"If you keep the Sabbath day holy, your nation will be blessed." - Sr. Staples (Week 45)

Can I just say that I have never been somewhere in my whole life where the people are as nice as they are here? EVERYONE IS NICE. I don't think I've had anyone say one rude thing to us the entire time I've been here. I'm not sure if it has something to do with this but I contacted a lady this week who told me I had "un français parfait" WHAT THE HECK. People need to stop complimenting my French or I'm not gonna do anything in language study.



Reminds me of home

So one night last week we went to visit the Carpio family - inactive family from the Phillipines! They are super kind and receptive to us, we're working with them to get back to Church! So towards the end of the lesson Sr. Staples and I were testifying of Church attendance and for about 5 minutes Sr. Staples stomach was growling non-stop. "I know that GGRRR coming to church GRRRRRR will bless your family GRRRRRRRRRR." Exactly like that. For 5 minutes. Maybe they didn't hear it over the Spirit :) haha

Will, THIS MIRACLE IS FOR YOU. So after Zone training in Nice (really gorgeous ville by the way) we were on the train coming home. I sat next to this lady who was reading a book in another language. I turned to her and asked her what language it was. You'll never guess what she said... POLISH!!!!!!!!! I could barely contain my excitement she must've thought I was crazy. We had basically the entire train ride to talk and she is sooooooo cool. She loves religion and loves studying about them but doesn't have one for herself. She thinks that in the end God is the same. We had a really awesome convo about what we do as missionaries and about why this Church is so important to me. She gave me her email and her phone number so we could keep in touch! I told her that I had some friends in Nice (she lives over there) who would love to talk to her more about what we believe and she seemed super excited to learn more! IT WAS AWESOME. Maybe when Will gets to Poland he can teach her family. :)

Look mom I made a green smoothie!!!!!

Another super cool miracle!!!! Earlier last week we were contacting and I talked to this girl named Josephine (she's a super model, I was almost too intimidated to contact her). She is so ready!!!! She doesn't have a particular Church but she loves God. I taught her the retab briefly and then we prayed! We set up a RDV for later that week. Not only did she show up to the RDV right on time but SHE BROUGHT A FRIEND!!! We had a super great lesson and they both committed to read the BOM. I'm super pumped about them!

I'm not sure if I'm going to make this sound as cool as it really was but a couple nights ago we set off to find a less active. We had no clue where we were going and when we got off the bus we had no idea where we were. Honestly I have no clue why we decided to go right instead of left we were quite lost. So we ended up calling her and asking for directions. When I described where we were she said look for the super tall apartment building. Turns out we were RIGHT next to it. Is that cool or what??? When we visited with her we talked about Christ and she told us she really felt like she needed to come back to Church (which is what we were planning on talking about)! It didn't end there, but she invited us over next week to eat with her and her non-member friend!!!

And of course Raphael. He's great. I don't really even know what to say. He needs prayers to get ready for his baptismal date December 20th! Please pray for him! (He needs to quit smoking.) This week he sent us a message that said that he kept feeling drawn to read "Alma" in the Book of Mormon and he started reading it and LOVES it. Why is he so cool???? Oh and he bought us hot chocolate. He's the best.

Hahahaha so Sr. Staples and I had this brilliant idea during weekly planning. We decided we needed to "sparc" the zone leaders. (Not sure if I've told you about this before but its a thing we do in the mission to get people excited about missionary work or just to make their lives better or to build friendship. Its a bit complicated but that's the essense.) So Saturday morning right at 6:30 we call the zone leaders and yell "MANGOOOOOS!!!" Dang, this is another mission thing I haven't explained. Mangos is our acronym for giving all of our energy to missionary work and that it all starts with going full throttle right in the morning with our exercises. Anyway we yelled mangos and hung up. We thought we were hilarious. BUT. The zone leaders ended up calling us to pray with us before studies (never had zone leaders do that before) AND they called us later that night to give us a referral! We totally sparc-ed them. We couldn't stop laughing at how sparc-ed they were!
Goodness I have sooooo much I could share (as usual) and have no time to share it! :( I'll just give my little spiritual thought and that'll be it for today!



Have I ever told you about my obsession with Petite Beurres?

This week I have been thinking a lot about the covenants I've made in my life with Heavenly Father. Sr. Staples and I came across a scripture in Omni this week that I absolutely love:

26 And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.

I've been pondering how I can do better at offering my whole soul to God - something that I have covenanted to do. I think that it is mostly in the little things. We are all on a hard and long road to perfection, but God doesn't expect us to be perfect all at once. When we make little steps towards it He is happy with us! Just something for you all to think about - and please let me know if you have any insights on this!

I love you all! Don't forget to share the site christmas.mormon.org as well as the video "He is the Gift"!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Bisous!
Sœur Everett