June 4, 2012

Allo,

The Lord is infinitely kind.  I feel so blessed.  I am so blessed.  That's basically how I can sum up the week.  I love it here in Montauban (despite the scorching heat and humidity.  I've started taking 2 showers a day.  If you count the endless sweating as a shower, then that makes 3).  This week was the baptism of C, who is a cousin of the T's, a recent convert family.  He's about 40 and he's romanian.  The first time he met the missionaries he said he was orthodox and wouldn't change.  He didn't even want to touch the BoM.  But he decided to open it up one day and read because he was curious.  He read the first page and couldn't stop.  As of yesterday, he was at the end of Mormon, and was also a member of the church.  The Book of Mormon is a book from God!  He doesn't speak french or english, but through the power of the Spirit and the Book of Mormon, and with some translating help from the family, he understood and accepted the restored Gospel.  His baptismal service was filled with the Spirit as well.  A, the 10 year old daughter of the T's, translated all the talks and everything.  The Spirit was really strong.  Bro. Van Tonder (jeanpierre's dad) baptized him and confirmed him. 


Yesterday was an incredible day.  I attended, what I believe to  be, the most spiritual fast and testimony meeting I've ever attended.  Testimony after testimony was born, and with each one the Spirit grew.  Recently less active members who are now active testified, as well as recent converts, long time members, and even R, one of our investigators, gave the last testimony.  He said he knew that Christ was in this church without a doubt and that he could feel it ever since he's started coming.  I had to play the closing  hymn right after his testimony and I thought I wasn't going to be able to because the Spirit was just so strong and I couldn't see the music because his testimony just made me cry with joy.  I made it through somehow without mistakes, thankfully haha.  That was a little miracle as well.  I don't know how to describe it, but I've rarely felt the Spirit so strongly in my entire life.  It was just a feeling of complete joy and comfort.  I think that's what they mean in the scriptures when they say, "My joy is full."  After the meeting, everyone was just happy and the Spirit didn't cease to grow.  A member that we work with a ton and does so much for us who was totally less active a year ago, has been working with another less active we teach.  This less active showed up for sacrament meeting and I just wanted to cry  because this member worked so hard to help this less active and when he walked in and sat down next to him, I could see the tears rolling down his face.  As I went up to him after sacrament, we just looked each other in the eyes and smiled, and we didn't really need to say anything, but we totally understood the joy that each of us was feeling just through the Spirit, and we gave each other a big hug.  You can't express  these feelings with words.  The Spirit is a feeling of truth and joy.  It's a vision of things, not something that can be expressed verbally.  When we got back to the apartment for lunch I was just exhausted.  It was crazy.  I've never felt like that after church.  The Spirit was so strong it just took everything out of me.  It was like when Ammon collapses when he sees Alma in the Book of Mormon.  I didn't think that really happened haha.  It was an amazing day.


To finish the day yesterday, we had another miracle.  There was a man that we saw while hurrying to an appointment for which we were late that smiled at us and said hi and we said hi  back but didn"'t have time to talk .  Three minutes later he came running up behind us and asked us who we were.  He said his pastor said he was eternally damned.  We testified of the Atonement and the restoration and ended up talking for about 20 minutes.  He was so awesome and we set up an appointment.  When the time of our appointment came, he didn't show up.  We were pretty bummed.  Saturday night during planning, we decided we would pass his address sunday night because we had a little extra time at night before coming home.  So we went around 830 and it was a big building with lots of apartments.  We started ringing allthe doorbells on bottom and no one answered.  Then when we were about tlo leave, he showed up with his wife and his 2 kids and was super happy to see us.  They invited us into their apartment and we taught them.  They are such a humble couple and they listened to everything we said so intently.  The Spirit was so strong and I just felt so much love for them and their family.  I knew that Heavenly Father wanted us to be there last night in order to teach them.  We're going to return tonight to teach them again.  It's incredible how Heavenly Father can  help us be where He wants us to be at the right time.  I know this work is true and I love it!  Thanks for all your support and prayers.  Have a great week!


Love,


Elder Tudor