1/23/2017 1 Comment A Record of our Dealings...Prepare yourselves for greatest and most accurate account of missionary life ever recorded.
Stephan, round THREE!!! Next prophet maybe? Okay, you'll never believe it... only minutes after sending out my group email, we ran into Stephan... AGAIN!!! This seriously never happens in Paris. We couldn't even believe our eyes. We decided that either he is supposed to have a very very important calling in the church and needs to be baptized right now, OR, he is stalking us... hahaha. Both very possible... Companionship Ring = Companionship Unity. It's true. Ever since we bought our companionship rings, we seem to be significantly more unified. Monday we started our new transfer, thus motivating us to "Start Fresh". Part of that starting fresh was setting out on a quest to find our "Companionship Truc (thing)". We chose a giant gold thumb ring with a blue stone in the middle. Because it reminded us of one of our favorite mission movies (The Prince of Egypt) as well as one of our favorite before mission Series (Merlin). If you knew how much we quoted those movies... So, every time we do something awesome, we throw our thumbs in the air with our cute little Merlin rings on and yell something witty. Well, I guess it's not really that witty... we usually just yell, "YEAH!"... Hahahaha. Saved by the Ring. This week while making loads of treats, to take to members houses, my finger was sucked into the mixer (on the Turbo setting), twisted it all the way around, and then caught my new ring. The moment it hit my ring, it stopped. My ring had blocked the blades from chopping off my poor little finger! Oh my goodness. It was probably one of the biggest miracles of my mission. I seriously sat on the ground in the kitchen holding my swollen purple finger, that was somehow miraculously still attached to my hand, and just prayed!!! THANK YOU!!!!!... The Lord is looking after us. #YEAH Emelie's First Blessing. Emelie received her first priesthood blessing this week after an awesome lesson with the bishop and his family. We were all a little nervous when in the blessing he said... "I bless you to find work in the coming week". Hahaha. He was probably just as nervous when the Lord told him to say it!! Which is probably why he then sent out a job search email to the entire ward the very next morning. But hey!!! I'm looking forward to emailing home next week and telling you all about Emelie's new job!!! :D #YEAH Ephraims Rescue. My companion and I have realized that one of our favorite bonding activities is watching movies during our dinner hour... the only problem is, you can imagine how slim your selection becomes when your options are limited to appropriate church made films. So, after having watched all of them, we came to the conclusion that Ephraim's Rescue is definitely the favorite. Therefore, we have watched Ephraim's Rescue almost every single dinner hour for the past 6 weeks, hahaha. Yes, we have it completely memorized... it's become a great joy to us. #YEAH The Crazy Head-Petting Lady...that smelled like Flatbread. We contacted a super crazy old woman who started crying and wouldn't stop petting our heads, necks, and chests, while calling us her "petit chouchous"... which is basically just a super weird pet name in French... Hahahaha. We were just a little freaked out... As for the flatbread, that is another story in itself Hahaha. So we made a batch of buckwheat flatbread dough, and then left it on the counter over night (without thinking). I didn't like the taste and I could not handle the smell, so I didn't eat it. But my companion LOVED it. It didn't matter how many times I told her it smelt awful and "just like wine"... she has never smelt wine so it didn't make a difference to her hahaha. Well... as the days went on the awful smell got stronger and stronger, I felt sicker and sicker, and my companion ate more and more of that awful bread! Until finally, I stood up, walked into the kitchen, grabbed all the leftover dough, and chucked it in the trash Hahahaha. My companion was like, "What the!? why!?!" Then I showed her a verse I had just happened to read in the Bible that talked about fermenting yeast to make wine Hahahaha. I KNEW IT. So, coming back to the old lady... my companion turns to me after she walks away and says, "Oh my goodness, was she drunk??....You were right!!! SHE TOTALLY SMELLED LIKE FLATBREAD!!!" #YEAH Cookies for strangers - the accidental perfect recipe- We tried to make cookies this week but used an awful recipe. They were SO salty!!! But we couldn't bring ourselves to throw it all out. So, we tried adding some water to re-soften the dough before adding more flour and butter to counterbalance the salt. They ending up being probably the best, fluffiest cookies I have ever accidentally made Hahahaha. So we loaded up our bags with them and gave them to everyone we met on the trains and on the road! #YEAH Pioneer Women!...Speaking of Ephraim's Rescue... We are currently having our entire bathroom redone. Meaning... no showers. Yes, this week we went a whole 6 days and 7 nights without showering Hahahaha. Oh my goodness, it was so dang funny. Luckily, Saturday afternoon, we were able to find a member who let us come over and take a shower at her house Lol. It was the teeniest tiniest shower I have ever seen in my life, but oh my goodness, it was the greatest shower of my entire life. I told my companion that I am going to start showering once every six days just so I will start enjoying every single shower as much as I enjoyed that one, Hahahaha. The best part was when we were on our way to the church after our showers and my companion says, "Oh my goodness! You smell amazing!!".... I was dying. Of course I smelt amazing, I just showered for the first time in a week!! Hahahaha. We now schedule shower rendezvous along with our teaching rendezvous 😂 #YEAH A 3-Euro Pack of Tissues. There was a Deaf man on the train who was trying to sell little packs of 5 tissues for 3 Euros. Hahaha, that's almost a euro per tissue!! But, for those of you who know me... I have a soft spot for the Deaf community, as I have many dear friends who are Deaf. So yes, I bought a 3 Euro pack of tissues. But it was so worth it. I was able to sign with him and find out that he was Ukrainian! He was so excited when I began to sign to him, there are very few people here who are familiar with sign language. So even though it was American Sign Language and not Ukrainian sign language, he was thrilled to have someone to talk to :). When he got off the train, all the people who were not interested in talking to us before, suddenly had looaads of questions, hahaha. #YEAH Our Husband Patrick. We make jokes about our painter being like our husband because he has a key to our apartment and every time we leave, he is there, and when we return, he is there, when we sleep, he is often still there, Lol. Then, when he isn't there, he leaves little notes on our refrigerator to let us know he will be back soon, hahaha. It's been kind of funny. My companion and I were all ready for bed the other night but he wasn't gone yet, so we turned on a little Ephraim's Rescue. 10:15 rolls around and we looked at each other wide-eyed... "This is the latest we have had a man over since before the mission..." We have been having a lot of fun "teaching" Patrick. And when I say "teaching" I mean... downloading all of the general conference sessions in French and playing them full volume all day while he works in the apartment. Hahaha. We are pretty sneaky. #YEAH American burgers and fries! I ate my very first burger the other day in at least 16 months! Although it was a chicken burger, not an all American beef burger 🍔. It was sooo good. The best part was when the waiter asked us how many we were and we said two... then he escorted us to a booth full of men, with two empty spots left open Hahahaha. #FrenchLogic #ItwasntadateIpromise Yusong ... the lesson and the bust... We taught a lesson to this incredible young Chinese girl we met on the RER. The lesson went so well, she even invited us to this big "Christian Party" with all of her Christian friends to share the spiritual message of the night. Needless to say, we were stoked out of our minds. Until she called us the next day to tell us we were a cult... brain washed... not even Christian... and devil worshippers... #yeah.... The Dead Alarm... My Alarm clock died in the middle of the night. Next thing we knew, it was almost 8:00 am. We accidentally slept in. I don't know if I have ever felt so guilty for anything in my entire life. I spent at least 20 Minutes that morning on my knees, asking the Lord to forgive me for my stupidity in not checking to make sure it was plugged in before going to bed. We even made ourselves wake up 30 minutes earlier the next day and grounded ourselves from watching Ephraim for an entire 24 hours. I can assure you, we have never worked harder in our entire missions than we did during the rest of that day, Hahahaha. NO ONE was getting past us without hearing the message of the Restored gospel!!! #YEAH Repentance Miracles... That same crazy day, we met an incredible new ami named Joachine. After we taught the restoration she looked at us and said, "I am here to do the will of God. I will read this book and ask him if it is his will that I leave my church and come to yours. And if he says yes, I will drop everything and come without delay. I want to do his will." After our lesson, we only had 3 minutes to sprint 800 meters to our departing train. In pencil skirts and heels, with our bags. Somehow, in praying the entire way there, we were able to jump on the train right as the doors closed behind us. The last train of the night. It was seriously a miracle. I also have asthma here because the pollution is so bad...I coughed up a storm and almost threw up on the RER. Of course it was the one day I left my inhaler in the apartment. Haha. Luckily, miracle number two, I managed to get my breathing under control without it. Emelie Quitting Tea! Emelie came to church yesterday, not having drank her morning tea for the first time!!!It was amazing! She turned to me during the meeting and said she was going to have to drink it because her headache was so bad. I told her that she couldn't because she had already made it so far. Hahaha. What did she do? She, in return, made the deal with me that she wouldn't drink Tea if I didn't eat sugar...so I accepted... let me tell you, holy smokies. It's hard. Sugar is in EVERYTHING. Seriously, the things we do for our investigators. Hahaha. #YEAH High Standards. Emelie approached me after church yesterday to ask if I could schedule a family night with a few of the member families in the ward that she felt something special around. "Of course!! Who with!? :)" I responded... She continued to point them out to me in the congregation.... of course she points to The family Babin, My mission President, the Family Benezar, member of the quorum of the seventy, and the Family Caussé, presiding bishop of the entire Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Hmm, I understand why you feel something special around those guys! I'll get on that!...(insert sweating emoji). Hahaha. #YEAH And thus ended the first week of my eleventh transfer. #MissionLyf Xoxo- Soeur Wyson Blog- tracieinpari.weebly.com Instagram-tracielaina
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Transfer 11?..."Ba-Di-Donk!" Transfer calls came! Soeur George and I will be staying together here in Versailles! Which is pretty crazy because it is the first time I have stayed with the same companion for more than one transfer since the very beginning of my mission...4 areas, 10 companions, 11 transfers! Let's goooo! Emelie and the Bendios- a Skype Backup Plan:
The Bendio's (an adorable mission office couple) came to teach with us after having a very rough day. It was the first opportunity they have had to teach with the missionaries since they arrived in France, so they were very excited. They told us that our call to teach with us was the best thing that had happened to them all day. Well...after being stood up by our investigators, we quickly put our heads together to come up with a back up plan to save the day before everyone's spirits sunk too low. However, it was too late to do contacting or passby's. After a few prayers, we got a little spontaneous and tried calling one of our investigators by skype to see if she was available for a lesson. Lucky for us, she was!! We ended up having a lovely Skype lesson that night with Emelie and the Bendio's. The Simple Skirt: A woman got on the train and my companion complimented her outfit. Her response?... "Yeah... well, I can tell you're a sister because your skirt is just... simple." Then she got up, and left. Hahahaha. I don't know why I got such a good laugh out of that, but I laughed for the rest of the train ride! Those darn H&M pencil skirts are making us look like nuns, Hahahaha. The Book Club: Sometimes, contacting is hard... especially when you have been doing it for 6-8 hours straight. You begin to run out of things to say to people! We split up on the train for one last contact of the night... and I wanted to try something new. Instead of looking for the people who were "ready to chat" (i.e. no earphones, no instagram/facebook, no friends to chat with, no books, etc.) I was going to seek out the most distracted group on the train, and join them! It didn't take long before I spotted my prey. There, sitting in a circle, were three grown women engulfed in their romance novels. I took a seat in the middle of them, and graciously whipped out mine (Le Livre De Mormon). As I began studying it's pages, the surrounding eyes began to pry themselves from their own novels, to inspect the strange nature of the book by which I was so captivated. One of the woman boldly struck up a conversation with me. We talked for the next 30 minutes before I had to get off the train. Although she wasn't interested or believing in God, as I stood up to leave, she smiled at me and said, "You know...It is because of that book, that you are so intelligent." Even though she wasn't ready at that moment, I have a strong feeling she is going to come around :). The burping man: Have you ever tried to focus in a contact while an old man is burping in your ear the ENTIRE bus ride home? Praying to find a bathroom... finding the celestial kingdom. Over the past 15 months, I have found myself praying for some pretty strange things. Though, I believe one of my strangest invocations was made this week and went something along the lines of... "Father, I know free public bathrooms don't exist in France... but I am broke and moments away from wetting my skirt...please provide." Within moments, my companion and I found ourselves being led into a FREE and spotless public bathroom, with shiny toilettes, hand dryers, drinking fountains (never seen in France), classical music, free lotion AND shoe polishers... it truly was a celestial bathroom. Miracles happen...and public bathrooms exist... EVEN IN FRANCE!! The French Philosopher Man. Sometimes spiritual promptings come when you least expect them. Like when you're on an empty bus in the middle of nowhere and the spirit tells you to get off. So we got off the bus, only to find that we had just gotten off of the very last bus that would pass anywhere near that area for the rest of the night...Hahahaha. Then of course it started raining--you know, just for dramatic effect ;). After a few minutes of standing in the cold rain and laughing at the irony of the entire situation, a French Philosopher man named Stephan came running to catch the bus (which he missed). After making a few upset phone calls to the bus stations, he accepted the fact that he was going to have to walk to the nearest station, which was about an hours walk from where we were. As he turned to leave he looked at us and said, "Are you going to accompany me? Time will pass faster in conversation." So we followed him all they way to the station and talked about the church the ENTIRE way!!! :D I have never been so happy to be so cold and wet hahaha. It gets even better... once we got to the station, we took the same train for another 45 minutes together...then he took our card...THEN he texted us to fix another rendezvous!! (Almost never happens). Then, the best part of all... we ran into him again the next day! IN PARIS!!! What are the odds!?! We were (and still are) extremely excited. More Trajet (transportation) Contacting. We met a woman named Iris and we began talking about the Bible on the train. After having talked with her for a while, we exchanged numbers and she got off the train. Immediately after she left, the man who had been sitting across from us, asked permission to slide into her seat and continue the conversation he had just overheard. Nadine was born into a Muslim family but has never been practicing. Instead, he has spent many years trying to understand the Bible and attend Catholic Mass. He asked if we were here to help people understand the Bible. We told him of course. Then we presented him a Book of Mormon and talked about how it and the Bible support each other. He very gladly accepted it, gave us his number, and fixed a rendezvous with us for the coming week. A Day in the MTC. Soeur George and I were invited to help with a "future" missionary training day in Paris. We spent the entire day practice teaching and interacting with all the youth who are preparing to serve missions. It was a blast being able to see and talk to so many of the youth from the Angers Ward (my first area). Although strange because they all suddenly have a whole lot more personality now that I actually understand French, hahaha. My Muslim Doppelgänger. This woman and her husband were sitting across from me in the train and they were staring at me as if I were a ghost. They talked about me in Arabic for about 5 minutes while staring me straight in the eyes before I finally got uncomfortable enough to say laughing.."Quoiiiiiii?!" (What). They began laughing as soon as they realized how uncomfortable I was. Then they started reciting a part of the Koran to me that talks about doppelgängers. Apparently my doppelgänger is a Muslim woman who lives in Morocco. They seriously couldn't believe their eyes when they saw me!! They didn't stop talking about how weird it was the entire time I was on the train, about 45 minutes hahaha. I must REALLY look like her! Lol. Well, the rest of this week's stories just might have to wait until next week, this email is getting pretty lengthy. Gros bisous à tous! Je vous embrasse, Sœur T. Wyson 1/9/2017 0 Comments Wet PaintBonjour à tous! I hope you all had a lovely first week of the new year! If it was maybe a little less than lovely... "Bienvenue au club!" hahaha, but let's make week two a week of miracles, shall we? :)
This week about half of our investigators dropped off of the face of the planet, while the other 1/4 of them dropped us off the planet. Luckily, we still have the remaining 1/4 to keep working with, and 3/4 to find!! Woo hoo!! :D Those weeks happen. One of the best things about times like these are, they always leave us with a good story for our Weeklys ;)... We were on our way home after a pretty rough day when, out of complete exhaustion (and some laziness), we decided to take the elevator up to our 'first floor' apartment. As we listened in silence to the classic elevator music, I read to myself a sign that said (in awfully large print)... "WET PAINT"... without even a moment of delay, I placed my little fingers right on the wall next to the sign... you know...just to make sure it was still wet... "Hmm...Indeed," I thought to myself. It was, in fact, very wet paint. When I realized what I had done, my pupils doubled in size. I was completely mortified... I had just done EXACTLY what President Uchtdorf, an apostle of God, had spoken of in one of his recent conference addresses... "Tell a man there are trillions of stars in the universe, and he’ll believe you. Tell him there’s wet paint on the wall, and he’ll touch it just to be sure." As I stared at the embarrassing evidence stained across my finger tips, President Uchtdorf's following question echoed in my mind..."Aren't we ALL a little bit like this?" This silly experience was memorable for several reasons...
Gros bisous à vous tous!! Soeur Wyson Bonne Année à tout le monde !!
Spoiler Alert: Bad Joke Ahead... Wow, I haven't talked to y'all since Last YEAR. Haha. That's a classic. I hope you all enjoyed 2016 as much as I did! It's quite bitter sweet because this is indeed the last email I will be writing as a missionary in 2016! So, let's take a look at some of our final 2016 Miracles and stories, shall we? :) A four-hour long rendezvous and a BAPTISM COMING SOON! This week we set a baptismal date with our lovely new Ami Emelie!! She invited us to come eat lunch at her house on Wednesday and during that four hours we covered just about every missionary lesson in the book. Haha! It was so great! As soon as we got there she pulled out a journal packed full of notes and questions that she had taken from the brochures and the Book of Mormon that we had given her, AWESOME! It took four full hours to go through all of them. Then, last but not least, we closed the lesson by inviting her to be baptized on January 21st :) She lit up and said with a smile, "Really!? You can help me be ready that soon!?" I immediately jumped up from the table and threw my arms around her, I just love her so much! The Missionary Window Spectacular. Our apartment windows are enormous. The best part is, so are all our neighbors' hahaha. It makes for great night time people watching. They stare at us, and we stare back. Although on Friday Night we decided to spice up the party a bit and do a little "Charleston" for our “across” neighbors' kids hahaha. We turned on some music and danced our way back to the 1920s, waving in the window to the kids while they ate dinner. They thought it was SO funny, they all started jumping up from the dinner table and dancing too! Which led to the father whipping around and looking to see what was causing his children to lose their table manners, oops. We dove to the side where he couldn't see us, until he turned around and we jumped back out to start dancing a second time Hahahaha. Sure enough, the kids leapt back up! Okay... maybe we shouldn't have encouraged them, but it was just so dang funny! W.O.W Contacting. With all of the alcohol wasted citizens wandering the streets this weekend, we thought it would be the perfect time to test out a new contacting method. We call it, "W.O.W" contacting... Or in other words, Word of Wisdom contacting. They great part about W.O.W contacting is that you don't even need to contact anyone, because they are all so drunk that they just walk right up and start talking to you! My second favorite part is when they tell you they are drunk and you respond with... "Hmm... you know that's very bad for your health!" Rather than what you're thinking... "Wait, You're drunk? I never would have guessed!" Hahaha. My companion and I actually had the opportunity to teach the Word of Wisdom to the entire Bus this weekend after being contacted by a group of drunk men, Lol. It was great! 3 Closing Prayers? Why not! We met with our cute new ami Linda on Saturday. Linda is a young woman about our age who we met a couple of weeks ago on the train. She came to the church and we gave her a little tour of the chapel before sitting down for our lesson. At the end of the lesson we invited her to try praying for the very first time. Surprisingly, she said yes without even a moment of hesitation! She said a simple, yet very beautiful, prayer and then finished with a great big smile on her face and says, "Ahh! Can we do that again!?" I have never gotten a response quite like that! It was so cute! So then I said the next prayer! At the end of that prayer, she looks at my companion and says, "Now can you say one in English!?" Hahaha. So, we finished our lesson with a solid 3 prayers in a row! That's definitely a record for us both. New Years Eve with the Bendios! We spent NYE with one of our very favorite mission couples serving here. It was easily the best New Years Eve I have ever had. They are the sweetest. We ate some yummy American food, exchanged family photos, and finished off with a BYU Christmas production :). By the time we got home (about 9:30) my companion and I were too exhausted to count down for the New year, so instead, we went to bed and then took a few minutes before personal studies the next morning and counted down with everyone back home who is eight hours behind us haha :). Best of both worlds! We got the countdown AND a full eight hours of sleep! 1 Year. 1 Resolution. 9 forty-day fasts. Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to complete 9 different, forty-day fasts. Which was my 2016 New Years resolution. These fasts included things such as: fasting from negativity, from stress, from unhappiness, from sugar, and many more! It's been a wonderful year! I wish I had the time to share all that I have learned over this past year, but that would take every single P-day for the rest of the 2017! I also might need it for my homecoming talk :) Although, there is one fast that I would like to share today--I titled my final fast of 2016, "40 days of Loving others More than Myself". It was quite the eye opener as it made me aware of just how many of the things that I said and did each day that were driven by selfish intentions. After having completed this forty day fast on Christmas Day, I decided that it is something I needed to work on for much longer than forty days. In fact, it's something I could work on for an eternity! But I figure 2017 is a good start :) So, I have dedicated this new year as, "The Year of Loving Others More Than Myself". I love you all so much. Thanks you for the incredible support you have been to me this past year. I would also like to wish a Happy Birthday to the greatest not-so-little brother in the World. I love you Jayden! Remember... even though you are turning sixteen... that doesn't mean you HAVE to start dating girls yet ;)... Much Love, 12/26/2016 0 Comments Christmas in France!Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Today we are going to be watching our Christmas Disney movie so I don't have much time to write an elaborate group email, but I will attach some pictures and a few short stories for you :) On the contrary, we will have wifi all day so if you happen to get on while p-day is still going, feel free to chat with me! Christmas Eve with the Benbennours! We spent Christmas Eve after skyping our families with this cute group! We slurped oysters, ate fish eggs on toast, and wayyy too much cake! Hahaha. But it was sure great! For those of you who have never slurped oysters before... it was a first, and probably last for me hahaha. It took me back to the day I went surfing for the first time (really great day) ... I sure had many mouthfuls of salty ocean water! Haha. Raw oysters taste about the same ;). Great memories! Sugar, or Whisky Overload? The members fed us soooo much sugar these past two days. There is a tradition here called "bûche de Noël" which means "Christmas Log" and it is a rolled cake that is made to look exactly like a tree log... aka... LOADS of Chocolate... and LOADS of sugar.... oh yes, and LOADS of whisky, which is supposed to be cooked out, but I'm not convinced Hahahah. Oh my goodness. I was soooooo sick after, hahaha. I ended up laying on the couch at the member’s house because my head was just pounding and I felt like the whole world was spinning around me hahaha. My head is still pounding! Must have been an intense sugar rush or something? Or maybe the alcohol wasn't actually cooked out! Ha! Either way, I think I'm set on cake and sweets for at least the next few years. Lol. Which leads me to my next picture.... BEETS anyone? The only thing I have been able to eat since the Bûche yesterday afternoon... was this beet, that I ate like an apple, hahaha. My companion couldn't resist taking a picture... Spontaneous Caroling with the Family Schellhous: We were on our way home for Christmas dinner when we made a few spontaneous caroling stops to a couple families in the ward and the baker next door! Then we had breakfast burritos, watched the kids open their Christmas presents, played a little badminton, and headed off to our next rendezvous! My companion doesn't like Olives: In trying to avoid having to eat the olives on the table, my companion reached for the bowl of raisins and quickly popped a couple of them in her mouth instead...When the shockingly salty flavor hit her tongue she quickly learned that she had not just popped raisins into her mouth, but her table neighbor's, already sucked on, olive seeds. Hahahaha. I got a good laugh that night. Christmas Conference!
Before I wrap up, I wanted to share a Christmas Conference quote that I loved from our mission president. "Why do we expect it to be 'normal' to take over ten years of hard work and dedication to become a doctor, engineer, or someone else of importance... while expecting to become a disciple of Jesus Christ *snap*, like that...? We need to 'work' to be a disciple of Jesus Christ." That's a "wrap" (get it? Christmas?) for this week! I love you all and will talk to you very soon!! Xoxo- Soeur Wyson Joyeux Noël Mes Amis Baptism in the Blue-Ville In my very first area, my blue and I had an incredible week 5 when we ended up finding 19 new investigators. Well, news just came in that Clarisse, one of the women we found on the street and started teaching, just got baptized!!! I can't even explain the joy I felt when I saw her picture on our mission gazette. Pardon My Missionary Memory... Sunday we had a funny experience that I had to share Hahahah. We were running around trying to talk to all the members and then one of them (who was visiting from the U.S) came up to us and said he might have a referral for us. We were thrilled, to say the least. Anyways, he pulls out his phone to give us her information. He gives us her name, where she was from, and then... wait, no number?.... Did he just want to get us all excited and then give us no way of contacting her? Hahaha. Soeur George's face was priceless. It was like a little kid on Christmas who came running down the stairs to find there were no presents under the tree Haha. Just then, he leaves, and I burst into laughter. Sœur George sat and stared at me with a very confused look on her face. Then, I turned to her and said with tears practically streaming down my face, "22 Rue Albert Thomas!" (Address changed for obvious reasons). She immediately joined me in laughter as she realized I had "accidentally" memorized the number and address that I happened to have caught a quick glimpse of on the member’s phone. #Oops We Wish You a Merry Christ-mas... It wasn't really feeling like Christmas around here since no one seems to enjoy decorating or singing Christmas carols. So, Soeur George and I decided to bring a little Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear. We worked up a little something on the metro, practiced it really quick on an old man who was just on his way home from a concert, and then headed to the mission office to sing for all the senior missionary couples! They were so thrilled to have a visit from the missionaries. Our hearts melted as their eyes filled with tears and they told us it was "The best thing that has happened to us in a long time". It made me reflect greatly on my last Christmas here in the mission and how "sad" of a Christmas it was. Being so far from my family and all. I had only been in the mission field for about 1 month at the time and I was indeed, quite homesick. I understand why last Christmas was so disappointing. It's difficult to enjoy Christ's birth, when we are celebrating it, without celebrating him. Christmas without Christ is simply ... MAS... M-ONEY (or lack of) A-ND S-OCIALIZING MAS is a great family celebration, but yet lacks meaning, significance, and purpose. I'm sad to say that I personally celebrated "MAS" for many years before coming on a mission. Making it difficult to enjoy "my holidays" in France, without all of the exciting socials, fun games, yummy food, and expensive presents. No wonder I wasn't happy! I was a missionary, a representative of Jesus Christ... trying to celebrate Christmas....without celebrating Christ!... It seems so obvious. And yet, it is so easily forgotten. So I made a goal this Christmas to celebrate Christ, in striving each day to become a little more like him. Which has fit perfectly with the "Light the World" campaign that the church has going right now :) I hope you are all doing it. If not, find a moment to get started! I promise that if you do, you will be able to enjoy the beautiful spirit and unconditional happiness, that comes from celebrating Christ-mas, and not simply "MAS". We Preach of Christ. My companion and I made a goal this Christmas that every single day through the entire month of December, we would carry not only one, but multiple Books of Mormon in our arms wherever we went. We simply didn't want to risk missing any opportunity to talk of Christ during this special season. After all, "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins" (2 Nephi 25:26) ... one of my personal favorites ;). At the end of day one, our arms were VERY sore. We quickly decided that 6 B.O.Ms each was maybe a little too excessive, hahaha. Though somewhere in the midst of all our scrambling to keep the books balanced on our little biceps in a crowded metro, we met a curious young Chilean man. He stared at us strangely for several stops before Soeur George asked him if he had ever seen this book before (This is why we have companions, I was just staring strangely back at him, Hahaha). He reached out and took the Book, flipped through it a bit, and started reading. I guided him to one of my favorite chapters (3 Nephi 11) when Christ appears to the Americas and proclaims his divinity. Without another word, he began to read to himself. He read, and read, and read, aaaaalllll the way until we got to the metro terminus. We sat in silence for nearly 30 minutes. Then, just before getting off, he turned to ask if we had a phone number and if he could buy the book. Of course we gave it to him for free, along with our number! My companion and I then sat in silence for another 30 minutes as we tried to piece together what miracle had just happened right before our eyes hahaha. We ended up giving 4 Books of Mormon away on that one ride home. The Not Dead Guy... We were standing on a metro on our way to Paris, everyone plugging their noses. Something smelt absolutely wretched. Then, all of the sudden, BAM! A man falls flat on the floor. He was sitting in a chair and everyone had assumed he was sleeping. But after taking a solid blow to the head and no reaction, no one was actually sure if he was dead, a heavy sleeper, or just veeerrrryyyy drunk. You could just hear the whisper of rumors making their way from the front to the back of the metro as everyone began quietly gossiping among themselves. A voice came from somewhere and told the passengers to pick up the man and "Just set him outside"... hahaha. It was as if he had instantly instituted a giant game of "nose goes!?" between all the stockier men onboard. Finally, a couple of the metros stockiest stepped up to the plate. They drug him off and set him on the ground, and then we drove away, Hahahaha. Don't worry, he was just really drunk. #WelcomeToParis The Pass Off. Salah and Ynesse are still progressing beautifully. But, we had to pass them to the Elders. Missionaries or Movie Stars? I have never been on camera so much in my life. Thursday was the Reporter day. We met up in Paris and they followed us back and forth all day as we talked to people in the road. It was a different contacting experience than I have ever had. Actually, it was a lot more effective than I had expected! We started our contacts by letting the people know they were on camera. Then we asked their permission and if we could share a message with them. Apparently the French are born to be on camera because once they heard that, they were all oddly anxious to hear our message... hahaha. Well, whatever works!! We taught 18 lessons in 3 hours that day. Our favorite of the 18 was when we built up the courage to go and sit on the concrete outside of George Pompidou (very famous museum) in a circle of 5 girls our age and share a message with them while they ate lunch. We even sang a harmonized Christmas carol! Our moms would have been proud (they are both voice coaches. J It was such a sweet moment for us as we thought of Jesus Christ, during his Earthly ministry, kneeling among the people to teach them. My Extensive Medical Vocabulary. We went to the doctor (again) on Tuesday and figured out the cause of all my weird allergic reactions here... apparently we have a black mold problem in our apartment. So, we went to work spraying and scrubbing it with vinegar for over 12 hours on Thursday. I now have a super nerdy inhaler that I get to bring everywhere with me. I think it makes me look more intelligent. Just kidding... just trying to be positive, Hahaha. Saturday I lost my voice completely and somehow managed to get it back just long enough to perform an arrangement of Silent Night in our ward Christmas spectacular. My voice was completely gone again the moment I finished. #Miracles. When the mission nurse called to check up on me that night, she immediately called and set up yet another doctor appointment to check out my throat. We went. Turns out, I have strep. Hahaha. I couldn't help but laugh at the outstanding amount of medical diagnostics I have had since the beginning of my mission. The good news is: my medical vocabulary has become quite extensive. ;) Maybe I will consider staying in France for studies, considering I know more medical terminology now in French than I do in English, Lol. Though hopefully I won't have to learn much more between now and the time I return home, hahaha. Our Dear Friend, Emelie! We have an incredible new ami named Emelie. She met the Mormons 14 years ago while she was living in the U.S. but wasn't interested at the time. She lived there for seven years before moving back to France and living another 7 years. That's when she realized there was something missing from her life. As she struggled to get through trails and hardships on her own, she began to wonder, maybe she 'did' need God. So she sent in a request to have a Book of Mormon delivered to her. Salt Lake then called us, and we called her! Now she is taking the missionary lessons and doing wonderfully. We were able to take her over to Bishop's house last night for the first lesson after the stake Christmas spectacular. It went incredibly well. That night at the spectacular she met (without knowing) our mission president, his wife, a quorum seventies, and the presiding bishop of the entire church! She asked us after meeting them... "Okay, they were important. I could feel it. Why? What do they do? Their eyes practically spoke to my heart." My Lesson with a 10-year-old Missionary. Our member who was supposed to be present for our lesson somehow got lost in the after-church-rush--as well as did my companion-- and our new amis (Joshua and Shauna) were in a hurry to make it to their Sunday afternoon rendezvous. So, in a quick attempt to teach them a lesson before they left, I grabbed a ten-year-old little American girl from the hallway and asked her if she had a minute to help me out with a lesson. I told her we were going to teach about the Book of Mormon. She nodded her head excitedly and followed me into the room. Then, she picked up the Book of Mormon, and in a language that was not her own, presented it in a way that was more complete, more sincere, and more beautiful than I have ever heard in my life. Chills covered my entire body as she continued to testify of the Book of Mormon, the testimony of the witnesses, and the promise given by Moroni to all who read the Book of Mormon. She then, with both hands, presented our new amis with their very own, Book of Mormon, reminding them how special it was. Teary eyed, they thanked her sincerely and we closed with a prayer. Again, offered by my sweet little 10-year-old companion. I have never in my life taken part in a more powerful lesson, and I didn't even say a single word. Baptism Coming Soon to Versailles! So we have this awesome 19-year-old ami named Clemence. She was a self-referral and had been being taught for almost a year. But after lots of prayers on her behalf, we made the decision to start from the beginning with her in teaching the very first lesson over again and inviting her to be baptized. We asked President's wife, Sœur Babin, to teach with us. In the peaceful setting of the mission home, we taught Clemence the Restoration and invited her to be baptized on The 21st of January. She responded with a giddy, "EEEE!!!! YAY!". Man, I wish that was how ALL of our amis would respond to a baptismal invite-- "EEEE!!! YAY!" :D Much Love and a Merry Christ-mas, Sœur Tracie Wyson -Singing for the ward nativity -Us with the reporters -Emelie, Me, My adorable companion, Bishop, and his wife! Clemence, me, Soeur Babin, Soeur George
12/12/2016 0 Comments Catching the Garter on the MetroCoucou Famille!
Last week I wrote, "for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”...well, holy guacamole, I was not expecting him to work THAT many wonders!!! Witnessing the amount of outstanding and unexpected miracles that we have had this week has almost been a sort of out of body experience hahaha, we just can't seem to wrap our heads around it! We have also never spent so much time down on our knees thanking the Lord. It's been absolutely amazing. Sadly, I had to pick and choose which wonders to share in this week's email because as you know, our time is quite limited... A "Wonder"-Ful Companion: Let's begin with the miracle of a miraculous companion! Boy do I love and appreciate Sœur George. She is from Rexburg, Idaho and has been out on her mission for about 13 months, only one transfer behind me. I was actually her STL in the MTC but we didn't have the opportunity to get to know each other very well before I left for France. She always cheerful, smiley, kind, pleasant, patient, and very goofy, like me ;) she is also an INCREDIBLE dancer. So we highly enjoy our solid two hours of hardcore dance workout a day, 6:30-7:30 am and 9:00-10:00 pm. But most of all, she is also a miracle magnet! So the two of us together are #Magnetic 😉 Snails for Lunch?...Why not!... Monday we attended a fancy Resto with all the Elders who were headed home. It was pretty hard to send off all the missionaries who have been with me since the very beginning of my mission. But, we didn't send them down into the grave without a final fête! Yes, I tried my very first snail. It wasn't half bad actually! If textures don't getcha' and you like the taste of over-seasoned garlic bread, go order yourself some snails! If nothing else, they are a GREAT mosquito repellent. Margot's Miracle: We picked up and left the apartment right in the middle of weekly planning to meet up with a young member at the Train Station and escort her to the Church. It seemed like a good opportunity to serve someone, while not taking "too" much time out of our weekly planning session. Until we found ourselves waiting for over an hour in a train station. With absolutely no way of contacting her (she didn't have a cellphone), we couldn't bring ourselves to just leave: even though we were going to miss the only opportunity we had to plan/fill our week. About a hour and half into the wait, a young woman of about 20 years walked up to us and, in her best French, asked for directions to meet a friend. Realizing that she had an American accent, we responded in English. She immediately let out a loud sigh of relief and said, "Oh English! Thank you!".. then she looked a little closer at our badges and said... "Are you Missionaries?... I am actually looking for a church right now!... Do you do English Translation?" You can imagine our reaction... it probably went something like this... (jaw-drop). Hahaha. Don't worry, we said yes too!! So we will start teaching Margot very soon! He Caught the "Jarretière" (Garter)... On our way to the church with Chloe, we were sitting on the metro as I was trying to explain to her, in French, the wedding tradition of getting and tossing the Bride's garter to the crowd, and how the person to catch the garter would be the next to get hitched. Don't ask why I was trying to explain that... but It ended up being a GREAT contacting technique! Everyone around us was trying so hard not to giggle at our conversation. So instead of changing the subject, I just decided to involve them all in it! Hahaha. We all laughed and talked together for about 20 Minutes as the conversation evolved perfectly from garter catching to the gospel. Then we exchanged numbers with all of them and set rendezvous to meet up and talk about church this week! "ALL My Friends are Mormon TOO!" After dropping Chloe off, we jumped back on the bus to head home. That's when we met yet another new friend! A cute little Philippino woman who looks at us and with a great big smile on her face says, "all my friends are Mormon too! I otta come to your church with my son! I live right next door!".... Uhhh... yes you do! So we exchanged numbers, a few jokes, and were off to find the next miracle! Day 3: "The Curse". Day three of the transfer we were on our way to visit a member... reminder... it was also day three of the transfer that Soeur Neistadt and I got stranded in the rain... it also takes about 2 hours to get most places from our apartment...So, 3 hours later, we had almost made it to the family's home. When we finally made it to the right bus stop, she gave us an over the phone "how to" find her house guide. We thought we understood the given directions fairly well. However, anyone who has followed me on my mission knows... I have spent the past 14 months getting really good… at getting really lost, (and lots of other stuff). Unfortunately, Sœur George has too. We walked for about three hours, calling the member roughly every 20 Minutes. Eventually we called and rescheduled for another day... we had to if we wanted to make it back before curfew, oh lala... Haha. We were absolutely exhausted, but still laughing! My favorite part of the night had to have been when we thought it would be a good idea to "treat" ourselves to a nice restaurant on the way home and we paid 15.90€ each for food that wasn't even as good of quality as a TV dinner. Hahahah. We sure laughed a lot that night! You drove TWO hours!?! We had a rendez-vous set up with a woman who sœur Neistadt and I had only talked to once on the phone. We had actually met her sister on the RER and she referred us to Dahnne, her other sister. The lesson went very well, at the end, she looked at us and said... "Now I understand why I for some reason decided to drive over two hours to come meet you guys." What!? Two hours!?! The cherry on top... it's only been one day and she had already read all the way through first Nephi! I've never been so happy! Oh happy Day! Speaking of being happy... Our new jam is "Oh Happy Day" from Sister Act II... if you want to know what we do every night once our miraculous day has come to an end... Go ahead and go listen to that song ;) Last Minute Miracles WAIT. LAST MINUTE MIRACLES. I thought I was done... but the Lord worked some serious wonders among us today. I usually draft up my emails Saturday night during dinner and then send them out on Monday. But what happened today (Sunday) was just way too cool to wait to share aaaalllll the way until next Monday. Are you ready?... Today at church we had SEVEN investigators show up! That is more than I have had in my entire mission. Well, I still have heaps of miracles waiting to be shared, but I think they are going to have to hold on until next week... Until then, I Love you! Love, Sister Tracie Wyson 12/5/2016 0 Comments A Traditional Thanksgiving...Salam Alikom! (That means "hello" in Arabic)
Today's email will be an interesting melange of the past two weeks since I didn't have the chance to send out a group email last week... We were hardly in Versailles last week so I don't have too many fun stories to recount to you today. We had P-Day in Paris and started exchanges right after. Exchanges went until 9:00 Tuesday night. Wednesday we spent the day in Paris again so that Soeur Neistadt could practice her song (which was phenomenal) for Zone Conference with the pianist and violinist. Thursday... can you guess?... we were in PARIS! Haha. This time it was for the actual Conference. We didn't get home until pretty late that night. Friday morning Soeur Neistadt and I both woke up with the stomach flu and so we had to spend the day in bed taking turns running to the bathroom to throw up. On the bright side, The mailman brought me a little Christmas surprise! Saturday we actually had several Rendezvous and a baptism! It wasn't ours, but the Elders from another area called us the night before and asked if we could play piano for the baptism and come up with a musical number. Hahaha. Yes, the night before. We laughed and accepted, with great faith that we would be healed the next day. ;) Sœur Neistadt must have had greater faith than me because she woke up better and I woke up worse. So she ended up doing the musical number all by herself, again, (what a solid pal). I still had a bad flu of some sort so church was a rough one. Some members threw us a cute little miniature "Thanksgiving Feast" after church :). Granted I didn't really get to enjoy it because Turkey dinner doesn't taste near as good coming up the second time, haha. But my family knows I am just carrying on the good traditions because I am pretty sure I have had the flu every single Thanksgiving for the past 5 years at least hahaha. "TRADITION!" Can't break it now ;). Sunday through Wednesday I was kept in bed with a series of fevers and chills along with a sore throat like no other. Wednesday I also woke up with my eyes sealed shut... Woo Hoo, pinkeye!... Thursday I was still sick, Friday as well, and so on, soooo... it was a heck of a week! 😜 (I have much greater reasoning to all of this than whining about all of my symptoms, I promise!) You may ask what my poor companion was doing all during the 240 hours that I was stuck in bed... It all started off with a call from Soeur Babin (presidents wife), giving her orders to travel to the pharmacy, by herself!! Now, for those of you who are familiar with missionary rules, you understand how extremely strange that must be. For those who aren't--it is absolutely necessary that a missionary remains within sight and sound of his/her companion 100% of the time. With the only exception being the bathroom-- So, in her own words she said.... "I put on my big girl panties, marched out the door, and said... 'I CAN DO THIS!!'......Theeeennn, I called the elders and made them talk to me the whole way there...." Hahahaha. That girl is a hoot. Lucky for me, she made it all the way to the pharmacy and back without any damage, and she came bearing good tidings of great joy (Meds). I also woke up to our entire apartment decked out in hand cut snowflakes and other Christmasy decorations made from an emergency blanket that she found hidden somewhere in the black hole (closet) of our apartment, haha. For those of you who have seen "Elf"...? That is my companion, and that is exactly what our apartment looks like right now. Hahaha. As for all the other days, we have had a series of sister rotations set up in the zone so that Soeur Neistadt was able to go to all of our rendezvous while I stayed home in bed. Speaking of Companion.... Transfer calls came on Saturday! Drum roll please...Soeur Neistadt is leaving Versailles and Soeur George is rollin' in! Add that to my enormous list of companions I have never done more than 6 weeks with hahaha. I don't actually know who Soeur George is, so it will be a surprise :) Now for my "much greater reasoning"... About 5 months ago I made a goal to study and make goals for one Christlike attribute each month until the end of my mission. November was originally set aside to be my month of "knowledge" but I later felt the need to change the order and make it the month of "Patience". The order may not have changed much, but I was very grateful to have had "Patience" as my focus during this month of spontaneous change... and what better way to end my month of patience than with a ten day flu!? ;) hahaha. With that, I have a lovely Holland quote for you :).... "Keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever....If gospel standards seem high and the personal improvement needed in the days ahead seems out of reach, remember Joshua’s encouragement to his people when they faced a daunting future. “Sanctify yourselves,” he said, “for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”" I can't wait to see the wonders of tomorrow!!! :D Remember, Miracles happen!...Even in FRANCE!🇫🇷 Xoxo- Sister Wyson Ps-Happy Birthday to my beautiful Angel mother and my lovely sister Randi this week on the 8th of December!!! I love you both!! 11/21/2016 1 Comment A Cookie and a KissCoucou tout le monde !! 🌎
Rubix Cube Speed Contacting... Everyone here is extremely impressed when someone can do a rubix cube. So, Neistadt and I studied the French Rubix Cube Manuel for language study so that we could learn how to do them and use it as a contacting technique on long bus and train rides. Neistadt has known for a while how to do it so she is crazy fast already. I'm working on catching up hahaha. Anyways, our first day was a success. We met a man named Jean-Philipe who was of course impressed with our mad puzzle solving skills ;) okay, maybe he was only impressed by Soeur Neistadt's... But, he asked how to do it and of course that led to the response of us being missionaries hahaha. He was atheist but interested in the Book of Mormon. So, we gave him a card and a Book of Mormon and told him to call us. He said he would. Though, so do all the other 100 people a day that we give cards to hahaha. Later that day we get a call and my companion answers. Next thing I know she is yelling "Stop it! Stop it!" Into the phone while trying really hard not to laugh. Listening to her end of the conversation, I assumed it was just the elders. The problem is... so did she. Hahaha. Well, the person who she thought was the elders calling and pretending to be a French man... actually WAS a French man. Yup, Jean-Philippe called! Ha! Neistadt was pretty embarrassed. She immediately started trying to explain to him that she thought he was our "American friends" hahaha. Luckily he thought it was just as funny as I did and we were still able to fix a rendezvous hahaha. The next day it was my turn to do the Rubix cube on Trajet (transit?). My companion was teasing me because she said I was a beginner and it wasn't going to impress anyone that I could do a rubix cube in Ten Minutes. She was right, hahaha. But I did it anyways. Half way through, I turn to the girl next to me and say... "she teases me for being slow, but these things are hard!" I didn't think it was actually that funny, but she sure did! In fact, she thought it was so funny that she wanted to take the missionary lessons after ;). Okay, that's not why she wanted to take the lessons, hahaha. But she was awesome! We are going to see her this week :). The Miracles of HeadQuarter referrals... Boy do I love referrals! We received a self-referral a few weeks ago of a woman named Madame Ambert. The referral said that she wasn't interested in taking lessons at all but that she just wanted a Book of Mormon. Well, it took about 3 weeks for that referral to process and get to us. So, by the time we passed by, she had spent the past 3 weeks researching and reading everything she could about the Mormons on all of the churches websites and said to us, "I have researched over a hundred religions, and I am completely convinced that there is no other church that raises youth to be as strong as yours. It must be because you have a prophet!" Family nights and homemade hummus!... We had to sprint through Versailles after our miracle with Madame Ambert in order to get to our next RDV with Salah and Ynesse on time. We were having a FHE with one of my very favorite couples in our ward. We didn't quite make it "on time" haha. But we made it! The night went really well too! We actually taught about Temples, which Salah and Ynesse found SUPER cool! Salah is progressing much quicker than Ynesse. Just because he wasn't a “practicing" Muslim as Ynesse is. So it's a lot easier for him to leave some of the old traditions behind and try something a little bit different--Like not having memorized prayers and just praying from your heart. It's quite amazing to observe the difference of progression between someone who is praying from their heart as opposed to someone who is reciting a memorized prayer. Prayer is the key to receiving answers to our questions. We cannot receive answers to questions we do not ask. On the less-spiritual side of FHE, we played a card game called, "Exploding Kittens" Hahahaha...Weirdest game I think I have ever played. Wrong Bus. I Mean Right Bus!... Every time we get on the "wrong bus" it ends up being the right bus! Neistadt and I made a goal this week that we weren't going to allow ourselves to sit down on trajet unless we talked to someone. Otherwise it's just too easy to get comfortable on all those long rides haha. Well, we got on a bus that actually happened to be a private student bus and not a public bus (awkward), so we figured it probably wasn't the best idea to be contacting since it technically isn't allowed on private buses. So instead, I just told the young girl next to me that I liked her lipstick and I figured, considering the circumstances, I could probably sit down after saying that. To my surprise, she responded with, "Thanks! I'm Christian too! Only not practicing. Are you here to teach people? Can I have your number?"....uhhh yes you may!!!...So we exchanged numbers and fixed a RDV for next week :). Contacting... African Style!... As you have probably noticed, we did a LOT of contacting this week. So we tried a lot of different techniques to keep things interesting. Well, one of them was to take the most enthusiastic African man in our ward out to contact with us hahaha. Let's just say, some methods of contacting are a little more effective than others, haha! I think he was just a little bit TOO enthusiastic for the French hahaha. I felt like I was at one of the African Markets that they have here, only we weren't selling Corn or Piment, we were selling Church! hahaha. But, I can honestly say that was the most entertaining contacting session I have ever experienced! ;) Praying in Spanish... We met a really cool Spanish lady on the road. She didn't speak any French or English, and we don't speak any Spanish ahaha. So I'm not sure how well our message got across, but I prayed for her in "Spanish" ahaha. Meaning I just rolled all my R's while speaking French, hoping maybe she would understand a little more haha. She told me after than she was really impressed with my Spanish ;) which was actually just French. I don't know any Spanish. She was definitely just being nice hahaha. Cookies and a Kiss... Saturday, every single one of our rendezvous fell through and so we had nothing to do. Well, as much as we love contacting all day, that's about all we did all week haha. So, instead, we made about 200 snickerdoodles and passed by about 30 member families! We even found some new investigators along the way! We wrote this cute little card about giving them "a cookie and a kiss" and then kissed all of the notes with red lipstick. Our first pass by was one of our old friends (our hair stylist). He thought it was so cute hahaha, then he read the card and said, "I'll take both!!" Then before I had time to shake his hand, he slapped two nice, big, slobbery grandpa kisses on my face, Hahahaha😂. He loves us. He calls us the "Mormon Models". I'm not sure why hahaha, but I guess he thinks we are pretty cute ;)! On Sunday, the members were all so happy and smiley! They were all showing off their little cards from us and giggling among themselves about "comment c'est adorable" (how adorable it is). Hahaha. I love being a missionary. Elder Packer was right; the two essential ingredients ARE a cookie and a kiss!!! ;) À Bientôt ! A cookie and a Kiss, Soeur Wyson 11/14/2016 1 Comment Of course I'm a woman.. Wait what?!BONJOUR !
My life here in Versailles seems to be getting more and more comical with each passing week. But I am pretty certain this week has been one of the most bizarre weeks of my entire mission, haha! Two is MUCH better than one... This week I experienced a moment of what life is going to feel like 5 months from now as the train doors closed on me and I watched my companion disappear into the distance. Our faces were priceless. I felt like a lost puppy as I wondered around trying and find and convince a French person to let me use their phone to call my comp. haha! When I finally got a hold of her we both burst into laughter. I don't know if I have ever in my life felt as uncomfortable as I did waiting for that second train by myself hahaha. I take back everything I have said in the past; I don't think I like being alone anymore. Needless to say our reunion was quite dramatic. Is this a Lesson or a Date? Salah and Ynesse... Now that we are no longer in a Trio, we can no longer teach Salah and Ynesse unless we have a member with us, or if we teach in public. Well, it's a holiday... therefore, all of our members are conveniently out of town haha. So we met them outside a train station and walked in the pouring rain from the train station to the nearest shelter. Which happened to be a "Quick Burger". Originally, they tried to take us to a bar... but we came to the conclusion that: drinking or not, teaching the Plan of Salvation in a Bar is a little... well, strange. It went surprisingly well! Although we felt and looked a little more like their dates than their missionaries Hahaha. Awkward. But hey, Salah read SIX chapters in the Book of Mormon since our last visit and basically recited them to us! Date or not, it was pretty amazing! ;) Isabelle and The Law of Chastity.... My companion and I are quite hilariously blunt with our amis. In the very most loving way! We have just realized that beating around the bush in lessons only creates what we like to call "Eternal Amis". So, the other day we were teaching our ami Isabelle The Law of Chastity-- which is typically one of the most awkward and nerve wracking lessons for missionaries to teach (because we are missionaries and super awkward)-- Anyway, it was the best L.O.C lesson ever. We told her directly, we told her exactly, and we summed up the whole shebang in about two sentences! Needless to say, we were pretty proud... until Isabelle (also hilariously blunt) told us very bluntly that she doesn't and wasn't going to keep it Hahahaha.... ohhhhhh.... Isabelle. Then she laughed REALLY hard for about 10 minutes over the look on our faces when she said it. It was really hard to stay serious because when French people think you're making a funny face they tell you something that translates directly to, "I love too much your funny head". It was like we were parents trying to stay serious while disciplining a child who's making us giggle at the same time. Parents, I know you have all experienced this. Hahaha. Anyways, Isabelle is a work in progress, but we love her Hahaha :). Zone Conference and Finding Day... Neistadt and I sang for Zone conference this week. As nervous as I get to sing for people, I absolutely love singing for the Lord. Which is something I started imagining in order to get over my nerves and it has become such a special experience for me every time I sing. Once I stand up at the podium, the only one left in the audience listening is Christ. After the conference, we were separated into different companionships and sent out to do a little finding. I was lucky enough to go with one of my adorable Soeurs from my last zone--Soeur Cottle! I took her on her very first exchange :). When we got paired together she smiled so big and said, "Soeur Wyson! Now we can finish our exchange!". It was so sweet :) At the end of our little mini exchange, she looked at me and said, "You will always be my STL :)." It made my day :)... So how about those exchange miracles!?... Amina's Miracle - Zone Finding Day... Amina was the very first woman we contacted. A Muslim woman who wasn't very interested to hear talk of Christ. So I pulled out the Book of Mormon and began to testify that it is through the Book of Mormon that we are able to come to know the divinity of Jesus Christ. Her entire countenance changed as she reached out and gently caressed the Book's cover. Then, her eyes filled with light and she said, "Is this yours? Or can I please have it?...I really want to read it." When we gave it to her she held it close and promised to read it. Then she gave us her number and asked us to come and teach her the missionary lessons :) I have spent a great deal of my mission studying the Muslim religion because I seem to teach so many of them. In studying the religion, I had hoped to learn some way of teaching them the gospel and helping them to understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Then, finally, I learned that we need to teach them just as we need to teach anyone. Through studying, pondering, and praying on the Book of Mormon. There is no "single verse" we can share to convince anyone, or ourselves, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. But, it is the Book in its entirety that is the proof. As we gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we gain a testimony that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We cannot expect ourselves, our friends, or our families, to understand the Gospel without the Book of Mormon. That is the reason God gave it to us. Missionary clothes are not primary friendly!... So I got a new calling! I didn't even know that was possible as a missionary. But, I am now teaching primary! They asked me to come in and help for the day and one of the little boys decided that he liked ONLY me because I was his "Maman". Well, he lay his head in my lap for the entire class and cried while I rubbed his back hahaha. Boys... Then after singing time I was assigned teacher of the five year olds class since he refused to be separated from me. By the end of the class, I had 6 energetic five-year-old boys climbing all over me saying "donnes moi un câlin" (give me a hug) hahaha. I haven't gotten that many hugs since I left for the MTC! Also, my sleeve was actually ripped from my dress from all the tugging and pulling of the little dudes fighting over who got me. The missionaries and members got quite the kick out of that. They keep teasing me that it is a "prévue" (pre-seen) of my dating future, Hahaha. Oh golly. Next week I will be wearing more durable, and less valuable, clothes haha. Motherhood, here I come!!! ;) "Are you a Woman?" .... "Excuse me?"... Speaking of motherhood... In French, woman "Femme" and wife, "Femme" are the same word. Now you would think that I would have been in France long enough to recognize the difference...apparently not. So the other day, a few men turn to me on the metro and comment on my eyes. Then, they proceed to ask me if I am a "Femme"...Um excuse me?! What do you think? Yes I am a Femme!!...I was distraught! I couldn't believe that they had mistaken me for anything else!...That's when I realized that they were asking if I was married.... how awkward. Well, I guess I am safe because now they think I'm a wife, Hahahaha. Oh lala... Finding with Presidents Wife..."No Pressure"... We decided to be bold and take president’s wife out to work with us for the day. Our studies that morning were super killer because we wanted to be perfectly prepared for all the lessons we would teach with her that day. Just our luck, the one day we take Soeur Babin out to work with us is the day that every single one of our rendezvous fell through. But it's okay! We had backup plans! Until not a single one of our planned passby's were home. Final backup!! Contacting!!... of course it was pouring freezing rain and icy winds... literally the place was a Ghost Town... it was a stressful day and we were very glad when it was over hahaha. The only problem was... it wasn't over... Come what may and Love it... right?... Finally, at the end of the night we have a family night with a cute member family in our ward. We felt prompted to share my favorite talk, "Come what may and Love it." Little did we know, we were going to find ourselves stranded in a train station that's nowhere near our sector in the middle of the night (still pouring freezing rain and icy winds) with absolutely no way of getting home... After a tragic incident, all of the trains were shut down and we had to get off, who knows where. Our only option was to either sleep there, or call the assistants. Sleeping there almost sounded like a better idea Hahahaha. If it wouldn't have been for the other sisters who were supposed to be staying with us that night…who were waiting outside of our apartment door (more than dangerous) a several hour walk away. So we called the assistants and the poor guys had to drive an hour to pick us up, 40 min to take us home, and another hour back to their apartment, IN THEIR PAJAMAS! It was so late. We didn't get home until almost 11. (Note from Tracie’s mom: She has definitely been out on a mission too long… she thinks 11 is the middle of the night? Hahaha) Come what may and Love it, right? Yes, we will be making cookies for the assistants today. 4th floor last door... Or 5th floor... We usually take our dinner hour at the end of the night from 8-9 here because it's not very safe for us to be out after 8. We had been porting in a building and it was almost 8 so we were about to head home. Then we got in the elevator and saw that the building actually had five floors... not four.. (which is how many we had already knocked)...we remembered Elder Uchtdorfs talk. We couldn't possibly just leave before finishing the final floor! What if our person was there!?! So we pressed the "5" button in the elevator as we goofily chanted "fifth floor last door! Fifth floor last door!" More like, fifth floor, EVERY door!! Everyone answered! We had five outside the door lessons on the fifth floor and were even invited back on the last door!! What a killer way to end the night. :) My first French argument... I know the title of this story doesn't sound like a very Christlike one, but... I was actually pretty proud of myself! hahaha.... This grouchy lady in the grocery store today tried to accuse me of trying to steal because I used my credit card and she didn't realize that she had to use her little key to accept the payment on the machine. So she rudely yelled in my face, Mam! You can't just leave! You haven't paid!" She then continued on this long rant about how I was breaking the law. Well, at this point, everyone in the store was staring at us and I just looked at her as I still stood there, in the exact place I had been the entire time, and said, "Um, I had absolutely no intention of leaving this store without paying, I'm just waiting for YOU to accept the payment." Then she un-puffed a bit and says... "Oh." And accepts the payment on the machine... it was ridiculous Hahahaha. But I was pretty proud of myself for being a Wyson. Dad, you would have been proud ;) The French and their Holidays.... Every other day is a Holiday in France. Meaning everyone takes work off, including all of the train and bus conductors. So it took us 6 hours to have two 30-minute rendezvous because we had to wait sooooo long in between trains. But we made the best of the time we had and had some good companion bonding time as we sang and danced to Broadway songs in the empty train stations. We even found an apple vending machine with full packages of the best apples I have ever tasted for only one euro! We were pretty stoked about that. On the way home we met a crazy woman from Morocco who made us snapchat her sister because we speak English and so does she hahaha. She liked us so much she asked for our number so she could bring us back Moroccan BooBoos. Interesting day! FINALEMENT! Lou's Baptism!!!... LOU IS BAPTIZED!!! Sunday was the greatest. Lou is absolutely golden. We are going to be friends for a very, very long time :). It was a beautiful baptism with talks, songs, and prayers, in English, French, Spanish, AND Portuguese! Soeur Neistadt and I sang. Our moms would have been so proud, the piano stopped in the middle of the song because his sheet music fell and we just kept going as if nothing even happened and like we had planned the whole thing! I think we had them convinced ;). I also found out when I got there that I would be giving a talk on the gift of the spirit. Good thing missionaries are always prepared ;)! Well, that was a really long email... you're welcome mom! :D Sorry everyone else! ;) Á la prochaine !!! Bisous! Soeur Wyson 11/7/2016 3 Comments Missionaries Are Always PreparedHello hello Family!
"I can't believe it's already...[insert date]!!!" Has become my second most commonly used phrase on the mission. The First being, "Bonjour! Je suis une missionnaire pour l'Église de Jesus Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours!" That one never gets old. With that being said, I can't believe it is already November 7th!!! The 3 Musketeers are No More... Yup... we are getting split up today...Soeur Méjean is leaving us to head to her assigned mission--Phoenix, Arizona! Nice-Cat (Neistadt) and I feel like such moms, preparing to send off our little girl to her mission in the United States hahaha. Perks of trios that we will miss: being able to teach/contact men alone, riding in cars with members, riding in cars with elders, getting triple the work, going on Member splits, only having to hold the phone and keys every third day (personal favorite), three times the humor, AND three times the ideas!! hahahah (hard sometimes). Nevertheless, it was a great couple weeks :) (I very much enjoyed writing last week's email as a series of mini stories so I decided I was going to continue it this week. Here is my personal favorite...) Genealogy, you mean Gynecology?... We were sitting in a lesson with Salah and Ynesse when my companion began to explain a bit about why we do Genealogy and how it's important for the work that is done in the temple. They seemed like they were really getting it! Until she asked if they understood the word "Genealogy" and Salah responds confidently with..."Yeah! Gynecology!" Hahahahaha. The best part is that my companion is new in the mission and so she responded with, "Exactly!" I was dying hahahaha. But hey, Mormons can't get any weirder than that. So if that didn't scare them away, I don't know what will! 😂 hahaha. Once we cleared it all up, they were very excited to start on their genealogy ;). "Dare me. Okay I dare you."... *Guy with guitar gets on Metro* Wyson-"Hey. Neistadt. Dare me to go sing with that guy." Neistadt-"ok. I dare you." Wyson-"Okay fine I will." *walks over, sits next to guitar guy* Wyson-"How good are you at sight reading?" Yes, I sang a song about temples to the entire Metro while this guy played the guitar. Hahahaha. I couldn't pass it up, it was a once in a lifetime experience! Plus, she dared me ;) Adrian, and a New Contacting Technique... As a missionary, you can only stay silent for so long when you're sitting across from a college student about your age in the metro. So, in a spontaneous attempt to strike up a conversation, I smile big and say, "Are you on your way to church right now!? :D"... (Face palm)... I definitely meant to say "school". I guess I was just a little too excited to talk to him about church, it just slipped right out! He laughed at me for a good minute or two, as did I. Then he politely replied with, "No, but I probably should be! haha :)" I wasn't going to disagree, so I gave him the address and told him to come ;). Missionaries are ALWAYS prepared (cough cough)... Soeur Neistadt (my incredibly gifted companion) was asked to sing at the church activity on Saturday. But when her pianist didn't follow through, her only option was to sit down and learn the entire arrangement perfectly in 3 hours so that she could accompany herself. She #NAILEDIT. When we thought things couldn't get any more stressful, our phone rang... "Soeur Wyson! Paris Temple President and his wife are speaking in church tomorrow and our musical number canceled last minute! Can you be ready to sing tomorrow!?"... so, I used some nightly language study time to translate a song about Temples and sang it the next morning. Oh boy! Missionaries are always prepared... right? Feeding My Obsession: We were enjoying some yummy healthy food at a members house when I made a comment about my cook book collection. Next thing I knew, the member was pulling cookbook after cookbook out of her storage and giving them to me hahaha. I went home with 25 new cookbooks that day to add to my collection! Not sure how I am going to get those home...but I am sure my future husband will appreciate it ;)! 50 Anniversaire de Versailles!... We had our big historical party on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the chapel here in Versailles. Our companionship was in charge of doing tours and presenting the history of the church and the chapel in each room. It made me feel like I was working in the Visitors center, it was a blast! My favorite miracle of the night was a woman named Carmen. She had so many questions about the temple, what we do in it, and why. I explained it about 20 different ways before finally just giving up, smiling, and saying, "You know, good question! I don't know. I guess just because God commanded us and I know he is much smarter than me!" Then, Carmen looks at me and for the first time that entire night, she didn't try to argue! She just says... "That makes SO much sense! You're right!"... I wish I could have caught my face on camera at this moment hahaha. I had just spent 30 minutes trying to explain this to her and all I had to say was a simple "Just Because" Hahahaha. The Lord has a good sense of humor. I bet he was enjoying watching that one from up above ;). 2 Nephi 2:24 "But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." So, if you see Soeur Neistadt and I on TV... We got a call from some journalists this week asking us when we were free so that they could come follow us around a bit. We told them no. Then we got a call from a church representative. Apparently they had already gotten permission, haha, oops. I don't know why they find us contacting people on the street so interesting haha, but I'm not sure how many people are going to want to talk to Mormon missionaries with a camera crew hahaha. They will also be interviewing us after... fingers crossed they don't ask me how many siblings I have... luckily, 12 and 2 sounds about the same in French when said with an American accent, Hahahaha. Well, that's all I've got for ya' this week folks! Je vous souhaite une bonne semaine ! À la prochaine ! Je vous aime tous, Soeur Wyson 10/31/2016 0 Comments VersaillesBONJOUR!
Versailles, Versailles, the promised land! Not quite as promised as my home land but it's pullin' into a close second ;). I took some pictures, which obviously never do beauty justice when taken by an amateur, but it's still breathtaking! It's like taking a walk through Utah mountains during fall with an added Old French touch and cobblestone streets. Along with this thick misty air, which just adds to the ambiance (but makes it slightly difficult to maintain my crazy hair hahaha). Day one was quite an interesting adventure. We spent 5 hours dragging our luggage all around Paris and escorting "dying" missionaries to their assigned location. I also had to meet up with my two companions in two different cities with all of our bags before heading to the mission office to pick up one of their passports, then heading all the way back to Versailles (still with all of our luggage) to go home and eat for 20 Minutes before needing to leave for our next rendezvous hahaha. It was quite the day. My back was pretty wrecked after all that. But with the help of my new donated memory foam mattress and lots of prayers, it has made pretty dramatic improvement! I no longer have constant pain throughout the day. Which is awesome of course :). Saying goodbye to Gilbs and Paris was really difficult. A little less difficult now that I learned I can still see the Eiffel Tower from where I live and that I basically moved just enough to place me in the clean, pretty, rich part of the Parisian Zone haha :) No complaints here! My new companions are Soeur Neistadt and Soeur Méjean. They have both been in the mission for a grand total of three months, so we've got some nice blue-fire in this team ;)! Soeur Méjean is from Lyon, France so she only speaks French, and Soeur Neistadt is from Summerlin/Las Vegas Nevada. Soeur Méjean will only be with us until November 8th, when she will head out with her visa to her assigned mission: Phoenix, Arizona! My very first day as a "normal" missionary was pretty sweet. We called the young women in the ward to see if we could take any of them out contacting with us. One sweetheart named Chloe came and I took her off on member splits while Neistadt and Méjean went contacting in another area. Our goal was, when in doubt..."PRAY LOTS!" Yes, I know, it doesn't rhyme... but that's why it's so good ;). As we walked up and down the streets, there was not a single person in sight. Lots of prayer followed. Eventually, we started running into people every once in awhile, and EVERY single person that we stopped talked to us! It was such a miracle! Which was followed by lots of gratitude prayers :). We ended up teaching 10 lessons in two hours and finding two new amis! In total with the other soeurs we had 14 lessons in two hours!! How cool are trios!? You can get SO much work done!!! A few of my personal favorite Split Miracles: Manny the Muslim: Manny was the third man we stopped. He is from Tahiti and works on a ship. We began by testifying of God and his son Jesus Christ and the importance of prayer. His expression changed and he looked at us with disappointment as he explained that he wasn't allowed to pray on the ship because his boss wouldn't allow it. Since his infancy, Manny had only been taught of one way to pray. So we shared a story from the Book of Mormon when one of the kings men, Amulon, persecutes Alma and his people. He sends out a decree that they are to be put to death if they pray. So they prayed in their hearts. "And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts."(Mosiah 24:12 ) Manny was so touched by this story that he wanted to know how my family found this "beautiful book." I was able to share the story of my grandpa and the example he set for me as he set out on his "quest for the truth." Most importantly being the fact that, when he found it, he accepted and followed his Savior in being baptized, and continued to teach the Gospel to his children. He then looked up at me and said, "I am not like other Muslims. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World like you say. This gospel you teach touches my heart, and I want to learn more." Mathias, The "No-Longer-Investigator" of the JW's: Shortly after saying goodbye to Manny, we ran into Mathias who told us that he had been meeting with our missionaries every weekend... knowing that he wasn't an investigator of the elders, we were sure that it was not the Mormons he had been meeting hahaha. But, it was actually the Jehovah’s witnesses that he had been meeting with. Often confused as “us” here in France hahahah. Well, the good news is, he decided he likes our message more and he wants to meet with us this weekend instead. J Perks of a Foreign Accent: The nice thing about having an accent is that everyone thinks it's adorable and wants to hear you talk. One Atheist man we stopped told me that he liked my voice and so I replied with, "Oh Good! Listen well! ;)". The best part is, he actually did! For 20 Minutes! Look Both Ways Before Crossing: There was a Woman about to cross the street with her little boy. I received a prompting to talk to her so I called out to her just as she was about to step on the road. Then, just as she said, "No"... the light turned red, and she was stuck with me!!! Hahahahaha. It was pretty hilarious. The Lord definitely helped me out on that one. He's a funny guy ;). My Unplanned Halloween Costume: Contacting here in Versailles is really easy because everyone stops me before I even get the chance to speak to tell me I look exactly like "Blanche Neige" (Snow White). I guess that says something about my tan hahaha. Present for Patisserie?: We walked into a Boulangerie (Bakery) holding a big box of Book of Mormons and the baker said... "Is that a gift for me!?" We responded with... "Hahaha...Of course!" We thought he was kidding at first, but he actually wanted one! Salah and Ynesse: Sunday all three of us came down with an ugly flu and had to go home and sleep it off for a couple hours. We were awakened by the sound of our phone and when we answered, it was a young man asking if we were the missionaries and if we happened to have to time to teach him at six o'clock... it was five-thirty hahaha. We jumped up, threw our jackets on, and practically ran to the church while we called some members to come join us for the lesson. When we showed up at the church, he was already waiting by the doors with one of his friends that came for the lesson as well. The young member couple was the next to show up, who also brought their member friend hahaha. So between our trio, our amis, and our members, there were 8 people in that lesson! My companions and I weren't sure how it was going to go with all those mouths going but it went, WONDERFULLY. The two of them are practicing Muslims. They are also some of the most open people I have taught during my mission. We even extended a soft invitation to baptism, and they said yes! Everyone was so giddy walking out of that lesson. The members were literally (and I mean literally) jumping for joy! That was a pretty sweet way to end the week :) So things are going great here in Versailles! I am absolutely loving it here and I am happier than ever :). I'm so incredibly proud to be one of the Lord's missionaries. I love you all!! Je vous embrasse tous ! Sœur Wyson Ps: Please enjoy these pictures of the promised land as well as me eating a live escargot that my companion carried around in her pocket ALL day hahaha. (I didn't really eat it. But she did actually carry it in her pocket all day) Pps: LOU IS GETTING BAPTIZED HERE ON THE 13TH OF NOVEMBER ❤!!!! 10/24/2016 0 Comments If you ask the Lord for trials...Hello Hello everyone!!!
Crazy news this week: After another two REALLY short transfers, I am out of my 3rd Ville and off to my 4th! Normally sisters only serve in 3-4 villes so I am shootin' for a record here ;)... maybe 6? 7?... I wasn't sure how I was feeling when I got the call to release me from being an STL, but I felt a whole lot better once they told me I'd be moving down the street from the under-construction Paris Temple! Yup, I'm headed to VERSAILLES. Polishing two new missionaries, at once! TRIO. One from the western United States and the other from Southern France! Here's to adventures ;)! Aside from transfer decisions, nothing huge happened this week because we were on "house arrest" in order to give my back time to heal. It is doing worlds better! Thank you for all of the prayers and fasts, they worked! However, we did get to spend Sunday outside of the apartment and in that single day we had enough excitement to last us an entire week!! ;) We had a baptism for a cute little 11 year old convert named Geminelli. Then, while at the baptism, our adorable ami Lou ran up to me and said... "Soeur Wyson! I received my answer from God! I want to be baptized! AND, I want to do it in November and I am going to be baptized IN Versailles!!! Because you are my missionary and I need you to be there!!!" ... I literally jumped for joy and hugged her SOOOO tightly! It was such a tender mercy for me. My other miracle of the week must have been receiving a call from an elder who had felt inspired to give me a priesthood blessing. Assuming it was for my back, we gladly invited them over that evening. Then, as he lay his hands on my head, he spoke of only one thing--Prayer. Without even once mentioning my back problems, he expressed the importance of turning all that I had over to the Lord and told me that as I did so, I would know what to do. So, I focused a lot on prayer this week. After spending many hours in conversation with the Lord, I was reminded of another prayer that I had offered up to him about 4 weeks prior to my back injury.... I was coming up on my year mark and reflecting on the numerous lessons I had learned in the past year, as well as the lessons (even more numerous) that I still had to learn before returning home in the next 6 months. Eager to learn, I willingly gave permission to the Lord to give me, and I quote, "ANY challenges that I need, to allow me to become the person you need me to be". Well, what lesson did I learn this transfer?... "If you ask the Lord for trials...you better be prepared...HE WILL SEND THEM." Hahaha. As unfortunate as it seemed, I realized in that moment that my back was an answer to my prayers. I had asked the Lord to give me a trial that would strengthen me, 4 weeks later, I found my weakened body, resting in its' strongest position...on my knees. At that moment, I poured out my heart in even greater prayer to my Heavenly Father, to thank Him for all the blessings he had granted me. Including a broken back. Because it wasn't until the strength of my physical body was momentarily taken from me, that I was reminded of my only true and reliable power source. A few days ago, I had the opportunity to be present for another blessing that an elder gave to one of our members who was recently diagnosed with a life threatening disease. In it, he said something that really pierced my heart. He said, "As you turn to The Lord to strengthen your spirit, your physical body will follow." The Lord is our only reliable power source. He will never fail you! He is only one that is capable of providing constant, undisturbed power for as long as we remain connected. If we connect ourselves to him, ensuring that we are first charged spiritually, our physical bodies will indeed follow. "We need to get into spiritual shape. We need to develop spiritual stamina. We need strong testimonies that will lead to true conversion, and as a result we will find within ourselves the inner peace and strength needed to endure whatever challenges we may face."-- Elder Richard J. Maynes LOL, (Lots of Love) Soeur Wyson Coucou Family!
We had a finding day in Normandy this week, I also celebrated my year mark with my MTC companion, Soeur Hodgman :) The last time I visited Normandy was when I was 15 years old. Plus, the train we took drove right through the little town I stayed in while I was here! It was almost emotional haha. I miss that place! Normandy is a little bit tougher as far as the work goes. Here in Paris we can go out for a couple hours and teach anywhere from 3-6 lessons. In Normandy, we went out for about 8 hours, and between both companionships, we only taught 4 haha. A little more challenging. But it was still great! We prayed a lot and saw some incredible miracles so it was all well worth it. My favorite miracle wasn't actually a lesson, but it sure made us laugh! Soeur Springer and I were sitting on the bus back to the Gare when I turn around to see a young man who looked EXACTLY like Jesus!!! I couldn't believe the similarities! So, I contacted him by saying... Hey, do you know who your twin is?... then I held up a contacting card with a picture of Jesus on it and said...."C'est JESUS!" That got the entire back of the bus laughing, which was great, because then we got to teach ALL of them about Jesus! We even gave him his own Book of Mormon and got his number so that we could set up a rendezvous-- and I got a picture with him!!! Definitely my favorite mission picture :) When we got off the bus we said one last prayer before leaving Caen, asking the Lord to lead just one single person to us before we had to leave. We turned around after saying the prayer and contacted the very first person we saw...who was absolutely not interested at all haha. So, we turned down the next street and contacted the NEXT person haha :). Well, It was actually two persons haha. Two very nice 18 year old girls named Jen and Julie :) The contact started off with us asking them a few fun survey questions, to all of which they replied, "Food!....Cookies!!...McDonalds!!" Hahaha. We came to the point where neither of us had any idea how to use that to transition into a gospel principle. So, I just started laughing and said to them... Well, we are actually here to talk about God, but I mean, everything good comes from him! Including McDonalds! (Okay, maybe only McDonalds in France, it's actually a restaurant here, not a fast-food hahaha). Well, honesty works!! They were atheist but by the end of the lesson they expressed a great desire to believe in God, but said that they simply didn't know where to start. Luckily, that's exactly why we are here! The Caen Sisters will be teaching them again tomorrow :) Miracles happen!!!... Even in Normandy!! ;) If there were an award for "Most accident prone" here in the France Paris Mission, I think Soeur Wyson would take the competition by a landslide hahaha. Thursday night I was joking with Soeur Buchanan about how not even a slipped disc can pull me out of the game and then I turned the corner to go into my room and of course, rolled my ankle... hahahahaha. Oh my goodness, God has a pretty good sense of humor. Well, luckily, He thought that wearing an ankle brace for only two days was enough time for me to learn my lesson haha. :) We had two more baptisms here in the Paris ward, Pamela and Aurélien! They looked so happy, it was such a joy to be part of their special days. On the less special side (or maybe special in a different sense of the word hahaha) we had a less active come to the baptism. I walked into the kitchen and she was pulling chicken out of a black trash bag, microwaving it, and trying to feed it to people hahaha. She also tried some of the elders’ root beer and apparently really liked it because next thing we knew, she was hiding it in the kitchen to take home hahahaha. When Elder Walton saw that he was like "Hey pepita, that's our root beer, we were going to take it home." So she grudgingly left it on the counter near Walton... then, when he turned his back she took an empty carton of orange juice and proceeded to pour almost the entire thing of root beer into the carton. I was dying hahahaha😂 He also caught her at the very last second before she left with their five euro container of Nutella😅 hahaha, oh Pepita... Here in France everyone keeps matches in their bathrooms instead of aerosol because they say that the smoke kills the odors. Which is important information that leads us into another baptism funny... we have a bunch of Africans in our ward here and they volunteered to make the food for the baptism. Well, I don't know if any of you have ever eaten REAL authentic African food, but holy smokes... that stuff has got some serious ZANG!!! By zang I mean spice. So much spice! Hahaha. It wrecked everyone. So basically our apartment has been smelling like serious campfire the past few days. We finished out the week by throwing an African Fete for the ward. Yes, more African food... we bought a lot of matches this week haha. It was super fun! We even wore African dresses and painted our faces--which made contacting on the metro ride home super fun ;)! The little kids couldn't stop staring at me and yelling, "Maman!! Papillon!!!" (Mama! Butterfly!!) Hahahaha. It was adorable. Oh yeah! We also accidentally sent Soeur Buchanan off on a train by herself with no phone hahaha. It was hilarious. There I was hobbling along with my ankle trying to get to the train in time and the other sisters were waiting for me but Soeur Buchanan, being brand new in the mission, just jumps on! Hahaha. Next thing you know the doors are closing and we are stuck outside yelling and running as the train leaves with our little brand new missionary on it to who knows where 😂 Hahahaha. We were laughing SOOO hard. That's all you can do in situations like that hahaha. Luckily we caught the next train, 30 minutes later and were able to meet her at the next stop hahaha. So funny. This week definitely kept us on our toes! Haha. Surprises around every corner! :) I love you all!!!💕 Love, Sister Wyson Bonjour à Tous !
What an interesting start to my 20th year of living!! I got to celebrate my birthday in the hospital getting an MRI, so that was pretty exiting ;) I would leave it at that to keep things simple, but I don't think that would make my mom very happy haha :) So yes, I spent my birthday in the hospital! Tuesday I was talking on the phone when I felt something in my lower back shoot to the side, leaving me sprawled out on the floor unable to move. After my companion called the mission nurse, the elders came over, gave me a priesthood blessing, and helped support me the entire way to the hospital where I was fitted for a back brace and rescheduled to come back and get an MRI the next day. We went back in for my MRI Wednesday morning. It was quick and mostly painless :). We didn't get very detailed results back because we haven't seen the specialist yet. But what they did give us is that I have a slipped disc and that the discs in general in my lower back, connecting to my tailbone, are inflamed and a little "wacky." No surgery needed, we just need to meet with a specialist to determine what kind of treatment I need in order to get my back nice and aligned again :). Until then, I guess my "6 months to sexy" workout plan is going to have to be put on hold hahaha. The good news is, I now have a very fashionable black and red back brace to sport during Paris Fashion Week!! Speaking of Fashion week...This week is fashion week in Paris... So all of the top designers and models from all over the world are here to come and show off their stuff on runways down the streets of Paris. Super cool right? Well, Gilbs and I met and made friends with a designer and she called us up the other night to tell us that she got us back stage tickets to the Paris fashion week Kickoff party with all the top designers. WHAT!?! NO WAY!!?! .... Sadly... We can't go... Because we're missionaries.... But we definitely walked a little taller after receiving that call ;) ... (I mean, with the help of my back brace hahahaha). The other day my companion and I did split contacting to try and catch up on work from all of the hospital day trips. She went down one side of the road with a member while I hit up the other side by myself. Split contacting works really nicely here because being approached by one person is a lot less scary than two or three in a big city like Paris. Usually, a contact in Paris goes something like this, "Bonjour!" *rejection* "Ok, Merci!"... But if you're really lucky, you might even make it to "Church" or "Jesus Christ" before getting blown off. We consider these types of contacts miracles around here ;). Sometimes the only solution seems to be: avoid telling them that you are here to talk about Christ until AFTER the conversation is flowing...ESPECIALLY if they are Muslim. Well, there I was just strolling along, when I saw a man and immediately felt prompted to go up to him and tell him that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. So I did! In fact, the First thing that came out of my mouth was exactly that! Haha. Of course he was Muslim. The next thing that came into my head was "well...this is awkward..." For those of you who may not be familiar with the Muslim religion, they don't believe that Jesus Christ was anything more than a prophet, and most certainly not the Savior of the world. I quickly began asking the Lord to fill my open mouth with the right words before I just started drooling the wrong ones out. I then found myself reciting a scripture from the Book of Mormon and asking him, despite what I already knew about his beliefs, if he believed that Jesus Christ was his Savior. I was extremely surprised as he sat in silence for a good moment before responding with..."Though I am Muslim... I guess I can't say for certain, that he wasn't." We ended up talking of Christ and his Atonement for the next 45 minutes before scheduling another rendezvous for later in the week. It was an incredible miracle and a wonderful testimony of how important it is to rely on the Lord. He knows his children. As well as he knows what they need to hear. Even though our human logic would have been something along the lines of *when contacting a Muslim, avoid speaking of Jesus Christ*. Instead, the Lord had me say exactly what I would have thought to avoid, and his heart was touched as the spirit testified of its' truth. More good news of the week! Lou accepted a baptismal date! It is quite a funny story actually! She was struggling to understand why we can't drink coffee but we can eat McDonalds...not sure how that is the same thing, but I mean, she's right... McDonalds isn't the best for your body. Anyways, it has been a serious road block for her. Until, the other day she was hanging out with our mission president’s son and she texts us to say..."Yeah, I had lots of questions, but then David's dad explained it and now I understand!".... *Gilbs and I look at each other*, "Wait...David’s dad?...PRES!?!" Hahahaha. Well, thanks Pres! :D Weirdo moment of the week... we were standing by the road waiting for the light to change when a hooded man snuck up behind me and put something metal to my head, followed by a loud shrieking noise. My heart dropped probably just as far as my mom's just did reading that, as my mind immediately drew the conclusion of... GUN!... No... no gun...it was just a small metal radio box... weirdo... We have no idea why he did that, but we very quickly made distance between us and him as he stared at us with crazy eyes. Everyone around us was super weirded out too (as you can imagine). Literally have no idea what his intentions were in doing that but he sure got us good... I about wet my pants. Paris is so much fun. You never know what you're in for hahaha. So many surprises all the time! Gilbs and I are absolutely loving serving together in what we like to call "The Promised Land". We refuse to believe that it is already week 5 of the transfer. Especially since Gilbert goes home in 7 weeks. #LongLiveGIBSON!!!... (Wyson and Gilbert) I love you all! Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes, prayers, and emails!! Love, Sœur Wyson |
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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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