Soeur Hurd in Lyon: Fueling the fire!

This week was soooo goooooood I hope I have time to write everything!!

So Monday we went to Lyon and had extra time so I took Soeur McClellan
to see beautiful Lyon and it was great! Saw the old city and went up
to Fourviere and it was just so wonderful to be back. Love that place
and can't wait to visit it later with Allison and you all one day!
That night all the STLs stayed in OUR apartment (beautiful new Ecully
apartment that I made our home) and it was sooo fun to be reunited
with everyone!! Soeur Holmgren, my blue, and Soeur Grant were just
companions in annemasse for a transfer, and when you get three
companions together that have all been together at one time or other
and all just get along super well, it's a blast! We reminisced and
laughter together forever. It was wonderful. I can't wait to see these
lovely ladies again after the mission. Soeur Holmgren is considering
BYU! Yesssss. Also she hits her year mark in like two weeks.....how
does time go that fast....

The next day at MLC was THE BEST. President actually invited everyone
from my going home group to the conference because everyone at one
time or another has been a leader in some way. We did an impromptu
musician number all together and it's such a big group! So many of us
going home have become my very best friends, so that sad day we leave
will also be a happy day of friends gathering together. Even though it
was a leadership conference, president directed a lot of what he said
to our group. He talked about how this is our last five weeks, and
it's a comeback conference. We didn't reach our baptismal goal last
transfer, but we're making a comeback! Talked a lot about fire and
grabbing the bull by the horns and lighting it on fire (told a funny
story of a relative about that). He testified that if we chose to make
it so, these next five weeks could be the best of our mission, and the
best of our life so far. I'm taking him up on that! This week is
already making it happen! Then the assistants talked about fire and
how it spreads and how we're starting the fire here in Lyon and taking
it back to each of our respective sectors across the mission. They
showed that one clip from lord of the rings (lol I know) when they
light this huge beacon and then all across the land bonfires go up
signaling their response to the call for help. Then Soeur brown showed
us the clip of the swimming relay from 2008 Summer Olympics--that one
where USA is against France and France is currently the top, and USA
is behind like the whole time and then the last leg of the race the
USA guy just comes out of nowhere and wins by like a millisecond! You
can bet that was the most exciting moment of a leadership conference
I've experienced my whole mission hahaha the whole room was freaking
outtttt go watch that clip again! It's so motivating!! Soeur Brown was
talking about how that winning USA swimmer was an older swimmer, a
veteran, and how we older missionaries need to finish that strongly
and make that comeback and bring in the win for the rest of the
mission and pass the fire onto them. We were all so motivated to
contact every human in our mission boundaries haha. So when we did a
contacting activity after lunch, we contacted everyone in sight and so
many miracles happened.

The next day we had a rdv with this new ami Nicolas who is so cool!
He's not really believing but is willing to learn our message and has
started to read the Book of Mormon and pray! We talked about temples
and preparing him to go. He was really close to his father, who passed
away a few years ago, so we also testified of eternal families made
possible in these temples. He's so legit and we know he'll be able to
receive these blessings one day.

Friday we had zone training and shared to the best of our ability the
fire that we caught in Lyon. We're making a comeback as a mission! I
think we did a good job of motivating them all and building that
flame! Right afterwards we sent everyone out on a ten minute
contacting blitz and so there were missionaries running in all
directions from the chapel trying to teach lessons on the street. It
was great!

That night we got invited to a bbq at a members home and they invited
lots of their neighbors and wanted us there to talk about the church.
It was cool and we had so many great conversations with people about
who we are. We talked to one man for twenty minutes about temples and
showed him several pictures. While we were there, a woman named
Deborah called us and said she has been going to church a long time
and when a while back in Aix and wants to be baptized. Whattttt! This
never happens. I had actually heard of someone named Deborah from the
DMP when I first got to Aix but no one knew anything about her and we
had absolutely no record of her in our area book. But she's back here
in Aix and will be until the end of June and wants to be baptized
here! She has the Book of Mormon already and asked for a triptych in
French. She came to church yesterday as well! We have a rdv with her
in thirty minutes

Then Saturday night we had a semi-rough rdv with jocelyne because even
though we were able to refix her baptismal date and she promised to
come to church, she called back thirty minutes later and said she
forgot she told her husband they would go out Sunday morning. Another
excuse yet again! We don't know what to do with her. She says she has
a testimony of Joseph smith and the restoration but doesn't quite
understand something because....if you understand Jesus Christ
restored HIS true church on the earth then that's a big deal and you
would go to it!! Every week! But we love her and maybe she's just not
quite ready :). But anyways Soeur McClellan really wanted pizza for
dinner so we went to this pizza stand close to our house and the guy
at the window was like "hey I'm looking for a religion!" So that was a
miracle and we're going to see him again this week.

So many miracles are happening here!! Also, just heard that there's
going to be a sisters conference in the mission home the last week of
the transfer! Ahhhhh I will get to see all those sisters again before
going home! The mission is the greatest.

Lindsey is such a mom! Her belly is so big!

Je vous aime tous !
Soeur Hurd