Week 98 "Another Great Week in Blois"

May 23, 2016

Statue of Liberty in Blois

Allergy season has hit, I went through fifteen little tissue packs infour days!  I decided, after the second day, to do something about it since my nose was running like a leaky faucet eighteen hours of the day.  I tried that treatment where you put a towel over your head and breathe in a lot of steam with salt, and that actually helped a lot. Elder Smith and I are both plowing through these last weeks with sickness, although mine is really nothing at all, and we are doing really well all together.

        Yesterday we taught our amis in a unique way, by skype! I hadn't ever done this before, but it was cool.  Our amis from Albania speak just a little french and no english so we contacted the Baltic South mission this week and they taught this family about The Restoration.  I
realized what it's like to hear missionaries teach in a language you don't understand.  I just kept thinking how on earth did two guys from America learn how to speak Albanian so well? Gift of tongues, my friends.  And as a missionary, you don't realize how cool it is to
hear someone speak a foreign language until you're on the outside looking in, as we were in this scenario.  Real cool!
        Oh and we had the funniest Family Home Evening this week.  Funny meaning just insane.  So we just met a muslim man from africa last week and decided to invite him, another african lady, and her two kids.  Sound normal? Well that's where the normal ends. Everyone gets there, and we find out that the african lady is the ex-wife of another ami who was going to be baptized, thus his two kids as well, and the muslim man was a friend of the ex-wife's husband, and wouldn't stop telling us how she wasn't a good person, right in front of everyone. Uhmmm, so cue the missionaries to tell everyone we're all just going to sit down and have a nice night together, so we prayed to start the evening, praying that everyone would get along, and things got better from there. We taught about The Book of Mormon and everyone seemed on par with the subject, phew. Good turn-around for a potentially
disastrous night.

        We taught quite a few new amis this week.  Two of our amis who were going strong stopped meeting us because of work issues, and it seems like we have an all-new list of people to teach after only a month and a half.  Well that's how it is sometimes, but hey, we've got A who is progressing toward baptism.  We talked to his mom and she completely saying to us that it's his choice now and I have no problem with him joining the church.  Thank you!  A has helped us move a member of the
church this week, so he's doing well, we could say. Just hope that he will stay on track for the 17th of June.
        Just want to let you know how much I love this experience of the mission in it's entirety.  I realized this week, since my anxiety about going home was high, that the best way to prepare for the future is to enjoy the now.  That way you've trained yourself to enjoy the present day, so when that day comes that you've been looking forward to finally comes, you will have trained to enjoy it in it's present state, instead of constantly feeling anxious about what's to come. The time I refer to is the end of my mission, but I believe this same practice applies to all situations: Prepare to enjoy the future by enjoying the present!
Enjoy the present, have a good week. If you're not having a good weektalk to Heavenly Father. He will help you!
Elder Jones