I'VE BEEN ON MY MISSION FOR A WHOLE MONTH. MORE THAN A WHOLE MONTH! WOW!
i have a long time to go, but i'm a little worried i'll blink and it will be gone because it's gone by so fast already! wow! what a week.
sister clark and i have felt like we have been in the refiner's fire pretty much since i got here. we had to give sebastion, our ami who was supposed to be baptized this weekend, over to the elders which is POOPY. we got so far with him, but he is still wanting to move forward which is great. everything has been falling through and we are trying and working really hard.
we had exchanges with the sister training leaders on wednesday, and they have changed the way exchanges work. both sister clark and i go to the stl's area and we all work there. they live in sainte-foy which is the actual city city of Quebec City, so they live only 10 minutes from us. we were discouraged at the thought of our area being left alone for a whole day, but it actually turned out to be really great.
i was with sister willis, and she and i are basically soul sisters. we had a lot of fun and she is going home in two weeks, so i was able to learn a lot from her! we had pretty much all of our appointments fall through, but it was kind of nice to see that we aren't the only ones going through that trial even though it is DUMB that nobody wants to talk to us!! i know our hard work is paying off even if we don't see the results. even the tiniest seed can help someone later on down the road.
thursday we had interviews with president patrick, and i love president! he is such an inspired man, and he said that sister clark and i will see the fruits of our labors, not just from what we learn from them, but we will have the blessing of seeing results from our hard work. we just need to keep pressing forward!
friday we had zone training, which is a shorter zone conference. i've really been thinking a lot about why it took me so stinkin' long to finally come on this mission. i know 100% this is the right time and place for me now, but i am sorry it took so long for me to choose to go simply because reading the scriptures on the mission, i've noticed how often they say that as a member of the church with the gospel, it is our responsibility to share it. it's part of being a member of the church. i know that when we share the gospel, heavenly father is soooooo happy. you don't have to be a missionary to share the gospel, you only have to love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. share your testimony, do some service, be kind to people.
yesterday was one of the most interesting sundays that i've had to date. we were sitting in our pew right before sacrament meeting and this little girl walked up to me. she was maybe 5 or 6 and she says, "i wanted to come say hi" and then tells me all about her nails and the my little pony tattoo she had on her hand and her bracelets and she was like, "i love you!" and it was the cutest thing. definitely made my day that this little girl loved missionaries so she wanted to come talk to me. i had no idea who she was, she just came over and started talking to me. after sacrament meeting, we were talking to some people and someone tapped me on the arm. i look down and it's another little girl about the same age! she's just staring at me and grinning. i bend down and ask her her name and talk to her for a second. i stand back up and turn around, but before i know it she's thrown her arms around me and is hugging me. i start freaking out internally because i'm not supposed to hug children!!! haha it was really cute but i almost had to pry her from me because she wouldn't stop hugging me! afterwards every time i saw her she would grin at me and wave. i think it's so awesome that these two little girls have been taught by their parents to love the missionaries so much because not only did it make my day, but i hope they will take that love they have for missionaries and share the gospel as they get older!
after sacrament meeting, the elders have a sister who speaks english so i had to translate for her during gospel principles and relief society. she kept telling me i needed to move to africa (where she is from) and marry a pastor, and she couldn't believe that i was a missionary. and then after gospel principles i had a whole bunch of old ladies poking my stomach telling me i need to eat more. i was surround by so many old ladies! please stop poking my stomach! it's so unfair. i know i have a problem finishing my food, but i have finished every single meal i've been given here even if it kills me! i'm very proud of myself.
even though we had to stop teaching sebastian, we do have a newish investigator named nancy who is so kind and really has a great desire to know if the church is true. she has so much faith and has been reading the book of mormon all on her own! we have been really blessed to teach some great lessons this week.
now for a really cool story:
saturday i was doing personal study, and i had about 5 minutes left when i looked at my desk and saw a talk that was sitting there because i had been trying to find something in one of my drawers and i had taken it out. i opened it up. it was the devotional "his grace is sufficient" by brad wilcox. i only had 5 min, so i didn't really read it again. sister clark and i then started companion study and we were talking about some of the people we were going to visit, when i thought, we need to read this talk. so i told sister clark and we read the talk and thought, well we have a dinner appointment so we can maybe find the talk in french and talk about it with the member we have dinner with.
we went to the chapel to print off the talk for the dinner appointment when i thought, i should print off two talks, i don't know. maybe so we can have one too. so i printed off two talks in french. later that day we had a little lesson with a recent convert, and we were going to talk to him about the purpose of the gospel because that's what he had asked to talk with us about.
we sit down to start this lesson, and the first question out of his mouth instead of, "what is the purpose of the gospel" was, "what is the grace of God?" sister clark and i just looked at each other and were like we literally just read a talk on this today AND we have an extra copy in the car!!!! so cool!!! heavenly father helps us in the work every second of every day!!!
okay love you all! hope all is well!
love, soeur paine
it snowed a ton this week and this is the only picture i have sorry.
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