November 30, 2015 Jamison’s letter (Torcy , France)
I have a new companion, Elder Trotter from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Today on our Pday we are at the church and he is playing, "Five for Fighting" and "Ingrid Michaelson."
This week went very well. Elder Oldham and I wrapped up well. Monday night E. Oldham and I did some contacting in Bussy-St.-Georges; not exactly our area, but it's our apartment and we saw some cool experiences. For example we contacted a middle-aged French guy who, at the first glance, looked like he might brush us away. Instead he listened with a lot of real intent, and we prayed together as we left him. We met a nice Asian woman that same night who said we could pass by her home later in the week to talk more about the importance of an eternal family. Great things await us if we just take the plunge of faith despite everything else we feel like is going on, and move forward. The less I get caught up in the past and take advantage of the present, the better the day seems to go.
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| This is Elder Deem who i went contacting with on his first day in france! It was really fun! |
Tuesday brought a really cool opportunity, as we got a call from the President's assistants to help with taking the new missionaries to go contacting; here we call it 'Mothering'. We showed up and met the missionaries, haha wow this experience brought back so many memories. Our conversation went like: "Hey how are you all, did you just get off the plane?" 'Yeah we just got off a couple hours ago, we don't know what time it is...we've been up for about 36 hours' "Ok, hahah sweet. Well let's go out contacting then!" I was assigned to Elder Deem, from Ohio. So he spoke French pretty well and we met some awesome people. One man we met was the epitome of an Old French Man, telling us about the mess his country was in following Président Mitterand, while another lady we met was in a big rush and in about twenty seconds we presented the Book of Mormon to her, and she miraculously accepted! I hope Elder Deem has a sweet mission, he's got some great potential and I have great respect for him coming out here.
Wednesday I picked up Elder Trotter. Man he has nice hair! It seems perfect, but anyway he's pretty cool. He's from Las Vegas and not only likes long boarding but raced in competitions. We've kept busy and Elder Trotter's felt tired coming from a very small city. But it's okay we'll keep the good pace we're at and I'm sure we'll see miracles. We have a lot of good going right now. A former A, TT, called us up, and we met him for the first time since August. He preferred to meet us in a bar, ha, but we taught him about the Book of Mormon, and Mormons in general.
We started off Thanksgiving day with a surprising phone call, Sister Laolan Defranchi wanted to make the missionaries Thanksgiving dinner. On the phone she was asking, "What do you want? Potatoes? Gravy? Stuffing? Pumpkin Pie?" It felt like I was this king ordering a big royal dinner. "Um, hehem, yes, lots of potatoes, and gravy, and..." We showed up that night with all the food we could want, plus leftovers for the days to follow. We visited a couple members on Thursday and Elder Trotter and I are improving our relationships with members!
This weekend we found a funny lady. While knocking doors an older, confused-looking African lady walks by and we ask her if she needs help finding something. She says yes, and as we're talking with her she mentions she converted to the Mormon church twenty years ago! She said, I forgot everything except my favorite song, and then she starts singing, "I know that my Redeemer lives" and some other songs. Before we could get a hold of her she had found her way and got away from us, darn; funny experience, though.
Our Ami J pulled through and came to stake conference, and I got to translate for him. A really cool thing happened, after conference ended J expressed his desire to invite a friend, because of "how [the gospel] had changed me". 'Wait, changed you? what do you mean?'
"Well before I'm always thinking....I'm not sleeping very much. But now I feel better, I'm sleeping better and I just feel...happier" So that's one of the best things I could have heard. I felt like that was just a really natural expression of his feelings toward the gospel and our teachings. Pray for him. He'll continue to progress and maybe he will decided to be baptized.
So, this week I finshed the Book of Mormon. I will tell you that I feel my faith has increased. I am feeling really happy right now. Even though we've got challenges, It makes me feel good that I've got challenges but with God I can beat them. Yeah, wooh! Grandma and Grandpa, thanks for the scripture to ponderize and the family history info.
Love you!
Elder JJones
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| Look I made wok noodles! |
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