Loving Lyon!

Bonjour famille!

This week has been super weird and long but super fun at the same
time. The first thing I want to rave about though is how BEAUTIFUL the
weather here is though. Oh my gosh. I left the sauna of Cannes and
walked into a wonderland of fall weather just beginning in Lyon. It
has been even chilly! I wore a sweater dress to church! I think it's
still supposed to be a little warm all throughout September but still,
oh man I'm happy. Fall in Lyon is going to be GORGEOUS.

We had leadership conference on Thursday and it was so fun because I
got to see so many old friends! Soeur Castagno and Soeur holmes my old
comps, Soeurs Andersen and Nef from the MTC, and of course Allison and
people from my old zone. It was such a blast catching up with everyone
and seeing where they were. In the conference we got much needed
clarification about mission rules--it's interesting how many versions
of "exact obedience" you can have on the mission. Now we're all on the
same page haha.

One of the best things that happened this week was we had a rdv with a
less active woman in the wars in Vieux Lyon. You get off the metro and
it's in the cutest area of town with a huge beautiful cathedral and
the narrow streets and amazing restaurants everywhere you turn. The
European wonderland you imagine. She took us to this amazing ice cream
place where she spent a lot of money on six scoops of ice cream total.
She's such a foodie, and she knows where all the best food places in
Lyon are. Afterwards she took us to this other place and the whole way
she's just pointing out all these restaurants that we had to try and
all the ones we shouldn't go to. Finally we get to this hole in the
wall and you walk in and there are tons of American products all along
the wall.  We were freaking out over things we hadn't seen in
forever--Marshmallow fluff, pop tarts, altoids, peanut butter m&ms, it
was amazing. Then she starts secretly collecting a ton of stuff in her
arms and soon enough she's bought us a jar of Reese's peanut butter,
peanut m&ms, tons of cinnamon altoids, and even LUCKY CHARMS. My
favorite cereal ever. We died. She shoved it all in our arms. She was
just totallyyyy thrilled to see us freaking out.

Yesterday was my first day at church and the ward is amazing! I'm so
excited to work here with them and get to know everyone. It seems like
there are a lot of cool families and recent converts. I'm sorry I'm
really lame and don't have a lot of time to write anything else and
don't know what else to write. We have some really cool amis that are
progressing and that I'm getting to know better.

OH! I forgot to write about the little trip we took to Grenoble! We
had to go for Sister Wallace's legality and so I've always wanted to
serve there but it's closed to sisters. But we took a little day trip
there for her appointment and the train ride was so beautiful. It's on
the way to Suisse so the mountains are just gorgeous as well as all
the tiny villages and cathedrals. We got to the prefecteur and turns
out the legality thing didn't work out cause of some complications,
but then we had time to take our lunch hour in this beautiful little
square of lovely buildings and fine weather. I'd love to go back one
day! Even though we didn't get the legality done, the trip was not all
for naugh. We had a really cool conversation with a cool German lady
about our age on the train and just had a good ole time.

I'm sitting with Allison right now and she's making funny videos with
her companion to send to maybe Juna and Elise. They're hilarious.

Je vous aime!

Soeur Melissa Hurd

View of our street and apartment! Mini Eiffel Tower and Fourviere

Jedi Council pics and selfie with Al

Côte d'Azur missionaries, Sister Brown, and Hurd sandwiches

More Hurd sandwiches and Grenoble!

Cannes-not believe it's over...

This week was a crazy and thrilling week. Remember that amazing new
ami that I was raving about last letter? He has a baptismal date! He
really is so prepared. Tuesday we were planning to teach him plan of
salvation but both my companion and I felt like he really needed to be
taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ first. Soeur Holmgren hadn't yet
reached the point in the 12 weeks training of learning how to teach
that lesson, so for comp study we role played like crazy. We taught
with a recent return missionary and she was such a great help. The
lesson ended up being amazing! Soeur Holmgren did SUCH a good job
following and asking questions and teaching. She is already such a
great missionary. The spirit was there all throughout and at the end
we were able to extend the baptismal invitation and even fix a date.
He said he feels that everything he's heard and read is true.
September 26! We're so excited.

Which brings me to my next news...of course, as luck would have it, I
will miss the baptism. We got transfer calls Friday and I'm leaving
Cannes! So sad--I was sure I was going to stay here with Soeur
Holmgren. I was so looking forward to really seeing the work start to
pick up and see all the amazing things happening with our potentials
and others in the ward. But alas, the Lord has other plans for me.

On the plus side, Sisters Hurd will be back together again! Haha, not
really. But I'm going to Lyon! I'll be a STL in the Ecully ward with
Soeur Wallace, who was Allison's STL companion in Nice. I'm terrified,
of course, because the Ecully sisters are literally perfect and how
can I replace one and be companions with the other? I think the Lord
is telling me it's time to step it up a little....haha I've got work
to do. I really am excited though. I know Sister Wallace is amazing
and will help me to become a better missionary. I'll also be in the
same ward as President and Sister Brown, so I'll get to see them
often. I'm excited for that because I LOVE them and you just feel so
great being in their presence. And I'll get to see Allison fairly
often so that will be exciting! It's always fun being in Lyon because
there are so many missionaries there, and now I'll be getting to know
the other sisters in the area since I'll be doing a lot more
exchanges. I think we do exchanges with the sisters in Geneva too so
obviously I'm stoked to go there. 😄

Cannes is an amazing place. I'm so grateful for the chance I had to
serve here and be in this ward. There are so many incredible families
that try to do everything they can to raise their children up in the
Gospel and teach them correct principles. That's the thing that has
touched me the most. I've also had the privilege of getting close to
several of the mothers and elderly women in this ward - I adore them!!
In sacrament meeting they announced the departing missionaries so we
could share our testimonies, and after the meeting several cute
elderly ladies and other mothers came up to me to give me big
hugs/bisous to say goodbye. I never realized how much I had grown
close to them over the last three months. They are special women, and
my memories with them are tender. I have some cute pics I took with
Mami Gentil too haha so I'll send those. LOVE HER. She just came back
from a month in Utah so I was so delighted to see her one last time.

The sister that I'm replacing is actually going to Cannes to finish
training my bleu! So she will just help Soeur Holmgren be the best
missionary EVER. She'll be coming up to Lyon for bleus conference so
I'll get to see her again! The elders in Antibes/Cannes are getting
split up as well--our district leader trained a bleu the two transfers
I've been in Cannes and now the bleu is leaving for Chambery and the
DL is training again! The Antibes diamond we've established will be
broken up. Dommage.

This week I've been studying a lot about the sacrament and the sacred
time the Lord has given us to remember Him and recommit ourselves to
being more like Him. One of my goals for this next transfer is to
really make sacrament meeting more personally sacred and meaningful.
The frequency of this ordinance does not in any way minimize its
significance and sanctity. That's my challenge for you this week: make
a list of three ways you can make the sacrament meeting more
meaningful. I would suggest reading the talk "Taking Upon Us the Name
of Jesus Christ" by Elder Oaks.

Je vous aime beaucoup, and I'm looking forward to getting Juna's first
mission letter this week!

Soeur Melissa Hurd

Love these Cannes people

 

And these people!

Various children

Vivier family

RS president, Soeur Berthon

Perez family

Rodrigues family

My favorite person ever

Antibes diamond plus Antonio

Best Week of the Transfer!

This week has been the best of the transfer.  The first thing I want to say is a big THANK YOU, mom and dad, for all the prayers for Soeur Holmgren and me.  Prayers work and so does fasting.  It's really easy during the mission sometimes to forget that you're not alone.  Sometimes it feels like just me and my companion laboring and wrestling with the Lord in prayer for the people here.

But not only is the Lord always mindful of you, there are so many leaders and family back home that haven't forgotten you in their prayers.  Thank you!  They work. 

Just one day before you told me you and dad started a fast, we had received a text from a man who got our number from the church and wanted to know more.  At first I was super hesitant because I've known of some missionaries to play jokes on the sisters about people being interested and it's just all n'importe quoi.  So my first reaction was like, yeah right.  Ignore.  Then after asking the elders about it we decided that we'll go along.  So we ended up setting up a RDV and we concluded that his French was more advanced than a 19 year old missionary's so we believed it.  

That was Wednesday, and Thursday right before we went to Aix on an exchange we realized I had left our phone on a bus.  Being that we only have one phone as a companionship, we had no way to get in touch with ANYONE so we just went to Aix for our exchange and hoped to solve the problem when we got back.  We came back Friday night and had no way to confirm our appointments for Saturday, so we were just hoping and praying that the man who had contacted us would show up for our RDV the next day.  We waited at the church and HE SHOWED UP.  Not only that but he is TOTALLY COOL.  We sat down to talk and he pretty much taught us the Restoration.  He was baptized Catholic as a baby but thinks that perhaps there were some things changed or lost from the Catholic church--he realizes something is missing.  Ah, bon?  Well yes, let us tell you more!  It was incredible!  He had always been interested in the Mormon church and obviously had looked at our website before.  When we started to talk about Joseph Smith he had already known a little about what happened.  We were able to expound on what he knew and give him a Book of Mormon.  

After he left, Soeur Holmgren and I looked at each other with our jaws dropped.  Our first sit-down lesson together as a companionship, her first one at all in the field, and it had gone so well!  We committed him to start the Book of Mormon, pray to God that night, and then come to church the next morning.  He came to church!!  Unfortunately he had to work later so he was only able to stay for the first meeting (Priesthood), so we were just able to talk a little bit at the beginning and then left him to the elders.  The whole night before we prayed that the teacher for Priesthood would bring in the spirit to his lesson and ask inspired questions and that it would be a good experience for our ami (the elders had previously expressed concern that sometimes they want their amis to avoid the elders quorum because it's not always...as focused and spirit-driven as general conference we could say :))  Apparently he had a good experience in the end.  He said he would be able to attend all three hours next week and we also have a RDV set up with him for Tuesday.  AHH!!  

I'm fully aware that I'm raving about something that could very well be a complete flop a week from now.  I've seen that a lot.  But we just got really good feelings about this man and he reminds me a lot of a recent convert in Perpignan who is fairly close to being translated, he's so amazing in his testimony.  So if he's anything like this man, he will keep his commitments.  He will gain a testimony.

At the beginning of our transfer our DL promised us that Soeur Holmgren and I would have more opportunities to have sit down lessons and teach people this transfer than what had been happening.  It's been getting close to the end of this transfer and I thought about that promise often.  Now we've seen the beginning of what he talked about.  

Apart from that huge miracle I don't even know what else to talk about.  We are still without a phone and I honestly have NO idea how missionaries did work before phones.  It is quite a hindrance actually.  But the office is mailing us a phone hopefully today. 

Our exchange with the STLs in Aix was super fun, as always.  The two sisters are just so fun to be around and it's always a party.  It was really a party this time because it was Sister Haws' birthday and so we celebrated with too many sweets and glow sticks.  Sister Scruggs and I went contacting for pretty much all our exchange, but we had some really cool conversations with people talking about the temple.  She is a great missionary and I always have good contacting experiences with her.  

There are so many amazing things happening in Cannes right now!  A family in our ward also wants us to teach their daughter to prepare her for baptism, so that will give us someone else to teach!  Her baptism situation is a little different because her real mother is a nonmember in Portugal.  She's on vacances with her right now but when she comes back we'll start preparing her for baptism.  She's SO CUTE.  Also, our ami Claude should be coming back from Paris and so we'll be able to prepare him for his baptism too.  I've never been so excited in my life for vacation time to be over.  

Sister Holmgren and I are hoping to stay together for next transfer.  I will be so sad if I have to leave Cannes right now, and I doubt Soeur Holmgren would do a one and done.  So we have to stay here together.  We will know Friday!  

I called Allison for her year mark.  We sang to her.  She's right about what she said in her letter--I don't think she'll appreciate if you remind her she only has six months left :)  Only six months to be her companion again!  I hope to be her last one.  

Commitment follow-up: Who actually read "Focus and Priorities" by Dallin H. Oaks?  Tell me what you learned.  

JUNA LEAVES FOR MISSION TODAY AHHHH BON COURAGE

Je vous aime!  

Soeur Hurd

Basketball day in Nice

We've made the Antibes diamond. Cannes elders are gone so we're taking
over Antibes and Antibes elders are taking over Cannes. Then the nice
elders ditched their own nice diamond and wanted to apply to be in the
Antibes hexagon. We accepted. So here is the Antibes hexagon, taking
over nice. Also, we took a nice Etoile photo. Also there was the
cutest little old lady balling by the beach so naturally elder wade
sparked her with basketball. She was so little and cute!

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes in French with Portuguese members