Learning

Soo..I decided to wrap your packages and wait until Christmas to open them. This is our Christmas tree and all our presents.
I thought you would enjoy that.

 

This whole life is just one huge learning experience. It is all about our progression.

It really hit me in a weird way yesterday, during church when our Gospel Principles teacher asked;

"If God knows the plan, if He already knows what bad choices we are going to make, the good ones and the bad ones, and if He knows what is going to happen in the end...why do we even need to be here?"

Progression. Experience. Learning. That is why we are all here. That has been the theme of my week.

We had our Christmas Zone Conference last Tuesday. Definitely the best Zone Conference I have had by far! And not only because it was Christmas and we had a feast and all got our packages. But it was one of the most spiritual experiences I have had a long time. I don't know if ever really wrote home about it, but back in August, President Roney's daughter and her husband lost their baby that only lived for a week. He talked about it a lot with us missionaries so we were all aware of the sitatuion. And at Zone Conference this week, he had his son-in-law came talk to us about their experience.
This family is beyond words.I was literally bawling by the end of his talk. They are such an inspiration to me. He told us this story with so much light. This heart-breaking story. He was literally glowing the entire time he was talking to us. He talked about how much this birth of their child changed their entire lives. How it made them better people. And made everything in their life brighter and more meaningful. He took this event in his life, the hardest thing anyone can go through of losing a child, and used it to help him see how Heavenly Father answers his prayers. And how much He loves Him.

It blew my mind. I obviously have no idea how I would take that situation if I was ever in their spot. But I am pretty sure I wouldn't be as Christlike as this amazing family is as they have gone through this trial. Such an amazing example.

It really got me thinking. I meet so many people everyday, who tell me that God doesn't exist. And often, I ask them what it is to lead them to this point in their life where they can't even  believe in God. And many times, I have heard the response that they lost someone important in their lives. A lot of times they tell me they have lost a child. And so they can't believe in God anymore. I was thinking about that a lot after this conference. How some people can take an experience, and have it lead them to believe that God does not exist. And others can take this experience to help them see how much God loves them.

That is what this Gospel does for us. That is what Jesus Christ does for us. We can literally overcome any trial, any heartache, because we have the Savoir on our side. And that is why I am so grateful for my Savior this Christmas season.  Because without Him, I literally could not been doing anything I am doing.

Often times I fall asleep at night wondering how in the world I am able to keep going. And I know that I am not doing this alone. There is absolutely no possible way I could be. It makes me think of President Uchodorf's talk a couple conference's ago.

That even in our darkest hour, the light of the Savior will always shine through.
Our Savior's light will always carry us through the darkness, no matter how dark it may be.

As I walk with Him everyday, I see it. I see Him changing peoples lives.
There is literally nothing else that can bring us more happiness.

 

I have learned so much this week. Through Zone Conference, through really amazing personal studies, and through working really hard and not really seeing any fruits of our labors this week.

I have learned so much. And so, now that I look at it, this last week I accomplished a lot.

 

Because I learned. And that's why we are all here.

I love you so much my amazing family. Keep pushing on. Be happy. Especially during Christmas. Look to the Savior and His light.
He is always there for you.

Je vous aime.

Merry Christmas!!
I will talk to you soon.
Love,
Soeur Magleby

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

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...‏

>

Beautiful French countryside. 

Street board.

Missionary work is really boring.  #not

Salut! 

Timing this week has been insane. This week feels like a year long. I don't really know how that happened! But last Monday feels like FOREVER ago! I can't believe it is already week 5 of the transfer. That freaks me out. Soeur L and I are so determined to stay in Limoges for Christmas!! I will be so sad if I leave. I am really hoping to stay. Also, Limoges apparently goes CRAZY on the Christmas lights because they are hanging them up absolutely everywhere. This ville is going to be lit up in December. I am so stoked. I love the Christmas season!! I can already feel that it is going to be a little harder at Christmas, I am sure I will miss home a little bit. But not enough that it could ever make me not thrilled out of my mind too be doing what I am doing! 

The highlight of my week was definitely Zone Conference. We only have interviews with President every other transfer, and this transfer is interviews so I was just like thrilled out of my mind to talk to President. Especially because I had some specific things I wanted to talk about. It is really cool to go into interviews with questions, because President Roney is just pretty much all-knowing and it is so fantastic. He is someone that has already, and is going to continue to change my life. We talked for a long time about everything.  I walked out of our interview pretty much skipping. It just made me feel really good to know that President really does think I am a good missionary and really trusts me and he is proud of the work we are doing in Limoges! 

We are still focusing on finding people like crazy here in Limoges. We have not been able to really get in contact with any of our amis or even our potentials. It is really frustrating. Like obviously life is busy but I am just so sick of hearing people tell me they are too busy to hear our message! If only they actually understand what we were actually trying to share with them. More happiness than they could ever imagine. I think they would have time then. Haha. 

We did have a fantatstic finding activity this week though! We had Stake Conference here in Limoges this weekend (Yes, I went to my very first Stake Conference!! Haha) So we had 6 elders who came to stay here with the Limoges Elders. So 8 of us missionaries went out street boarding on Saturday, and it was such a blast! I just realized you probably don't understand that. Street boarding is just where we make a board that says something...honestly it could be anything, just something to get peoples attention, and then we go somewhere super busy and just go crazy talking to people! I am pretty sure we each individually talked to at least 100 people, and we only had like 45 minutes. Missionary work is just such a blast. And we passed out a bunch of Book of Mormons, and got some numbers!

I am also super stoked for our Thanksgiving activity this week.I will defintiely let you know how it goes in my next email! We are expecting a huuge crowd. A huge crowd of amis, that is. So I am stoked. Also nervous because I am making yams, stuffing, and mashed potatoes..haha. Not sure how it is going to work with my french ingrediants, but I am going to do my best! 

I am sorry I don't have more exciting things to talk about this week! Just know that I am on top of the world! I am so grateful for all of your support. It lifts me up everyday.

I get to see God's hands in my life every single day. I have made a goal to start writing down more of the little blessings that I see everyday, because there is literally so many things that I see every single day. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and has His angels walking with me! 

I love you my wonderful family! I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving! Don't miss me too much. We have the rest of our lives to spend the Holidays together, and I only have 18 months to serve the Lord. And I have got to make the most of it.

Je vous aime! Je vous souhaite un bonne semaine!  Love,
Soeur Magleby

Outdoorsy me. The horse actually like got nasty and spit allll over me and I DIDNT even freak out.

Also this week we had the best member experience in the WORLD! Also Soeur L was in heaven, haha. We have an English family in our ward who own sooo much land annnd have 19 acres. So while the Elders did some heavy labor we went and hung out with horses. ;) It was SO much fun!

C'est la vie

Last week we had a beautiful P Day and took a wonderful walk around the river!

I went picture crazy. It was one of those just absolutely perfect moments in life. This is the cathedral from the other side, the same one I sent a picture home a few weeks ago.

I'm just like....really happy. Haha.

This is how happy I was to get STUFFING!!! Yay!! Thanksgiving!!!!!! Haha.

Limoges is beautiful.

 

So I was really smart this week and made a list of all the things throughout this week that I want to tell you. Yay! I love when I do that. Haha.

 

For starters, MIRACLE WEEK. You know how I keep saying we had a bunch of opposition but I knew that meant that miracles were coming? The miracles definitely started happening this week. I learned a really good lesson this week.

 

So in our weekly planning, we made a really specific goal that we wanted to teach one lesson a day. We wanted to teach ONCE at least every single day. So we prayed for this goal like crazy. And worked as hard as we could to achieve it. And even though we didn't quite reach our goal, because we did our best, we were blessed so much!

On Tuesday, we had a really hard day. We decided to go out porting into this one neighborhood that we had tried before but didn't have a lot of time. So, we went back. Full of hope we would teach our one lesson for the day. Annnd we didn't. And it was pouring. And freezing cold. And we ported for almost 4 hours with absolutely no success. And we actually lost a potential ami. So we got home that night just exhausted. And sad that we had not accomplished our goal.

 

You will only receive a witness after the trial of your faith

 

Tuesday was our trial.

 

Wednesday was our witness.

 

We went to pass an ancient ami that we had found in our area book. A man opened the door. He said the girl we were looking for was in the apartment sleeping. We then proceeded to talk to him for 45 minutes. And say a prayer. And teach him practically the whole first lesson. Our lesson for the day! This man is amazing. We are teaching him tonight, and I am so excited! He is from Algeria, and talked to us a lot about all the scary crazy stuff he saw going on there. And how it made him no longer believe in God. He doesn't understand a religion where God would allow such bad things to happen. And we shared our message with him. And I saw his entire face change. It was SO amazing to be able to share with him the positivity of our message. And to promise him blessings. Promise him that he has a father in Heaven who loves him. And that life is meant for us to be happy! I could tell it is something he has been looking for, for so long.

 

I will let you know next week how our lesson goes tonight!

 

Something fun that we have been doing a ton of this week as well, is service! Serving the Elders. We have this fun thing going on with us and the Elders. It started the first night they got here. They had had a really long day, and they did not even have a fridge in their new apartment. So we brought them dinner that night. And they were so grateful. And then they came to our apartment and cleaned our kitchen and checked for cockroaches. Still feel indebted to them for that. And then from then on...we have literally been serving each other as much as we can. It is such a blast. We buy them pastries. They buy us éclairs. We go print off tickets for them at the gare and heart attack them. They buy us brownies. IT is SO fun! And this week we did a really fun thing, and we made them a huge lunch, because they were in desperate need of a warm meal. Their electricity bill was not paid. Which means they have been literally freezing in their apartment. It is really, really cold here. We felt so bad. So we made them chicken noodle soup and hot chocolate. Haha. It is just something that we have been doing that has really made me LOVE service even more!!

 

 

There is also something really cool that I have been thinking a lot about this week. I have said to you a lot of times about how amazing it is how much I have made such a better relationship with my Savior. And that I know him better than every before. And this week I have been thinking a lot about that, especially in my studies because I have really been focusing on studying the Savior's life. I have been reading the New Testament like crazy and also reading Jesus the Christ. It has been amazing. And there is this crazy thing that happens when I talk to people about Christ. And I honestly can't really explain it. But it's like, Christ is such this big figure in the world. Everyone knows who He is, whether you believe in Him or not. So it's like, when I talk to people about Christ, whether it is on the rue or in a lesson, people know who I am talking about. And I ask them if they believe in Christ. And we had this moment with Bill where it really hit me. He said he believes that someone named Jesus Christ lived, but he is not sure who he really was. And as I sat there and testified to him about who Jesus Christ was, I can't even explain to you how it feels. It feels like I am talking about my best friend. Someone I know really, really well. It is almost like I want to turn to my side and ask "Was that good? Did I explain your life correctly to him?"

I can't even explain in words how LITERALLY I feel Christ walking with me every single day.

 

He is my best friend. He is my older brother. He is my Savior.

 

This is such a sacred time in my life. Where I get to spend all day doing His work. But I know no matter where we are in life, we can all make our lives sacred, and have the Savior walk with us. Every single day.

 

All we have to do is seek Him.

 

And He is there with us. Always. He is in our midst. As a representative of Him, I can promise you that.

 

I love you all so much! I feel your prayers. During all the hard times.

I think of you, and your love and support. And it keeps me going.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sœur Magleby

PS BIGGEST miracle of the week, we have not seen cockroaches in 5 days!! Ahh!! It is seriously a miracle!!

And there goes another week

Bonjour tout le monde!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week!
 

Honestly this week was kind of one of those that just happened. Haha that is the only way I can use to describe it. It happened. Another week went by. But it was definitely a really good week!
 

Right now the hardest thing for me in Limoges is we just really are not seeing any fruits of our labors. I have been starting to realize how spoiled I was in Pau. Just working like CRAZY and barely having a second to breath we were teaching so many lessons. But now all I feel like I have been doing for the past two weeks is getting a whole bunch of rejection. I am just like super craving to teach the Plan of Salvation or something, it has been way too long....haha. #missionaryproblems
 

I am having so much fun here though, besides not seeing an incredible amount of success. Because I have faith that it is going to come. I really just feel that we are so close to huge miracles. It is just going to take a lot of faith to get there. But we can do it! This week we did a lot of traveling. Thursday we went to Bordeaux for Zone Training. Which was such a good day. Because I FINALLY got my package, and also got to talk to the Elders in Pau and they told me about how all my amis are doing! It was so good to talk to them and to know that they are working really hard, it gave me a lot of comfort. I told them they better baptize Y-- at the end of this transfer.
 

And then on Friday we had such a fun night and we got to go to the musical night that the Elders did! I think I may have said something about them last week. I don't really remember. But it was in a ville an hour away, and we didn't have anyone to stay with but then miraculously our ami told us that she wanted to go and that she would drive us! It was so fun! So that was a cool night. Got to see a bunch of missionaries. And their music night was good! But..it was also just their first night. And one of them was sick. The one who sang. Haha they did a really good job though. The whole time I just couldn't help thinking about how they really badly needed someone who can play the violin really well. Or sing. Or both. Too bad there isn't someone like that in this mission......cough cough.
 

And then on Saturday we spent all day traveling AGAIN because an équipe of elders in our district had a baptism! It was really cool. It was actually the first baptism I have been to on my mission. So I was excited to finally witness one!

 Gosh this work we are doing is just so amazing. There is nothing in the world like seeing the look on someone's face when they come out of the water. Nothing. There is no words that can describe the happiness this Gospel brings. That's definitely something I have learned here. I sure hope the next baptism I get to witness is here in Limoges!!
 

I realized I have not told you yet about Lindsey! Lindsey is actually our engagé. Which means she has a baptism date. And she is just the sweetest girl in the world. I love her so much. And she honestly is so prepared. But she is just a super busy université student so she barely has time to see us. So that has been our biggest problem. But I know that she is going to be baptized. She already knows its true, I can tell. She just is actually like super smart so she kind of over thinks everything. It is really funny. Her questions blow me away sometimes. It is so fun.
 

This week we made some really awesome goals, and we have already been praying for them like crazy. I just love waking up in the morning and wondering what amazing miracles I will get to see that day. Man, I really just have the best life.
 

The war with the cockroaches is still raging on. Haha. We can't figure out how they are getting in our apartment, because we figured out they aren't actually COMING from our apartment. So we have pretty much just gone with killing them with raid and buying traps and trying to catch them. We declared war. Today I accidently stepped in a trap and exlaimed "Dang it I just trapped myself! We are totally losing!" Haha. So yeah it sucks. But honestly it could be worse. I was talking to an elder this week who had bed bugs. Much rather have roaches.
 

This girl who is preparing for a mission soon asked me this week "I want you to honestly tell me, what is a mission like? Like really, HOW is it?" And honestly for a second I didn't know what to say. It is so hard to answer that question. But I have been thinking about that question a lot this week and trying to answer it for myself.

A mission is really, really hard. Harder than I ever imagined. Ever. It is nothing like I ever expected. I don't really remember what exactly I thought a mission was like before I was actually on one. But it is definitely not what I thought it would be.
 

A mission has taught me so much. I have learned so much more than I ever thought I would. About loving people. About the Gospel. And about myself. I honestly look back on my pre-mission self and wonder if I even HAD a testimony. I feel like I honestly did not know anything before my mission. It is so funny. I think I have just grown so much.

I never knew how real the Savior's Atonement is. I mess up a lot as a missionary. And sometimes it is really hard. But I always have the opportunity to become better. To become the kind of missionary that I know all of you think I am...haha.

I just want you all to know how happy I am here. I have never done something so hard. But I have never done something so amazing in my entire life. I will never, ever regret this decision. This year and a half is literally changing my entire life.

I literally could not be happier.
 

Okay maybe if I didn't have roaches in my apartment. Haha.
But even then. Life is amazing.
 

I hope you all take a moment this week to really notice just how much God has blessed you. And how much He is really a part of your life.
He loves you so much.
This Gospel is everything. Don't ever take it for granted.
I love you all more than I could ever even say.
Sorry I didn't have any huge miracles this week. But there are so many amazing miracles that happen everyday. I wish I had time to tell you all of them.
Just know that angels walk with me.
I love you so much. Bonne semaine!

Love,

Soeur Mag