WHOA...I'm Halfway There?!
Classic Bon Jovi (not even sure if I spelled his name right). I'm still having to take a minute and think to myself "ooooohhhhhh I'm halfway there!" but imagine me saying that in a stressed tone because it's crazy that I'm 9 months into my mission! Wasn't it last week I left from Arizona to begin my mission?! Just kidding that was my brother hahah but oh lala how time flies by! Since I'm halfway through my mission, now I'm "livin on a prayer" hoping that time can slow down just a tad bit haha! I love the mission!
One of our progressing amies has a baptismal date set for March 25th but we are thinking of moving it to the 24th because she is so ready! Her biggest roadblocks for the moment are smoking and coffee. She understands that she has to stop before she gets baptized so little by little, we are helping her smoke less. We've also been helping her pray to Heavenly Father to give her strength to overcome this challenge. Two weeks ago, she smoked 25 cigarettes a day and as of today she is now down to 8 a day! For the coffee problem, the relief society president gave her essential oils to use, wild orange and peppermint. All she has to do is rub two kinds of oils in her hands and smell it every day and it'll eventually lead to not having a dependency on coffee anymore. Miracles! She comes to church every Sunday and loves hearing the talks and lessons prepared for the day. She even started doing family history as well! It's honestly amazing to see how our amis choose for themselves to change and follow the example of Jesus Christ. It has brought so much happiness into the lives of those we teach.
We had exchanges here in Rouen last week and I was able to be with Sœur Giles. The STLs arrived in the afternoon and Sœur Giles and I went right to work beginning with an amazing companion study about how we can improve on our finding. We read the story of Ammon and how he taught King Lamoni in Alma 18 and it was really interesting to see that Ammon's example in the story is literally the story of a missionary contact! I was getting really excited! I was ready to go out and talk to anyone out on the streets. We were out for about an hour and a half and no one was interested at all, but that didn't get me down. For some reason, I wasn't getting as discouraged like I normally would when people turn us down. My attitude was upbeat and I kept on going. We did manage to stop a young woman and talk with her for about 5 minutes but she said she couldn't meet with us because the last time she said yes to a church her mother was upset with her. It was sad to hear that but we bore our testimonies to her that the message we share is life changing and gave her our card.
The next day, we had a rendezvous with our amie with the baptismal date and we decided to practice the baptismal interview with her. She did so good and had great answers and questions for us! There are few things that we have to work on with her but overall she is going to be prepared by March 24th or 25th!
While we were doing the practice interview with our amie, Sœurs Erichsen and van Duyse were busy giving a church tour to two men who contacted my comp and I last week. Backstory on these two guys: One day, we were headed to a members house for language study and our phone started to ring with a number that we didn't recognize so I answered and this guy is asking us about what we do at church for Sunday mornings. Lucky for me, he happened to speak English so I was able to explain to him about the sacrament and the classes afterwards. He told us that he would be there and we were so excited! We didn't think much of it then but towards the end, we got the brilliant idea to give him a church tour on Saturday! Turns out that these guys were two people we contacted on the bridges a few weeks ago. From what I heard they found the tour super interesting and they had good questions as well! I got to meet them on Sunday and I can vaguely remember meeting them but they were very nice. They had to leave right after sacrament though because they had to go to work, but they asked if it church happens every Sunday and we said yes. They then told us that they will try and come again next week and this Thursday, we have another rendezvous with them!
Today for P-Day we have the soeurs from Le Harve with us and spending the night here because we have zone conference in Paris tomorrow. So instead of taking a two hour train ride they decided to come to Rouen and take a shoter train ride tomorrow morning. We just ended up going to stores and going inside the big cathedrale too. Also I should announce that tomorrow, it's finally my zones turn to get smartphones on the mission! Goodbye Nokias and hello touchscreens!
This week, I've been reading in the Book of Mormon and I was studying the story of how King Limhi's people were in bondage to the Lamanites. They had so many afflictions in their life at the moment because they were being burdened with so many heavy labors and they had lost so many people to three battles with the Lamanites. They had to humble themselves and pray to God to deliver them out of their afflictions. He did hear their cries and was able to lighten their burdens but He didn't completely remove them. I read that and began to think how it's applicable to us in our lives. There have been times in my life where I would pray to Heavenly Father to just take any hard thing away from me and make things easier for me but that's not how He does things. We go through hard times because those kinds of moments are learning moments. Heavenly Father doesn't let us go through those hard moments alone either. Like the people of King Limhi, we have to humble ourselves and pray to Him for help. He will lighten the burden just enough to let you lean on Him for help and guidance. I know that Heavenly Father is really there when we need His help the most. I've experienced this on my mission and it has helped my faith and testimony grow so much.
I hope you all have an amazing week! I love and miss you all!
Love,
Sœur Hopkinson
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