Joyeux Noël!‏

 

Merry Christmas from the crazy Limoges soeurs!!

Our buffet table at the party..Sorry I didn't get a better one though!
Really just lots of smoked salmon things. And weird meat. And this SUPER nasty spread that I can't even describe to you but it tastes like dog food. Hahaha.

I don't even feel like this picture needs a caption. It just describes so perfectly my life. Haha.

Salut my darling family!

 

I hope you are all having a wonderful time getting ready for Christmas! Gosh I really love this season. It is such a beautiful time of the year. Also, Christmas markets are a thing that we don't have in America that really we just should. We spent some time at the cute little market we have in Limoges. They just put up all these adorable log cabin houses in the middle of this huge square and they just sell a lot of different things. Also really delicious fried food I learned today. Also Pere Noël has an adorable house he is going to be showing up in soon. I am super stoked. Haha. Christmas in France is so fun! I only get this once, so I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can.

 

On Saturday night we had our ward Christmas party. Oh my goodness it was such a blast. Our ward definitely knows how to throw parties. I don't think I have talked about this ward a lot, but honestly I love them so much. We don't have a huge ward, but it is actually a ward and not a branch. We have about 60 people that come to church every week. And my goodness I love every single one of those members. They are so awesome at serving us. We are still working really hard at getting them to teach with us though..honestly that has been one of the biggest stresses of the mission. Finding members to teach with. It has been really hard here in Limoges, so we are trying to make that a goal this transfer.

Other than that, the members here are amazing missionaries. Whenever we have an ami come to church they just fellowship them like crazy!!

We had two member families give us these adorable Christmas packages. It made me feel so loved. Here I am trying to help them feel loved and I just feel so loved by them I want to cry...haha.
Anyway, so yes, the party was a blast. Our bishop is absolutely crazy. My goodness. He has the energy of a five year old. But it is hilarious. And he is actually an amazing bishop as well. Also, discovered that I really don't love French Christmas food...We had a huuuge buffet table full of food and I told myself I would try everything..and really there wasn't any of it I actually enjoyed. Haha. Some of it was okay. But nothing that was actually really good. And like the majority of the things I ate I didn't even know WHAT I was eating. French food is just a fun time. Haha.

But as the missionaries we did a cute little sketch and I think it went really well! It was just a really short sketch talking about the true meaning of Christmas. And then the adorable primary kids did a little program after us. I don't know why but when they are just up there singing their sweet little Christmas songs I just felt the Spirit so strong. I am so incredibly grateful for this time of year that we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior. What amazing gift that was given to the whole world. Our Savior, Jesus Christ. Goodness I love this life I get to live where I just get to talk about him all the time!

Other than that..this week was a little strange. Soeur L and I were honestly just super tired all week long. I don't even really know why. Yeah I am tired like 90 percent of the time..but it usually isn't a big deal. But this week we just felt like we were having to really push through every single thing we did. It is so beautiful to see though, how when despite how tired we feel, when we push through and do as much as we can all day..our Heavenly Father really blesses us. I really felt prayers from everyone this week as I was pushing through!

One of those amazing miracles that Heavenly Father has given us...is our amazing ami, H--! I don't think I told you much about him. I contacted him at a bus stop on the week we contacted 1,000 people. And as soon as I started talking to him, he told me he was Muslim. Which immediately made me almost just say "C'est bien! Vous croyez en Dieu!" which is usually the comment I make when people tell me they are Muslim. BUT he started just asking a million questions. We ended up talking for like 30 minutes and I ended up giving him le Livre de Mormon.  He asked me so many deep questions, it was awesome. It was really cool too because I handed him our card, walked away, and then he chased  after me and he was like "Hey this card says you have a DVD about Jesus? Can I have that??" Soo yeah, he says he is Muslim but honestly I think that is just because that is all he has ever known. He told us in our first rdv that he is looking for the truth. And he prays at the end of every lesson. We have only had three lessons so far but every lesson has been AWESOME. We have his baptism date set for Jan 17th. And it is very, very possible. As long as he keeps reading and praying..he is one of the most solid amis that I have ever taught! So I will keep you updated on him!!

I hope you all know how happy I am. I say that all the time, but it is so true. I just feel so blessed beyond words to be where I am right now, doing what I am doing.

I am so excited to hear all of your voices very soon! I will send you a different email giving you details on our Skyping session. I can't wait to actually SEE all of you! Haha.

Until then, keep having a wonderful Christmas season!!
I love you all so very much. I pray for you like crazy!

Je vous aime!!

Love,

Soeur Magleby

1,009

An adorable member in our ward knitted us all gloves!! So cute. I love this picture.

Saying goodbye to Elder Ashton!

Salut! First off, I am staying in Limoges! With Soeur L! You should have seen the little dance we did when we got our transfer call. I was so excited. I am SO excited to be spending Christmas in a city and with a companion that I love so much! Elder Stephens is staying here with us as well! We are very excited that we all get to stay here and have another blast of a transfer. The only change we saw was Elder Ashton leaving us. Yesterday was a pretty sad day to have to watch him get on the train to leave. I have seen so many missionaries die, and it kills me every time. And we were especially sad about Elder Ashton leaving yesterday because it has been such a blessing to have been able to serve with him in the same city this transfer.

I think one my favorite things about the mission is how many people I get to meet who are such amazing examples to me. There are already so many members I have met who have had such a huge effect on me, and also so many missionaries. I am so grateful for the amazing missionaries that we have in this mission and that I have the chance to learn so much from their example! It is really interesting to see how the older I get in the mission the more it kills me to think about leaving. It scares me always talking to missionaries who are on their last transfer and they talk about how fast it goes by. Like it seems like your mission is so long and all of a sudden you wake up one morning and you are on your last transfer. Gosh that is so scary! Because yes of course I love you all to death, but wow I still have so much to accomplish before I am anywhere close to going home! I am hitting my 6 month mark this month which means I only have a year left to be serving the Lord. That is so crazy to me. But I definitely don't let myself think about that too much. I just try to make myself aware of it so I am propheting of every moment that I have here!

I am so grateful for this transfer and all the things that I have learned. But it is always so fun to begin a new transfer as well. It is like every 6 weeks I get to evaluate myself and make new goals and continue to try to work to become the kind of missionary I know my Heavenly Father wants me to be.

Alright, now with the real stuff. 1,009. I am so proud of that number. Because that is how many people Soeur L and I invited to come to Christ this week! To give you an idea of how huge that number feels...for my entire mission, on average, I usually have somewhere between 300 or 400 contacted every week. But, we made a goal to talk to 1,000. We just felt like we really needed to end this transfer with a bang. And my goodness we did! This week was honestly soo tiring. Probably one of the hardest working weeks of my mission thus far. But we made a deal with God and asked him to grant us with new amis and with miracles if we accomplished this goal. And boy did He follow through! I saw so many incredible miracles this week. It was AMAZING. We went from having one "kind of" ami who wasn't even progressing to having two amis with a baptism date, and AT LEAST 10 really solid potentials that we are trying to make rendez vous with! It is crazy!! I wish I could sit and write down every single miracle I saw throughout the week because there were almost too many too count!

But there is one that is really sticking out in my mind. Because it was absolutely hilarious. It was about 6:00 and we still had about 150 more people to contact to make our goal for that day. So we just went to centre ville where we knew it would be easy (blessing we decided to make this goal when we did because everyone is out Christmas shopping!) So we were just standing in the spot where we usually street board and just talked to everything that moves. Haha really though, I felt like such a hunter this week. Sometimes I feel really creepy a missionary. Anyway, talking to everyone who is walking past, and everyone was being super rude. Not just saying no. Like every single person I tried to talk to was not even giving me a second. For a full hour and a half, I couldn't even get ONE person to stop and listen to me. And it got to the point where I just stopped in the middle of centre ville, looking over at Soeur L and yelled out (in French, might I add) "WHERE ARE THE ELECT?!" I just literally looked up at the sky and said to myself "Okay. God places people in my path. I have to have faith in that. There has to be someone here that is going to listen to me. " and then I see this guy about to walk past me and literally say out loud "Maybe this guy will listen." His name is Jack and he is SO sweet and we are going to have a rdv with him this week. Haha! Okay so yeah he isn't one of the guys we have engaged to baptism BUT that was such a humbling moment and just really showed me how much God is aware of me.

The work is happening here in Limoges! It is incredible! I couldn't be happier to be spending Christmas here in this beautiful country surrounded by people who I love so much.

"Service adds substance to our souls" said the oh so wonderful President Roney. Man is that true. As I serve the people around me I am learning more love than I have ever felt before. It is the most amazing learning experience in the world. I love you all so much. Thank you for all the sacrifices you make for me. I will see you all way too soon! Keep spreading the love of Christ! Love, Soeur Magleby

French Thanksgiving.‏

Look!! I made Thanksgiving in France!!

Thanksgiving party!! Elders ami sitting next to me. She is sooo cute my goodness.

LIMOGES IS LITERALLY A WINTER WONDERLAND!

They finally turned on the lights!! It is seriously so beautiful and crazy. I haven't seen so many Christmas lights in my life besides Temple Square. I am going to be taking pictures like crazy this month. I feel so so Lucky to be serving in such a beautiful place!!

Another view of our beauiful Mairie!

Sometimes we get to have lessons in Paul and it smells like Starbucks and I just feel really connected with my innerself. Haha. This really was such a fantastic night! This is M--, he just got baptized right before he moved to France so we have taught him a few lessons.

Also....I present to you,

Literally the best picture I have taken on my mission thus far.

Hello my dear loved ones! I apologize this leter is going to be quite short because I spent a lot of time today answering back to people personally. You all just write me really great emails and I really wanted to talk to each of you personally, so I think it was worth it! Haha.

This week I got pretty sick. So honestly..not a lot happened. Most days I just really was trying to survive and get through the day. I have not been sick enough that I needed to go to a doctor or anything though. Mostly it was just a really bad cold and a lot of headaches. It just was really annoying to have a cold bad enough I honestly felt like I couldn't breath and then have to go spend hours trying to talk to people in the cold. So last night, when I realized that if I just got some more sleep I knew that could almost completely cure me, I decided to go to bed early. We were going to go out and work but Sœur L convinced me that it would be better for this week if I just got better. So I went to bed at 7:30.  10 hours of sleep! I feel like a new person! Haha. Honestly it was really hard. I felt really werid because I hate not working. But I feel SO much better today and I am ready for the week ahead!

We have a crazy week ahead of us. We have set some absolutely insane goals. But I know that with the Lord on our side..nothing can stop us. I am just letting you know, expect a crazy email next week FULL of miracles. It is definitely going to happen!

French Thanksgiving!! IT was SO fun!! Honestly..not as many people showed up to our activity as we wanted. But the people who did show up, it was amazing! We had such a blast! It honestly felt like a real Thanksgiving. I was surrounded by people I loved, singing and dancing, and making hand Turkeys. It ws fantastic. Haha. And we got a bunch of potential amis out of it. So it was a success! Also, I learned a bunch about cooking! Haha I pulled out some real Thanksgving food. I made mashed potatoes and yams, and then Stovetop stuffing so I guess that doesn't really count. And Sœur Loder made a pumpkin pie! From a real pumpkin. It was really impressive. It was hilarious, everyone was literally DYING over my yams. French people have never had anything like it. Everyone was like demanding for my recipie and I was like uhh...literally it is just yams, butter, and Brown sugar. I was actually surprised they turned out because it was definitely different using French ingrediants. But I ended up writing my "recipe" down for a lot of people, so they apparently turned out great! It was funny because after I made them I honestly don't even know HOW I knew how to make them. I realized I had never made them before, but I guess just growing up all those years watching Grandma Miller make them...I just knew how!

It was fun to be able to teach the French people about Thanksgiving. They all really loved the idea of having a Holiday where we just spend time with family and talk about think about things that we are grateful for. There was so much that I have be grateful for. This Holiday season is going to be one I am never going to forget. I could not ask for anything more in my life. I was trying to sit down and think about all the things I am truly so grateful to the Lord for..and my list is absolutely amazing. I literally have no idea how I got so blessed. No idea. I could never deny that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me just by looking around at my life.
I have an amazing family who is everything to me. I have amazing friends who have always been there for me. I am in France. I am Learning French!! I get to spend all day everyday talking about my Savior Jesus Christ and testifying of Him and His life. I get to have a front row seat to seeing the effect that this Gospel can have on peoples lives. There is literally no greater blessing. I am not going to lie, it is going to be a little sad not being surrounded by the ones I love this Holiday season. But I can only be sad for a minute. Because then I look around me and realized how blessed I am. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for all my amazing blessings. And I just want to be able to show Him that. So I am going to take this Christmas to work as hard as I possibly can for Him. I am in the most perfect position I ever could be to be able to serve my Savior, because I carry his name on my badge. And it is the only thing I am doing right now in my life. But all of you have the opportunity to show your Savior how much you love Him too.
I invite you to take this Holiday season, and to reflect on all the amazing gifts that you have. Show your Savior how much you love Him and are grateful for the things He has given you, and do that by serving the people around you. There is an ADORABLE Mormon Message that just came out about Christmas. Go Watch it. Definitely going to work for Mormon Messages one day. Haha. I must!!

Give a little of yourself this Christmas.
I am so grateful for you. I can't tell you how much your love means to me. In my setting apart, I remember my Stake President saying that the prayers of my family were going to be what is going to buoy me up on my mission. And it is so true. I can so literally feel your love around me every single day.
Thank you for your prayers. I pray for you all so much. Je vous aime! Have a wonderful week!! Love, Sœur Magleby