Have I Done Any Good? December 2, 2013

 

Another incredibly busy week... It is so cold here. I am sorry if I make spelling mistakes. My fingers are numb. So Lundi soir we had our weekly FHE for our amis, right? Well, we invited a family in the branch to come so that our amis could be more integrated!!... The Arnaud family shows up with three huge trays of food... and then NO ONE CAME! Hahaha, seriously it was so funny. The week before we had had like 12 people, so it was odd. We had an awesome night with the Arnaud family. Frere Arnaud served in this mission like 30 years ago, so he shared some sweet stories. We were dying. That is one fo the best parts about missions: mission stories. 

Mardi we started another exchange with Grenoble, but this time with Soeur Grunke from Germany! But before we left we had a RDV with Joel and Mimi. We layed down the law and made a schedule for them to get married, because otherwise they wouldn't make any progress. Mimi is like 75 years old. She cries every time we leave and calls us her daughters. CUTIE PIE! We made a cheese cake for Ragand, an awesome Haitian who is here for school. He speaks perfect English, which makes it fun to teach. We made a cheese cake because he had never tried it, and we were HORRIFIED! So we brought the goodness to him... we took the wrong bus and then got lost and were like 30 minutes late. The lesson was hard because it was all chitchat, but I twisted it around and we ended up having a really spiritual lesson. We found him a Haitian creole LdeM... so YAY! We will see how it goes. We also saw Daniel again, the really awesome ELU that doesn't know he is an elu... He gave us green tea and we didn't realize until the end when we had finished... what is it with us and breaking the Word of Wisdom here?

We left for Grenoble and got in kinda late. We headed straight to a potentials house. She is

Portuguese, so we were bringing her a LdeM. She was in the middle of watching a football match with her family, so we could teach her. We invited her to read and testified. I offered to pray for her and her family and then we set the next RDV. NEW AMI!! I am very talented in the art of finding new amis in 10 minutes or less. I also accidently hit a French woman in the face this night... we were having fun and I was being a bit dramatic as we got off the tram... I swung my arm out and just hit her! I felt so bad... no wonder Americans have a bad rep here!

Our day in Grenoble was INCREDIBLE! We had the most amazing miracle with a family in the ward, the Barta family. We didn't have much planned, so we were going Super Porting (You visit a family, share a quick spiritual thought, ours was on miracles, and then you kneel in prayer and have the family pray for you to find people who are ready for the gospel, you leave for an hour, porte, and then you return and share your cool miracles!) It is a very fun experience. The prayer offered by Frere Barta was overpowering with the Spirit. We left with dedication in our hearts... The first building was horrible. Like 2 people were home and they were very rude, because my exchange companion is German, and French people aren't too fond of Germans, haha. BESIDES THE POINT! We prayed for strength. We went to a second building. No one was answering the doors. We prayed again, this time in German. We met more people on the second floor, but they were mean too. We decided the third floor would be last because we were running out of time... NO ONE WAS HOME! So one more floor. We knocked on one last door. A young mother opened up. She was occupied with her children, but was very kind and interested and told us to come back the following week. That was our miracle! We went back to share the miracle with the Bartas. When we told them the name of the family, the mother began to weep. They were family friends. She had been prompted to share the gospel with this family but wasn't sure how to do it. It was an answer to her prayers. How beautiful. We prayed again, but this time it was her 5 year old son that offered it. So cute. MIRACLES EXIST! 

We finished off the day with some good old contacting, planting lots of seeds. We found the pretty part of Grenoble on a bridge and I was so shocked that I screamed with joy! I was laughing and then the super ancient French woman looked at me and echoed my scream. She began to laugh and walked away with her bag of bread, haha. Oh the joys of French people!

Mecredi soir was the music program put on by a few special elders in the mission. We sang a group number with them, so we had to go a little early for practice. Then they had me stay a little later because they wanted me to sing a duet with the elder. SO COOL!! I was seriously so excited. I sang Have I Done Any Good... SO MUCH FUN! I forgot how much I miss performing. 

We stayed the night in Grenoble again and then headed out to Annecy the next morning for district meeting. SO MUCH TRAVELING!! I got a package from Connie containing two huge bags of beef jerky, haha. There wasn't even a note! I am just assuming that she killed the animal herself and there was no need for further explanation. When we got home to Chambéry, the Arnaud family called us because they had something for us. We went outside and they gave us 3 huge boxes of food... We were in shock. We couldn't express ourselves. All we could say was "Merci. Vous etes trop gentil frere."... We then went to Soeur Hoss's house for thanksgiving dinner! Turkey, potatoes, yams, and the most amazing pumpkin pie I have ever had in my life. She made it with a pumpkin from her garden. WOW! 

 

 

We had a fun weekend. We taught lots of lessons to our amis Lucien, Karen, Christian, Mireillé, Lina, and Joel. We passed a less active randomly, Frere Dievart... HIS APARTMENT IS COVERED WITH PAINTINGS!! Seriously. Pictures are proof. Hundreds of them. We were so in awe that he gave us some paintings! I don't have a picture of it right now... I will send one next week. 

We taught lessons all day Samedi and Dimanche. We had an awesome English class and got three new amis from it!! We taught an incredible lesson to Christian, from Congo. He will be baptized. We know it. He is so curious and willing! Pray for our amis to continue to progress. Pray for me not to freeze. I always forget to tell you... it has been snowing here for like 2 weeks. YIKES!

I love you all and miss you!! Passez une bonne semaine!!

Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Beeny

And Thus, The Power Puff Girls Were Born - November 25, 2013

Oh how the Lord knows what He is doing. At the beginning of last week, we had just about nothing planned. Soeur Richardson and I had been working so hard, but we didn't have many RDVs set... We were excited for the opportunity to do lots of finding during the week for new amis. Well during our weekly FHE with our amis on Lundi soir, Soeur Receveur, one of the sisters from the other companionship told us that she would be returning home to America Tuesday night. She was such a great missionary, but she needed to go home to take care of some stuff. We miss her. We got a call from the assistants to the President and they told us that Soeur Pape, Soeur Receveurs Bleu, would come to our companionship and that we would become a trio. She is only on her second transfer, so we are training her still! SO IM A TRAINER NOW! Haha, my dream come true... We suddenly absorbed their companionship and were suddenly very, very busy. The Lord knew what was going to happen. Anyway, our FHE was a HUGE success and we had about 8 amis there. Benedetta even came, which was a fun surprise! Our amis Nabil and Hamid came too. Fun night.

So Mardi we were freaking out only a little bit about the idea that it was our last day together before Soeur Pape joined us. We did some contacting and bus hopping to get some good conversations in. We met up with the other soeurs and taught one of our amis Daniel together. He is a total Elu. He is so prepared and ready to accept this gospel. He is very open and loves the soeurs. He comes to FHE every week too... We hope to set a baptismal date with him some time soon. Pray that he will receive a response to his prayers. We spent the rest of the night with Soeur Receveur. We went with her where she bought 30 euros worth of French chocolate for her family and then found the cutest café in Chambéry and had hot chocolate together. We took her to the gare, put her on the train, and wept as the train left. And thus,  the Power Puff Girls were born! The three of us stood there and looked at one another through tear soaked eyes wondering how in the world we were going to juggle two equipes worth of amis and RDVs... we cried and huddled into a circle on the cold platform and Soeur Richardson prayed like I've never heard her pray before. We needed the Lord and He was there for us. We went home and made chocolate chip pancakes and planned out the rest of the week. It was a fun night after a depressing day. The Lord blessed us with hope. 

We realized that between our 2 equipes we had 23 amis... WHAT?! We decided it was do or die

week. If our amis weren't willing to give us their time and willing to keep commitments, we literally would be wasting time seeing them. We went to the church and found the Italian LdeM that we had given to Benedetta with a note attached thanking us for our kindness, but telling us that she was not interested and didn't want to hear from us again. The first knife in my back... ouch. Prayers followed for comfort. We met with Hamid that day and he told us that we were all really pretty and said creepy stuff and then we made him leave and decided that we needed to drop him. He hasnt bothered us since. We called Nabil because he didn't come to the RDV... and then he texted us back. And I quote "Soeur Beeny, I am sorry I didn't come to the RDV, but I need to tell you that I am falling in love with you. Whenever I am around you, my heart swells with passion. I love you more today than I did yesterday, and I will love you more tomorrow than I did today. I believe my feelings will get in the way of things and I don't think we can go on this way. Tell Soeur Richardson thank you for all that you have done for me. Until the next time. -Nabil"... so we dropped another ami after politely asking him to read the LdeM and waiting until Elders were put back into Chambéry. Crazy day for us. Hard day for us to see our hard work thrown away, but we are showing the Lord our faith.

Jeudi we continued on our rampage. We went and saw the Romanian family. They still proclaimed endless love for Jesus, but they said they did not want to change religions ever, but that we were welcome to come over and talk about Jesus. We invited them to church but told them we could not come to see them anymore if they were not willing to read the LdeM and keep the commitments we gave them... it was sad to drop those three amis, but they have good memories with us and will be more open to missionaries the next time. 

Vendredi I went on an exchange to Grenoble!! It was soooo cold and windy there!! It was crazy. I got to serve with Soeur Swenson, who came into the field with me, so it was fun to catch up with her! We had lots of RDVs set for the day, but ended up having 3 tombezvous... so we didn't get to teach. But we had some cool miracles! We were waiting for one of the RDVs at the church when someone rang the door bell. We went down thinking it was our ami, but it was some random guy. He said he saw some cars and wanted to see if we were having services then. We told him no but invited him in to learn more. We had a quick RDV with him and set up the next RDV. So cool!! If we hadn't been there, he probably wouldn't have met anyone and gone on with his life, but we were there, and now he is an ami. Cool, right? I made lots of phone calls for the soeurs because neither of them like using the phone, haha. I was able to set up lots of RDVs for them. I felt like I left Grenoble better than I found it, and it was a successful exchange. I will actually be going back this next week for another exchange with the other soeurs, so I will be sure to take pictures. 

Samedi we had the craziest ward party EVER! It was called Question pour un Champion! Its a French game show and it was hysterical. One of the counselors wore a blonde wig the whole time. We laughed and cried and had a jolly old time. I am so grateful for them. We were able to go see a less active, Soeur Tabka again. She is the sweetest. When the branch president heard that we were meeting with her, he was sooo impressed. Pray for her that she will continue to let us into her home!! 

Dimanche was great... I am really starting to feel the spirit at church. The first few months church was kind of like a work out for my brain to stay alert and focused for 3 hours, but now I can understand well enough that I don't have to translate in my head anymore, I just understand what they are saying. I am so grateful the Lord has blessed me!! It makes it a lot easier, haha. I gave a talk and cried like the whole time... yikes. The Spirit was so strong. I basically called the branch to repentance and told them to start sharing the gospel with their friends. We brought lots of LdeMs to church and at the end of sacrament there were only 2 left... YAY!! I smacked them with the Spirit stick. They are getting better. We were able to go pass an ami, Christian, and when he they answered the door, it was his girlfriend and their adorable daughter. They are from Congo. They let us in and we shared the restoration with them. Mireillé, his girlfriend, is totally prepared. They are protestant but they dont like how churches have turned into businesses. We had a great lesson, where the spirit was so strong. They eagerly took the LdeM and promised to read and pray. We are so excited to teach them again this week. Pray for them to receive answers to their prayers.

Well, that is our week!! We dropped or were dropped by 8 amis, but we have 5 amis that have baptismal dates between now and December 21st, the highest number in the mission. Pray for us to stay on top of things this week so that no one falls through the cracks. I love you all so much!! Have a blessed week...

Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Beeny

 

Nobody Got Time Fo Dat! - November 18, 2013

Week three in Chambéry!! It was kinda a lame week compared to last weeks monster week... but ça va. It was amazing anyway. We have weekly FHE with members and amis at the church every Lundi soir, and it is seriously the highlight of the week. Let me tell you one thing, Frenchies are cheaters when it comes to playing cards. They are really fun to play UNO with though... they may let out a few gros mots though, haha. Makes for a fun evening anyway.

Mardi we had 4 tombez vouss, but we did have one incredible lesson with Josiane, our "dry member". She has been coming to church for about 5 years. She is completely a part of the ward, with a calling and visiting teachers and a visiting teaching partner. She is incredible!! She hasn't let missionaries come over for 6 months because we all just try to baptize her, but she let us over for some reason... we had a great RDV. We did talk about baptism, of course, but we got to know her. She has seen sooo many personal miracles in her life. The only thing holding her back is that her boyfriend William doesn't want to be a part of the church, and she's not willing to marry him because she has been married twice and "doesn't want to do that to herself again" haha. She really likes us though, probably because we are crazy and fun. She invited us over for dinner. #Unheardof. There will be success. We are implementing plans. Pray for us to know how we can help her progress towards baptism. 

Mercredi we went to Swiss again!! Good news I heard this day: Soeur Barbara Fairchild is engaged... the sister I lived with in Carcassonne first transfer, haha... with all the crazy, funny, not realistic stories... yeah she's engaged. SO HAPPY FOR HER!! But zone conference was great. Its always a joy to see President. We had interviews too, and he gave some great enlightened insight. We feel so prepared to teach our amis now. We are done with amis who dont progress!! We have a month until Christmas, and we have some baptisms to prepare for Jesus... so we aren't gonna waste our time. We ended up dropping Ricky James and Amaury this week because they aren't progressing and they just want to hang out. Yucky. NOBODY GOT TIME FO DAT! We got more chocolate in Swiss though... its a sin. A delicious, chocolatey sin that we just cant resist. 

Jeudi was a great, busy day. We were able to go see an inactive who hasn't seen missionaries in MONTHS! What is it with us and getting into homes that missionaries are banned from? The Lord has been working some mighty miracles for us lately. Small, but mighty. So Soeur Tabka is an older woman. She loves the gospel, but is soo busy. She just doesn't have time because she is caring for her handicapped father and autistic son and working two jobs to pay for everything. She just needs love and service. Pray that we will find ways to serve her and bring the spirit into her life. We also saw a great member, Soeur Gonon. She met her husband when she was 16 and then waited for him while he served his mission in NYC. She showed us some adorable letters and stuff he sent her while he was gone... and I about died. French Members are adorable in that sense. There aren't a lot of choices for marriage, so you cling to the one you find, no matter how long it takes. We taught Mory a couple of times this week... we are worried he isn't understanding a lot. We worry that he is only meeting with us to get out of the cold because he is homeless... but he is so funny!! He is really getting to know us, and he jokes that either he has to marry one of us, or we have to find him a wife. Funny African man. He is making progress in his testimony of the savior. We hope that he will be ready for baptism the first weekend of December. PRAY FOR HIM!! We also went to see the Romanian family again. They are soo funny. They just love Jesus, that's all I can really say about that. The mom hasn't been reading the LdeM because she left her glasses in Romania last vacation and she is waiting to get them back, but she says she will read. We brought up baptism because we are weeding out who is going to progress and who just likes our presence. They were a little jostled, but they invited us back to tell them more about baptism. Pray that they will come to church. I feel like that will help them a lot. 

Vendredi was INCREDIBLE! We went on a hike with Frere Munn, our sweet Scottish DMP. He drove us up into the alps and we had a great time. We walked around an entire mini mountain so that we could have a 360 view. We felt like Lizzy in Pride and Prejudious. SO GORGEOUS! We saw

some cool French cows and took pictures. We picked apples off of trees, corn off of stalks, and picked up lots of chestnuts so we could roast them at home. It was a dream of an experience, that's
all I can say. Soeur Richardson also got shcoked lectric fence around a cow pasture, haha. That was a pretty memorable experience for sure. It was also my 6 months, so we celebrated with crepes!! And we went to a sweet fromagerie and bought the tomme d'os, or the chambéry bear cheese. AMAZING!

Samedi soir we visited a member in the hospital and I have never been filled with so much love for a person in my life. Soeur Charrut is trying to learn how to walk again. Pray for her. She is so strong spiritually, but her frail body cant hold her up any more. 

Dimanche was a sweet Stake Conference in Geneve. Elder Patrick Kearon of the 70 was there. We went up and thanked him for his incredible, inspiring words! He said exactly what we need for our little branch here... he took a picture of us and sent it home. I love General Authorities. We also got a new ami last night, her name is Benedetta. She is 21 and from Italy. No one we are teaching is actually French! Haha, pray for her to continue to progress and to read the LdeM.

 

Love you all! Have a great week :)

 

Avec tout mon amour,

Soeur Beeny

 

 

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