February 7, 2011

Bonjour à tous! It was quite a week! Probably the hardest week I've had so far in my mission, but I feel like we worked super hard and I'm happy with what we were able to do. When I got here, they had to split Cannes into two areas (it was one before), and most of the investigators were in the other Elders' area, and we were left with 3, 2 of which are on vacation right now, and the other one is leaving this week. So, needless to say, we spent a lot of time finding new investigators. There are a LOT of old people here, but luckily there are plenty of people from every age as well (the old people are either atheist, strong Catholics, or both - yes, apparently it's possible). We walked probably a good 10 kilometers a day because Cannes is small enough that there's not much of a public transportation system, but it's just big enough to kill you on foot if you're walking all day. After a week of doing that, we're exhausted! But we're happy with the work we've done. We were able to set up tons of rendez-vous and find 6 new investigators. We found a beautiful little Philippono family too! We found a lot of Philippinos, for that matter. They're all in Cannes! It's crazy. I'm really excited for this week and to continue to find new investigators and teach.

One of our investigators that we already had when I had arrived is a Chinese girl named Ling. Right now she is on vacation and in 10 days she is going to return for 10 days, and then she is giong back to China. We talked with her on the phone yesterday, and she told us she wants to be baptized! The thing is, she has only been taught a few times and we'll only have 10 days to teach her everything that's left and do the baptism. That would be insane! We're praying for her and that we'll be able to do it before she leaves. We weren't sure if we wanted to at first because the Church isn't really in China (or so we thought), but we talked with our zone leader who is from Taiwan and teaches chinese students all the time in Aix, and he said she'd have no problem continuing in the church in china. So we're going to try for it! We might have to teach her through Skype while she is on vacation. We'll see what happens.

I love Cannes so far! It's been a rough week, just trying to build a base to work with, but we worked super hard and I'm excited to keep going. Elder Park is awesome and we get along great. We played basketball this Saturday with the youth, and I'd just pass it down low to him every time and he'd clean up (he's about 6'5"). The French couldn't stop it haha. Basketball isn't their strongest sport! We're playing soccer next week, so I guess I'll know what they felt like :). But anyways, I think the theme for this week was patience. Elder Park and I learned a lot of it this week! Contacting can be fun and it's important, but after awhile it can drive you crazy. As missionaries we want to teach! But we had to find investigators, so we contacted for hours each day. Sometimes we went for hours when no one was interested, and I felt like just giving it up. But, since there wasn't really anything else we had to do, we kept going and believing that someone in our path would have been prepared by the Lord. One day we went the whole morning, and the few hours after lunch with NO ONE being interested, and none of the passbacks (to give us a place to go, we would pass by teh houses of former investigators) were home. We were starting to get frustrated, but fortunately, we had read together parts of the talk by President Uchtdorf entitled "Continue in Patience" that morning. One of the points that he makes is that patience isn't merely waiting, but it is actively waiting, despite your circumstances. It would've been easy to take a little break after those dreadful few hours, but instead we decided to keep moving forward with faith and patience, hoping for the blessings to come. We still didn't have success for almost an hour, but then there was a good half hour where we found 5 or so people who were genuinely interested (including the Philippino family)! I love these words of President Uchtdorf, "My dear brethren, the work of patience boils down to this: keep the commandments; trust in God, our Heavenly Father; serve Him with meekness and Christlike love; exercise faith and hope in the Savior; and never give up." Many of us are doing all those things, but still don't see the blessings. Elder Park and I were being obedient, having faith and hope, serving the Lord, never giving up, and trusting in His promised blessings, but we still weren't seeing the blessings right when we wanted them. We eventually were blessed, but it took time! We never know when we're going to be blessed by the Lord or delivered from our trials, but we can know that we WILL be as long as were are doing all those thing that President Uchtdorf has instructed us. I know that the Lord keeps his promises, and that even when we don't see His blessings immediately in our lives, we can know that the Lord is aware of our situation and that He "...will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you, when it will yield the greatest advantage." - Elder Richard G. Scott. I know that this is true, and that as we are patient (and not just bitterly waiting), the Lord will eventually bless us! Je vous aime tous et je vous souhaite une bonne semaine!

Love,
Elder Tudor