Week 97 "President Uchtdorf in Versailles"

May 16, 2016

Right now I'm on a bus going through the Chambord Castle Forest on the way to Cheverrny...another Castle.  It's really nice, there are beautiful bright green trees, about fifty feet high in all directions with the occasional path with a French family riding their bikes (today's Pentecost, a national holiday), nothing like spring in the

French Countryside!

Chambord Panorama

  You may think that my week is all just castles and horse-drawn carriages.  Well... that's the truth; we walk around the base of the Blois Castle every day, and every half hour a two team horse-drawn carriage drives past our apartment.  Ha, but in all seriousness, this week was full of stood-up appointments.  We probably got cancelled on 4 out of five times.  Here's what happened: we'd meet someone on the street or call them, and this person would say, 'oh yeah, tomorrow is good for me, I'll just meet you in the center of town, at the park.'

Chambord Gardens

The BEST PATISSERIE! It's called Paris-Los Angeles.  Cake,
Strawberries, Strawberry whip cream and pistachio whip cream. 

So we fix a time, get there, and wait for fifteen or twenty minutes and nothing. : (    Then multiply that by ten.  I need to figure out an action plan for when that happens, because it's happening too much.

                    In the Car going to see President Uchtdorf.  That's our Ami "A" on the left.

Well we actually got the chance to see someone really cool speak! Thursday night we drove up to Versailles with our Ami A and the Liebard family to hear President Dieter F Uchtdorf! The thing that impressed me most about hearing Pres. Uchtdorf was his simple, genuine character. He really felt like just another normal person, but with God's power helping him speak. 

As he began his address, he paused overtaken with emotion and said, 'it feels like I'm coming home.'  His roots being European, Uchtdorf feels a lot of love for the French people, and the saints of Europe.  He emphasized the importance of acting worthily to be able to enter the temple, keeping the commandments, and trusting the Lord.  All great points of counsel. I feel really happy that A our Ami, only seventeen years old, got to see President Uchtdorf.  What a great experience for someone just starting to learn about the church! I had a great week. 

New Paris Temple in Versailles under construction

So I just wanted to share a really great miracle that happened to us this week. Well two of them:

First one happened yesterday.  We are teaching a family from Eastern-Europe of seven people.  They mentioned they had financial problems and were struggling to feed the little girl because she could only eat one thing, plain yogurt.  We had some in our fridge but I kept forgetting to bring it to them, and then we finally brought it to them a few days ago and we were able to teach the kids about the tree of life. On the way there we met a man who I felt really impressed to talk to, and we gave him the Book of Mormon and he accepted to meet up this next week!

   I mentioned that this week we had had a lot of cancelled appointments; and this week the thought came to my mind, 'you haven't fasted this month yet.'  We usually did at the beginning of the month but weren't able to, and so we decided to fast on Friday.  Friday was full of more changed & cancelled appointments, so it was pretty hard. Then we finally got to the end of the day, pretty tired, and we were coming back home around 8:30pm.  The phone rings and someone is calling from a random number.  I answer, and a lady says,  'Hi it's P. I met you three weeks ago, remember me? You gave me your card and I promised to call you back.  I forgot until tonight, when I just happened to be emptying out my purse and the card fell out.  I said to myself, Oh no, I forgot to call those missionaries back!' So we were pretty happy our fast was answered in such a wonderful way. God answers prayers! And loves us!

I love you all

Love Elder Jones