la.la.liv

Hello hello! I hope you have had a beautiful week. 

We had a great week. Voila, here I am in Melun with my nouvelle collegue. Her name is Soeur Bitter, she is from Laguna Niguel California and is a Violin Performance major from BYU. Umm we are pretty much MFEO. We have a ton of mutual friends in Provo and we have decided that destiny threw us together here in France because we never met in Provo. Aaand as chance would have it she read my blog before she left on her mission. So funny. She is fabulous, and I can already tell that this is exactly the point I need to be at in my mission. She is so fun and has a lot of confidence in this work, which is a nice booster. It has been a little more stressful than I expected to be a trainer—to be in charge of speaking French, navigating etc. But I have never worked so hard as a missionary as I have the last few days and it has felt good. We have had a lot of miracles and a lot of downers this week. 

Miracles:

— Petula set a baptismal date! We are planning for the 4th of May. Keep her in your prayers that we will be able to continue to move forward and progress with her. She really opened up this week and told us a lot of beautiful things about her spiritual experiences. 

— We have been praying to find an area that we can pay special attention to this transfer, and we decided on a ville called Avon. I love Avon. It is right next to Fontainebleau and has a nice mix of houses and apartments. So we went porting over there, and we knocked on a family's door, and there were a few little kids who were looking at as out the window, but didn't open the door. So we kept on going, but a few days later I felt like we needed to go back and knock on the same door. So back to Avon we went and we went to their house and this time they answered and invited us in to teach them. We shared a quick intro about the Restoration, and then focused on the Plan de Salut. One of my favorite questions recently to ask investigators is who God is personally to them. It is so interesting the responses you get, and often they say "you know what, I don't really know." I love that we get to testify that He is our Father, and we are His children. Knowing that is the core of the relationship makes such a difference. So we testified of that and then Soeur Bitter said the prayer. After we finished he asked if we could say another prayer, because of the "bonne energie" AKA feeling of the Spirit that was present in his home while she prayed. It was such a small, but beautiful moment of sharing truth. 

— We did lotsandlotsandlots of finding and have found a few people who we are going back to teach next week. 

— Soeur Bitter and I like to eat the same things! Which I know sounds like a silly miracle, but franchement it makes me so happy. Our grocery list just makes me happy. 

— Alexis (who disappeared again) contacted us and he has just been so crazy busy going all over France looking for jobs, that he couldn't contact us. But he wanted to tell us that he is still alive, still praying and it was so good to know that he is doing alright. It may be a while before he is able to be baptized, but someday I know it is going to happen. 

Downers:

— The majority of our investigators have dropped us or disappeared so we are back to square one in some ways. I actually think it is a big blessing though, because now we can really start fresh and work together to find new people who are waiting. They're out there, we just have to have faith that we can find them. 

— Once upon a time I bought a baguette sandwich and it tasted fine and I didn't think anything of it, until 5 hours later we are sitting at the church watching conference when all of the sudden that baguette sandwich did not want to be in my stomach anymore. So . . . long story short I had the worst food poisoning I have ever had and felt more sick than I ever have and sweet Soeur Bitter just sat on the floor holding my hair back. As she said "I think this is a really good start to our relationship." It was hilarious and horrible, and today I am starting to feel better. Just another one of those "Well, at least this is memorable . . ." moments. 

So that makes up our last week—lots of finding, miracles, and time spent sitting on the bathroom floor. This week we worked hard, and I am hoping next week it can start moving forward. 

I love you! 

xo

Olivia