I Want to be a Soldier of God

5 months everybody! I've been on my mission for 5 months now! SO CRAZY! What a blessing it has been for me to be here in France for that long! I love being here and it has definitely been a spiritual journey these last 5 months!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, I was able to be on exchanges with the Paris STLs and I was with Sœur Wilde. She is an amazing missionary and it was fun to spend time with her and learn from her. She definitely helped me with my contacting skills and help me set goals for me to work on. Sœurs Wilde and Cottle came to Tours for the exchange and it was fun getting to show them around the ville and they loved the area. We met this one guy who is Muslim but he was super interested in le Plan du Salut so we taught him half of that lesson and he loved it! We set another rendezvous with him for Sœur Gallant and I. That rendezvous happened and he shared with us about what he believes in and he really like the fact how there are missionaries like me and my comp in the world who devote 18-24 months of their lives to serve our Heavenly Father. This guy was super nice and he told us a phrase in Arabic meaning "May God bless you"

Later on in the week Sœur Gallant and I went and stopped by our favorite African mama amie. She is literally an angel and she takes care of us so much! We talked to her for a while and it turns out that she is sick and that she's having a hard time too. We told her we would love to help her out and do some service for her. She told us that she didn't want to burden us with anything and tried to decline our offer of service but Sœur Gallant and I comforted her and really insisted that we help her. She thanked us for all that we do and told us that she would think about it. We then went on to explain about getting her a priesthood blessing of comfort and/or healing. She listened so intently about what it was and how it has blessed our lives. She then leaned over the table to grab both of our hands, look into our eyes, and says that she would absolutely love a blessing. So we told her that we have our elders coming into our ville on Wednesday to help us with some finding and that they can give her a blessing. She thanked us again and then told us that next time we come over she will feed us some African food! I love this lady so much!

Sœur Gallant and I are always out and about so when we get home to our apartment at night, we are dead tired...like super dead tired. There have been times when we've actually fallen asleep right as we lay down anywhere so now we have a little game going on haha if the one comp fell asleep in a funny position anywhere the other comp has to take a pic to show her later haha and so far Sœur Gallant is winning because she got a good picture of me totally passed out on the couch after eating dinner (don't worry I'll share that photo with you guys) I did get one of Sœur Gallant the other day. We were doing some weekly planning and I look over and see her knocked out on the ground in the sunny area of our apartment! She is a pretty cool comp! She told me that my French is really improving! On a scale of 1-10 she said my French is about a 6. She told me that I can phrase everything right and that my accent is spot on too! Things I have to work on is understanding and not hesitate about speaking. If I keep speaking and listening to French, she says that I should be fluent by the end of my fourth transfer!

Last night I was able to watch a fireside transmission from Elder Ballard. It was all translated in French so needless to say, my brain was "French-fried" haha! We were able to see elders from the France Lyon mission and it was super cool! One of the elders was in the MTC when I arrived but he left a week later to come to France. They got permission from their mission president to come with members from their branch to come here to Tours to watch the broadcast. Always fun to see new missionaries!

While on exchanges, Sœur Wilde and I got to meet up V____ and help him with his English speaking. What he loves to do is translate a phrase we say in French into English, he writes the sentence on the board so that we can correct them and tell him some tips. His English is super good, his accent just needs a little work and then he'll  be good. There was a phrase that we gave him that really hit me spiritually. I told him to translate the phrase "Je veux etre une missionaire"-I want to be a missionary. He thinks about it for a second, smiles, and then write on the board "I want to be a soldier of God" I nearly fell out of my seat when I read that, but then I nearly started to cry because he was so determined to change his ways to become a soldier of God. What he wrote on the board still sinks into my heart and mind today. It had me thinking of how I am a soldier of God. I'm on a mission to serve Him for 18 months, I'm going into Satan's territory to bring back other soldiers who got lost in that territory, I battle against temptations everyday, but in spite of all the craziness happening all around, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are with me through it all. My faith and trust in Them both has grown greatly. I know this church is true and that Heavenly Father loves us all.

I love and miss you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sœur Hopkinson

samantha.hopkinson@myldsmail.net