Bonjour ma belle famille! So I’m writing out my email this week so
I can have more time to read the emails you send me! Mom, is it okay if you
just type this up for my blog? Or you could just post the pic if you wont.
C’est toi qui vois. [She wrote out her email long hand on paper and sent us
photos of the pages. It was fun to see her handwriting again!]
To explain the subject line: We went to see an inactive frère
who’s about 30 years old and isn’t married yet. We shared a scripture about
personal preparation for the celestial kingdom and all he wanted to talk about
was starting a family. That’s definitely on his mind a lot and it’s his next
step! But he’s shy and feels awkward around girls. We asked him if he has a
girl in mind to ask out and he said yes but he’s too scared to talk to her
because he melts like ice cream in the sun, ha ha! So cute and so funny! Our
commitment for him was to talk to the girl before the next time we see him.
Never given that commitment before!
Thursday morning, we went out to see the sisters in our zone to
see how they’re doing and to motivate them to never stop believing in miracles!
That afternoon, President Granger and the APs called us to motivate us to keep
working, keep being faithful, and to never give up. Something that President
said that I really like was, “Today is the day that things happen for
tomorrow.” Maybe we work really hard today and expect the blessings come
tomorrow. During the month of miracles we faced a lot of opposition and
discouragement because we weren’t seeing the fruits of our labors (baptisms)
but as long as we keep being constant in our efforts, we will see miracles one
day. The Lord blesses us according to His timing and His way, and I think the
blessing we’ve received this month is a better understanding of the importance
of constantly being obedient, faithful, to work hard, and to never give up.
This week we fixed a baptismal date with our amie Henriette! She’s
practically a member already—she prays and reads the scriptures every day, but
she’s afraid of going inactive after being baptized. We’ve talked with her
about all the things that help us stay active—church, study, the sacrament,
repentance, etc. She prayed about a baptismal date and it’s the 26th of
November! Yay!
And a crazy thing is that Henriette actually knows a lot of
inactive members, and she told us about one who lives in our secteur that we thought
had moved to Ile des Pins [Isle of Pines]. But she’d just been visiting and now
she’s back. So we went to see her and she’s so sweet and cute. The only thing
holding her back from church was tithing. She thought she had to pay back all
the time she missed and for her the amount was getting bigger and bigger and
bigger. She was waiting to get enough money to pay it all back. So we explained
exactly how and why we pay tithing and now she understands that it’s a
sacrifice we make to show our faith in God and that we trust God to help us out
if, after paying tithing, we have financial problems. I was grateful to get to
be so straightforward in teaching that and even during that lesson, my
testimony of tithing grew.
And this week we’ve had three new amis just from referrals we got.
They’re all really interested and have the desire to know God and to have
better lives. We can help them with that! So we’re excited to get to keep
teaching them and help them accept the Gospel J So far this week has
been great! Lots of good things happening in our secteur!
Oh, and if you’ve heard about the protest going on here by the
Kanaks making sure everyone will be able to vote for independence in 2018,
don’t worry about our safety! The missionaries in the secteurs where it is have
been pulled out for the day, and so we have the Motorpool sisters with us. We're
not allowed to even be in the two areas where it's happening... but the two
Motorpool soeurs heard the police sirens this morning, I guess in preparation
for it. We've just been having a chill p-day at the chapelle playing ping
pong and volleyball with the Sisters. The church is keeping track of
what’s happening and when it’ll be safe to take them back. Don’t worry if you
hear anything crazy happening. We’re all safe!
Mom and Dad, you should be getting an email and a letter soon from
Soeur Glade taking about getting an international driver’s license for me.
She’ll tell you all the details and all that you need for it (except the $20)
is in the letter that’s coming to you. Please don’t laugh at the pictures in
there. We’re not allowed to smile in them. L No happiness! Ha ha. I
filled out the form, and there's two pics of me and copies of my license
already. I think all you have to do is take all that and $20 to AAA to have
them do it and then mail it here. Anyway, if you could get that done ASAP,
that’d be great!
Because we're getting the international drivers license we don't
have to do auto ecole [driving school]. I'm happy about that because I’ve heard
it's hard and a waste of time and also that the auto ecoles have been failing
missionaries on purpose to make them repay and retake the course. So yeah, the
fact that the Glades found the international drivers license thing is a
miracle!
[They are allowed to drive for one year on their American
licenses. In the past, the missionaries have then had to spend an entire week
in auto ecole, and pass a test at the end of the week to get a driver’s
license.]
So, that’s all for now! I’m doing really well and loving my
mission! Learning and growing a lot, too!
JE VOUS AIME!!!
Soeur Matheson
In response to Mom’s question – The cockroaches sont toujours
la malheureusement [are unfortunately still here]. They're always crawling
around the kitchen area, like on top of the fridge. They're only the really big
ones if we spray around the edges of the room. That's when the big ones come
out from their hiding places. But if we don't it's mostly small ones.
Some pics of us with Madeleine, an inactive sister that we found
who said she wanted nothing more of the church but now she's going to
come on Sunday! woo hoo!
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