7/25/2016 1 Comment Even When You're Old...Hellloooo Mes être chers !
I'm getting to that point in the mission where everyone amuses themselves by constantly reminding me that I am "getting old". The elders make it a joke with all the sisters because the closer we get to the end, the deeper we fall into denial. I am still telling everyone I meet that I have been in France for "about 5 months" hahaha. Soeur Clements, being at the end of her mission, was totally fine with it. However, my new companion has started calling me out on it... So, I just want to say...Miracles STILL happen!... Even when you're "old"! (Which, for the record, I am not old. I have plenty of time). Yesterday after church we were on our way home to eat lunch when suddenly I got hit with this incredibly strong prompting to visit an inactive member in our ward named Sophie. I have only met Sophie one time since being in Villeneuve D'Ascq and I have never been to her house. But, I looked up her number and gave her a call...no response. I gave her another call. Again, no response. Being a missionary, I normally wouldn't find someone ignoring my call very strange haha. But, this time it just felt weird. She doesn't have any family so we decided it would be best to just try and pass by her address. When we got to her house there was no response. We rang a few more times before coming to the conclusion that she wasn't home. I remembered the first time we met her, she told us she had been fighting cancer for years. Then, I looked at my companion and said... "We need to go to the hospital." We walked for close to an hour to the hospital because there are very few buses that run on Sunday's. When we got there, we gave the front desk Sophie's Name. There was no one by that name in the hospital. Remembering that she went by another name, we tried again. This time asking her to search only the last name. Without saying much, she looked at the computer and wrote down a room number on a piece of paper and gave it to us. We took the elevator to the top floor and wandered the halls until we found room 5030. I knocked a few times, no reply, then Soeur Corneta knocked, no reply. Eventually we decided to just open the door. We opened the door and there she was, lying in bed connected to all kinds of machines and covered from head to toe in dark bruises. We quickly made our way to her bedside. A sweet smile made its way onto her face as she realized who we were. Then, puzzled, she looked at us and asked... How did you know I was here?... We responded simply by smiling and pulling out our iPads to share a sweet video with her. We testified of how much her Heavenly Father loves her and that he wants her to know he is aware of her. He eyes filled with tears as she nodded her head and said... "I know". I've gotten really sensitive on my mission when I tell people how much their Heavenly Father loves them. I can just feel his powerful love for each of them so strongly. Thus, Sophie was not the only one with tears in her eyes. It's one of the greatest blessings to me as a missionary. The blessing to be able to look at people as individual children of God, with individual lives, trials, gifts, and bodies, and be filled with love for them. A love so pure and so powerful that you know it comes directly from Heavenly Father. We will be visiting his sweet daughter Sophie again tonight to read a story from the Book of Mormon to her, and bring some yummy cookies too :) On our way home from Sophie's we were sitting in the metro when we noticed a woman smiling enormously at us. We leaned forward to open our mouths but she contracted us before we could even say anything haha. She just yells, "Are you the church at pont-de-bois Villeneuve D'Ascq!? I've been there once!!" Carrying the majority of the conversation, she began to go on telling us how cool she thought our church was because it was so "Today" (Referring to prophets and modern revelation). Haha, so cool! She continued to explain how she came to know God existed and that she doesn't think he would want his church to be "stuck in the past" because the world changes and there are different issues now than there were in the beginning. My companion and I basically just smiled, giggled, and nodded the entire time because she was too excited to find us to actually let us say anything haha. But that's okay, we were perfectly fine with everything she was saying!! Then she said some magical words... "I would love to learn more and meet other members of your church!!"... Without hesitation, I whipped out my planner and said, "We will be eating dinner with a member family on Wednesday, are you free around 7?" She was thrilled! We are really looking forward to Wednesday night :) Soeur Corneta and I have been joking a lot lately about our interesting relationship. Because, even though we are companions, we hardly ever serve together because we are always on exchanges with other sisters. So, by the end of the day when we have finished exchanges, we simply have no energy left for each other hahaha. Instead, we just fall into bed and go right to sleep. So, we decided that we were going to make an extra effort to spend some "quality time" together this week by doing exercises together every night before bed. We've been doing pretty dang good!... Minus the fact that Soeur Corneta was eating chocolate cake while we were doing sit-ups... That may or may not defeat the purpose...But it's definitely given us something to laugh about! Haha :) Speaking of exchanges... I don't want to make this email much longer but I will try to sneak in a few short versions of the exchange miracles we saw this week! Arras Exchange: It was getting late and we only had an hour left before we had to be home. It takes about 30 minutes to get into our sector so we were not sure what to do. So, we decided to do some Trajet contacting! (Bus, tram, metro). Soeur Beach and I jumped on the metro and rode it for about 45 minutes while we talked to EVERYONE! We ended up teaching 8 lessons and finding several new Amis without even leaving the metro once! To make the experience even cooler, two beautiful little girls about 12-13 years old followed us off the metro to ask about our religion and we were able to teach them that they were children of God. Their eyes lit up and they said, "we never knew that before" with the biggest smiles ever! We gave them our cards and they both kissed us on the cheeks to thank us before getting back on the metro. Brussels Exchange: My companion searched for an hour to find the address of an ami before calling me and asking if maybe I could go try and find it. I called up the ami to let her know we were going to be late and asked which metro to take. When she replied with, "there are only trams here" I suddenly understood why my companion couldn't find her address haha. We asked where she lived and she said, "NICE. And I am getting really annoyed because every time I call the missionaries, they can never find my house and so they don't show up!" Hmmm... I see your problem... Hahaha. Well, we were able to trade her for the number of the missionaries in Nice ;) Hopefully this time it will be a little easier for them to find her address haha :) The final miracle I would like to share with you today is simple but hit very close to my heart. For those of you who were at my Farewell, you know the story of my Grandpa who passed away before I was born. For those of you who weren't... Go read my very first blog post and then come back :). It was our last 30 minutes of exchanges and Soeur Mattson and I were walking home when we passed a young couple. We weren't in our sector anymore so normally we wouldn't have contacted those we passed during that time. But, when they passed, my heart began to pound and so I immediately turned around and stopped them. They threw their hands up and waved me away saying they weren't interested. Well, little did they know... They were interested, because this is eternal salvation we are talking about, and who isn't interested in that?! I felt prompted to share the story of my grandpa with them so I jogged up to them again and said... "Actually, I'm here to share a story with you about my grandpa"... They looked at me with wrinkled eyebrows... Of course they were confused why some random girl on the street wanted to tell them a story about her grandpa haha. I was a little confused too! But, without wasting any time or giving them a moment to respond, I began to tell them the story from the beginning about how my grandpa found the church which then changed the entire course of his life, as well as the lives of his future family. As I told the story, the woman's eyes glistened with tears. Their hearts had been completely changed. I then invited them to act, as my grandpa did, and start searching for answers and searching for the truth. We left them with a prayer and they even invited us to come teach them again :). This week was wonderful. I could truly write a book each P-day, simply made up of all the miracles we see every single week. Sadly, my time is limited. But, miracles still happen :)... Even when you're "old" ;) Have a wonderful week everyone and keep choosing to be happy! It works! Love, Sœur Wyson
1 Comment
Laurie Bowes
7/26/2016 12:39:03 am
Beautiful experiences, Sister Wyson. You are an incredible person, and so brave. I admire how you just go out and get 'er done!
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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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