This week has for sure been a week of ups and downs. This has been one
of the hardest weeks of my mission, granted i haven't been in very
long haha, but we really do have a Heavenly Father watching out for us
and who really does love us. I'll include some of the miracles we saw
through the times of trial :)
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| Coolest Zone it the World!! |
Monday:
Monday way pretty great. We got to clean, which was much needed. We
also got to visit our referral, Madam Estermann. She is an old lady
from Germany and is just so darling. Our first visit was wonderful, we
were able to testify about the restoration and the Book of Mormon! I
even recited the first vision in French (hair flip). She thought it
was beautiful and was telling us how she noticed that the stories in
Alma (yeah, she read up to the end of Alma on her own) were very
similar to the things going on in our world today. We had to run out
the door to catch a bus so we could be home on time, but it was a
wonderful lesson.
Tuesday:
So right now I'm a "STL in Training" or in other words, my companion
is a trainer and a sister training leader and I get to be involved in
the whole process haha. She thinks it's because I'm going to be the
next STL in Yverdon but I have no idea. But anyways, as an STL you go
on exchanges with the sisters in the zone to make sure they're okay
and that they're just overall doing good. As an "STL in Training" I
get to participate in lots of exchanges haha. So we started our
exchanges on Tuesday! I was with a sister who is from Paris and speaks
very VERY little English. She is darling though and SO good at
contacting. Needless to say, I learned a lot :)
Wednesday:
Wednesday we had a cool miracle. It has been raining quite a bit, so
we decided to go contacting by porting. In my sector (area) we
dedicate 1 hour each day to this thing called "power hour" where we
contact everyone we can during that hour. It's proven to be super
effective in talking to people. We tried it and during that hour we
had 15 conversations through porting! It was definitely a miracle.
Most of the time we got 2-3 people to talk to us while porting, so 15
was a miracle for sure.
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| Soeur Yaka Yaka thought it would be funny to turn the white girl black. don't worry, it's just a cleaning mask, haha |
Thursday we had another exchange! I got to go to Lousanne with a
sister, also from Paris, called Sœur Yaka Yake. We had a blast. She
was sick so we didn't get to do as much stuff, but it was fun.
Friday:
Friday was also a miracle day. We got to see Madam Estermann again!
When we arrived to her house she dropped us... She told us that she
was an 88 year old woman and that she wasn't going to change. It was a
bummer! In the end she gave us a chocolate bar and tried to give us
each 20 Franks for the bus fair but we didn't take the money. We tried
to be sneaky and leave it as we depressingly walked into the rainy
night to wait for our bus. Well, turns out we weren't so sneaky and
she came out after us and tried to give us the money right as a bus
pulled up, so we told her we love her and jumped on the bus... Only to
find out that we had gotten on the bus and that the way we were going
was actually taking us 1 hour away from Yverdon... So we waited for
the last stop, talked with the bus driver and he offered to take us
back to the train station near us that way we could take a train and
go home. We of course accepted, and left him a bag of treats, a
contact card, and a letter saying thank you. When we got to the train
station we jumped off the bus and ran to the train. The only problem
was that to get to Yverdon we had to change trains so that meant
waiting for 20 mins in an unfamiliar area. When we got to that area we
went to wait for the train and when we did there were some gentleman
smoking something not good and listening to hard core rap. Basically,
we were in a place where the spirit couldn't be present. We also had
the possibility of being late. So we decided that the best thing to do
would be to go to another waiting area, pray, and then call the
district leader and tell him that we might be late. While we were
calling him those gentleman left and the spirit immediately returned.
All in all, we made it home, on time, and all was well, except for
being dropped of course haha.
Saturday:
Saturday was a slower day. We did weekly planning, we cleaned up a
little bit because someone was supposed to come and fix our leaking
fridge (they didn't come but the leaking stopped...) and we had to
clean the church (yes, the two of us.. It took us 2.5 hours). But! We
were blessed to have a RDV with our current engage Charlène. She is
AMAZING and really our only source of strength haha. We taught about
praying often and daily scripture study and keeping the sabbath day
holy. She said that she loved reading the scriptures daily because
they make her feel good. She also said that she is excited to start
doing family prayers with her husband so that they can start the
routine before they have children. She also thought that it was
important to keep the sabbath day holy so we can feel the spirit and
be rested for the next week. She also agreed to meet with us 3 times a
week so we can make sure she is prepared for her baptism on the 26th!
She is amazing and so excited to get baptized.
Sunday:
Sunday was also a day of miracles haha. It started out at church when
a man called Olivier came! We have taught him once as a FHE kind of
thing at the bishops and he had only come to church once before that
(which is where we met him). Well, as you know, Sunday was fast and
testimony meeting. Olivier went and bore his testimony on how the
church is true and the Book of Mormon is true and we have a living
prophet and Joseph smith restored the gospel and how he likes coming
to church. It was so cool! He said he doesn't want to meet with us,
but he is so ready! Fingers crossed that in the future he will be open
to meeting with us.
We also got to see Charlène on Sunday. We taught with a family from
Africa. They fed us and brought out this salsa that is from the Congo.
It is really spicy and has a ghost pepper in it. Apparently it's
tradition to have all the missionaries try it. So, being the good
missionary I am, I tried it and boy was it hot! My face turned red and
my tongue and lips burned for probably about an hour. Anyways, after
we were fed, we taught Charlène about Temples and committed her and
her husband to go to baptisms for the dead with the ward after she is
baptized and also we committed them to setting a date to be sealed in
the temple. They are going to be giving us that date on Friday :)
So another miracle that happened was that we had just had a lesson
cancelled because our ami is super sick. It was super frustrating for
us because we had decided to engage this ami to baptism and had this
great lesson planned and it was going to be amazing. Anyway, we
decided to take her the lesson plan so that she could read it while
she was sick and prepare for when we teach it. On our way to drop that
off, we got a call being invited over to a members house for dinner!
It was great. The members have recently been struggling with the ward
and being accepted (kind of like us) and we had planned to visit them
today actually haha. Anyways, we went and they fed us this really
awesome quinoa dish with some beef sauce on top. It was great! And
their family Is so sweet. They have 3 little girls who love me haha.
The youngest 2 even look like me from when I was a little girl. It's
so cute. It was a good meeting and we were able to help them address
some concerns and bring peace.
I know that even though sometimes things don't go as planned, even
when we try with everything we have, that the Lord always provides. He
will never leave us and he has given us a Savior, Jesus Christ, who
atoned for us, knows what we're going through, and because of Him, if
we turn to our Father in Heaven in prayer, having faith and a desire
to act, we will be blessed immensely!
I love you all. Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Robb
Weekly Scripture:
Alma 5:14,26
I LOVE these scriptures! My favorite is how he asks if we have felt
the change that comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and If
so, can you feel it now? Brothers and Sisters, Can we feel so now? I
pray we can. And if we can't, let's work to be able to!
