(Sing to the song "We did it!" from the end of
every Dora the Explorer episode)
We did it! We did it! We did it! HORRAY!! Now you see us, we
did it!! Nananananananah!!
We worked really hard and we prayed a whole lot, yeah we did
it. We did it. We did it. We did it.
We scratched and we bit and we taught 20 lessons, oh yeah,
we did it! We did it! We did it! Hooray!!
That's right freres and soeurs!! Soeur Jacobsen and I finally
reached the mission goal of teaching 20 lessons this week!! I will tell you one
thing... it took a whole lot of work and faith, but with the Lord, all things
are possible. We didnt know if we would make it, but the Lord carried us
through the finish line, with plenty of time to spare. Let me tell you how it
was done...
Well, actually the beginning of the week was spent in Lyon,
with a great Zone PDay where we played Werewolf for 3 hours while eating sugar
cookies, ha. Fun! Then we had a suuupppper cool exchange with some sisters in
the Vale de Saone ward in Lyon. I did an exchange with Soeur De Feo from Rome,
Italy!! Took me back to the days with all my wonderful European companions...
Miss them to much :,,) They literally tried to call all of their less actives
and amis, but NO ONE was free! So we had a day full of contacting ahead of us.
Good thing we are both experienced missionaries... so for us that just meant a
day full of MIRACLES!! We went to a little, GORGEOUS outer ville called
Villefranche. It took us almost an hour to get their on bus. WELL WORTH IT
BECAUSE THE LORD HAD PLANNED OUR DAY ALREADY! We immediately began to talk to
EVERYONE. Soon hereafter we met a nice lady who invited us to visit her husband
with her in the retirement home... so we went and met some nice old folks and
then talked to Josiane for about an hour and a half and taught the restoration
and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon. She was such a Christlike woman...
we learned a lot from her. We headed into the TINY central ville afterwards and
contacted like crazy women! We ended up having 2 other lessons and found one of
the coolest elect couples I have ever met in my mission... I was slightly
jealous that they were not my new amis... they were so wonderful, and both
Soeur De Feo and I had a feeling that they were the whole reason we had gone to
this little ville. The Lord puts the people in our path, we just need to be
willing to talk to them. So, we had a wonderful miracle filled exchange, which
was celebrated with some very delicious and much deserved dark chocolate and
coconut pasteries. Yum. Missionary work rules. So we lost 2 days out of our
sector because of this exchange, but we felt as if we were able to help those
sisters advance their work! Preach My Gospel tells us "Leave every sector
better than how you found it." I take this very seriously, thinking also
of the sectors that I visit even for a short day or two... the Lords work needs
to be done everywhere. Also, Soeur De Feo taught me some cool Italian "Ho
del pesce nelle mie tasche."... which means "I have a fish in my
pocket."
We got to see some great amis this week including the
ADORABLE famille Ferreira. We watched the Restoration DVD and it was the first
time that the kids were quiet and payed attention the whole time, and then
Nabil, the punkish 10 year old offered the closing prayer... families can be
eternal. I can practically see this family in white!! They are progressing
SOOOO slowly, but they are progressing. Annabella, the mom, even read this time
:) invitations being respected!! WOOHOO!! We saw Marie-Lou and got her a
Portuguese Book of Mormon. Shes excited. We got to teach Amandines little
sister Gaelle this week by surprise! And the even better surprise... she had
stolen her moms Book of Mormon and read and taken notes!! We had to teach her
the commandment "Thou shalt not steal", but she read! SO AWESOME! We
have only taught her twice, but the crazy thing is is that we think Gaelle
could be baptized the 9th of November! And she wants to!! Pray like crazy for
her :)
We received revelation this week. Straight up revelation
from the Lord. We received revelation that we needed to invite Camille to be
baptized the 8th of November. Crazy, beccause her mom is completely against the
church and wont give her permission. But we had tearfilled lesson with
her and then we all fasted together on Friday to soften her mothers heart... we
will see how things go as Camille takes those steps of faith to talk with her
mom and hopefully receive permission. Pray for her as well, as she could just
as well be our baptism at the end of this transfer.
Friday was an anwer to our prayers... The Sister Training
Leaders came to our rescue and we had an exchange in Clermont. We had 2 teams
of sisters working in our names sake!! I was lucky enough to be with Sister
Bragg... great missionary. We felt prompted to go to a little ville outside of
Clermont called Royat. Our excuse was we were going to find some lost less
actives, but the Lord knew the real reason. When we arrrived there, and we
began talking to people, we met a middle aged man named Yves. He immediately
asked us to sit down with him on the steps to do the questionnnaire. However,
his friends kept coming up and bothering us. So, we got up and he took us to a
table near by where we could sit down without being disturbed. We taught him
the restoration. As we talked about Joseph Smith he looked at us and told us
"That is compeletly possible." When he recognized the Mormon title,
he talked about geneology, because his mom was a professional! He put his
glasses on all seriously and looked at us over the table and asked "What
do you propose then?"... we exchanged glances and then told him that we wanted
to teach him several times a week and we would invite him to read and pray and
keep the commandments and change his life if necessary in order to know if our
message was true. He agreed full heartedly. We prayed. We fixed our next
meeting, and then we were on our way as if it was every day life. Soeur Bragg
and I had to pray and thank the Lord for this unforseen miracle. It was just
wonderful. We were able to meet many, many other great children of God. Then
the Rapinat family strengthened us physically with a delicious meal, and then
spiritually by sharing their inspiring conversion stories. Our ward is
wonderful.
Amandine taught with us this week. WOOPWOOP!! That was fun.
We also discovered that Armelle is still in Clermont! MIRACLE! We hope to start
teaching her again this week. Saturday night we were determined to teach 2 more
lessons... even though it was freezing cold and dark outside, Soeur Jacobsen
and I ventured off into town to teach some lessons. For about 2 hours we talked
to everyone in our path... not too many people were willing to stop. We finally
taught a lesson to a cool dude from Sweden who is here on vacation. We needed
to head home to make curfew... we were worried, because to reach our goal of 20
lessons, we needed to teach 5 lessons Sunday. We made plans. We already had 3
lessons planned, so we would just need 2 miracles! It almost seemed too easy...
We woke up on Sunday morning with hope in our hearts. We
went to church and had a very inspiring broadcast from Lyon for our stake
conference. Afterwards we had weekly planning... totally normal. We called our
amis to confirm our lessons... and they ALL cancelled. Fear kinda struck our
hearts. There were some young adults still at the church. We asked them to pray
with us before we left. They prayed that we would teach 5 lessons to meet our
goal, and off we went into the vastness of Clermont to find 5 lessons, floating
on the faith of our remarkable JAs!! We talked to everyone... and I mean
EVERYONE! The second person we talked to was a young girl named Gloria. We felt
kinda creepy as we followed her off the tram, but things worked out as she is a
devout Christian. We had a great little lesson with her and then prayed holding
hands in the street... also, I am so impressed with the number of people that
are comfortable praying in the streets with us, haha. We also met two super
cool guys in Jardin le Coq that we taught lessons too, as well as the most
radiant old lady in the world! That was 4 lessons in 2 hours... we went to
Jaude and Soeur Jacobsen lead the way to an adorable young woman who loved
speaking with us in English... about faith and Christ and the restoration. And
then it was done. We had taught 5 miracle lessons in 3 hours. We even had time
to spare, so we started wracking up the points and talked to more people!
Angels were with us.
We know that it was only through the Lord that these
miracles were possible.
I am so thankful for this gospel. I am so grateful for
the opportunity to serve the Lord and teach this gospel. I am so thankful for the
inspiration of my mission president to help us set goals to teach 20 lessons.
Its possible. With the Lord, it is possible. I love Him. He loves you. I love
you too. Have a great week.
Avec tout mon amour,
Soeur Beeny
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