Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Week 100 "Flooding in France"

June 6, 2016



Flooding in France. (Notice the man in the canoe)

 We rode the train to Paris for zone conference, my last one.  I gave
a brief testimony and expressed the importance of keeping a good
attitude, talking openly with your companion, following spiritual
promptings, and working until the end.  I will finish my mission soon,
but that doesn't mean I'll stop working, no way! Just like President
Uchtdorf emphasized in his visit to the Paris members of the church,
success comes when you "Endure to the end!"
Final Zone Conference in Paris. Jamison's Testimony

        Even though I really wanted to work nonstop this week, I sadly had to face the reality of signing up for college classes.  I hadn't really
even gone on the site before this week, so I took a lot of time looking at classes, exploring options for the future.  Bottom line: I want to be a doctor, with a business or graphic design major. The best/worst thing about signing up for college is there are so many classes to choose from. I love school so I was in heaven considering taking classes anywhere from spreadsheets to yoga to Tongan! I didn't choose any of those, haha, but my schedule's got a good start and I'm looking forward to attending BYU this fall.
Gas Station Flooding

        From the time that big rainstorm swept over France last Saturday, rain fell almost nonstop until Wednesday, and with nonstop rain (as we know from the Bible story of Noah) causes flooding!  I love extreme and hazardous weather so even though the flooding caused people problems I enjoyed it a lot, just because it was cool to see all the flooded houses and roads; the whole fairgrounds filled up with water and made a lake!  The only problem came when we realized that four feet of water stood between us and the grocery store where we shop for Pday.  Sure, all of you in third-world countries would have no problem walking through it, but we decided to avoid it and take pictures instead - pictures attached. Well the floods undoubtedly caused problems for the members and Amis alike, so this week went slower than usual, but hey I still enjoyed it!
Our Amis A, Elder Smith and Elder Jones

        Well the floods weren't the only plague of the week.  Elder Smith has fungus in his gut!  The fungus causes intestinal cramps, constant
fatigue, constipation, etc etc.  So what the heck do we do?  Well Smith did the research and discovered that foods like garlic, pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, and raw garlic destroy it - better to have bad breath than fungus in your gut.  The hardest part of the dietary
restrictions is that you can't have any carbs or sugar, so Smith had to say goodbye to all the French baguettes and patisseries. Oh well,
at least we're eating really healthy and hey, I don't really have to do the diet I just can't eat too many patisseries either.
The Gatay family. We ate some delicious food there this Sunday (June 5, 2016)

        Honestly not many of our Amis progressed this week.  It was difficult with everything going on, school, floods, conferences in Paris... The cool part of the week came Saturday when we went to Orléans for a finding day.  The morning was hard but the afternoon got better.  I went contacting with my favorite member there, Ntokozo.  I contacted with him last month for the finding day and we had a lot of fun.  He's working hard to save for his mission, and he'll make a great
missionary, he already does.  While contacting by the river's edge we
found three people, one right after another and they all differed  greatly.  A believing African accepted the Book of Mormon, a non-practicing teenager wanted to know more about the plan of salvation, and best of all, an old French man who told us he was atheist ended up realizing that 'yeah, they did change a lot of stuff in the Bible', and we passed his name and phone number to my good friend Kasteler in La Rochelle, so they could give him a Book of Mormon.
God is waiting to show us miracles.  We just have to realize that we
may have to push through a lot of life's muck first.
Love you all!
Elder Jones

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