them and they said they've been working at "the Jesus temple down the street!" and they'd also worked on "other Jesus temples that are being built, or the one in Frankfurt, and Lisbon," and went on for a while. It was awesome. They suggested we go visit "the Jesus temple" sometime and we're happy to hear we were already serving there. Honestly, it seems like the random people invite more people to the temple than anyone else.

-Last preparation day I didn't write because we had our district activity, with all the missionaries in our local group, and we played ultimate Frisbee with one of the Mandarin speaking companionship people they're teaching. Afterwards he showed us this random Pho restaurant and we eventually made it to Sacré Cœur, which is always my favorite thing in Paris and where I find my second favorite stained glass. Since it's a church they have signs asking us not to take pictures, and I didn't, but if you get the chance to look up the stained glass for Joseph it's my favorite. The lilies are beautiful!

-Yesterday we were knocking on doors to talk to people in apartment buildings and met a very nice and confused man who spoke Arabic, Dutch, German, and Spanish, and who did not speak French or English. I know roughly 10 words in Spanish and most of them relate to food or testifying, but I was able to say we were missionaries and somebody at our church speaks Spanish, but he kept talking to us and called his Dutch friend to speak English to us and held the phone in front of my face. Eventually we got things cleared up and apparently he was really concerned about us because it's a neighborhood where little American girls with nerd glasses don't typically knock on doors talking about church so he was worried we needed help and he didn't want to turn us away if we did. It was super sweet and we thanked him before we left.

-related: we've learned to go to the bakery first in a new neighborhood and ask the girl at the counter if it's a safe neighborhood. Her verdict in this place is that people wouldn't necessarily be interested in talking to us but we'd be totally safe, they're all proud of taking care of people. 

-still related : a family in the same building a few doors later said they'd love to talk to us again next week!

-I just figured out to make American pizza crust and we're having veggie pizza for lunch

-My favorite local dog was so excited to see me yesterday that she lay down on her side so her dad couldn't walk away until I walked past, and she licked my hand. I typically talk to her female owner so the man was a little confused, to say the least, but it was awesome. She's a tiny goofy looking Yorkie. Dogs are one of my favorite things about living on earth. 

-We visited a family and felt like the topic we should talk about it the Christlike attribute of Humility, and let me tell you, that was a tricky thing to plan. How do you even approach that? We decided to be totally honest and start with "so we always pray about a topic and this time we felt we should talk about Humility and we're as confused as you are, basically, but here goes." We got humbled real quick but it went pretty well, aside from still being confused. Then their teenager gave a talk this last Sunday about Humility and said he'd been assigned that topic just before our lesson and had been stressing out and wasn't sure what to do, and then the sisters came over, and he knows missionaries are inspired because we looked as confused as we felt but we talked about it. That was a cool moment. 

-I met a dog named Utah. 

And there's so many other stories I don't know where to start, so you'll just have to ask me about them after my mission!

MISSIONARY INVITATION: Go invite someone to spend time with you. You can do a gospel related thing, or just something positive. Like, go walk in a garden with somebody who's been stuck inside, call a friend, something that's specifically interacting with somebody. 

Song suggestion: If you could hie to Kolob, the Lower Lights. It's a really good one! I think it's just music, no words, at least in the version I heard. 

I have a favorite talk and it's called "remember how merciful the Lord has been" from Elder Maxwell. I've probably talked about it before, but I love how it's little stories and pieces from his life that don't connect until the very end. That's a lot like how Elder Anderson's message went. It was a huge pain for Soeur Oulès to translate, but we got a lot out of it. 

God doesn't often talk to us in one single huge, clear, defining, road-to-damascas moment. He wants us to learn and grow for ourselves, and talk with him on the way. We teach a lot of people that don't want to believe in God or themselves or anything else until they see physical and undisputed proof that they can hold in their hands, but what would the point of that be? I am grateful that God loves us enough to let us be confused sometimes, and that he doesn't always give us the answer in the way we want it. I'm grateful for the snow, and the cold, and the people that are waiting it out with their families or their dogs. I'm grateful for people that don't understand yet but they keep meeting with us because they want to understand something, even if they don't know what it is. I'm grateful for peace in clouds and that we can follow light by light, like on the road back into our city in the thick white January fog, and that nobody is asking us to see the whole picture right now. I'm grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and that I get to share it with people I love so much.

And I'm grateful for baguettes which I need to go buy, so I've got to end there, but I love you all and hope you have a great day and week and year!!! 

From Aunt Chris-fun surprise! 

cutest diner with the worst "nachos"

artistic district

tasty water from the viking spring

Angels round about to bear us up... And our suitcases

Hurrah for another week!

Today I did my second year Legality which was a unique experience. I've been studying the Christlike attributes again recently and I think it was a great study in patience, and how we need to wait for the right moment but be ready when it arrives. People looked like they were napping but when that buzzer sounded with their number they were up like they sat on a bee. It was pretty impressive.

My own personal study on patience got a little ironic when I got to study it for three hours and took half an hour to make the passport machine work. (lesson learned: always carry lots of change. In lots of sizes. Nothing gives extra back.) 

On the bright side, yesterday I studied hope so I got to put that in action by *hoping* I had more coins, *hoping* the line would move faster and we'd get on with our day earlier, and *hoping* my brain would slip into gear and I'd suddenly have a revelatory experience with this other experience and get to share it with the guy next to me, but instead I got to lean more on faith and saw a really cute toddler dancing with total joy to music only she could hear, and that made everything more awesome. She had better rhythm than I could ever hope for.

The last week has been an adventure non-stop. For starters, soeur Ilizarbe went to Belgium, soeur Oulès and I are back together, I got a week's worth of arm workout moving those suitcases and I decided mine will be empty when I come home, we got a new ami, and we got the cute neighbor pug's owner to come to a temple fireside AND set up a lesson with the sisters! He's the sweetest little old man so this is really exciting! And we sang a capella at a retirement home and got asked to come back (thanks, elders and soeur Campbell) and so much more.

With the suitcases... There's a TON of stairs in these train stations and there were several sisters with lots of heavy suitcases with spinner wheels. They just snap right off on cobblestones or on the gaps, it's terrible. (hurrah for two wheel suitcases!) but I was the only sister who could really lift or carry them in our group and it was going rough. We had many, many stairs to climb up and down and no elevators and escalators. 

But, every time we just couldn't do it, someone would come help us. That... Just doesn't happen here. Especially one sweet man, he carried our suitcases up and down an entire Gare for a full half hour and they were HEAVY and then at the end he just disappeared before we could say anything but thanks again. We kept saying if he needed to go he could, we were incredibly grateful, but he went the whole way with us to our stop and then was just gone. I gave him a visitors center card and said we'd give him a tour and thanks but he had a train to catch himself so he left. But really, right after that someone shared the scripture about angels being around us to bear us up and he stood out. That was an amazing act of service for a bunch of stressed out young women who needed help but had nobody to ask. 

So, I've got to go again, but I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Missionary invitation is to go out and do good, serve somebody, and you never know what it might do. At the very least it'll light the world a little more. Service is non-denominational and crosses every cultural border.

Say your prayers, read your scriptures, see you soon!! 

Apparemment, quelqu'un veut que j'apprends français

Soeur Amott and Soeur Ilizarbe

We got the répertoire for transfers yesterday morning and, as always, it was full of surprises! Sœur Ilizarbe is headed up to the Hermanas in Belgium, and my new companion in Mantes-La-Jolie is going to be...

*drumroll *

Sœur OULÈS! YES! The same Sœur Oulès! After 3 transfers together and 5 apart, we will be finishing her mission together. I'm a little confused but really excited.

This also means that in my mission so far I have served with:

Sœur Oulès, who is French, 

Sœur Sedrick, who was almost finished and spoke French really well,

Sœur Montalvo, who is Québécoise, 

Sœur Ilizarbe, who lived in Québec for five years and speaks fluently and we can only communicate in French, and 

Sœur Oulès, who is French. 

I think somebody might be trying to give me a hint over here. I'm not sure what it is, but, y'know... 

In other exciting news, this means that we will be moving apartments (though still living near and spending half the day at the temple) and I will be the one showing someone where everything is but I'm still totally lost. Any spare prayers in my direction would be grand. 

We just spent the day packing and visited Consecration Hill for the new year, so this is another short email, but I love you all! 

Video recommendation this week is "look not behind thee." I can't link it since I'm on the tablet, but it's really good. OH, JUST KIDDING, IT WORKED! https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-12-21-new-years-look-not-behind-thee?lang=eng&_r=1 

I love how videos like this take a scripture story and tell it in a way that are relatable and interesting. Scripture study doesn't have to be work, we can genuinely enjoy it. (Liken the scriptures, anybody ?) So, my goal for this year is to help people find the fun and the joy in the scriptures. I'll recommend an interesting scripture story à week, and this one is Samuel the Lamanite! (yes, autocorrect, that is actually a word). Go study it, tell it to à few small children until you can keep their attention throughout, and then share it with some random people to get them interested too. Have fun! 

OH, and happy new year!!! 

Christmas Miracles and people keep crying and I don't know how to react

Dec 25th

INCOMING MESSY EMAIL 

Notable events from the last email:

-MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

-SISTERS IN ALL MISSIONS CAN WEAR PANTS WHEN WE NEED TO. No more freezing our nylons off by the Seine River and watching snow and rain flow gracefully into our pretty soeur boots! Or being tasted by a variety of blood-sucking insects while walking through lovely villages in spring! And one more thing to counter French people who have seen "documentaries" about how we're not allowed to wear pants or use technology! (a smartphone somehow doesn't convince them.)

We'll still be at the visitors center half the day and need to wear skirts there to look really professional, but we'll hopefully be able to change before going into our areas. This is exciting news. 

-Our members are amazing and drove our new ami to church on Sunday. She loved it and wants her kids to all come to church with her. She cried, members cried, it was a great church service and talks were given by a 10 year old and the Fitts from the mission office.

-we had a Christmas breakfast for all the Temple Soeurs and said nice things about Sœur Ethington and Sœur Ilizarbe who had/are having December birthdays and lots of people cried and confused the heck out of hotel reception but it was so cool. I'm really going to miss the Woods when they finish their mission in a few weeks. I didn't know how to react to the crying so people got a kick out of me patting soeur Ilizarbe's back, apparently, but I tried. 

-we've had 2 district councils, the first was on Sacrifice and how to teach about it and the second was Christmas Eve and Elder Cheng's last one so we had a testimony sharing meeting and everyone cried. Lots of crying. Good times.

-We went to a retirement home at Christmas eve but were given the wrong time so got there a little late to but the Priest and Cleric from the other local churches were actually genuinely excited to see us so we could Praise God through service together. It was a really cool experience. We just talked to people, gave a few of them some paper butterflies, said "yes we are from that new church down the street" and it was the nicest retirement home I've seen in a long time. There was a ton of love there and an old lady I talked to cried when I told her she was doing a huge service by being patient with my less-than-perfect French. Lots of crying but again, happy crying?

-we had Christmas eve dinner at a new member family's home and they are so cool, we shared the new youth video and sang together and it was a great day. They also have a wonderfully fat cat.

-We did a service project at President's house making sandwiches for refugees and ate oranges, and the Assistants still haven't given our mixing bowl back, but we'll see it eventually. Next week I'll tell you about Christmas oranges.

-we had Christmas lunch at the Rodriguez's house and shared Alma 7:10-12 and sant Silent Night and ate way too much Portuguese food, but now I know what fried octopus tastes like, and that letting people serve you makes them really happy sometimes.

And with that story, my favorite moment of the week:

The same sister who invited us over today said the closing prayer for the Christmas church meeting. It was an absolutely beautiful prayer but we were especially touched by how much she prayed for the missionaries, that hearts worldwide would be softened and opened to learn about the church of Jesus Christ, that people would love us and feel our love for them, that especially during this Christmas season we'd be protected and blessed and have enough to eat because we're far from our families and serving the Lord, that we'll be somewhere warm and loving on Christmas, that the members would invite us into their homes... Etc.

As soon as she finished I think about 95% of our members checked that we had somewhere to be Christmas eve and Christmas day. And New Years eve and day. It was really funny but really sweet. Even families that would be out of town checked with us to see if they could help. I want to be like that for the missionaries at home. 

I love this ward and how intense they are about welcoming people and making sure they have room to grow. Our ami S who came to church mentioned that she didn't feel left out of anything, people came right up and shook her hand and said "see you next week!" and just included her, and she loved the toddler having a tantrum next to us. "Perfect, I can bring my kids here!" Exactly. We're not always pretty, but that's not the point of church. We're there to love each other like Christ loves us and to learn to be a good person and a little better than we were, right?

Christmas is amazing because we get to love and remember Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his sacrifice and ultimate gift for us so that we're not just left in the cold and dark. Because of Him, we'll always have light. He loves us infinitely and our Heavenly Father does too, and they want to help us but love us enough to wait for us to ask for it and to really give them permission. That's a really good parent. I'm so grateful for my second Christmas as a missionary and for another chance to hopefully light the world a little bit. 

Now I'm going to go call my family, so I love you all and I'll see you soon! Bisous !!! 

Soeur Sedrick came to visit us!