February 21, 2012

Bonjour,
It was a crazy week, like always. We were all over the place. We have the car again which is fantastic! We can get around a lot easier now, except when there's horrible traffic, which happens often. Highlights of the week would most definitely be, first of all, L's confirmation. I had the blessing of confirming her yesterday during sacrament meeting. Just seeing them walk into church Sunday morning with smiles on their faces was one of the greatest things I've ever seen. A brother in the ward hooked P up with a white shirt and tie, so he received the Priesthood during the first hour of church and then he got to bless the sacrament (which is the last meeting here). As soon as sacrament meeting ended he disappeared and 5 minutes later he came out of the bathroom holding the white shirt and tie and just wearing his sweater. L said it was the first time he's ever worn a tie haha. He'll get used to it! The poor guy. The person he was blessing the sacrament with gave him the wrong prayer to read. He was supposed to bless the water and the member gave him the bread prayer, so he had to start over a few times. It was so great seeing him up there. I love that man!
In other news, we were able to see C this week. He made us this carbo-load dinner - A giant plate of fried rice and a giant plate of chinese noodles. He's not doing too great rright now. He's got some issues that we're working on with him. RIck is doing awesome as usual. It's that mongolian blood - descendant of Israel! (according to president Carter and President Murdock). H is doing well, but she has been in Paris all week visiting her boyfriend.
Right now we've got some investigators, but they're not progressing a lot, so we've gotta kind find a lot this week and kind of cycle through our amis. (ami means investigator. I'm gonna right tha tfrom now on because I'm sick of writing investigator haha). We found a few sweet amis this week. One of them is from Bulgaria but speaks fluent spanish, and since Elder Gubbay grew up in spain, we can teach him. We taught a new chinese guy yesterday and I played ugitar with him after. We both loved the same music so it we jammed a little bit. Sometimes it really catches people off guard when they see a missionary play guitar haha.
I'm really excited to work with Elder Gubbay. He's a really inspiring missionary. We really want to change the attitude of the zone. This morning we had a great discussion about the work in general. I remember at the beginning of my mission how I was such a little fireball. I absolutely love the mission still, but it's not always easy to keep that fire going when you do the same things every day. I work hard every day, but I just want that extra fire back that I had. I read through a few of my notes this morning from Elder Holland's talk that he gave us in the MTC. A few of my favorite ones were "this is war" and "you are saviors and redeemers without the captial 's' and 'r'." This literally is a war. We are literally soldiers in God's army. If these people don't accept the Gospel, "they will be destroyed" (president Murdock). This is the real deal. We can't hold anything back. This is the only chance I'll ever get to completely consecrate my time and my heart to the work. Satan is doing all he can to make God's children miserable. Elder Holland taught once that sometimes we as missionaries are the only thing between a person and their salvation. We've been put in this part of the Lord's vineyared and we need to take care of it. Some people will say that France is a poor part of the vineyard, but as the Lord said, "Counsel me not." I know that the Lord can bring forth good fruit in any part of His vineyard. I know that He is working among His children here and that He is always with us. One thing I've realized lately is that I rely too much on myself. It's surprisingly easy as a missionary to forget that this is the Lord's work, and that if we simply obey with exactness, pray, and work as hard as we can, He will take care of it. He is literally with us. I can't every let myself forget that. I know that every soul is precious to God and that when we become instruments in His hands, the work of redeeming His vineyard moves forward. I know the church is true. I know that Christ is our Savior and King. I love Him and want to serve Him and all of God's children the rest of my life. Love you all!
Bonne semaine.
Elder Tudor