"Why are you guys freaking out? We planned for this!" - Sœur Gerritsen (Week 42)

This week has been absolutely INSAAAAANE. Instead of doing my usual try-to-talk-about-everyone-and-everything-and-only-get-through-like-one-tenth-of-what-actually-happened I will stick to the huge miracles!!

Halloween selfie.  Very scary

I'll start with Giovanni!!

Remember how last week when I wrote you we hadn't even seen him for like 2 weeks? I was honestly starting to think that an accident had happened or something. But then we passed on Sunday night and the lady answered who had been taking care of him who explained that he had just been so sick that he had to stay in bed for that entire time. :( So we decided we should fast for him. So on Wednesday we fasted that he would be healed and would be receptive to us again (up until then we still hadn't talked to him). We decided to go and pass him that same day while we were fasting. We knocked and HE ANSWERED THE DOOR. (Mind you we had done this about 15 times in the past week with no response.) He let us right in!!!! It was honestly as if nothing had happened for 2 weeks. Same old Giovanni and his health seemed to be a lot better! Apparently he got a new phone as well -- of course. So he gave us his new number. Wow it was so good to see him.

Curtis (Gerard's son). So cute!

That night we did a whole lot of praying - of gratitude and to know where we should go from there! We had set his date for November 8th but that was back when we had a lot of time to prepare him and he still needed to come to Church one more time to qualify. We prayed to be inspired what we should do. The next day we went to zone conference and heard from Elder Kearon of the 70. During a portion of his talk he spoke of inviting people to baptism with urgency! He gave an example: "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized next Saturday?" BOOM. There was our answer. Giovanni's date was set for next Saturday. I had immediate confirmation. We went back to see him on Friday and he was pretty hesitant about it. But we were bold and had to be really firm, but also reassuring that he was ready and we would help him to feel that he was ready as well!! He accepted to pray about it to know that it was the right date.

Classic selfie from Sœur Gerritsen

The next day the Colignon family invited him and his son Raphael (7) over to their house for a family home evening. It was absolutely perfect... The spirit in their home was incredible and Giovanni felt loved and comfortable. And Raphael and the Colignon boys became friends super quickly.

Sunday they BOTH came to Church!!! (Raphael had never been before.) After Church we had the "do or die" lesson scheduled to ask him if he thought he could be ready. This was the best lesson I have ever had in my entire mission. I don't know if I have ever felt the spirit burn so strongly as I testified (we were on splits my companions were teaching Nathan.) Our member Anna was the PERFECT person to help. She assured Giovanni that his baptism would be one of the best days of his life and that he really was ready. GIOVANNI ACCEPTED. HE IS GOING TO BE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY.

Check out the castle in the background

Holy cow. When I told Sœur Jackson she just lost it! Tears and all! This is truly a huge miracle. Just a week ago we had no one that could have been baptized before the end of the transfer. But we have worked so hard this transfer (harder than I've ever worked in my entire life) and we promised Heavenly Father that we would do everything we possibly could to find someone who was ready to make a covenant with Him. And HE BLESSED US.

Soeur Gerritsen's first solo contact!

I want to talk about faith. I've never understood this concept as much as I do now. This morning I found this scripture in Moroni 7: 


33 And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.

There you have it! When we exercise our faith we can literally do exactly as the Savior would do. All day long as I work I try to imagine how Christ would teach his children, how he would be diligent, how he would rely on the Spirit, how he would be patient and rely on Heavenly Father's greater knowledge and timing. Yet, he would expect miracles as he worked. I've found as we expect miracles to happen (refer to my subject line for this week that Sœur Gerritsen said to us), THEY HAPPEN. Pretty cool.

Another enormous miracle!!! This one is short haha.

Elder Pettingill

This week after coming home to Annecy from zone conference we were closing on the end of the day and trying to be inspired where to go. (Yes we had plans, but we had several options.) Someone who we hadn't even planned to see that night came to our minds. The Sonnerat family! The husband is less active and the wife isn't a member. However they have children and grandchildren who are active in the Church. We went and saw them and bore powerful testimony of Church attendance and even invited Frere Sonnerat to repent as we listened to the spirit. (NEVER would have done this of my own accord.)

I looooove Soeur Beeny!

Just before Sacrament Meeting started...not only did Frere Sonnerat walk in but HIS WIFE TOO!! We didn't learn until later, but apparently Sœur Sonnerat hadn't been to Church for 30 years.The members were in complete shock to see her there. One even said to me: "Am I dreaming?????"

Really cool.

Okay, lastly I just want to talk about Gerard. :) He is a huge miracle, but he is a miracle that is taking time to come to fruition. I know without a doubt he will be baptized next transfer. Without a doubt. And I don't know if I could have said that before this week! I doubted at first if he was understanding the important of baptism in OUR Church. I had the impression he thought all churches were good. I've really seen everything click for him this week. He is more engaged, keeps commitments, he came to Church all on his own this week and was there right on time! He is just wonderful. And we love his son Curtis (5). We have a goal to try to get his wife more involved in the lessons! She works a lot and when shes there she is super distant, but I think she'll come around. :)

Jackson, Everett, Gerritsen.  Best comps ever!

Okay, I know I already shared a spiritual thought but I have to share one more!!!

This week during Relief Society we were talking about gratitude. Something I think we could all work on. I had this cool revelation as we read the story of the 10 lepers. (Luke 17)

 11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
 12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:

View from apartment

 13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
 14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
 15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
 16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

Samedi Foot (Saturday soccer)

 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
 18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
 19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Building relationships through soccer

When we read this story don't we all assume that we would be the one leper who returned to thank Christ? I am not so sure that the other 9 lepers who didn't return were ungrateful for what Christ did for them. I think that each of the 10 lepers were grateful that they were healed! I think that the difference is that only one took the time to actually go back and say thank you. How often do we actually kneel down and thank Heavenly Father for specific blessings he has given us? I know that I don't do it enough. Do we thank him for our health? Do we thank him that we were protected that day? Do we thank him that we have the gospel? Do we thank him for our families?

During the lesson Sœur Colignon made a comment that I loved. She said that Heavenly Father does not command us to be grateful for his own happiness, he commands us to be grateful so that WE can be happy. I know when I am conscious of everything I have been blessed with I am much more full of the spirit and I feel joy!

Soeur Gerritsen and Everett

Ponder about this and figure out how you can be more grateful. :)

Okay that's all for this week!!! I'll let you know how things go! Please pray for Giovanni!! He needs as many prayers as possible as we prepare him like CRAZY this week!!!

Bisous!!!
Sœur Everett

PS We had 20 lessons again. :) I honestly don't ever want to go a week without getting 20 lessons ever again!

Carcassonne!! (Week 7)

Bonjour ma famille!!

Oh my goodness, life is CRAZY!! I honestly can't believe how perfect my life is. Everything about it is more than I could have ever hoped for or imagined. First of all, here's my new address!

49 Rue Marceau Perrutel
F-11000 Carcassonne
France

Alright, now to talk about my amazing life!!! I was super sad to leave North Carolina - I had the most wonderful experience there and I couldn't have been more lucky to have the companions that I had! They are just the greatest sisters and I learned so much from them! By the way, I snatched the ONLY American keyboard in this whole café - IM SO LUCKY!! This means I can write more. :)

I am incredibly blessed with the best mission president/fellow missionaries IN THE WORLD. They are absolutely incredible! The bleus are merveilleux - they are confident and are such good examples to me! I have a lot to learn from these missionaries here! My friend Elder Pettingill is literally the best at contacting. I have NO idea how he does it but somehow he gets into a friendly conversation with everyone who passes by! I've been getting better though! The other day we went street-boarding with the elders in Lyon (we had to stay in Lyon for 5 days because my companion is having knee problems and needed to see a doctor there). I never thought I would say that I love street-boarding but....I LOVE STREET-BOARDING! I think its so fun! I don't really care if people say rude things to me because honestly most of the time I have no idea what they're saying.

View of the castle from our apartment at night 

It's all worth it when there is that one person who has been searching for the truth, but didn't know where to find it, and we share it with them!! It's the most amazing thing. I've actually had quite a few one-on-one conversations with French people. Its pretty hard especially when they think I'm better at French than I am and start talking super fast, but I usually get the idea of what they're saying! On Thursday I contacted this young lady from Camaroon while we were waiting at a bus stop. She was so nice to me! She literally talked to me for like 20 minutes and she told me I had really good French! (She was probably just being nice, but hey I'll take the compliment!!) I gave her a Book of Mormon and the address of the church. Hopefully she'll go! (This was in Lyon so its not my area...super sad about that!).

Soeurs Vidal et Everett

Ok President Roney is the greatest!!! Now I know why everyone says they know him, because he is so friendly!! He is hilarious and I haven't heard one negative thing about him the whole time I've been here. Everyone thinks he is just the greatest mission president to have ever walked the earth (probably because he is!!). In our first interview he shined my shoes! And I told him all the villes that Mom served in so that he can keep those in mind. :) I heard him whisper to Soeur Vidal while we were leaving the church building after meeting our companions for the first time: "You got a good one." Ah, I just love President Roney!!!

 

 

in la cité (old walled Carcassonne)

Let me talk a little bit about Soeur Vidal!! Ok I don't know what it is about having the best life in the entire world, but the streak continues!! Soeur Vidal is INCREDIBLE! She was born in Mexico and raised in Montreal, Canada so she speaks Spanish, French, and English fluently. I am so blessed to have a native French speaker as a companion because she is literally a walking dictionary! She is hilarious too! We laugh alllll the time. I can tell we're going to have one amazing transfer! I'm a little worried though because she thinks that I will be a trainer next transfer....ah! The other two sisters in our apartment (Soeur Bayles and Soeur Beeny) here in Carcassonne are SO FUN! We seriously just love each other. Also the first night they made Soeur Vidal and I these delicious taco things rolled in a croissant - not sure if its French or not, but either way it was so good.



View from inside la cité

Oh that's something I want to talk about. FOOD. I am literally obsessed with pains aux chocolats. Obsessed. I had like 4 in one day on Friday. They are delicious! But honestly everything food-wise is better in France. The paninis here, oh myyyy...so good! But the only down-side is that everything is expensive!!! Bottled water is like 2,50 euros!! And that's not even $2.50, that's like $3 or something crazy...for water!! Its ok though, everything is worth it since I get to be in France. Honestly I wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the entire world right now than Carcassonne. Nowhere! This is better than I could've ever imagined. I can't wait to get to know our amies (the equipe before us had amies already that they left behind, since we're white-washing this area!!) but I also just want to contact some more and work on my French!

Well I love you all! Bisous!! (Oh by the way, they do 2 bisous here! I still forget that people do it, so I need to get used to that...)

Avec beaucoup d'amour,

Soeur Everett

Soeurs Beeny, Bayles, Vidal, Everett

P.S. Here's some lingo if I ever say something confusing.
amies = investigators
equipes = companionship
white-washing = both missionaries in the companionship are new to the area
bleus = same as "greenies" or new to the mission field

P.P.S. Oh another thing. They do this weird family tree thing in the mission. So right now I am a baby and I was born in Carcassonne to my mother Soeur Vidal!! Her other baby is my sister, which is Soeur Reynolds (je pense...) and Soeur Reynolds has a baby too, so my mom is now a grandma! And when people go home they say "oh yeah, sister so-and-so died last transfer". I know its super confusing, so if I ever say that someone died, they didn't actually die!!! Or if I say something about my mom or my sister or something. Kind of fun huh?



This is our "It's so hot" picture

P.P.P.S. HAHA! Of course I eat real food dad! But its hard for me to pass up pain aux chocolats... don't worry, I eat healthy. I'm going to be the ward pianist. HA! (You were right mom.) You can put that on my blog to as another "P.S."