Today marks the one year remaining of my mission!! I come home November 11, 2014... 1 year more!! 

This week was M Week in the Mission. M could stand for Miracle, or Monster, or Muppets or whatever you wanted it to be! It was of course, a miraculous week for us here in Chambéry. There was a schedule for the week, meaning there were specific goals and things to study each day in order for us to reach our full potential. Lundi was a conversation day. We ended up having a RDV with an African guy we met on the street. His name is Mory, and he is from Mali Africa. He came to the chapel. It was his first time in a church. We had a RDV and then he stayed for FHE with the members. He ate with us and had a great time. He doesn't understand too much French, but he is very curious. He has an innate belief in God, but no religious background. We are helping him develop a belief in Christ as his savior. He is very cool and we had a few RDVs with him this week. We set his baptismal date for the 30th of November. He wants to be sure that he knows this is truly the church of God before he joins. He is very determined. Pray for him to understand the Livre de Mormon. More to come next week...

Mardi our focus was on the Livre de Mormon and the importance of its testimony. The goal was to give out 5 books during the day... heafty challenge. I had never done that before. We had a RDV with a potential Ricky James. He is from Camaroun. He doesnt have a great view of Christians, but he likes Mormons. He took the Livre de Mormon and we set our next RDV. He seems like he could be a solid, reliable member. We are going to baptize him. Pray that he will recognize the truthfulness of our message and the sincerity of our beliefs as Christians, not only as Mormons. So, this morning we saw a man in the park and started to head towards him to contact him. He yells "Vien, vien!" which means, come come. We looked around for his dog, but see nothing. The man then puts his arm in the air, and a giant FALCON swoops from out of no where and lands on his arm!! Hahaha, we laughed sooo hard! It was classic. We booked it the other way. We spent a lot of our day in Aix Les Bains where we went to meet a family in the ward. The Billaz family is INCREDIBLE! She is from Mexico and he is French. They are the coolest young couple with the two cutest kids ever. We sat on the floor for two hours because the husband had jumped on the couch that morning and broken it. They are too much fun. We laughed so much... they also speak English. We hope to spend Christmas with them!! They have a family in mind that they want us to meet. They are hoping that they will be our family that we will baptize before Christmas. It rained a lot during the day and we were getting down hearted because we had only given out 3 Livre de Mormons, so we bought some chocolate and got back to work. We were so filled with faith. We got home to Chambéry with 30 minutes and 2 Livre de Mormons left... we prayed and promised the Lord we wouldn't come inside until we had given them away. It began to rain. We contacted and within 20 minutes gave both of them away. The Lord provides a way always!!

Mercredi was a day of Restoration. Our goal was to give out restoration pamphlets all day! We surpassed our goal of 15 and gave out 17. It was really cool, and we met a lot of great people. Contacting is one of my favorite things to do, and we learned a lot about it this week. People love hearing about what makes our church different. Testifying of a living prophet is always a great feeling. There are lots of different reactions too. We went and visited a member who is in the hospital; French hospitals are super creepy. We almost miss the bus every time we try to take a bus. People laugh at us. We put up with it and run anyway. We went street boarding with our DMP, Frere Munn, an awesome Scottish man. We met a Romanian couple and they gave us their address to come visit them. We had another RDV with our hippie ami Amaury. He is just too cool. He rolled his own cigarettes during the RDV... I guess we will have to teach the Word of Wisdom soonish. We can tell that the spirit is touching his heart little by little. He is starting to open up to the idea more. Soeur Richardson and I are trying to figure out what happened in his life... He used to work in an office and went to college. Now he wears hemp pants, has a beard and dreds, and lives with his parents. It is crazy how every person we meet has their own story. Pray for him that he will allow the Spirit to flourish in his life. We also saw Amirah. We had another great lesson. The spirit was palpable. After we taught about Joseph Smith, she said that it would only make sense for God to continue calling prophets, and that the prophet would be young enough to be curious and humble. She is so enlightened. She is going to be baptized we know it. Pray for her that she will have a beautiful experience with the Livre de Mormon and that she will receive an answer to her prayers. 

Jeudi was Love Day. We studied the love of Christ and the goal was too show so much love to people that they commented on your joy and kindness. SO COOL!! I have never had a happier day on my mission... of course we did go to Switzerland that day for Zone Training. I have never witnessed a more beautiful train ride. Also, the chocolate made me cry. Literally. We almost missed our train home because we went to buy it, but it was worth it. I will have to send some of that goodness home. Zone Training was great. It was focused on reaching our baptismal goals for Christmas. We have to be diligent and EXPECT miracles... and don't worry, we are, and they are coming.

Vendredi was our Monster day. We left the house at 9:30 and weren't allowed to come home at all until 9:30 that night... it was the longest stinking day of my life!! We went to Pont de Beauvoisin to visit 3 less actives... we got lost in the ville and walked the direct opposite way of where we wanted to go, but we ended up randomly running into two of the families in the street! Because we are new, they didn't recognize us, but they recognized our tags! Sooo cool. #MIRACLE We were able to meet with them. They are fantastic families. We also did some porting and had a miracle lesson on a door step. He took a Livre de Mormon. Then we met a woman in central ville and she took a Livre de Mormon and gave us her info. She wants us to meet her family and share more. She is gonna be cool to see again this week... pray for our potentials. It was also a beautiful morning. The day was looking up. We headed back to Chambéry and did some porting... no luck. We went to pass the Romanian family and they were there! We taught them the restoration and gave them 3 Romanian Livre de Mormons. We headed home with two hours and no plans. Then it started to pour down rain like I have never seen before. We stayed out in the dark for two hours in the rain porting. We met the CRAZIEST people! One man was completely deaf, one man was missing a finger when he pointed at us, and the one man had a braided beard. SOO weird. We couldn't stop laughing when ever we would look at each other. We had no idea what we were doing outside honestly. We contacted and the very last man we talked to was overjoyed to meet us! We set a RDV. He was shivering he was so wet. We grabbed a pizza and headed home. It was the most delicious meal I have ever had... then again we didn't eat all day. Such a miracle day!! 

Samedi was all about families! We went to family heavy areas and ported for hours. We didn't find

them... they are still out there, but the weather was gorgeous and we had a splendid afternoon! We went to Frere Munns house in the mountains and did service for a widowed neighbor of his... we chopped and sawed firewood for her, hahahah. You would have laughed at my struggles. It was very memorable. The Munns gave us a tea party afterwards! We ate sooo many patisseries. Fantastic. We did more porting in Aix les Bains afterwards. Fun day.

Dimanche was new ami day... we had RDVs with amis, but weren't really finding new amis. We called some potentials and old amis and ended up setting up lots of things. We prayed on the phone, prayed on the street, did everything we could. We ended up getting 2 new amis. One of whom is Josiane, a dry member of the church, meaning she comes every week, has a calling, and is completely integrated, but isn't baptized. Like SERIOUSLY? We are going to extend a date with her this week. Pray for her to be open and welcoming to the commitment. Soeur Richardson and I also were able to play with our branch presidents kids for like an hour after church. I love this little branch with my whole heart. Pray for them. They need support right now. 

At the end of this incredible week, we ended up having 11 RDVs, giving away 26 brochures and 12 Livre de Mormons, and finding 8 new amis. Did we see miracles or what? We feel incredibly lucky to have had such a great week. We decided every week will be an M Week for us... So keep the prayers coming and we will show the results. I know that it is only by our faith and our diligence that we are seeing these miracles. Keep the faith and press forward steadfastly in Christ. All is possible with Him that created all.

 

Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Beeny

 

Fairytale

LIFE OF A MISSIONARY!

What a beautiful and spirit filled week. We started from the bottom, with nothing, and found 3 new amis, and were able to visit the homes of 4 members here. It was awesome! Our branch here is TINY! Seriously there are like 40 or so active people in the branch... We have a lot of inactive work to do, but also, we made a personal goal to baptize a family before Christmas!! We started the week on Tuesday by setting transfer goals and planning how we are going to reach our Birthday present goal for Jesus of 4 baptisms. We are so pumped and have already seen how the Lord is putting us on the right path. We did lots of finding Wednesday. It was halloween, so we made orange cookies and decided to deliver them to members and inactives in Chambéry. We walked probably about 7 miles passing inactive members that we are determined to reactive. But no one was home... but we saw our beautiful ville and fell in love with the scenery and the people.

 

 

It is hard for both Soeur Richardson and I because we were in our last villes since we were born on

the mission... We are both homesick for our bleu villes, but we have learned a lot and are so pumped to be here. We really do have a FANTASTIC time togther. She is soo beautiful and fun and crazy outgoing. We laugh SOOO much... maybe too much sometimes, but it is good. We are a great match.

 

We were able to visit our branch president and go to his house for dinner one day last week. The Ferari family is very fun, and they have the cutest kids in the world!! We love the branch already... We also got to see the Belibi family and the Gaggini family.

 

We took a train Friday morning to Pont de Beauvoisin to see the Belibi family, but after 30 minutes we realized the train hadn't stopped at any of the little villes... it was weird, so we asked the conductor. The train was direct to Lyon! It was SNCFs fault, they were supposed to stop at the little villes, but didn't advertise that the train had changed its course. Sooo we went to Lyon and freaked out trying to find a way back to Chambéry, haha. It was quite a little adventure actually! We took a charter bus home and got to the members house. They live in the cute country side. Soeur Belibi is from Hungary and Frere Belibi is from Camoroun. Great couple in the branch! They literally cooked an ENTIRE duck for the 4 of us, hahaha. It was so yummy and funny looking!! Members here are great. Go big or go home. We got to see some beautiful mountain scenery this week on our adventure... it is stunning. Everyone keeps telling us the mountains will be covered in snow soon enough. AHHH! I am living a fairy tale. We also had some of the GREATEST contacts every this week. We contacted a lot and did some good old porting. We gave away 6 LdeMs this week and met some great elus. I also slipped because it has been raining a lot here... and I tore my skirt. Hahahaha, seriously we laughed sooo hard!! Soeur Richardson and I are a dream team. We are so stinkin happy and we are both really obedient. We are destined to see more miracles than we can even imagine. PS - Soeur Richardson's dad is the second counselor in the Genereal Sunday School Presidency. I'm famous by association. #ALister

 

We have one ami named Amirah. We met her Wednesday. She is from Camoroun and speaks English. She is here for her studies and is here all alone. She is a happy catholic. She didn't give us her number, but she gave us her address... we went to visit her on Saturday. Her address was hard to find, and then it ended up being a hotel. We decided to go in anyway, and knocked on the room labeled 314... we felt so weird and thought we were going to be kicked out. But she answered the door! She is living in the hotel that is also a residence hall. We taught her a lecon zero... Soeur Richardson and I are so in sync. We teach with so much spirit. We were all crying during the lecon. It was absolutely incredible. We testified of the restored church. Amirah is 22. She really relates to us and loves us. We didn't have a BoM in English for her, so we are going back to teach her the restoration and give her a copy this week... pray that she will continue to regonize the spirit and have a desire to come to church. She is golden. She just needs to know for herself now. 

We found another new ami named Mory. He is from Mali in Africa and doesn't speak much French. He speaks Babarra... whatever that is. He has no belief system, but knows that there is a God and that we are His children. So basic, but a perfect foundation. He seems really cool, and we are excited to see how things go!! Pray for him that he will understand us and our message and have a desire to learn and grow in the gospel and accept the gospel in his life. 

Our third ami is a TOTAL hippie... literally his name is Amaury and he has dreds and dresses like Bob Marley. He wears sandals in the freezing weather... cool guy. Anyway, we had a lecon with him and just found out about him. He believes in energy and nature. He seems to not really understand the concept of organized religion. He wants to keep learning about our church though... he is curious. Pray for him that he will feel the spirit and know the truthfulness of our message. 

We have lots of leçons set up for this week with many potentials. We were worried it would take us a while to build up our pool of leçons and amis, but the Lord has blessed us. I know he has put words into our mouths and answers and inspired questions into our minds to help develop our contacting skills. I know that I have done nothing but go out and open my mouth this week. The Lord has done the rest. I love it here and couldn't

 

imagine myself anywhere else at this time... Pray for Soeur Richardson and I this week to continue with a fullness of faith to help our amis progress, and to make our potentials real amis. We know that we can reach our goal of baptisms with more faith, more work, and more confidence in the Lord. He can do all.

The mission is having a MONSTER week, meaning we give EVERYTHING to the Lord. President made a schedule of what to study and what to do each day so that we can be affective and see real miracles! We are determined to find our family this week. I know we will. Pray for us. I BEG OF YOU! Pray for us. I know that the power of prayer is real. We CAN do this. We CAN see our 4 baptisms and find a family that can be sealed for all time and eternity. Help us help them. I love you all so much. Have a beautiful week. Always remember the value of the gospel in your lives. The Lord is there. This is His church.

I love you. Passez une belle semaine.
Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Victoria Beeny

Waiting On The World To Change

Dull week in Carcassonne to be quite honest... Jean François is still progressing nicely. He will be receiving the Priesthood next Sunday! YAY! We had exchanges on Mardi. We taught leçons to Chan Than, the Mulenda family, and a surprise leçon to a German girl who was here on vacation. She had an hour till her train and was intrigued. Miraculously Soeur Richardson had German pamphlets in her purse. NO COINCIDENCE! She will be baptized one day. Soeur Richardson got sick on Mercredi and so the other three of us were doing exchanges on and off throughout the week to facilitate the amis of both équipes in Carcassonne. It was really fun actually because we had time to teach with Soeur Everett... I really do love that girl with my whole heart. That will be a lasting friendship for sure. Jeudi we had a district meeting in Perpignan... well we missed our second train home and were stuck in Narbonne for an hour and a half; so we explored!! It's beautiful. The cathedral pictures are from there. Fun mistake on our part. We received our calls on Vendredi. WOW! We all saw it coming... I was waitin for my world to change. I packed a lot this weekend. We also had stake conference on Dimanche in Toulouse! So fun to see all the missionaries. It was a good opportunity for me to say good bye to the ward, or at least the ones that came. We got a new stake president, so a member of the 70 was there. FUN! I cried as I said goodbye to Adhna and Dior Martin, the Fouti-Makays, and the Mulendas. I hugged those little kids until their eyes popped out. I will miss Carcassonne so much, but I know the Lord needs me else where right now.

 

 

So my new companions name is Soeur Lauren Richardson, not the one from Carcassonne. She was also trained by Soeur Bayles! So she's my sister!! We are SOO incredibly excited to be together! We are opening a new équipe (meaning we are starting a new companionship in an area where there was previously only one companionship, but we are opening the second) in.... Chambéry France!! It is literally on the other end of the mission. We are pretty close to the border of Switzerland. In fact, we will have all of our Zone Conferences and Meetings in Switzerland. CRAZY!! It is so beautiful here in the lovely alps! And chilly. Get me those thermals please :) 

 

Soeur Victoria Beeny 

248 Rue Nicolas Parent

73000 Chambéry

FRANCE

We only arrived yesterday, after a long day of travel we unpacked and then went to a Soirée

Familliale with a recent convert and 3 amis from the other équipe. We ate African food!! Pretty yummy stuff let me tell ya. And spicy. At the end of the meal Arsen, the recent convert, brings out of bottle of apple cider for us to celebrate the three new soeurs here! We pour our glasses and cheers... we drank. We made faces. We took a another sip. I looked at my companion and we were grimacing... I picked up the bottle from the table and saw that it had alcohol in it. HAHAHA!! Our recent convert was SO embarrassed. We were laughing so hard. We got rid of the rest and basked in a moment of brilliant laughter. What an unforgettable first night in Chambéry!

 

Soeur Richardson and I have no amis. Nothing to work with. We will be starting from ground zero, finding new amis, reactivating in the tiny branch here, and baptizing families. We have a birthday present to prepare for Jesus. We want to have 4 baptisms by Christmas. Pray your hearts out for us ya'll. I know the Lord can do it. It's up to us to show our faith. Thank you so much. I love you all and can't wait to send pictures of my beautiful new ville!! Passez une belle semaine!

 

Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Victoria Beeny

Reunited And It Feels So Good!

 

This past week was almost as fast as the week before, and I'm sure before I know it I will be transferred and before I know it I will be home. Time is limited here. Before ya know it, I will be calling home for Christmas!!

 

So anyway, we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders on Tuesday in Talence, which is right outside of Bordeaux, which is the most beautiful ville I have been in... I hope I get to serve there one day. I was with Soeur Reynolds through the day. She is a great sister. We didn't have much planned except visiting a member who was in the hospital. RANDOM FACT: French Hospitals = Really Creepy. She wasn't there though, so we randomly passed different members and did lots of contacting! We had a great time, even though there was dumb rain. We had one lady come up to us on the bus and say "Hey, I really wanna learn more about your church! I am looking for the truth and want to know if you have it."... MIRACLE! It was so awesome. We had a grand time in Bordeaux. It just goes to show that there are miracles happening all over France, not just in Carcassonne! 

We had lots of leçons this week, so that was fun. We had great leçcons with Jullien. He loves the Plan of Salvation and told us it makes total sense and told us his goal is to make it to the Celestial Kingdom... we also taught the Gospel. He is excited for his baptism, and he said he was excited to come to Jean-François's baptism as well! We taught him the Word of Wisdom on Saturday, just a few hours before the baptism. He said he accepted it. We asked if he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and he said yes. He said he knew that if it came from Joseph, that it really was a commandment given from God. The only problem he had was that he loves coffee, but he said he would try to give it up, and that he would let us know how things went and when he needed help. He gave a great prayer and told us he would be back in an hour for the baptism. We were overjoyed!... Well he texted us about 30 minutes later and told us that he didn't want to see us ever again. He said he loved coffee too much and that he will never give it up for anything... We were shocked!! 30 minutes earlier he had told us that all was well and that he understood and would try. We were blown out of the water. Soeur Mann was so upset. I thought it was a joke at first, but it wasn't. We were really shaken as Jean-François arrived for his baptism. It made it hard, but I recognized that it was Satan trying to work against us. Something beautiful and amazing was about to happen, and he wanted to do everything in his power to stop us. Keep praying for Jullien and that he will recognize that he can stop drinking coffee. We hope to keep his baptismal date and to keep teaching him... we will see in a few days when we try to contact him again.

French people are Flaky. FLAKY. But I still love them.

We got two new amis this week. Christian we met last week contacting. He came to our leçon and accepted the LdeM. He seems really chill and wants to know for himself. He is in the process of moving from one little ville to another, so we wont be able to see him for about two weeks! Bummer, but we call him every couple of days to see how his reading is going... ya gotta do whacha gotta do. Especially here in France! Pray that he will know for himself and feel the spirit as he reads the LdeM.

Do you remember the miracle leçon I had with Soeur Bayles like 6 or 7 weeks ago? We felt like we needed to go out contacting on a Sunday night for some reason. We changed out plans. We contacted a woman on a bench with her grandbaby and she didn't seem interested... we walked like 50 feet away and we knew we NEEDED to go back and talk to her more. When we went back we had a RDV with her. She cried during our leçon and accepted the LdeM. We didn't get her information because she doesn't live here in Carcassonne... WELL, we saw her this week and she remembered me! She just moved here to Carcassonne and wants to see us. We will be seeing her tomorrow. DANG. I am so happy that 7 weeks ago we listened to the spirit. Not until almost two months later are we seeing the fruits of our labors. Her name is Madame Devigne. Pray for her to accept our message and feel the spirit.

We had some great experiences with members this week. We went to Dior and Adhnas house (our bishops daughters) so we could practice teaching with them. We KILLED it. I feel like my teaching skills have improved amazingly this transfer. Teaching seems to be my passion as a missionary. Dior made homemade rice pudding... WHICH WAS SO DELICIOUS! Dang it was good. 

We had a district meeting this week. Elder Crossman, our district leader is going home in a week, so he is really distracted and not too concentrated, haha, which made for a really fun and bizare district meeting. We get to go to Perpignan this week for another one too! haha, Jean-François was so nervous for his baptismal interview, but he passed with soaring colors! 

Other fun surprise this week: Soeur Bayles returned for a day to do her legality!! It was so fun to be reunited with her... one of her amis literally died two weeks ago. He got into a car accident and died. Pray for her to find more amis! Anyway, we had fun and I realized how stinkin lucky I was to have her as a companion...

 

 

 

We had a great leçon with Jean-François where we watched the restoration video. FUN. He felt the spirit a lot this week, especially at his baptism. Every time we saw him he would tell us he was really nervous for his baptism. It worried us. Saturday when he arrived for his baptism, he told us he woke up more at peace with his decision to get baptized than ever before. He randomly changed his mind and wanted another ward member to baptize him, and the Brother said yes. It was really great to get other ward members involved. The brother hadn't baptized anyone since his mission about 15 years ago. It was beautiful! Remember the trio Gretchen, Charlotte, and I sang at Seminary Graduation? Well, Soeur Mann, Everett, and I sang it at the baptism, but we changed the lyrics to the French version of Je sais qu'il vit mon rédempteur. IT WAS AMAZING! Jean-François cried when we sang... it was beautiful. His baptism was beautiful. All the kids (and I) were kneeling around the glass wall. As he came out of the water, one baby began to scream and cry, haha. It was really funny. It kind of ruined the spirit a little, but it was memorable!! He didn't mind at all. His confirmation yesterday was beautiful as well. The bishop blessed him to hold fast to the gospel, and promised that the gospel would bless him and his future family... FAMILY!! So basically I baptized a family this week... right on. It was a great experience. Now we need to find some new super prepared people just like him!! Haha, pray for him to continue well and for us to find some great new amis. Soeur Mann had a great birthday and we had fun. What better birthday gift than a golden ami to get baptized?

Soeur Mann was sick all day yesterday, so we didn't get to do much. Soeur Everett stayed home with her and Soeur Richardson and I went out go to three RDVs... all of which fell through, haha. Opposition is so stupid! But it makes the good moments that much more beautiful :) 

Funny occurrence this week: Got asked if I was a virgin... people aren't too private here, haha.

Other than that, we are all just waiting around for transfer calls this week, so don't send me anything because it may not get here before Monday! I love you all. Have a blessed week and know the Lord is there.

Avec tout mon amour, 

Soeur Beeny