Hey hey everyone!
What an incredible week we had over here. So many miracles, too many to even count. I'm just so dang grateful to be here. So happy and I just feel so blessed.
So I'm not sure if any of you had the chance to read Elder Utchdorf's latest little devotional talk he gave. If not you should check it out.(https://www.lds.org/
Loge you'll really like this, "Tolkien began his famous novel The Hobbit with these words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” If you remember, Bilbo Baggins lived in a comfortable home in the Shire, a small, peaceful village that celebrated gardening, community gatherings, and a meal schedule that included breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon tea, supper, and dinner. Bilbo was quite content with the leaf of his life. And it was beautiful for all that. But little did he know of the twigs, branches, trunks, and roots that were all around him. Little did he know of distant towers, trolls, and talking trees. The farther he went from the comforts of the Shire, the more remarkable and strange the world became."
I felt a little bit like Bilbo as I read this. Me growing up in the little corner of the shire with the beauty that I enjoyed. A bubble inside another bubble. I just knew what I knew and I'm not really sure if I ever even scraped the edge of knowing what i didn't know and that there was another world out there and so much more to learn. I never even knew how much I needed to learn, until I came out here. he continues:
"My dear brothers and sisters, one of the most fascinating things about this mortal experience is that there is so much to learn. Isn’t it a remarkable feeling to belong to a church that not only embraces truth—no matter the source—but that teaches there is much more to come, that God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”[xxiii] As a result, we are humble about the truth we have. We understand our knowledge is a work in progress, that the leaf we have before us is simply one microscopic snapshot—part of an infinitely vast forest of fascinating knowledge. Our little world—our small section of experience—may be an accurate and true reflection of our reality. But it is only an infinitesimal atom in the vast universe of what we eventually will know. Isn’t that a glorious concept!"
Isn't that is beautiful?? oh my goodness! This week I really thought about a lot. I thought about just learning from other people in general. Everyone has a story to tell. And this week, I really tried to envision that as I spoke with people. other missionaries, my comp, members, amis, random people on the street! When you listen, people talk. and people have things to tell. As we learn more about people and who they really are they become more and more beautiful. We see every beautiful pattern like inside a leaf. Every principle that we learn becomes a part of that pattern. It's different. and unique. As we embrace other's differences and REJOICE in them, then if we take a step back and climb our own trees, we'll realize that we're surrounded by thousands of individual, unique, intricate leaves that amount to a beautiful, breath taking forest.
As we get out of ourselves and our own ruts and holes, and climb, God will take us higher. He'll get us out of the mud of others and all the tangled weeds and vines that others seem to throw at us, and He'll help us see the beauty that He sees. If we have that desire, we can learn from them. we can grow higher and higher and get out of the mud and swamps.
this week, as I learned others's stories, we found so many miracles from it. Tuesday, I had my legality here in Valenciennes. it's for my 2nd year legality and it's really hard to get it. They are known for being really slow and mean to foreigners. We prayed our little hearts out that I had all of my paperwork filled out and everything good to go. We got there, and apparently i didn't have a paper (they never gave me mind you haha). Normally, if you don't they send you out and you have to schedule another one that will be too late. instead, i tried to see her as a person with a story. And it worked! She told me that she'd let me slide, and she passed me! MIRACLE!
Wednesday, we went story seeking again and ended up finding 6 women!!! All who wanted to know more. One of them became a new investigator yesterday when we went and had a SOLID rendez-vous with her to learn more about her story. She told us she is searching for God. And no one has ever helped her find Him till us. It was so cool. She's this cute, older, classy classy french woman. neck scarf and all.
We also visited our other ami Magalie to learn more about her story and we really connected more than ever. We invited her to be baptized and talked more about her boyfriend she's living with. They have a daughter together and I testified of my Dad and how incredible it was to have a dad to give me blessings who was married to my mom forever. it really touched her and she said she wanted that. So, she's going to talk to him about getting married so they can get baptized. MIRACLE!
Then, we helped the ward out with their activies and had a BLAST. We really got to know them more as individual lovely people. The kids were a hoot and blast like normal and we had so much fun with them. We ran out in the rain with them to exercise. And at night, we had a "diner presque parfait" An almost perfect dinner! the youth all decorated tables and fed us dinner and we had to rate them. Our dinner was really good and fantsy and our table full of adults just ended up spitting spit wads at the other tables with our straws. it was pretty hilarious. we had some good hits. I love them.
I really have a huge testimony of learning. Gaining knowledge, but also learning about others.
"Isn’t it wondrous to belong to a church that teaches that infinite progress and eternal knowledge await those who set foot upon the path of discipleship of Jesus Christ and follow it in faithfulness and dedication?
I wish you the best in this noble effort as you pursue the great adventure of recording and clarifying history. The roads we travel are certainly not guaranteed to be easy or ever-pleasant, but if we keep traveling in the pursuit of truth, they will always lead back to the ultimate truth—they will lead us to our Heavenly Father, who is the great historian, the great record keeper, the great Creator, mentor, and friend"
I love that. And I can testify that it is true. I
LOVE LEARNING. And I can testify that it can change our view. If we
learn to learn about others, we'll learn more about God and ourselves.What an incredible week we had over here. So many miracles, too many to even count. I'm just so dang grateful to be here. So happy and I just feel so blessed.
So I'm not sure if any of you had the chance to read Elder Utchdorf's latest little devotional talk he gave. If not you should check it out.(https://www.lds.org/
Loge you'll really like this, "Tolkien began his famous novel The Hobbit with these words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” If you remember, Bilbo Baggins lived in a comfortable home in the Shire, a small, peaceful village that celebrated gardening, community gatherings, and a meal schedule that included breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon tea, supper, and dinner. Bilbo was quite content with the leaf of his life. And it was beautiful for all that. But little did he know of the twigs, branches, trunks, and roots that were all around him. Little did he know of distant towers, trolls, and talking trees. The farther he went from the comforts of the Shire, the more remarkable and strange the world became."
I felt a little bit like Bilbo as I read this. Me growing up in the little corner of the shire with the beauty that I enjoyed. A bubble inside another bubble. I just knew what I knew and I'm not really sure if I ever even scraped the edge of knowing what i didn't know and that there was another world out there and so much more to learn. I never even knew how much I needed to learn, until I came out here. he continues:
"My dear brothers and sisters, one of the most fascinating things about this mortal experience is that there is so much to learn. Isn’t it a remarkable feeling to belong to a church that not only embraces truth—no matter the source—but that teaches there is much more to come, that God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”[xxiii] As a result, we are humble about the truth we have. We understand our knowledge is a work in progress, that the leaf we have before us is simply one microscopic snapshot—part of an infinitely vast forest of fascinating knowledge. Our little world—our small section of experience—may be an accurate and true reflection of our reality. But it is only an infinitesimal atom in the vast universe of what we eventually will know. Isn’t that a glorious concept!"
Isn't that is beautiful?? oh my goodness! This week I really thought about a lot. I thought about just learning from other people in general. Everyone has a story to tell. And this week, I really tried to envision that as I spoke with people. other missionaries, my comp, members, amis, random people on the street! When you listen, people talk. and people have things to tell. As we learn more about people and who they really are they become more and more beautiful. We see every beautiful pattern like inside a leaf. Every principle that we learn becomes a part of that pattern. It's different. and unique. As we embrace other's differences and REJOICE in them, then if we take a step back and climb our own trees, we'll realize that we're surrounded by thousands of individual, unique, intricate leaves that amount to a beautiful, breath taking forest.
As we get out of ourselves and our own ruts and holes, and climb, God will take us higher. He'll get us out of the mud of others and all the tangled weeds and vines that others seem to throw at us, and He'll help us see the beauty that He sees. If we have that desire, we can learn from them. we can grow higher and higher and get out of the mud and swamps.
this week, as I learned others's stories, we found so many miracles from it. Tuesday, I had my legality here in Valenciennes. it's for my 2nd year legality and it's really hard to get it. They are known for being really slow and mean to foreigners. We prayed our little hearts out that I had all of my paperwork filled out and everything good to go. We got there, and apparently i didn't have a paper (they never gave me mind you haha). Normally, if you don't they send you out and you have to schedule another one that will be too late. instead, i tried to see her as a person with a story. And it worked! She told me that she'd let me slide, and she passed me! MIRACLE!
Wednesday, we went story seeking again and ended up finding 6 women!!! All who wanted to know more. One of them became a new investigator yesterday when we went and had a SOLID rendez-vous with her to learn more about her story. She told us she is searching for God. And no one has ever helped her find Him till us. It was so cool. She's this cute, older, classy classy french woman. neck scarf and all.
We also visited our other ami Magalie to learn more about her story and we really connected more than ever. We invited her to be baptized and talked more about her boyfriend she's living with. They have a daughter together and I testified of my Dad and how incredible it was to have a dad to give me blessings who was married to my mom forever. it really touched her and she said she wanted that. So, she's going to talk to him about getting married so they can get baptized. MIRACLE!
Then, we helped the ward out with their activies and had a BLAST. We really got to know them more as individual lovely people. The kids were a hoot and blast like normal and we had so much fun with them. We ran out in the rain with them to exercise. And at night, we had a "diner presque parfait" An almost perfect dinner! the youth all decorated tables and fed us dinner and we had to rate them. Our dinner was really good and fantsy and our table full of adults just ended up spitting spit wads at the other tables with our straws. it was pretty hilarious. we had some good hits. I love them.
I really have a huge testimony of learning. Gaining knowledge, but also learning about others.
"Isn’t it wondrous to belong to a church that teaches that infinite progress and eternal knowledge await those who set foot upon the path of discipleship of Jesus Christ and follow it in faithfulness and dedication?
I wish you the best in this noble effort as you pursue the great adventure of recording and clarifying history. The roads we travel are certainly not guaranteed to be easy or ever-pleasant, but if we keep traveling in the pursuit of truth, they will always lead back to the ultimate truth—they will lead us to our Heavenly Father, who is the great historian, the great record keeper, the great Creator, mentor, and friend"
Love,
 |
| Primary Activity Day |
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