NI HAO!
Nì hao! Haha ok I don't speak Chinese, but this week has been filled
with Chinese stuff. Unfortunately I don't have a lot to talk about
this week; Elder Johnson was a little sick, but we had a great miracle
at the end!
LA MISSION FRANÇAISE DE LYON
So this week in our mission we had district meetings. The whole
district meeting was focused on temples and how we can work it in.
Right now the use of temples is in beta for us, and we're a.. The
guinea pigs. We worked on talking about temples with people on the
street or on metros and having a conversation with them for only 2
minutes but still talk about temples. It was surprisingly hard because
we can't just toss temples at them. We worked on different subjects to
just lead up to it. But lately in my studies I've been putting about
20 or 30 minutes aside for just temples. It's super cool! We've made a
goal to somehow talk about the temple in every lesson we have. I know
that President Brown is inspired and that he's called of God! We have
a big conference in Bordeaux this week with president. So that will be
cool! We imagine he will give us some more solid ideas for sharing
temples.
LES ECHANGES AVEC LES CHINOIS
So this week we did two exchanges with the Chinese elders. We had one
planned this week and another planned for next week, but we had some
complications so we did one exchange on Tuesday and the other on
Saturday. So the Chinese team is like a completely different mission!
Haha there are a lot of Chinese people in Toulouse, so that's why they
have a team there. They find a lot of success! In the team is Elder
Leon and Elder Zhu. Elder Leon was in the MTC with me for about a
month, but because he was in there learning Chinese, I didn't ever
meet him. He got in the mission 3 weeks before me. But now we know
each other, and we'll either finish the mission at the same time or
near each other! He's from Canada but he was born in Columbia. He
speaks really good French, perfect English, Spanish, and now he's 5
transfers in a Chinese team! And Elder Zhu is from China. He's the
first mainland Chinese missionary in France! He speaks pretty good
English with his funny Chinese accent. And he just got here 3 weeks
ago so he doesn't speak a lot of French. But he's a super funny guy
and always has a smile!
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| Elder Zhu and I on exchange. |
Chinese food. We went to Toulouse before the exchange and has some
Chinese food with the zone leaders and the Chinese team. I really
enjoyed the meal. I got some egg rolls and this caramel chicken stuff.
It was good! But we asked Elder Zhu after and he was like "that's not
Chinese food. I give it 2 out of 10" hahah
So the exchange was with Elder Zhu; he and I went back to Albi on
Tuesday. It was fun working with him! I think this was the first time
in the mission that I've gone in exchanges with someone younger than
me (in mission time). We did some contacting; Elder Zhu has a Chinese
accent went speaking French so it's funny to see how French people
react. He says a very pronounced "Bonjour" and he says it loudly with
a lot of energy. French people are pretty quiet, so some times it
startles them haha! But they really enjoy talking to him! We had a
really good exchange!
We did an exchange last Saturday with the Chinese elders because we
can't go with them tomorrow. So on Saturday all 4 of us went and
played basketball for a Samedi Sportif! (Saturday sports) the zone
leaders were there, 2 more elders, and a couple of Amis had come. It's
at this pretty cool spot. It was raining that day, but the courts are
under a bridge so we could still play. Super sick!
After that, I went on splits with Elder Leon. We did some contacting
in Toulouse centreville. It's interesting! As missionaries we search
for everyone, but as Chinese missionaries we look specifically for
Chinese people! So it kind of becomes a fun game where we're trying to
spot Chinese people out in the crowd. Haha it was fun! We'd start the
contact in French and eventually move to Chinese. But I of course felt
like a bleu again cause I didn't understand anything. Oh yeah,
greenies in France are called bleus. But it was fun!
That night we met back up with the other elders, then we went and got
some Asian Hot Pot with one of their recent converts. So basically for
hot pot, there is a pot on the table with two different kinds of
"soups". The one was like a bone soup (I don't know what kind of
bones... Probably cow) and the other was a spicy soup. And it's like
boiling while you're eating, and there's a big list of stuff we can
order. It was à volonté which is you can have whatever you want. So we
got beef, chicken, tofu, shrimp, fish, and other random things that
I'm not sure what they were. And so you put that in for a mi ute and
then you pull it out (with chopsticks of course) and then put it in a
bowl of sauce that you made. Then eat it. It was really good :)
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| Asian Hot Pot |
LA BRANCHE D'ALBI
So the branch is doing well. We had a dope miracle! Elder Johnson met
this lady, Elisabeth, about 4 months ago when he was here with a
different elder. She said she wanted to see our church, but that never
happened, so about a week or two ago we texted her and she said she
would love to come see it but she can't get there by herself. So we
arranged for her to come with a member. She attended all of the church
meetings! After sacrament meeting, she was talking to a lady that's
not in our branch but she was visiting. Elisabeth was crying and
saying that she felt something really good. The member just said
"c'est l'amour de Dieu!" (It's the love of God!). She really enjoyed
it. We had our Amis/recent converts class and talked about free
agency. Elisabeth was picking it up so well! This was the first time
we taught her and she was really picking it up! She's super humble;
she's had a lot of harsh experiences in her life just with family and
all. She went to relief society after and seemed to enjoy that. Then
after church she was talking to elder Johnson, elder Keller, and Frere
Pascalin in the office. I wasn't in there with them, but they gave her
a blessing! We're super excited that she came. Yesterday she said that
she was hesitant to come, but she doesn't regret it at all. :)
We texted her that night to ask if we could come over sometime this
week and explain more of our message. And She was like "I would love
to hear more!! Let's do Tuesday at 2 or Thursday at 4" haha so we're
super stoked about her. We feel that she's definitely been prepared to
receive our message :)
D'AUTRES CHOSES
Our recent convert, Eda has been in île de Maurice (her birth place,
it's near Madagascar). Her sister passed away a week or two ago, so
please keep her in your prayers! She returned this week so we hope
we'll see her even without the car. She's the best!
Our car Susan isn't fixed yet... We're having a lot of complications
due to the fact that French people hate working hahah. We can't get an
appointment until the 17th...
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| Capitole Square |
But big shoutout to my family for sending me a nice package this week!
I love you all!
Thanks for all the support! I love you all and have a great week!
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