Week 62 "I Love Cergy!"

A really cool cathedral we

saw during one of our train correspondances, Evreux

Bonjour tout le monde. Alors, cette semaine s'est passe tres bien.  Ohps, started to write in french.

This week overall went very well.  In brief, I Love Cergy and I couldn't be happier to be here.  I will be brief in my email because my email is kind of the same every week (everything is amazing)  BUT wait I have to be careful and not take any of this for granted.  As Gerard Causse told us in General Conference, we have to be happy with what we have and never take the wonders of life for granted.  And honestly there are soo many good things happening here in Cergy, and in our district.  Our area is the northwest suburb of Paris, and we have some extremely beautiful places to work.  Oh man, this week's activities took us around our area and beyond, into Rouen, Mantes, Paris, and beautiful cities in between.  (Man, Elder Jones are you just on vacation?)  Yeah, I should probably work harder.  Events of the week included the baptism of a kid in the ward, visiting some very promising investigators, and surprising (but of course expected on a mission) miracles.  On tuesday morning we headed off to Rouen for our district meeting.

On our way to a District meeting with Elder Wilson (my High School Buddy )
 and Elder Bigelow (my former companion from St. Quentin)

We are trying to get everyone in the mission more focused on Christ, who is the center of our teaching, so the training I gave was based on how we can look to christ and live through prayer and studies.  That night we stayed in Rouen to do an exchange.  With one hour left in our night we decided to knock some doors about halfway between our lesson and home.  It was an on-the-fly spiritual decision.  We just started knocking on doors and trying different approaches to everyone.  About the tenth house down we rang one of those doorbells where the person can talk to you from the house, and we told the lady we were sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people, and how it's blessed our families.  She said, one second, let me open the gate up.....( ! )  :D  She talked to us for a good half hour, we shared the Restoration with her, and we ended with offering her a book of mormon and asking her if we could come back, which she refused. But hey! She opened her door to us wooohooo!

The metro line one comes out of a tunnel for thirty

seconds to give you this brief view of the eiffel tower

Our recent convert :) S. is continuing really well.  We are focusing a lot on the temple with her, and she can't wait to go there. Her son P. is interested in being baptized and we may teach him soon. Stay tuned.  S saw us late Wednesday night after spending a day in some fields harvesting fruit and vegetables, haha, so cool!  She gave us some corn, which we cooked up and ate later during the week.  I think it's such a cool thing we get to be a part of as missionaries, helping people progress after baptism and beyond.  What a glorious, beautiful blessing the temple is, and yeah, I'm just looking forward to helping S and her son get there someday!

   

a blurry  picture of elder Harris, elder Duncan, and Me 

in the Park in Rouen

Le Havre Elders came to Cergy and we tore it up here!  Me and Elder Shaver from Vancouver experienced a cool night.  After teaching our muslim investigator R. and another investigator J. we planned on an easy night, heading to a members house to share a spiritual message and then coming home.  However an unexpected cancellation of our appointment caused us to change our plans.  Already halfway to our destination, we had a decision to make; either do some work in the city we were in, or go home right then and eat dinner. Elder Shaver and I decided to make it a matter of prayer, and following our prayer we decided to contact some people in Satrouville.  After a semi-successful session of contacting we headed back home.  Still a little perplexed why I had felt to stay in Satrouville to contact, I sat on the train and all of the sudden a man looks over at me, gets up from his seat, and really enthusiastically introduces himself.  He turns out to be the best friend of a member of our ward, and he started asking us lots of questions.  We got off the train with him, walked with him all the way to his apartment with a beautiful view of Paris, and then we talked to him for a half hour, teaching him the restoration!  Wow, prayer can change a lot.  Because we stopped and prayed our whole night changed!

The view from our apartment at night

   This week a kid in the ward got baptized.  The service was really well done, and elder Harris and I cleaned out the font.  Even better than the service, one of our investigators came to the service! She and her son liked it, and they're also considering baptism, they aren't absolutely sure yet because they haven't read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it which is essential. Another investigator Z. and his family would like to get baptized and first he and his wife have to get married, which he's ok with! (phew).  There's so much good happening here and the most important thing is to stay humble and happy.  Sometimes I scare myself into thinking that I'm becoming prideful and letting my priorities slip, but then I just have to remember not to freak myself out, stay calm, and continue to share the gospel with whoever gets put in our path.  Man it's so difficult but so worth it.  Continue strong everyone.  If you want a supercharged study of the scriptures study out of the New Testament and Book of Mormon.  That's what we're doing.  It's amazing!

 A pack of 30 Ramens we bought at a Chinese Supermarket.