Blessed

Me and my comp Soeur Richardson :)

Last night we had a fried food party....it was a blast.​

 Can you believe I LIVE here?!

Salut!
Wow. Where to begin. This week has been absolutely crazy. Honestly...I have never been so exhausted, overwhelmed, or stressed my entire mission.

And yet...I have never, ever been so happy. Funny how that works.

This week was a little different because our first week here is kind of crazy. My équipe is a little different..because we have the apartment where all the sisters coming to Lyon stay. We had at least ten sisters in our apartment every single night this week. We have the missionaries who are going home, and then new missionaries, and then their trainers, and then all the missionaries who came for a conference. It is suuuper exhausting. But also...it is kind of just like one big party. Haha. I am not going to lie, it is crazy to be in charge of so many sisters. But also I get to see so many wonderful missionaries that I haven't seen in so long who I love SO much. It is crazy to me how many relationships I have made on the mission. But I have made friends here that I know will be friends for life... It is honestly incredible.

That is why all I can describe how I feel right now is blessed. So, so blessed. It has been a crazy week but like I said...I am sooo happy right now! I absolutely adore Lyon. And I knew I would. This is a super fun place to be. And the work here is INCREDIBLE. Seriously the work is going so fast I feel like I am running to keep up with it. Our ward is amazing. Seriously...the most functioning ward I have ever been in. It is so crazy. Our bishop is like....unbelievable. Granted, his wife is American and he lived in America for 12 years soo...he knows how to get things done. It is great. Haha. I just was amazed yesterday at church. I feel like I am having to run to catch up with how fast this ward is doing missionary work. And we have so many wonderful amis right now. I feel like I stepped into this whole new world of missionary work. That is another reason I feel so incredibly blessed. I just wake up every morning, walk the beautiful streets of Lyon and think to myself "What in the world did I do to deserve this?" I feel like Heavenly Father is pouring his blessings upon me. It is the most wonderful feeling. I am learning so much everyday. I am working harder than I ever have. I am having to push myself to work EVEN harder, every single day. And I feel more than ever that He is with me. I honestly couldn't even explain it if I tried. But it is the absolute most amazing feeling in the world. To know that He is on my side. To know that He is helping me to become the type of missionary I need to. More than ever I feel like He is helping me turn all my weaknesses into strengths.

There are a couple things that have been on my mind this week:

First, the miracle of The Atonement. Obviously that one could be talked about for days. But I have been thinking this week of the miracle of change. How much The Atonement literally changes us. How I have so many weaknesses. But I wake up every morning, and I ask Heavenly Father to help me. Because I literally can't do it without Him. And somehow, everyday, He makes me stronger. He helps me to build more faith. He helps me to have more trust in Him. And little by little...He is shaping me into who I need to be.
And He does that for all of us. All we have to do is be humble enough to turn towards Him and recognize that we cannot do it without Him. Change is such a miracle. That every single one of us can change. And I have seen it over and over again on my mission. And now I am starting to see it in myself. And it is truly the coolest thing. To look back on myself, just a short year ago....and to not feel like I am even close to the same person. I am so different. But in so many good ways. Well, I hope ;) haha.

Second, forgetting ourself in the service of others. That has been my goal my entire mission. And I feel like I am finally getting there. I can't tell you how good it feels just to finally stop thinking about myself so much, and to constantly have my mind on other people.

And THAT is why I am so happy. I know it is. The is where true happiness comes from. That is why I am so so incredibly grateful and blessed for this time in my life.

Wooow I have gotten SO missionary, haven't I? Haha. Sorry. We all knew it would happen :)
I love you all. I pray for you. I am so beyond grateful for you.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Soeur Magleby

Big city here I come!

This was our oh so wonderful sick day :)

Soeur Shields and her first kebab

Hello my loved ones!

I apologize in advance...this is not going to be a super long one this week. I don't really have much to say, for multiple reasons. First reason is I had a super weird sickness last week. We honestly couldn't do REAL missionary work for about 4 days. It was pretty bad. Honestly though, I was thinking how lucky I was that that is truly the first time I have ever gotten sick enough to have to stay home on my whole mission. I feel like I have been truly blessed health wise...so, I couldn't be too mad about it.  It just really throws me off not to be able to do missionary work. But, don't worry! I am doing much better :) Don't worry about me. Just send your prayers my way like I know you always do and I will be just fine!

But as I told you yesterday...I am no longer in Chambéry! I honestly never thought I would have the opportunity to serve in Lyon...I am still kind of freaking out that I am here. Honestly though...I am going to LOVE it. I already can feel that. You know me and big cities. And apparently the ward here is amazing. It is just so cool to be here, it really feels so different to be in the heart of our mission. It kind of just feels like one big party filled with a ton of really awesome hard working missonaries. I truly just feel so blessed to be here! I am also the Sister Training Leader here in Lyon, which really just means I will be going on lots of exchanges with a lot of other sisters, which I am super excited about. This transfer will bring a ton of changes, and will no doubt be super stressful...but I am just going to trust in the Lord and do my best!

It was a little sad to leave my adorable daughter Soeur Shields in Chambéry...but, I think it will be good for her. But we really did have a wonderful transfer together! I was a little sad to say goodbye to the adorable branch too, but like I said...I know I have wonderful things coming my way!

I will tell you about two cool awesome miracles we saw this week.

First...we were on a bus. And I decided to talk to this really nice looking older guy. We start talking to him, and ends up being from New Zealand. Then he goes "Oh wait...you are Mormons? I am on my way to go have coffee with my friend who says she used to be a Mormon! Do you want to come with me and meet her?" And we were like uhh...;yeah! Haha. So here we go walking to this café with this guy, me just assuming that it is going to be a less active member in our branch that we possibly know. And then she walks up to us and goes "Oh hey missionaries." In the most American accent I have heard in a while. So I immediately said "Wow! where are you from?" PROVO. She is from Provo. How crazy is that! Here we were, sitting at a little café in France with a girl from Provo who had lived in Chambéry for 7 years. And she has been inactive for that long as well. But it was so crazy..because she literally had a regular Mormon childhood. It was such a cool miracle though that we ended up meeting her!! I hope they can bring her back because she is such a wonderful person.

And THEN. My last night in Chambéry. I was packing and stressing about life, but we decided to go out and contact for a little bit. And the SECOND we walk out of our apartment, I see this guy across the street who is just staring at us as he walks in his apartment. But we get a lot of that...so we just kept walking. And then all of a sudden he is running across the street yelling "Pardon! Excusez-moi!" And they he says are you the Mormons? And we of course say yes. ... and long story short, this guy has been studying Mormons for YEARS. And he knows a ton about us. But he has not been able to talk to anyone that can give him real solid information about the Mormons, because he says he thinks it is so interesting. and he said "I just really want someone to tell me if it is true or not." WHAT THE. Haha we let him know that is what we do as missionaries :) It was just the best little miracle to end my transfer with!

Heavenly Father really blesses us when we do our best to serve Him. Seeing miracles is my absolute favorite thing. And I have a huge blessing to be able to see them every single day..It literally is the best thing in the world. I LOVE THIS WORK.
Haha..I said it wouldn't be long ;)
I love you all. I am so excited about my life at the moment. Things are crazy, but I literally could not be happier. I will see you all soon. Know that I am praying like crazy for you!
Bisous!
Love,
Soeur Magleby

Welcome to the family baby Hudson! :)‏

It was a SUPER hot day and we thought we deserved some ice cream...SALTED CARAMEL, that is. Best thing of my life.

......another hot day? hehe ;)

A member made me put these on because I told her I was terrible at them......hahaha. It was a great time.

We had an awesome lunch with a bunch of cool members this week. It was such a blast.

BOWLING!! Thiese are two of the kids from the family I was talking about :)

I told you....missionary work is hard. Hahaha.

Hi everyone!! Wow, well this is by far the most exciting week of emails I have had. I can't believe I am an aunt!!! :) I really...I am so excited to meet the little guy. He is way too adorable for me to handle. Thank you for all for taking the time to send me all the pictures and update me on everything!

I feel like my little mission life is so insignificant compared to what is going on with all of you...buuut I guess I will just talk about it and bore you anyway ;) I have actually had a super wonderful week this week!

I woke up Tuesday morning and decided I wanted to have one of those weeks where I was just absolutely exhausted at the end. I wanted to go home at night everyday just in pain and exhuasted because I had worked so hard. Honestly, I wish I would work like that everyday. And I should. But I really just had this like super extra motivation to really absolutely do everything that I could to work hard this week. And ironically...this week ended up being a blast. We ended up just having SO much fun! My comp even told me that I seemed like EXTRA happy this week. And I really felt it! Funny how the harder I worked and the more I tried to completely devote myself to the work...the happier I was. Heavenly Father truly blesses us when we consacrate ourselves and just do everything in our power to build His kingdom.

And you are probably expecting that I am going to tell you that after working SO hard that I saw tons and tons of miracles. But to be frank...it was a hard week. In the work aspect, that is. I already told you how super happy I was all week. But, I feel my faith being suuuper tested right now. But I truly have been able to learn SO much this week. I couldn't even begin to put it all into words. But I feel Heavenly Father just building my faith so much right now. I have been praying more faith, and I really feel like this is the way that He is giving it to me. He is testing me. He is building me up. He is seeing if I can keep my faith solid despite the fact that we aren't seeing much success...we honestly have no amis right now. This is the first time this has happened on my mission, where we literally have no one to teach. We have lots of potentials...but they are using their free agency and choosing not to keep to church. It is super frustrating. But yeah, we kind of lost Lina this week. Long story short...opposition. I think she let it get the better of her. She just really kind of went off the deep end, and I think she just isn't quite ready yet.  Soooo we are starting with a clean slate!: Definitely devoting this week to finding new amis.

BUT there is a certain family I would like to tell you about this week. I actually don't really know why I haven't talked about them yet, because they have been a HUGE part of my work here in Chambéry. They have just been a huge focus for me. We have this absolutely wonderful beyond words family we are working with. A family of 5. Over the past couple transfers here, they have been a huge focus of mine because sadly, we have not started to teach them yet. We have an AMAZING relationship with them. We have been over to their house so many times, playing games, eating dinner and ice cream, doing nails, haha. They are so incredible and I love them more than I could really explain. But they are just those people that have really good realtionships with the missionaries, and come to our activites, but were never super interested in being taught. So that has just been my huge focus these past few weeks. Is figuring out how in the world we can start to teach them. And we saw the biggest miracle this week with them!!

We went over just to pass them by and invite them to our branch activity in a couple weeks, and we ended up staying over there for a couple hours and eating dinner with them. It was so perfect. And then at the end...I had to use all my courage AGAIN (like last week) and ask them if next time we come over we can share our message with them.

AND THEY SAID YES!!

Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself. It will still be a long journey for them to get there. but I know they can! We are going to try to start teaching them this week :) And another huge miracle is they ended up coming to our movie night and we watched The Testements...and there is no way they didn't feel the spirit testify to them that night. We are finally getting somewhere. Such a cool miracle of the week!

I feel like Heavenly Father is just teaching me so much right now in my life. I had a night this week that honestly..I felt really down. Haha I know I just told you I was super happy all week. But it was only one night! After our lesson with Lina. I felt really sad. I just felt my heart aching for these people. And I was really upset with myself at just how plain SAD I felt. Because I have no reason NOT to be happy! But then I realized that honestly..I wasn't thinking about myself. By heart was literally aching for these people who aren't accepting the Gospel.

I can't even really describe to you what it feels like. But I feel like Heavenly Father is really blessing me recently with a pure LOVE for these people. To the point where it sends me on my knees in tears just asking Heavenly Father to help them understand. There are just so many people who don't understand. And it breaks my heart.

But even though it is hard..I am so grateful I have been able to be blessed with this amazing love for these people. I can't even begin to fathom what our Father in Heaven feels for each one of us. I can tell you that I know with all my heart that this Gospel is true. I am so grateful for these moments that I have almost everyday where someone tries to get me to doubt my testimony.But I get to look them in the eyes and tell them I know with all my heart that God exists, and that He loves us and cares more for us than we can ever even imagine.

I love you all. I am so happy. God is so wonderful. He is blessing us more than I feel like I even deserve.
I will see you all soon.
Love,
Soeur Magleby

BOLDNESS. And faith :)‏

Here is July in France....SO much rain! Haha, it is actually SUPER weird weather for summer. But yeah...We have been working in the rain this week :)

My exchange this week with a wonderful Italien sister, Sister De Feo! She is so awesome, it was a fun day :)

Annnnnnd there was this one time Soeur Shields and I didn't get home until past 10 PM annnd also rode a whole bus ride home with us being the only ones on the bus. We partied. (Same day as the above photo...Don't worry, I don't wear the same outfit all the time)

Salut!!
Hey everyone. I am not going to lie...This is one of those weeks that I really was not quite sure what to write about. We have had a really wonderful week (as always), but no huge news. So pretty much I just wanted to share with you what I learned from this week.  We had our Zone Conference on Wednesday. And this time around it was interviews with President Roney! Which, like always, is my favorite :) I really do my best to always prepare for my interviews with him. We only have one every other transfer (which means 6 for me) and I really like to go into them prepared because if I do..I really get amazing inspiration every single time. Pretty much all of us missionaries are just obsessed with President Roney but he really is like...my favorite person ever. My biggest question for him was about sacrifice, and so we talked a lot about that because like I told you I have been studying it a ton. So, I learned a lot about that..but I already touched on that topic in my last letter. So I will tell you the amazing things I learned about faith this week!

Ever since Elder Andersen came here our mission has just been studying and talking and studying some more about FAITH. I have learned so much more than I ever really thought I could. I never thought I could learn so much about something I already that I knew about...and President taught me a really cool concept about faith this week I want to share with you.  I told him that I have been having a hard time not letting my faith drop. Because I try so so hard just to expect miracles but then tombez-vous after tombez'vous..it just gets REALLY hard to try to keep my faith that people might ACTUALLY show up to lessons. And President said to me "Well...getting upset when the miracles we want to happen don't happen is pretty much like asking for a sign." Haha. I felt like he kind of put my in my place, but it is true!! Just because the miracles I expect to happen aren't happening...doesn't mean that miracles aren't happening at all. President talked about how Heavenly Father doesn't always give us miracles because that would be like giving us a piece of candy every single time we do something right. And what kind of faith would that help us to grow? And he talked about how miracles can at times actually diminish our faith. I had NEVER thought of that. But it makes so much sense! That He can't just show us miracles all the time because He is constantly helping us to gain more faith, and He tests us by doing that. We have to be constantly tested and have our faith tried to REALLY develp the faith that we need. He also taught me that REALLY what faith is...is trust. Complete trust in our Saviour. And most importantly, putting more trust in HIM  than we have in OURSELVES. That is the key. That is real faith. Trusting Him more than you trust ANYTHING else. And that is how we develop real, solid faith that will get us through everything that we experience in life. And not only help us overcome the hard things..but helps us have happiness along the way :)

I hope that makes sense...it is really hard at times to describe to you what is going on in my head and the kind of amazing things I learn. All in all....all we really have to do is put our trust in our Savior. Love him more than anything else. Serve Him with all of our heart. Give our selves to Him. Give our who LIVES to Him. And do everything that we do in life because we love Him.

Easy, right? Haha. None of us will really be able to reach that point in this life...because of the fact that we are human. But, we can get really, really close. And we can do our best. And that is what I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives doing!

And then here is my miracle I will share with you for the week :) This ami I was talking about last week, the husband of a member. I talked to president about him, and he gave me some amaaaazing advice. He told me to look him in the eye and say "You know what, without the church in your life...you are going to be just fine. You will live a good life, and you'll be okay. But if you don't join the church..there are a lot of people whose lives will NOT be fine. When you join this church you will be an amazing example and have an incredible influence on people. But if you don't, people's lives will be BAD without you."

Wow. Super bold. But SUPER brilliant. So yesterday afternoon...We went to pass their house. They are SUPER hard to get a rdv with. And this whole past week they have been gone. But by a huge miracle, they were home!! And they let us in. And we got to sit and talk to them for a while and it was so so good. And I have to tell you...I almost left their house without doing what president asked me to do. I am so dang scared of this couple. Haha they are just SO cool that they are super super intimidating. It is hard to explain. But it took a ton of courage....but I did it. Right before we left. I looked straight into his eyes, and said those words.

...I have been working on my boldness recently...and I think my prayers were answered. I really can't believe I said that to him. It was terrifying. But, I did it! haha :) So there is my miracle for the week. It was a really cool moment.
I LOVE YOU ALL. I pray for you all. And I hope you have a wonderful week.
Put your trust in Him. All of it. And He won't let you down.
Love you!!
Love,
Soeur Magleby

Editor's note: We felt like Soeur Magleby didn't finish her story as to what happened after she was so BOLD.  She answered, "The end of the story is that he seemed super shocked after what I said, but then didn't say anything.but I know he thought about it that night :) that is what president told me would happen."

Sacrifice

Another beautiful hike we did this week! :)

Annnnd Soeur Shields and I have fun on our P-Day today. Haha. 

Soeur Pagano and I with our Limoges tee shirts the bishop made us :) She is the one that replaced me when I left.

Salut my dear loved ones!
This week has flown by. Seriously, so fast that it freaks me out. I know that I say that all the time...but the time just seems to be going so fast I can't even understand it anymore!

I have had a really wonderful week :) The week here has not been the easiest, but I am just loving life and having so much fun and I am just trying to keep my faith in miracles. But that is not to say that we didn't have wonderful miracles this week!

Lina is still doing well, We have had a little bumps in the road in trying to get her to understand the plan of salvation..lets just say she really loves the idea of reincarnation. So, we are working on that one. But other than that, she really is progressing, just slowly :) And we have been teaching her with Odile, the one who got baptized on July 5th, and it has been so great for her.

But other than that, we are still in our super strong FINDING mode. The main way we have been trying to find new amis is through our wonderful members...and we have seen lots of cool miracles. We have had a lot of members set up activities with us to meet their friends. But it just is kind of a slow process to get these people that members introduce us to to REALLY become progressing amis. So, we are doing our best ;) And I am really just trying to do my best to not give up faith and to really expect miracles. One of the hardest things I think is not letting my faith drop after the miracles don't really happen as much as I would like them to. But something I realized this week is that sometimes I need to not let the miracles pass me by just because they aren't the miracles I was expecting. Because nothing ever really seems to happen quite as we anticipate it, does it? And when I started changing my mindset and just searching for ANY miracles throughout the day..I was amazed by how many miracles I really did see!

This is one of my favorite moments of this week:  We walked on the bus, and I sat down and started talking to this lady. I realized the entire time I was talking to her that this guy in front of us kept looking back at me and my comp. Which happens millions of times a day. I can't even tell you all the stares we get. But he had a different stare. He wasn't looking at us to make fun, or because he thought we were super weird, I could just TELL the way he was looking at us as he just truly knew us or something. I know it sounds weird, but I knew I needed to talk to him. And so we get off the bus, but then sadly he just books it in the other direction. I was sad because I knew he needed to be talked to. And even as he walked away he looked back at us 3 different times...but anyway, we went throughout our day and then as we were walking home that night...I see him. Sitting on a bench with his son. And I can't even explain what happened in the next 5 minutes. I honestly don't remember anything, because it wasn't me. In my entire mission I have never felt so completely overtaken by the spirit. Before I knew it I just walked over to him and started talking to him, and then all of a sudden I was just testifying to him like crazy. And I just can't get out of my head the way he was looking as me as I was telling him how much his Father in Heaven loves him. He was searching my words so deeply, it was almost like I could literally just see how much his soul was searching for the truth. Haha that sounds so creepy. Sadly he wouldn't even give us his number because he wasn't interested, but it was a miracle nontheless. That was just one of the coolest moments I have had on my mission. I just love more than anything where I truly feel like a instrument in the hands of my Heavenly Father. There is nothing quite like it.


I want to end with telling you all a really cool principle I have learned and reflected on this week.

Sacrifice.

We have an ami, who is the husband of a member. He is so close to baptism. I want to baptize that man before I leave here more than anything. But this week I just realized, he really isn't there yet. He needs such a huge change of heart. They are just an adorable young couple that I want so bad to be an eternal family!! But we had a lesson with him this week, and he told us the real reason he doesn't feel like he can be baptized right now, is because he is in the army. And he said he isn't ready to have to ...Stand up for the church. To have to tell people he is a member. Or to have to reject a beer when he is with his buddies. Lots of different examples. But really, he just isn't ready to make the sacrifices it takes to be a member of this church.
And I honestly was racing my head for things I could say to him to get him to understand.  To understand that the sacrifices are WORTH it. But all I could do was testify to him. Of how much, I personally know how much it is worth it. That living the Gospel is literally worth every sacrifice.

And then I started thinking. Howcome those before us, especially the early saints... why were they so much more willing to make the sacrifices they did? They literally we willing to give up EVERYTHING. Everything they owned. And even their own lives. They dropped everything for the Gospel.
And I started asking myself...do we have the same kind of faith today?
Who would we be if we DID? If we had the same amount of faith as these early saints?
It is an ongoing process of something I am going to study.
But I would invite you to all think about this week just how much you are willing to sacrifice for your Savior.
You all make amazing sacrifices. Thank you for your example.
I love you all.
I will see you soon.
The Lord lives, He loves you.
Bisous!!
Love,
Soeur Magleby

La pluie et le soleil‏

Soeur Stevens and me :) After a really long hot day....

Our Bastille Day celebration!! We had an awesome member couple take us to go see fireworks and we hung out after and partied with them :) it was so fun.

Fireworks!! (nothing compared to the 4th though...haha)

Blurry because we couldn't get the kids to hold still...but  Soeur Pagano (a sister I live with) and two of the most adorable kids in the world. Also yes, I have an African braid in my hair.

Hello again my darling loved ones! I hope you have all had a good week :)

I have had a really wonderful week! A reaaaaalllly really hot week. I think I sweated all week long. You're welcome for the details. Haha. Despite the super hot sun, we were able to think at least a little bit straight and we got to see many wonderful miracles!

I still just love Soeur S so much. She is such a hard worker. She is already contacting people by herself. She didn't take any French before or anything she is still working her best to be able to comunicate, but she just literally has no fear and is just taking on the mission life at full speed! It is so great. I am so grateful to be able to be her mission mom :)

I told you about Lina last week, and she is still doing super well. We actually saw another miracle with her this week. She said that after we fixed her baptism date she has just felt a huge change in her life, a really good one. She has been smoking for more than ten years. But she said that the Saturday after we had our rdv and we fixed her baptismal date, she was shopping and for some reason got pushed into the electronic cigeratte store. For those who don't know, a lot of people use electronic cigerattes (without nicotine) to try to help them stop smoking. And she said she doesn't really know how it happened, but she got convinced to buy one, and now she is been smoking that and she said she doesn't even have a desire to smoke. I know it sounds probably a little funny, but honestly...  miracle. I can't even tell you how many people I have taught that smoking is the only thing keeping them from getting baptized. So the fact that she decided to quit all on her own is an absolute miracle. It just really testified to me that Heavenly Father really prepares His children...He is definitely preparing her for her baptism in September. I am so excited.

Other than that we have just had a hard working week with lots of little miracles along the way. One of my favorite days this week was actually when I got to go on exchange with one of my absolute favorite missionaries in the mission, Soeur Stevens. She has been my sister training leader for about half my mission, and we have just really become good friends. And I got to go on another exchange with her this week and it ended up being a REALLY cool day. We saw a really cool miracle. We went to visit an old couple who are less active because they aren't really able to come to church, and the night before we had set a goal to have a lesson in the presence of a member, even if we didn't have any planned that day. We wanted to see a miracle. And we ended up teaching the restoration to this old couple's cleaning lady...it was SO cool! She was just there and apparently she is kind of like a stay-in nurse, and she ended up sitting with us and talking to us and taking a Book of Mormon. Another really simple miracle...but honestly it was such a cool moment.
And I actually really loved this exchange because I learned a huge lesson this day. In Annemasse they recently just had a member pass away. He was only 50 years and it was unexpected. And it really affected a lot of the members there because apparently he was just like a amazing missionary and a super wonderful guy. So we spent most the day going and talking to members and trying to help them feel better after his death...and it was a sad thing, but also a day where I really got to build my testimony. I got to testify a lot about how I recently lost someone I really care about...but how I know that now that just means she is just an angel watching over me :)

I just can't even put into words how grateful I am for the plan of salvation. If I ever have ANY doubts about anything...I just think of the happiness that our Heavenly Father has promised to us. Our eternal happiness. With those we love. And I really can't imagine anything better than that.

I am just so grateful for this Gospel. I am so grateful to be a messenger of the truth. And to follow Him in every way that I can.
I love you all!!
Bisous!!
Love,
Soeur Magleby

BLEU FIRE!

Me and Soeur Shields!

Haven't showed you many pictures of Chambéry...so, voilà. 

Me and my awesome companion ;)

​.......the first time I saw this poster. I AM DYYYYING. I literally just had to stop and stare at it for a few seconds. Thought you would enjoy seeing it in French. 

Coucou!!

Hello my dear loved ones. I have been so excited to talk to you all week because I am sure you are all dying to know how my bleu is...well...She is absolutely WONDERFUL. Her name is Soeur S, and she's from North Carolina. She just has every single quality that is so perfect as a bleu. She is just so sweet and so happy to be on a mission. She definitely has that bleu fire. She reminds me so much of what I was like when I was brand new. She is just so super excited to be in France and to be a missionary and man, I just forgot what it was like to have so much ENERGY. Haha. It really is so absolutely wonderful to train. It gives me a new energy. New missionaries really just have a different energy. You just get really...tired, after a while. For lack of a better word. And I forgot how much more energy I used to have, and she really helps me to regain that energy. It is awesome. And I realized how much I have just gotten used to the fact of living in France, because she is just dying at every little cobblestone and alleyway. And I forgot that I used to be like that...I think I took it for granted a bit. Anyway in summary, she is just the perfect bleu. We are having a blast together. All is well!

This week we spent lots of time in Lyon, so we only got about 2 days to really do work here. But the time we spent in Lyon was so fun. I was soo happy because one of my old companions Soeur C is also training this transfer. So we pretty much spent the ENTIRE time talking and her just filling me in on everything that is going on in Limoges, because she is now on her 5th transfer there. And I got to talk to our convert Co-- on the phone. It was just a fun few days getting to spend a lot of awesome time with a bunch of great missionaries.

When we got back here, we did have one really awesome miracle happen. We have a wonderful ami named Lina. Honestly the work in here has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. Right now, Lina is our only progressing ami. When last transfer we had about 5. So we are definitely going to work on just finding lots of new miracle people this transfer. Anyway, Lina. She is wonderful. It is hard to really explain her....but she is an amazing artist and just has a really profound way of thinking. Haha. She is pretty golden though, as long as we get her to really hold commitments. But we had this really cool lesson with her on Saturday which sadly my bleu didn't understand a word of.. but she just talked a lot about just how much she knows the church is true. And how God really led her to this church. She kind of has a lot of deep ways of thinking..but honestly every single thing she believes just goes in perfectly with what we believe. And she just kept talking about how weird it is that all the things we teach her just feel so weirdly familiar to her..like she knew them before. I told her yes, it is because she did :) And the sisters just ported into her, around Christmas last year. And she said right before they knocked on the door she had just prayed, and had a voice in her head tell her "open the door." And then all of the sudden someone knocked on the door. And she opened it, and it was the sisters. So she is literally just like one of those super golden people. But like I said, we have a lot to try and overcome before her baptism. BUT the miracle was that we fixed her date for the 27th of September, and she thinks that is a perfect day. Probably sounds far away, but that is kind of like our next July 5th for the mission that we are going to try to have even MORE baptisms. And I am not letting this one slip past me! So, there was our miracle for the week.

Other cool miracle is guess who walked into our sacrament meeting yesterday? Gérald Caussé. He is the 1st counseler in the Presiding Bishopric. And obviously French, haha. But apparently sometimes he stays around here, so he came to church yesterday. I pretty much almost peed my pants though because I had to give a TALK yesterday. So I had to talk in front of him...I was terrified. It was really cool though. He talked to us, and I thought about how cool it was that I got to hear him talk in French and understand every word! Haha. It was a cool experience.

Everything is going so well for me right now. Honestly, life is wonderful. It truly is. I am just so happy with my situation right now. And I am happier than ever to be a missionary. I am so grateful for my mission. All that I have learned, and all that I have yet to learn. It has already changed my life in so many ways. I just feel blessed beyond words. I love you all. I hope you have a wonderful week!!

Love, Soeur Magleby