July 17, 2012

My birthday present, a stick of deodorant. Funniest thing ever.

Elder Prows and I

Slovakian cousins

Chinese buffet for my birthday dinner! Mmmm.

 Ni hao,
It was an interesting week, as always!  We had a couple surprises.  Unfortunately Elder Prows is no longer with us.  He left on Friday.  He's a great elder and I hope he is doing well.  He really brought a great spirit to our companionship.  We also got to meet president Roney, his wife, and a few of their sons.  It was fantastic!  I love president Roney.  I was actually the first one to have an interview with him in Toulouse, and it was one of my favorite interviews with president.  He's very very inspired and he just injects faith into you when he speaks.  I'm so excited for his plans for the mission.  We're really going to focus on decreasing the negative and increasing the positive in regards to thechurch in France.  He's already started by decreasing the negative.  In the US, there's a non profit organization that the church funded to make it so when you type in mormons on google, the first several pages of sites that come up are all good and positive sites.  You really have to dig to get anything bad.  Well, President Roney funded the same organization to do the same thing in France and they started a few weeks ago.   And oh yeah, Soeur Roney told me that they know bishop Brown very well.  pretty cool!
Things are going well in Montauban though.  We found some new investigators this week.  A family from sri lanka, a portugeuse man, and a family from Romania (my favorite!).  The Slovakians are doing well.  The B family has a baptismal date.  It's a mom, dad, and a daughter who is 24.  They need a lot of prayers and to stop smoking.  Another part of president Roney's plan is to increase the positive by increasing the spirituality of the wards and branches in France.  There's a long history of contention between families in almost every place you go in France.  So, President has showed us a way to help unify the wards and branches and make the meetings more spiritual and uplifting.  If the meetings aren't that way, how are we supposed to build the church in France?  The new people will just come in and then leave if they don't feel the love and the Spirit that should be there.  It's a cycle that needs to be stopped.  Elder Cushing and I saw some members this week and started working with them and this sunday the meetings were already so much better.  I think a big part of it is just that we're super excited to help the members and we have a new-found love and appreciation for them. 

Right now I'm actually in toulouse for pday.  Sister Wilkey, her son Louis, R, and W are all coming down from Bordeaux to spend the day here with me and Elder Buss (Elder Buss is serving in Toulouse).  I'm pretty stoked!!  Toulouse is beautiful and I'm way excited to see all these people that I love. 

On a spiritual note, I love something that President Roney said this week during his presentation.  He asked, "What is the most important quote in history?"  The answer is, "This is my Beloved Son - hear Him!"  This quote, more or less, is found a few times in the scriptures, and it is God the Father who says it.  It basically sums up the Gospel in one sentence.  The sole purpose of life is to find out what Jesus taught and do it.  He gave us these cool little notebooks and told us to write that quote in there and then to make a list of all the commandments that Jesus gave starting by reading third nephi and then looking to other sources.  It's been a great way to study and it's really simplified the gospel for me.  The gospel is incredible - I think it's the only thing in the world that never gets old.  And at the same time, it's the oldest thing in the world!  I know that the Gospel is eternal.  The truths that we are taught in Christ's church are eternal, and no matter what the world may teach, I know that those things will all pass away, but the word of God will never pass away.  I'm so thankful to have the words of Christ!  I was reading the book of Mormon this morning and I realized that I have been reading the same book over and over for my whole life - I must be crazy haha.  But I know I'm not, because we can learn more valuable things from that book alone over and over than by reading all the books in the world.  Every time I open it up, it gives me direction for my specific situation at that specific time.  I know the Book of Mormon is true; it contains the words of Christ.  I love you all et je vous souhaite une bonne semaine!

Love,
Elder Tudor