Bonjour à tous,
It was a miraculous week. I can't even explain everything that happened! It was such a crazy week haha. We had zone conference on Wednesday and it was our zone and the Toulouse zone all together here in Bordeaux. Elder Buss and I threw together a pretty sweet presentation complete with a musical demonstration on how the Spirit works in the conversion of our investigators. I wrote a story about a family and started from before they met the missioaries, when they met them, when they were taught etc, until they got baptized. As I told this story, Elder Buss played this beautiful song on the piano, and we said that the Spirit was like the sustain pedal on the piano, so as I read, everytime the misisonaries did something to help the family have the Spirit, the pedal would go on, and it would sound beautiful, but every time the missionaries failed to follow up or something and the family lost the Spirit, he woud take the pedal off and it would sound strange and not very pretty. Near the end, the Spirit is constant because the missionaries are diong everything they're supposed to in order to help the investigators have the sustaining influence of the Spirit and the family is baptized and Elder Buss just plays the end of the piece as normal and it's such a beautiful piece, and for the last few moments of the song I read Mosiah 2 verses 2 and half of 5. The Spirit was really strong, and half the missionaries were crying at the end. It was a really spiritual experience for me to write the story and I really gained a strong testimony that our investigators really depend on us in order to be converted. Of course it's the Spirit that converts, but we are teh ones that invite them to do things that will help them have the Spirit and we create an environment for them to feel adn be converted by teh Spirit. The image with the sustain pedal worked out perfect.
We had a great white elephant gift exchange at zone conference as well. I ended up with a pineapple. Elder Buss and I brought a second tree that we had cut down with our leatherman and wrapped it up in big garbage bags. It looked like a body bag. We also brought a big can of baby milk powder that G and V gave us haha. We told them we don't have children, and V just looked at us and in her awesome english pointed at us one at a time and said, "baby - baby" haha. So we gave it away as a white elephant.
After the zone conference we went on exchagne with the assistants and that was really fun. Me, Elder Bollero, and 6 other misisonaries went to place de la victoire and sang Christmas Carols and contacted people. It was really fun but it was raining and freezing cold haha.
Tuesday and Wednesday were crazy picking up the assistants at the airport and doing zone conference and everything, and then thursday was insane because Elders Duncan and Allen flew in from Lyon to do their legality in Bordeaux and so we had them and the assistants all day long and we had to help them get all their legality sorted out and it was just complete chaos haha. And to top it off, we got a call from president informing us that we no longer have the right to drive in France. Apparently after one year in France, our US licenses are no longer accepted, so we've been driving illegaly. So now we have this giant area with sparatic buses because it's mostly a residential area and we don't have a car anymore. We were nervous about it at first and it's been hard to be effective with our time because we can't just drive around everywhere whenever we want, but we saw miracles this week and just had new investigators coming out of the woodwork. We found four new Chinese investigators this week, and an awesome Romanian couple. The Romanian couple came to church with V this week and we taught them after church. They speak english and they're named P and L. They are so golden. When we sat down before the lesson started, I asked if they had any questions. L said, "Yes, I was wondering... because there's so many churches in the world and how could anyone know which one was right? I've always wanted to know and I've prayed many times to know which one was true, but God hasn't answered my prayers yet. How do I know?" They have a baptismal date for the 7th of January. I've never during my whole mission hear someone say that during a first lesson. I love this work. Both Elder Buss and I agree that we don't deserve to teach these amazing people that are just coming out of nowhere. We feel like we didn't do anything, these people just show up. Miracles always follow faith and works, even if it's not when, where, how, or who you expect it to be. The Lord truly prepares people to receive the Gospel!
G and V are not married so V is moving out today, pray that everything goes well and that she finds a place to live. She has so much faith and is so Christlike, it is incredible. She cuold be baptized this week! we'll see how everything works out. We've got 6 investigators with baptismal dates for the next few weeks, so we're really praying and doing our best to help them get there. It's miracle month, so they will!
I'm living my dream out here. I've always wanted to serve in Bordeaux, and the miracles are just flowing! I know this is God's work, and that we can't even comprehend His love for us. I know Jesus Christ suffered pains and temptations of every kind in order to overcome everything that separates us from our Heavenly Father, and I know we can use His power in our own lives to overcome ourselves - if we only choose to. I'm so thankful for the Gospel and for my mission. It's just flying by, I can't believe it. I love you all! Have a great week, et Joyeux Noel! Je penserai à vous tous, merci pour tout ce que vous faites, je vous aime!
Elder Tudor
P.S. N'oubliez pas de regarder Christmas Vacation pour moi! :)
It was a miraculous week. I can't even explain everything that happened! It was such a crazy week haha. We had zone conference on Wednesday and it was our zone and the Toulouse zone all together here in Bordeaux. Elder Buss and I threw together a pretty sweet presentation complete with a musical demonstration on how the Spirit works in the conversion of our investigators. I wrote a story about a family and started from before they met the missioaries, when they met them, when they were taught etc, until they got baptized. As I told this story, Elder Buss played this beautiful song on the piano, and we said that the Spirit was like the sustain pedal on the piano, so as I read, everytime the misisonaries did something to help the family have the Spirit, the pedal would go on, and it would sound beautiful, but every time the missionaries failed to follow up or something and the family lost the Spirit, he woud take the pedal off and it would sound strange and not very pretty. Near the end, the Spirit is constant because the missionaries are diong everything they're supposed to in order to help the investigators have the sustaining influence of the Spirit and the family is baptized and Elder Buss just plays the end of the piece as normal and it's such a beautiful piece, and for the last few moments of the song I read Mosiah 2 verses 2 and half of 5. The Spirit was really strong, and half the missionaries were crying at the end. It was a really spiritual experience for me to write the story and I really gained a strong testimony that our investigators really depend on us in order to be converted. Of course it's the Spirit that converts, but we are teh ones that invite them to do things that will help them have the Spirit and we create an environment for them to feel adn be converted by teh Spirit. The image with the sustain pedal worked out perfect.
We had a great white elephant gift exchange at zone conference as well. I ended up with a pineapple. Elder Buss and I brought a second tree that we had cut down with our leatherman and wrapped it up in big garbage bags. It looked like a body bag. We also brought a big can of baby milk powder that G and V gave us haha. We told them we don't have children, and V just looked at us and in her awesome english pointed at us one at a time and said, "baby - baby" haha. So we gave it away as a white elephant.
After the zone conference we went on exchagne with the assistants and that was really fun. Me, Elder Bollero, and 6 other misisonaries went to place de la victoire and sang Christmas Carols and contacted people. It was really fun but it was raining and freezing cold haha.
Tuesday and Wednesday were crazy picking up the assistants at the airport and doing zone conference and everything, and then thursday was insane because Elders Duncan and Allen flew in from Lyon to do their legality in Bordeaux and so we had them and the assistants all day long and we had to help them get all their legality sorted out and it was just complete chaos haha. And to top it off, we got a call from president informing us that we no longer have the right to drive in France. Apparently after one year in France, our US licenses are no longer accepted, so we've been driving illegaly. So now we have this giant area with sparatic buses because it's mostly a residential area and we don't have a car anymore. We were nervous about it at first and it's been hard to be effective with our time because we can't just drive around everywhere whenever we want, but we saw miracles this week and just had new investigators coming out of the woodwork. We found four new Chinese investigators this week, and an awesome Romanian couple. The Romanian couple came to church with V this week and we taught them after church. They speak english and they're named P and L. They are so golden. When we sat down before the lesson started, I asked if they had any questions. L said, "Yes, I was wondering... because there's so many churches in the world and how could anyone know which one was right? I've always wanted to know and I've prayed many times to know which one was true, but God hasn't answered my prayers yet. How do I know?" They have a baptismal date for the 7th of January. I've never during my whole mission hear someone say that during a first lesson. I love this work. Both Elder Buss and I agree that we don't deserve to teach these amazing people that are just coming out of nowhere. We feel like we didn't do anything, these people just show up. Miracles always follow faith and works, even if it's not when, where, how, or who you expect it to be. The Lord truly prepares people to receive the Gospel!
G and V are not married so V is moving out today, pray that everything goes well and that she finds a place to live. She has so much faith and is so Christlike, it is incredible. She cuold be baptized this week! we'll see how everything works out. We've got 6 investigators with baptismal dates for the next few weeks, so we're really praying and doing our best to help them get there. It's miracle month, so they will!
I'm living my dream out here. I've always wanted to serve in Bordeaux, and the miracles are just flowing! I know this is God's work, and that we can't even comprehend His love for us. I know Jesus Christ suffered pains and temptations of every kind in order to overcome everything that separates us from our Heavenly Father, and I know we can use His power in our own lives to overcome ourselves - if we only choose to. I'm so thankful for the Gospel and for my mission. It's just flying by, I can't believe it. I love you all! Have a great week, et Joyeux Noel! Je penserai à vous tous, merci pour tout ce que vous faites, je vous aime!
Elder Tudor
P.S. N'oubliez pas de regarder Christmas Vacation pour moi! :)
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