Bonjour ma chere famille,
I feel like I need to apologize first of all for my complainy email last week. I feel like I let the emotions and hard days (and maybe my lack of a shower) just build up on each other and then they somehow made their way into my weekly email. This week during my studies I was wondering how I can try to have a more enjoyable time when things are getting rough, and the answer came so clearly: be thankful. That day I read a talk by President Monson, where he quoted Aldous Huxley who said, "Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity to take things for granted." I find myself guilty of this way too often, and this week I tried to notice all of the wonderful things that I have to be grateful for. This all came at a good time, because this week felt like we were starting back at square one here in Melun.
Soeur Jenkins left us, and it was so sad to see her go! William came along with us to carry her luggage to St Merri where we meet up with the other missionaries. He works at Gare de Lyon, and it was awesome because it felt like we had our own personal body guard/guide taking us through the gare. All the workers were waving at us and it felt like we had our own special in. It is so sweet to see how much William loves these two Soeurs who taught him and helped him find truth. So Soeur Jenkins left, and then Soeur Johnson and I headed back to Melun to start a week of finding. Because here is the deal: we do not have many investigators right now. They have either dropped us, or have fallen off of the face of the planet. The saddest of which is Alexi. He disapeared. We literally have no idea where he is, and think he may have been deported :( So keep him in your prayers! And so we didn't teach hardly any lessons this week, but knocked on a whole lotta doors and talked to a whole lotta people.
On one such finding day, we decided to go to a smaller ville in our area. We had to get a connecting train, and had a half hour to wait in a different ville. A less active lives there, and we thought we would have time to go visit her, but by the time we got back we heard the whistle sounding, and the doors closing, and watched the last train of the day for that little ville take off. So there we were, in this little town, and no plan. So we started walking. And we walked for about a half hour, looking for a town we could go porting in, when we happened upon a medieval village. Not even kidding. It is called Moret-sur-Loing. Look it up. It was perhaps the most magical little place I have ever seen! We walked around and ported and maybe stopped to get a pastry at the boulangerie (how can you NOT in a ville like that). We mostly met really nice old Catholic French people who weren't interested, but it was an adventure! We just kept on walking through the winding cobblestone streets and looking at each other and saying "Is this real life?!" It felt like a dream that we just happened upon. So that was a fun little happenstance moment. We didn't find anyone who was interested, but it made me so happy to be in this beautiful country.
The rest of the week was spent knocking on doors. We didn't have a lot of success, but on Saturday, we went to a town called Epinay Sous Senart, and went porting in batiments there. We found a beautiful family who wants us to come and teach them. After a few hundred doors this week, and also a few angry drunk frenchman, this was such a lovely and welcome outcome to porting! We are teaching them tomorrow, and I am excited to get to know them. They were really sweet.
Well, this week has been a blur of a lot of different things that don't necessarily need to be put in an email, but the most important thing I have learned this week is to be thankful, even if it is just for the fact that a lady stopped her car and drove us to the next bus stop after she saw us miss the bus. There are a lot of lovely things around us, and God is so aware of who we are, and the struggles we are going through. I love this quote I found by Joseph F. Smith this week: "The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life." So I will try try try to be thankful, and see the light drive out some of the rougher gray winter days. And you should too, because Spring is almost here! Yay! Pray for us that we will be able to find some souls who will listen.
I love you, je t'aime je t'aime je t'aime.
Olivia
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