Bashers vs. Missionaries 🥊

According to the WordWeb app on my tablet, the definition of a basher is "One who bashes something, figuratively or literally". It really is quite interesting meeting those kinds of people because you never know what kind of doctrine they will throw at you. Before I go on to speak about our lovely bashing week, I will introduce you to my new companion!

Where do I begin with Sœur Erichsen! Well, she's a transfer ahead of me, she started her mission in a ville called Arras, then moved to Compiegne, and now she's here in Rouen. She hails from the state of Utah, more specifically from a town called Tooele (have fun pronouncing that folks) and she is so fun to be with! The first night together, we had so many laughs and I am so excited for what this transfer has to offer for the both of us! We've already had an interesting start to this transfer with 3 rounds of bashing sessions so now I'll move on to that subject.

Round 1: Evangelist Jeanette vs. Sœurs Erichsen and Hops

Finding in Centreville Rouen. This place is pretty big compared to Tours and I've met many different types of people as well. We went on a finding spree after we did some weekly planning. I took Soeur Erichsen to the bridges where we normally do some contacting, we went to a neighborhood for some porting, and ended it in Centreville. Before it got dark, we decided to talk to one more person and luckily enough, there was a nice looking lady walking towards us so we stopped her and began a nice chat with her. Right when we told her who we were, she stopped us and said that our church has many errors and that we were in the wrong. She then goes on to tell us that she has the abililty to know which people are sick and can somehow magically heal them. Soon enough, she hands us papers about her church and tells us that we should go home and pray over them so that way we can verify if what she said is true. Well, we made a deal with her, we told her that if we take these papers home and pray for a verification about the truth of it, she would have to accept a Book of Mormon from us and pray to know if our message was true as well. Before we ended the contact with this lady, we asked her what her name was and she says, "I'm known as Evangelist Jeanette to everyone". So we bid farewell to Evangelist Jeanette and went our separate ways.

Round 2: Atheist Agnes vs. Sœurs Erichsen and Hops

Another lovely day of finding! We decided to try around the bridge area once more because a lot of people are out walking. We were able to meet this super nice family and give them our card, hoping that we can get a rendezvous with them. We were nearing the end of this one bridge and we see this lady ahead of us eating some cheese so we stop her and introduce ourselves. Well, when she heard who we were, she started laughing at us, saying that she hates every single religion, told us that we were wasting our time doing this and that she has a lot of pity for us. She was speaking to us in English too, so just imagine two nice sister missionaries getting a lecture from a French lady who is so proud of herself, thinking that God doesn't exist and all of that, happening on a bridge. And on top of that, while she was speaking to us, she had food in her mouth, so every now and then. my comp would get a food crumb on her scarf because this lady was eating and talking at the same time...but she was nice to offer me a carrot though. We tried to share our testimonies with her but she wouldn't let us say a thing. She left us saying that she would call her daughter that night and tell her that she met two girls preaching about Jesus Christ and God and how sorry she feels for us. Thus ends round 2 of the bashing.

Round 3: A stubborn, but cute old couple vs. Sœurs Erichsen and Hops

More bridge contacting! I love this area guys! Plus I live right next to a river called La Seine (not sure if I spelled that right). We see this cute old couple walking and we stopped to talk with them. Sometimes when we talk with the elderly, we sorta have to speak loud because of their hearing and sure enough, this elderly couple had a hard time hearing. So we told them we were missionaries and they started to really talk our ears off about why they weren't believing. What was funny about this situation though was that it was like a one-on-one battle because my comp and I were sort of back to back talking to a different person. I got stuck with the lady and she kept telling me that the world is full of bad things and that she was wiser than me because she was way older in life. She did have a point on being older than me, but I just kept telling her that I knew God is always there and that He is aware of us. Both of these elderly people were kind towards us and said that what we were doing was courageous, but they also thought it was a waste of our time and should be doing studies in university. We left them our testimonies and then went our separate ways yet again.

Each round of bashing was pretty tough, but I came out of them feeling victorious because even though those people weren't interested about learning more, I left them with my testimony. People can try and tear me down with things that hurt my feelings, telling me that I'm wasting time on to do a mission, saying that I'm in the wrong, no matter what kind of doctrine is thrown at me I will stay strong to what I know to be the truth. I know that this church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I read it on a daily basis and I can feel my testimony grow. I know that Heavenly Father loves us no matter what. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Through Him we can be forgiven over and over and over. I love this gospel and I'm happy to be here in France sharing it with others.

I love and miss you all! Have a great week! Enjoy the pictures! Also it snowed here in Rouen today! Couldn't get a picture of that though, sorry!

Love,

Sœur Hopkinson

samantha.hopkinson@myldsmail.net