Don't look back

Christmas Eve! The amazing family we spent our Christmas Eve with! Minus one taking the picture.

 

So there's this thing called Mormon Messages inspire my life. Gosh, I love them so much. Our church is so cool! The newest Mormon Message is a message about New Year's. And as soon as I watched it I knew it would inspire me for my letter this week!

First, it was so awesome to be able to talk to all of you on Christmas. It was so awesome to be able to hear your voices! It just felt good to see that you all are the same wonderful family that I know and love. I had such a wonderful Christmas! I already told you all about it. But it really was a wonderful day. I was just so happy and full of love. And after we skyped we ended the day watching The Aristocats. So I was pretty much skipping as we were walking home, it was such an amazing day. My heart felt a little bit like it was going to explode I was filled with so much love.

I won't lie, it was a little hard. The day after Christmas was pretty hard for me. I am not really sure why. My theory is that I went from having a day and spending it with people I love and feeling so loved, and then the next day we went streetboarding and everyone seemed to be unusually mean. There was honestly a moment where I just wanted to give up and sit down and cry. So, the after-effects of Christmas were a little bit challenging. But, I kept pushing on no matter what my feelings were. And I was on my knees praying. A lot. And now I am back to my regular old super happy missionary self!

This week really taught me a lot. I learned a lot about love. A lot about how you, my wonderful family love me. And a lot about how much my Heavenly Father loves me. I really am learning more and more that understanding our Father in Heaven's love for us and our Savior's love for us is a life-long journey. I don't think it is something we will ever be able to truly comprehend. But there are those moments where you feel just a wink of it. You feel just a small percent of the immense love that they have for us..and that is what keeps me going.

 

So this week was not the easiest week in the world, but it was definitely one of the most memorable I have had thus far on my mission. I will never forget the Christmas I spent as a missionary. I am so grateful for that experience! Thank you once again for everything you all did to make me have an amazing Christmas!!

Something else this week, as a mission we have turned our focus towards families. And Soeur L and I have decided to tackle this challenge. We are one hundred percent focusing everything we do on finding a family here in Limoges that is prepared to hear the gospel. It has already been a blast as we have spent hours porting, finding these amazing families. Who, thus far, have all told us they are not interested. But I have faith that as we keep being diligent, Heavenly Father is going to lead us to a family that He has prepared for us. I can't wait to see what He has in store!

Then ever since I watched that Mormon Message there was another theme I had for my week.
Don't look back.

I always love the new year. It is an opportunity to change. To set goals for the new year.

And most importantly, it is a chance to leave our past behind and look forward to the future.
No matter what our past holds. We can change. And we do not have to be afraid of our future.

We never know what the future holds. I am sure that for all of us this year will consist will plenty of ups and also plenty of downs. But we can look to the future with hope. Because we can know that no matter what, we will have the Savior on our side. And that God has a huge plan for us. And that even though we may not understand until after this life, everything is exactly how it is supposed to be.

 

So, let's start this new year with hope.

 

Let us forget our past. Accept what we have now, and make the most of it.
 

Have faith on our Savior that anything is possible with Him on our side. Don't dwell on the past.
And let us do our very best to follow the Savior this year. To serve those around us.
To become better people.

I promise that as you put Him first, and as you forget the past and move forward with faith, you can make this year everything you want it to become.

Thank you so much for your love. It is what keeps me going.
I wish you could understand our much I literally mean that. But it really is.
I love you all so much.
Happy New Year! Don't have too much fun without me!

Love,
Soeur Magleby

Skyping - Christmas Day

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!