FINE!

dear everyone!

during a lesson this week with an 11 year old member:

"tu veux lire ce verset? (do you want to read this scripture?)"

"fine!"

"oh... tu parle anglais? (oh you speak English?)"

"non"

"pourquoi tu a dit `fine`? (why did you just say fine?)"

"je ne sais pas, tout le monde dit ca! (i don`t know, everyone says it!)"

(and yes i know my apostrophes are weird because i`m typing on a french keyboard...) 

what a wonderful week! we had some amazing miracles and a wonderful zone conference!

the two miracles that i want to share with you actually happened yesterday. we had 2 lessons set up and we were able to get members to go with us.

the first was with a former investigator named hydrisse. we didn`t really know anything about him except he had met with sisters 2 years ago, but he agreed to let us come over. we went over with sister scott and we were a little hesitant... it smelled like cigarette smoke and he had beer cans on the floor. he had just woken up, so his eyes were blood red and sister scott even told us, "leave your shoes on in case we have to run." she was joking, but she wasn`t. we sit down and start teaching the restoration. holy cow it was a powerful lesson! the spirit was SO strong, especially when we started teaching about joseph Smith. the spirit was tangible and you could physically see a change on his face as he read the first vision, re-read it to himself, and thought about what he had just read. he accepted to be baptized and then told us he actually was going to be baptized before but then he moved. it was incredible!

the second miracle we had was with our investigator, beverly. she is young and so we invited one of the young women in our ward to go with us. it was a break through lesson. our member who was with us, ines, is actually a convert of just about 3 years herself. she was able to really connect to beverly and invited her to a young women`s activity this week and beverly actually wanted to go!

this week we had a zone conference where we really focused on repentance and the atonement. i loved it! there were a couple of things that really stuck out to me.

the first, we all were asked to prepare a 2 minute talk based off the general conference talk, "the doctrine of Christ" by brian k ashton from this last general conference. while i didn`t have to give my talk, there was a part of it that really stood out to me, "Because repentance is really about becoming like the Savior, which is impossible on our own, we desperately need the Savior’s grace in order to make necessary changes in our lives."

i love this. the most important part of the repentance process is that we acknowledge our Savior. we can change our behaviors without the Atonement. we can go to AA to stop drinking, we can do different programs to stop smoking, but we CANNOT change our hearts without the Atonement. when we repent we are changing our behaviors, but also our hearts... we are becoming more like Christ.

an elder mention something else that i really loved... he said that "repentance casts out fears" and it is true! we CAN change. we CAN progress!

and the last thing i really loved that was mentioned by the stake young women`s president for Ottawa was that when Heavenly Father calls us to leadership in any type of calling that may be, He is really calling us to the Atonement. He is calling us to use the Atonement, to change our lives and to then teach and show others what you have learned.

i love you all! have a great week!

love,

sœur paine

pictures:

Ottawa zone conference (i know i look really tired)

me and my best friend isabelle!