Week 75 "Surprise visit from Watts Family"

December 14, 2015 

On December 12th, Jamison's neighbors and dear friends from SLC made a surprise visit. Daren, Natalie and Emily  were determined to find Jamison. They took the metro  Bussy, St-Georges to find Elder Jones and his companions in the apartment.  After some struggle to get into their apartment, they finally knocked on the door and Jamison answered "Bonjour.."  They had fun catching up with him and were able to get video, photos and a can of duck liver to bring back home to Jamison's family.  We were grateful to the Watts family for making such a huge effort for us.

Emily Watts, Elder Trotter, Elder Jones, Daren and Natalie Watts

Elder Trotter, Elder Jones and Daren Watts

Here is Jamison's letter December 14th: 
      
Hey this week was filled with good things.

        Monday night we visited the Festals and I learned more about the family, and Raclette cheese. So here's a piece of French/Swiss Culture for all of you about Raclette: it's a type of cheese that you melt onto potatoes and sliced meat. The 'raclette' or small scraper, was originally made for a large block of cheese sliced in half, melted with a big heat rod, and then the melty cheese was "raclé" or scraped with the 'raclette' right onto your plate...mmm! Frere Festal taught us that, and yes, we did eat Raclette cheese that night at his house.

     

  Tuesday I made hash browns and that within itself turned into a culinary adventure - motivated by a breakfast-themed district meal, I decided to make fresh-cut hash browns.  I grated potatoes for an hour monday night, as I went to pull them out of the freezer, I realized the paper towels had frozen to them. I spent the morning attempting to defrost, pull apart, and separate the paper towels from the hash browns. And then I tried to use an oven pan as a griddle and that just made a lot of smoke. We ended up with pretty ugly hash browns but with added butter and salt they tasted better-than-mediocre. Haha.    That afternoon we made a trip to Lagny and got caught, for the second time, in a downpour.  But we felt good about going up there, and we found someone who would listen to us, and he gave us his address.  He only gave us the street name but hey to find someone on the street in the pouring rain who will give you their address is miraculous! We visited the Tituaña family (From Malaga, where my cousin Sam is) later that night, and we talked to them about the importance of praying often.

Here's a Picture of Sunday night.  The young adults had a christmas
dinner and we came!

        Praying often has really helped Elder Trotter and I daily.  Our mission president has asked us to pray together every hour, and I really feel better the more I pray.  I think something that praying very often does for us is it keeps our hopes up.  Many things like cancelled appointments, bad thoughts, or annoyed feelings toward companions can bring us down but prayer keeps us above all the garbage, helps us to have a higher perspective, and leads us to keep hope.  I've really seen the blessings of praying often, and we've found people to teach thanks to the initiative to pray often.  So praying keeps hope up but it doesn't make your mission automatically easy.  Example, six or more of our appointments fell through and that's no fun. No fun at all.  I don't understand why, when we set up a meeting with someone and they agree to come, and then they don't show up without any preview, oh well I guess it's one of the things we have to work with. If anything we learn patience and all that cancellation makes a meeting when someone shows up all the better! Our Investigator A. came to our lesson last night and MAN, WHAT A GOOD LESSON! He loved the Book of Mormon, and he accepted the invitation we gave him to read it. So cool to have an investigator that's progressing.

        This week I had a near encounter with the flu virus going around. I felt sick for a couple days but I rested up Thursday and since then I've felt fine. Mom and Dad your advice to sleep and drink water when I'm sick worked.  And though my companion was also feeling sick, we worked and saw miracles.  After picking up my shoes from the 'cordonnerie' I wanted to share a Book of Mormon with the shopkeeper, so we decided to go in the next day and give it to him.  I felt pretty apprehensive at first, but during studies I thought about it more and I really felt to do it, so I did, and he ended up accepting it and we ended up talking for quite awhile and now we're better friends with him. Speaking of friends, the Watts family from back home decided to surprise me with a visit, that was super weird to see people from 'the other side' at my front door at 10pm, but I really enjoyed seeing them! Additionally, they took home some 'Foie Gras' that I felt pretty unsure would make it through customs, Thank You for that! All in all, we can say following the feelings we have leads to awesome things!

        I feel lots of forces trying to stop our work from carrying on but I'm putting lots of effort towards making sure me and my companion get along, because that's most important.  I am loving the perspective I gain. I get little bursts of understanding and inspiration  daily, and I know the Savior's guiding us.  He's the one at the helm, as president Monson says, and he will lead us aright. The Savior's really fortifying me, as I've been studying a lot about him in Isaiah,

because Jesus tells us to study Isaiah's words. Though wickedness is pretty strong in our days, we can be assured that following Christ will bring us out of all the muck. I love the Savior, I love the fact that I can move on, get up, and feel better, thanks to Jesus Christ. And I'm stoked for fact that I get to help other people see that too!

Love Elder Jones

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