Soeur Hurd in Lyon: Baby bleus

The baby hunger has been quenched (not really)! This week with a turn
of events we ended up taking care of the new baby missionaries that
came in! Usually the confluence STLs welcome the new sisters and they
stay with them the first couple nights. One of them ended up getting
sick, however, so it became our job to welcome them. It was fun! The
new sisters are adorable! There are two French sisters, two Tahitians,
two Americans and one English sister. They're lots of fun and will be
a great addition to our mission. As you know, Allison will be training
a French sister who is AWESOME. She's so fun to be around and she
helps us with our French.

We're still all together in Allison's apartment and still praying
really hard for the new one. They had some complications before
signing for the apartment they found last week but hopefully it will
be worked out within the next couple of days. It would be nice to get
a roll on our exchanges and not have to worry about squishing even
more girls in with us. Pray really hard. 🙏🏼

This week we finally stopped teaching Nelly. She just hasn't been
progressing at all because she's very stubborn and just keeps focusing
on all the wrongs in her life. She finally told us it was no use
setting up rdvs because the relationship is one way and we can't bring
her what she needs. It was hard and sad, but I've felt nothing but
relief and peace. I'm glad it was her that initiated it because even
though we've felt that we should probably drop her, I don't know if I
would have let myself do it. But it's ok. I've had the impression for
a while now that everything is in the Lord's hands and it's all
according to his timing. Nelly knows the church is true, and one day
she'll have the courage to give her whole self to the Lord and follow
Him. I love her so much and she will always be a miracle story for me.

On a lighter note, we had a really great rdv with Marsha this week! We
haven't seen her since before the holidays and it was great to catch
up. We talked about the Proclamation on the Family again and temples
and about Heavenly Father's plan for us. She told us that on Christmas
Day she copied a paragraph from the proclamation and sent it to her
kids! She's so cool! The best part of the rdv was at the end when she
fixed rdvs with us for the next two months. She's going to be out of
town for a few weeks in there, so she invited us to visit her in Spain
so we could still see her that week. After telling her we couldn't
leave the country, she proposed a Skype lesson. Why, yes! She's so
cool! No one does that!

Saturday night we had a farewell for the Pascaud family, a couple in
our ward that is leaving to serve a mission in Madagascar in two
weeks. They're the best! Frere Pascaud has been the building manager
for the Ecully chapel for nine years, so pretty much all the
missionaries know who he is cause he comes to every meeting that's
held there. He loves the missionaries and is always cracking jokes. He
keeps saying he's going to come to the US after the mission to do a
tour and even said he will come to Virginia haha, so be ready to
welcome him!

This morning we took some of our proselyting hours to teach an older
couple, the Martins. They're adorable! I think I've told you about
them--the rare couple that is actually interested in the church when
most couples like them are so sure there's no point in changing
religions at their age. They are awesome--we give them something to
read and the next appointment the first thing they do is tell us how
it went. They read the Proclamation, and they said they were tout à
fait d'accord with it. Yay! We talked about temple and eternal
families and they totally loved it. We're still helping them
understand the apostasy, and we think they know it's true and that it
makes sense, but it might take them a little time to accept it.
They're such a sweet couple and we're lucky to be teaching them.

Nadia printed out her first family name to take to the temple! She's
so cute. She'll be going in February.

This morning as I was studying and preparing for our lesson with the
Martins, I was studying about the temple and the sealing powers, the
power Christ gave to Peter before He left. We read in Helaman that
this power was also given to Nephi in the ancient Americas. However,
during the apostasy this power was lost. There was no one on the earth
that held all the keys of the priesthood, and so no one could be
sealed to their family members for several centuries. In D&C 110:14-16
we read of the miraculous event when Elijah appeared in the Kirtland
temple to restore this power to bind on earth and bind in heaven. This
is amazing! This is indeed news worth knowing. The power to link
generations is on the earth again, found in our holy temples.

Do some family history this week!

Soeur Melissa Hurd