Tuesday, March 14, 2017

14 March 2017 – La vie est belle!

Bonjour famille!!

I'm really sorry but this email is gonna be short. Nothing too exciting happened this week....

We went out contacting every day comme d'hab [as usual] but no one wanted to talk to us. We tried going up to Trois Vallees, this nicer neighborhood in our area just to see what it was like. It's full of French and Caldoche people who were not very interested in hearing the Gospel (or very nice about telling us "no"). We met and talked to a few other nicer people in Nogouta, but they were either Protestant or Catholic and not interested at all.

It's been a little rough contacting-wise this week and even harder to get the contacts we do have to turn into actual amis [investigators]. We have this contact named Kathy who has been in a lesson or two with the soeurs in Magenta with their ami and apparently she knows it's all true, but we've never met her. She's cancelled the rendez-vous [appointment] every time. She told us she'd come to church on Sunday, but she didn't. We're praying every day that we can see her enfin [finally] and we're keeping up hope! It's a little like that with a few other contacts, too.

On Monday, we decided to try riding our bikes to Savannah, a part of our secteur that's pretty far away. It was hot and a lot harder than we thought it'd be, so we ended up feeling a little sick and sat in the grass for a break. We didn't get to do much in Savannah while we were there, but we definitely want to try again, probably in the morning when it's cooler. I also just need to get used to riding a bike 'cause ca fait mal [it hurts]! haha

Our converti recent Simon has pretty much fallen off the wagon completely. He's drinking and smoking again and has only come to church once since his baptism. Simon got baptized too fast, but he was the one who set the date and wanted it, so the soeurs here before just did their best to prepare him, but now he's not doing too well. He thinks he's doing fine, but he really just doesn't have a testimony or understand the covenant he made. We need to help him gain a testimony and also to have friends at church to help him stay on the path. Moise is coming to our lesson with him tomorrow, and I hope it'll help!

The good news is that the members in our area are super duper nice and feed us and always offer their help--to give us rides places and to come work with us. We also had a really great coin de feu missionnaire [missionary fireside] on Sunday night. The Spirit was really strong and the members were really motivated to do missionary work. We gave them all Books of Mormon to give out and they're excited. The Dumbea ward is really great—all the leaders and auxiliaries are awesome, and I know the work will pick up more and more with all the hard work that everyone is doing.

I know this email was kinda full of negative news, but I do want you to know that la vie est belle quand meme [life is beautiful all the same]! I love my mission. I love my companion. I love this area. I'm just working on patience and diligence. I know that Heavenly Father is there for me. He hears and answers my prayers, and He sends me the Spirit to comfort and encourage me. I know that this is the true Church on the earth. The gospel is true! The Book of Mormon is true! Life isn't easy, but it's A LOT easier when we have faith in Christ because He helps us through it all.

JE VOUS AIME! [I love you]
Bonne semaine! [have a good week]
Bisous! [kisses]

Soeur Matheson

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