Saturday, August 6, 2011

July 4, 2011

Bonjour tout le monde et joyeux quatre de juillet! Oui, c'est vrai, ça marche pas en français...je vais ressayer:

Hello! Happy Fourth of July! We have been partying like some American trash all day long. For companionship study we sang all three of the patriotic songs in the English Hymnal. We also got all of the Lyon missionaries together to eat burgers and hotdogs and watermelon and all sorts of n'importe de quoi (including Peachie-O's! can I get a Hallelujah?) and talk about how we live in the promised land and such (mostly just to get Elder Kusseling, the only native Frenchman in Lyon currently, a little riled up). It was fun.

This week is definitely going to be the busiest so far of the mission. We have SO many rendezvous, it's incredible. Today is P-day and we still have three appointments!

PAUSE! You will never believe what song just came on in this internet café! "This Time" by Jonathan Ryhs Meyers! And as you know that is one of my most favortest songs ever. Today is such a great day.

Anyway, as I was saying, we have three rendezvous today, we met with Liang this morning and talked to him about the Plan of Salvation. I don't know how much I have already told you about him, but he's from China and has pretty much zero religious background at all. So we have to go pretty slow and he asks A LOT of really not really hard, but thought-provoking questions. It's so awesome when things just click for him. Today when we were talking about the Plan of Salvation, he was like "wow, you should really start teaching this lesson first because this makes everything make sense." He's super awesome, the only problem is he works ALL THE TIME and can't get work off for Church or anything. He is considering quitting though because his boss hasn't paid him since April...yeah, not an awesome situation there. It really stinks when completely worldly problems get in the way of people accepting the gospel in their lives. Another prime example of this, Eduardo just received word that his visa extension request (or something like that) is denied and that he has 30 days to be out of the country. It's really too bad because I don't think that he will be able to be baptized before he leaves, and we looked and couldn't find any churches in Angola (where he's going back to).

We just finished up a rendezvous with a Jew named Elias who knows the Book of Mormon better than most members I'd say. He has read it three times, knows it's true, knows that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church and that he needs to be baptized. But he's scared to convert because all of his friends and family are Jewish. It's ridiculous during our rendezvous though because he just likes to talk and talk, so he'll bring up a problem, and then solve it himself and knows everything that we try to teach him. It's come to the point where everybody involved knows what he has to do, including him, so I don't know what's stopping him. It's kind of driving us crazy.

Tonight we have an appointment with Ibramhim, and he is absolutely GOLDEN! The Veilleurbanne Elders contacted him last week and after one rendezvous, he read out of the Book of Mormon, prayed about it, and now wants to be baptized and then serve a mission. He's going to be baptized on the 17th ! He's especially great because he brings different friends to each rendezvous that also are super interested and have become amis. He is definitely a Gold Mine ready to be mined, it's so incredible. He has met with missionaries everyday since he's been contacted and is just eating up everything he learns. It's so awesome!

We also have several rendezvous with new amis that we have found this last week and even a few member-visits/mangezvous. You know it's going to be a great week when you have to find room to fit everyone into your schedule.

Frère Yabidi is also coming along. He was in Grenoble this last weekend and so didn't come to church, but we taught him about the Law of Tithing and about Fasting/Fast Offerings and he's all good with those. So now we've officially taught him everything, so as long as he comes to church these next two weeks, he will also be baptized on the 17th. A lot of exciting things going on in Gerland.

We are officially now La Mission Française de Lyon! As of 1 juillet! President Murdock has said that these transfers are going to be huge in a couple weeks, so I don't know what's going to happen. Some people are predicting that President will leave Elder Moore and I in Gerland, but there's also the rumors that President is going to integrate all of the equipes, meaning a missionary from the former Toulouse zones with a missionary from a formerly Geneva zone. We will see. I've decided that transfers are just going to be hard no matter what, so I might as well get used to it.

Anyway. It's going to be a good week!

By the way, Austin did indeed let me know that he is going to Albania That's SO cool.

Tell everyone hello from me!

I love you all a whole lot!

Love,
Alex

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