FULL Week

Bonjour famille!

This week has been full. Full of good things and full of learning experiences. 

It was full of RDVs.  We were able to schedule lots of lessons with amis and people on the street--even a referral from church headquarters!  Similar to Allison's experience last week, we received a referral for a man requesting a Book of Mormon and we called and he was super excited and we have a RDV with him this week.  That doesn't usually happen!  I'm excited to meet him and help him come closer to Christ.  One of our scheduled RDVs this week was with an elderly woman named Huguette.  She was a referral to us from a member and is eager to learn about the Mormons and always excited to read the Book of Mormon.  She says she knows it's true and as we taught about the Plan of Salvation to her, she even brought up baptism.  It was perfect because we had planned to invite her to baptism anyways!  Allison, you'll be excited to know that it was Lucie, our recent convert, who extended the invitation!  She was a little nervous but she did it and she was so cute!!  We are planning for a May 2baptismal date.  There is a possibility that Sr. Castagno or I might not be there because it's after our next transfer, but I'm so happy nonetheless. 

This week has been full of talking about the importance of general conference this weekend!  Everyone read Jacob 4:3-4.  The prophets diligently work so that their families and their people can have the same testimony and hope in Christ that they have.  That is their principal objective as prophets and apostles of the Lord--to stand as witnesses of Him.  I'm SO excited for conference, and even more excited that we're going to be able to watch it in English.  It just wouldn't be the same hearing President Eyring's talk in a voice that wasn't President Eyring's tender, loving, choked-up voice, you know?  And the same for our prophet and all the other apostles!  Although no matter who says it, they are messages from the prophets, and therefore messages from God.  In addition I can't wait to have another round of conference talks that I will be able to study and review each day in our study time.

This week was full of the Spirit.  Sr. Castagno has been such an example to me of loving people and bringing in the Spirit when we teach.  That really is the only important thing we can do as missionaries--Love people enough to teach by the Spirit.  And it's TRUE because neither of us speak the language very well, and sometimes it's just really hard to express ourselves, but the spirit is really what delivers our message.  We had a really cool experience with a less active this week.  She has been really hard to work with--she wanted to come back to church and has requested reteaching the lessons and so we've done that, but then the past month she's been avoiding us and rude to us and just always tearing apart things we say.  Basically it's just been really hard to love her.  But Friday we were finishing up a lesson at the chapel and then she just showed up, just passing by!  We happened to have no fixed RDVs after our lesson so we had a lesson with her.  It started out rough but after further talking and asking questions, we were really able to figure out her needs and address them.  For a few moments, I was even able to see her differently, probably a little bit of how the Lord sees her, and felt genuine love for her.  I think it was the most touching and spiritual experience I have yet had in a lesson. 

This week has been full of awesome members doing awesome things.  Yesterday we had a really great 3rd hour at church with the bishop talking to everyone about our ward/European region mission plan and specific things each member can do to help us reach our goals.  It was awesome!  We already have a lot of members doing those things and willing to teach lessons with us, but then we had even more people approach us after church with times they were available during the week to work with us and invite friends to their home for a lesson.  So cool!  

This week has also been full of meal appointments--the members have been awesome not only at missionary work but also inviting us into their home and feeding us!  And I have been quite FULL as a result....no matter what efforts we make to exercise daily and eat healthily in our own apartment, I don't think it will be able to counter the food that we eat at member's houses and the French culture of ALWAYS ending with a dessert....I may or may not be an unrecognizable balloon when I come home.

One of the goals my companion and I set for this week was to have a morning and night prayer together only of gratitude.  We are so incredibly blessed as missionaries to have families that will support us, to have an amazing President of our mission to give us inspired tools in our work, and especially to be able to see the power of the Atonement working in the lives of members and amis we teach.  The blessings of the gospel FILL our lives.  My companion shared a spiritual thought sometime this week about Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well.  He talked about the living water, which comes from Him, that will fill us up and we will thirst no more.  Thanks to Christ's Atonement, we have the power to be full.  If we drink of the plenitude of the Gospel of Jesus Christ found in His restored church, we will never thirst for anything else.  We will know our purpose in life and know what we have the potential to become.  That's it!  We don't need to keep wandering around looking for happiness.

I invite you all this week to look for ways in which your life is FULL--gratitude, blessings, love, family, the living water, etc.

Happy Easter and Conference Weekend!  I will miss being able to watch it in my pajamas. :)

Love, Soeur Melissa Hurd

PS I forgot to talk about how our district meeting this week was also full of really great ways we're going to improve our teaching with setting goals and reaching them.  Seriously it was my favorite district meeting so far.  Goals are great.