"Quoi le caca!?" (Week 39)

"Quoi le caca!" is not a real expression but was coined by Soeur Gerritsen and directly translated means "what the crap" hahahaha we laugh everytime she says it.

Holy heavens Annecy is on FIRE!!!! I love this little ville!!

I get super nervous everytime I have to do emails because I want to tell you guys EVERYTHING but its basically impossible so I have to just do my best hahah

iPhone in-store display - We set the screen saver to be us!

I'll start with my new favorite person in town: Giovanni!! He is from a Portugese speaking island in Africa...honestly I can't remember where. But he is the sweetest man! He has a 7 year old son and I think he is divorced... the mother lives in here too but I've never met her. Anyway!! He's been meeting with the missionaries for a few months but he had only been to church once. We decided as a companionship that we were going to pray in every single prayer we said that Giovanni would come to church. (That's a ton of prayers people.) And guess what? HE CAME TO CHURCH. Oh it doesn't stop there. There was this man who randomly came to church who was on a business trip from San Diego. It just so happened that HE SERVED IN BRAZIL. We were able to have a quick lesson with Giovanni after church and this member was able to testify to Giovanni about baptism in his own language! Giovanni accepted to be baptized on November 8th!!!!!!!!!! Pray for him please!! He is wonderful but I know the opposition is going to be enormous.

We've had crazy miracles this week I can't even handle it! I'm so happy... there is literally nothing better than missionary work and this little branch is AMAZING at it!!! We have referrals from them ALL the time. Just this morning one of the teenagers in the Demeure family texted us asking if we had 2 Italian Book of Mormons because she wants us to teach her friends!!!!! And we have RDV's all the time with non-member friends of members. It's incredible here. Unbelievable honestly. Not to mention this is the most beautiful city in the world.

FINALLY POTATO BALLS!!!!!!! 

So the other day we were porting near the Ferrone's (the family of Nathan who is getting baptized soon). We had so much success it was crazy.. We had two families agree to have us come back next week and we had one man who after talking to us about the questionnaire invited us straight in!!! We were super caught off-guard actually haha. He's athiest but the spirit we felt during our lesson with him was super strong... We started off by talking about the plan of salvation but it turned a bit into a "thats impossible" argument. So I prayed in my heart to know what he needed and I immediately felt that he needed to hear the restoration. We went straight into it. While I was reciting the first vision he didn't break eye-contact once the entire time. I thought I may have even saw tears in his eyes. If anything we touched his heart.

Door Approach

Afterwards when we went to the members house we told him the story and he was SHOCKED that Christoff had even let us into his house!! (They have been close friends for a long time.) That goes to show you that you never know who would be interested to hear what we believe!

So our mission goal for each missionary this year is to find and baptize a family of four. And guess what.... WE FOUND A FAMILY OF FOUR. While we were porting late one night on the Demeure's street we passed the sweetest family and set up a RDV for next week to do a FHE together! They have a disabled daughter who they just adore and then another daughter who is probably about 4. I CAN'T WAIT!!! They are going to be baptized I can feel it.

Ahhhhh I have so much to say its crazy!!

I want to talk about our zone training we had this week. One of our zone leaders just got put in after serving as assistant for a few transfers. President literally has said he is the best missionary in the mission. That's huge stuff. He felt inspired to put him in as a zone leader in Geneva for his last transfer! Let me just say that he is an enormous blessing to our zone. The faith he has is blessing us immensely to find miracles!

So during conference we went over the story of the sons of mosiah and how they prepared to go and preach the gospel (Alma 17). One thing that they did was bless each other. Right there during conference each missionary in the zone received a Priesthood blessing. I literally felt angels in the room and the Spirit as so strong it was impossible not to cry. Its incredible how an elder that didn't know me whatsoever could give me a blessing that was so appropriate and personal to my life, giving me advice that I really needed to hear. One of the coolest experiences of my mission.

I need to give a shout out to the best companions EVERRRRR: Soeur Gerritsen and Soeur Jackson! THEY ARE THE BEST. We laugh all day long and we work hard!!! We are getting 20 lessons this week and 3 new baptismal engagé's!!! I LOVE FRANCE AND I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK. (I'm sorry I seem so hyper in this email but trust me this is tamed down to what I am actually feeling.)

I wanted to invite you all to re-read the prophets talk and to take his advice to really study the life of the Savior and how we can learn to "walk as he did." I've found that as I've focused my thoughts, studies, and then actions on the Savior that I can more quickly learn to become more like him.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/ponder-the-path-of-thy-feet?lang=eng

JE VOUS AIME!! Bisous!!

Soeur Everett