This week I learned that my companion, Soeur Burgoyne, has about a million of the coolest hidden talents in the world. My personal favorite...Soeur Burgoyne can bark EXACTLY like a chihuahua ! It's
amazing. One of the greatest hidden talents I have ever seen. The other night while I was brushing my teeth I asked her to tell me a random fact about herself. Her reply was that she is, "good at barking". At first I just assumed she meant she could sound relatively close to a dog.... then she started barking at me. I was BLOWN away! Even though she was sitting right in front of me I still felt like I had to look around for a dog hahaha. It was SO realistic. She definitely should not have showed me because now I make her do it for everyone hahaha. In fact, I think we might start using it as a new contacting technique ;). Monday was Soeur Burgoyne's first Pday in the mission field (the real one)! Woot woot!! :) it was actually pretty tranquil haha. We had planned to go to the Chateau but it was ICEY. Soooo we ended up emailing and watching "The other side of Heaven" with the Elders at the church until it was time to get back to work :) We finished the day with 3.5 solid hours of contacting in the freezing cold. We 'sang as we walked and walked and walked', talking to every single woman and family that passed us. There weren't very many people on the road but by the end of the night we had contacted a pretty good handful of people! We walked about 5 miles to Louise's house after feeling prompted to head over there. Normally we would take a bus but we both felt prompted to walk...even though we are two Desert babies who can't stand the cold hahaha. We managed to tough it out all the way to her house, we rang her doorbell, and she wasn't there... The idea of contacting on the tram was sounding more and more appealing the colder we got haha. But, for some reason, we still really felt like we needed to be at Louise's. We rang her doorbell a few more times just to be sure she wasn't there haha. After a long wait, no response, and a few too many rings, we decided to leave. When we exited the parking lot of Louise's apartment complex, we crossed paths with a young mother who was on her way home from work. It wasn't until that moment that we learned why it was that we needed to be at Louise's. She was definitely one of the sweetest ladies I have ever contacted. The three of us hit it off immediately! We taught her about prayer and asked her if she thought it was important to pray and her response was definitely not what we expected Hahaha. She told us that she was “kind of Muslim" and then she said, "But between you and me...prayer is great...but let's be honest, Muslims staying home to pray 5 times a day is a little weird!" We thought that was a pretty funny comment, coming from a Muslim woman hahaha. She had to catch her bus but we were able to exchange numbers before she left :) She actually called us up yesterday and invited us to come over for "afternoon tea" hahaha, It's sounds so French, doesn't it? Sadly, we weren't able to see her yesterday because we had something planned for just about every second of the day. BUT we WILL see her this week!!! Tuesday we had district meeting and Soeur Burgoyne and I were running a little bit late because we made a new goal: no matter where we were going or how much of a hurry we were in, we would never hesitate to stop a woman or family that passed us! So we were on our way to district meeting and every time a woman passed, we stopped her! It was pretty cool! We met some interesting people. Also, little did we know, our zone leaders happened to be right behind us observing the whole thing hahaha. They were pretty proud of their little "Blue" sisters! Speaking of Blues... I have to admit, the blue fire in our companionship is AWESOME! I thought I had blue fire before, but now that there are two of us, in ONE companionship...Holy smokes! It's unreal! We are so tired by the end of the day ahhaha. My legs are jello right now and it is just the beginning! This morning we FINALLY got our heater fixed, it was a miracle! It's a good thing too because I don't know how much longer us Desert babies could have taken it hahah. We were forced to share a mini portable heater between the two of us-- and our entire apartment hahaha. We just stand over it with our skirts blowing out like hot air balloons, it's pretty great. We went to see Nelly after studies and she wasn't there...was I surprised? Eh. That's okay, we had a fun little bus ride; entertaining our inner child by standing in the middle of the accordion bus hahaha :) Not sure if they have them in the U.S? Soeur Burgoyne and I decided to try something new that would get the members more involved with the missionary work here and it has been so incredible. We went from getting no referrals, ever, from anyone, to having so many referrals that it takes about two hours just to dial all their numbers! We started by creating a member missionary lesson plan to encourage what we like to call, "Nos amis sont vos amis!" This means, "our friends are your friends". We teach this lesson plan to every member that we visit, tailoring the message, as the spirit directs, to each family that we visit. In this lesson, we might begin by holding up a picture of the tree of life and asking the youngest children in the family tell us the story. Then we ask them if they remember what Lehi desired immediately after partaking of the fruit; he wanted to share its goodness with the others. So, he began to call out to them. We teach how they can be like Lehi in their own lives and ask them to think about who in their lives, could benefit from hearing the gospel. Then we share a scripture that I LOVE and ask them to replace Abrahams name in verse 23 with their own. Abraham 3:22-23 22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; 23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: [Insert your name], thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. We feel truly blessed that the Lord has allowed us to be the mouthpiece of such a beautiful and powerful message. A message that is so simple and the simplicity so powerful that even the youngest and most rambunctious primary children sit in silence as they listen intently to every word that is said. We taught Nathalie this week :) She always has so many questions for us and they are usually really difficult questions to answer. It is so cool that she has such a desire to learn. Today during our lesson she brought out an entire list of questions on the plan of salvation and the millennium. We were pretty nervous as far as the language goes, we didn't want to miss anything! It was incredible, we could truly feel the spirit working through us because when she asked the questions, we understood and somehow we just knew exactly what to say. It was truly a miracle. I know it was the spirit speaking because by my own knowledge, I didn't have the answers that she was seeking. During the lesson she asked a question and neither my companion nor I knew the answer. She must have been praying just as hard as I was because right then, at the exact same time, we pulled out our scriptures and turned to the SAME chapter in the scriptures. It's not a popular one among missionaries either! It was truly a prompting from the spirit to both of us. It was so incredible! It was amazing because before we opened to it, neither of us knew what that chapter was about but it had ALL the answers to her questions! After Nathalie's, we went on a little contacting adventure to the Chateau. We contacted around the area and took lots of fun pictures in between contacts :) We actually found that a great way to start talking to people is to ask them to take a picture for you! Hahaha. It may be a little touristy, but it's perfect because then they ask why we are here! ;) We just smile and say, "Funny you ask!...." It's perfect! Soeur Burgoyne and I both love taking pictures, that's probably how we will spend most of our P-days haha :). While we were out by the Chateau we met some really cool people. We met two women who looked very sad and one of them told us that she was going through some really difficult "personal adversity" right now and that she didn't have a lot of things in her life that brought her joy. We wanted to badly to teach her and share the things that we knew could help her but she just didn't want it. So we asked her if we could at least share a scripture with her really quickly. After sharing the scripture with her we asked her if we could leave her with a prayer of comfort and peace. She said no at first but we didn't take no as an answer haha. We insisted that it would help her and it was something we wanted to do for her. Eventually she gave in and we were able to pray for her! She was really touched by the prayer :) She ended up taking our card and writing down the scriptures we shared with her so she could look them up. Turns out, missionaries in past years had given her mom a Book of Mormon and it is still at their house. She said she would read it, I truly hope she does. The Lord is preparing her :). After they left, we decided to step off the path to have a quick gratitude prayer. We folded our arms but just before we started, a man named Guillame walked up to us and asked why we were wearing badges. He was atheist but we ended up having a wonderful discussion about the gospel. We shared a few scriptures with him and then left him with a nice prayer. He wasn't really open to the idea of God at but he took our card anyways. Later that night we got a text from a random number saying that he wanted to learn how to say a prayer so that he could find out if what we said about God is true. We invited him to church on Sunday and we are hoping that he will want to meet with the Elders after :) We went to the Mezeret's house that night. They told us they would meet us at the tram stop and drive us to their house but we got there way too early and it was freezing so we got back on the tram and just kept riding it back and forth and back and forth between about two stops until they were ready to come get us hahaha, desert babies. The Mezeret's are a really fun young couple in our ward. We never get to see them because the wife is a doctor so she is always working super hard. She reminds me a lot of my sister Natali haha :). It was worth the wait for a RDV with them though...We ate TACOS! I didn't even know those existed in France. It was probably the one of the best nights of my mission. I can't tell you how much I miss Mexican food. Wednesday we went shopping with Manuella to get her a dress for her baptism :) she was so excited, it was adorable. She is the cutest little thing, I think she likes having big sisters like us :) After shopping we stopped by the Hamelin's house, it was so enjoyable :) Soeur Hamelin is very helpful. She helps us so much with our French! She never hesitates to correct us Hahahaha. It's awesome. I'm really grateful for it :) Though she can be quite a "Jonesy" about it sometimes hahaha (family, you know what I'm talking about)...good thing we have thick skin ;) Soeur Hamelin also offered to sit down and help us with our French one day a week every single week! We jumped right on that offer! We had our first lesson this Saturday and wow...I thought my French was pretty good but I guess we have A LOT of work to do! Hahaha. I can't say that wasn't expected :) I'm grateful for honest people who tell me my French is like a 4 year old because honestly...4 months in the France and I can speak like a 4 year old ALREADY!?! YEAH BABY!...At this rate I'll be speaking like an 18 year old in no time at all! ;) Soeur Burgoyne and I decided we are going to start getting in shape now before it's too late hahaha. Normally for sister missions they say that you have 6 months to get fat, 6 months to retain it, and "6 months to sexy" before going home. We decided to just save us the trouble and skip the first 12 months! Missions aren't good for diets... We haven't eaten any sugar since we have been put together. Two weeks of NO sugar! I don't know if I have ever done that in my entire life hahaha. One thing I do really miss lately though...Costco pumpkin pie...they don't have it in France thankfully, because I really want it hahaha. One of the joys I am looking forward to enjoying after the mission ;) Friday was weekly planning, aka, we did planning all day because everyone knows it actually takes 8 hours... That's okay though, it was fun :) we also designed the program for Manuella's baptism! That took a really long time. We didn't end up eating dinner until about 8 o'clock. We were really hungry. I don't think we realized how stretched our stomachs have gotten on our missions before we started this diet. We were so hungry we were considering eating the peels of our bananas hahaha. I actually did take a couple bites just to test it... It's not as good as the banana. Since we don't eat sugar, we never eat dessert. But, last night we decided to reward ourselves with a little something haha. We grilled 2 bananas on the stove with honey, cinnamon, and coconut milk. It was really yummy! That's the extent of our desserts here haha. Sunday was definitely my favorite day of this week. Which is REALLY tough because this entire week was SO wonderful. But, between Manuella's baptism, the family Aubril's house, and having to drag a random drunk guy out of the church... it was an eventful day! MANUELLA'S BAPTISM: Manuella was baptized on Sunday! It was a beautiful baptism, though I didn't actually get to see most of it because I was turned around translating the entire thing for Nicolas. The baptismal prayer is hard in sign language. It's so short and fast, I felt like I may have left out a few important details hahah. That's okay though, her dad got it right! :) As far as the drunk man that I had to throw out of church... I'm just going to quote my companion on this because I couldn't have said it better, haha! We call this story "Be careful what you pray for". "On Sunday, we were coming out of our apartment and headed to the tram when my companion reminded me of how many times she has been "hit on" by drunk men on Sunday. We also thought about our Amis (friends of the church. aka investigators that we are teaching) and how we had been praying that we'd have amis come to church. Well anyway, we get on the tram, and this African man, obviously drunk, comes over to ask me for a light. (Which I obviously don’t have) but he stuck around with us anyway(there were two woman with us who were members of the church too), and followed us when we got off at the stop. In fact he followed us all the way to church and into church. The elders greeted us at the door and congratulated us on getting an ami to church. We just laughed... hmm :/ Not exactly what we were looking for. The elders took him for us. He fell asleep on Elder Larsen’s shoulder during all of Sacrament Meeting. After the meeting, it was hard to get rid of him. He was still drunk, and he tried to kiss my hand (which made one of the sisters in the ward really mad at him) and he was touching Soeur Wyson’s hair. She dragged him out by his coat sleeve... He kinda creeped me out, but hopefully he’s a more enjoyable person when he is sober. The Elders actually set a rendez-vous with him...if he remembers. But I am reminded why I would never want to be drunk. I do not want to have my body controlled by someone besides me and do stupid things that I can’t even remember. That is an awful thought to me. I can see why the Lord commands us not to drink." -Soeur Burgoyne To end my novel this week...This morning we ate oatmeal for breakfast and I was telling Soeur Burgoyne (as I do every day) that I don't know why I eat French oatmeal because I think it's gross anyways. Yet, I eat it every morning... Though, this morning I decided to see if I could spice it up a little bit with some extra cinnamon. Well... I "spiced" it up for sure. I seriously loaded up on the "cinnamon" before taking a great big bite. The lesson that I learned this morning...check labels carefully when you grab spices out of the cabinet because Cayenne pepper oatmeal is a whole lot worse than "plain ol' French oatmeal". Hahaha. Have a lovely week everyone! Bisous! Xoxo- Soeur Wyson
1 Comment
Jeri
2/29/2016 04:12:48 pm
Amazing!!!! Thank you for sharing! We love and pray for you!!!
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Tracie WysonI feel very honored to have had the opportunity to serve as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the France, Paris Mission. Archives
April 2017
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