Monday, March 10, 2014

Finding and Teaching

Bonjour tout le monde!  I hope you have all had a great week.  It has been a fantastic week here and full of exciting events.  In the last week we have been able to find and teach so many awesome new people.  We had to say goodbye to Soeur Hunsaker and got to welcome 3 new soeurs.  We had some amazing planning meetings for the branch and even had time to get a pastry!

On Wednesday we helped Soeur Hunsaker to the gare with her bags and then later in the day we got to meet the three new soeurs right off the train and help them with their bags.  Yay for luggage!  The new soeurs are Soeur Mason from California, Soeur Callister from Provo and Soeur Berge from Florida.  (She was at the MTC with me)  They are all great and it'll be awesome to see how Rouen can continue to progress with two more missionaries...making a total of 6 missionaries!

This week has been a great week for finding.  We started off by going to the Bertrand family's home on Tuesday night to pray and do some porting.  We had about two hours and were able to meet two young families who want us to come back.  One of the two had been to church in London and said it was a great experience and would love to know more.  We can't wait to go back this week.

Thursday before lunch we went out contacting for about an hour and a half.  As we were walking home we hadn't found anybody who was interested.  As we got off the metro this man was walking in front of us and continued going the same way.  We crossed the street hoping to talk to him.  But he turned down a side street.  Oh man, he got away we thought.  But as we continued to walk home the same man came out of another side street.  Well, you can only get away from us once.  So, we crossed the street and started talking to him.  He told us he was Muslim but open and we started discussing scriptures and the Book of Mormon came up.  We read Moroni's promise and prayed with him.  He said he'd read it and we could go back and see him this week.  Fast forward a few hours...we were going to do a passback and while waiting for our bus another came up going the same way and we decided to take it.  As we got on and sat down a man looked at us and asked, "Are you two brothers with the same first name of Elder?"  As we talked we found out he was Christian but didn't really believe.  He has always been searching for truth and has tried many religions.  As we got off the bus we set a rendez-vous for Saturday and left him with a prayer.  Saturday he came to the church for a tour.  While giving the tour he started asking questions about the history of the church.  We sat down and discussed the Restoration.  As we taught he sat there intrigued answering questions with great knowledge of the Bible and things such as apostasy.  At the end we read Moroni's promise and asked if he would read and pray.  He said, "Yes, I want to know if this is true."  We asked if he came to know it was true would he be baptized and he said, "Yes!"  Such an awesome lesson.

Highlights:
Wilfried...Plan of Salvation, Law of Chastity (which he accepted) and we found out that him and Soeur Bitanga are from the same part of Central Africa and might be related.  He came to church and was asking about his baptism and kept referring to himself as a Mormon!

Abati...New companionship of sisters met him and handed him to us.  Had 2 lessons and he came to Church on Sunday.

Peyrolle and family...We prayed to be able to find the new sisters a potential family and us a potential family in the 30 minutes we had before going home.  We did!  We were able to teach Peyrolle Saturday and gave Madame Jackie and her kids to the sisters!

FHE...Romain and Ezechias...enough said-it was great and ended with delicious African food!

Ezechias...got a calling yesterday to be the Branch Music and Choir director.  He was grinning from ear to ear and had people practicing after church for the Easter program.

That sums up a lot of it.  The work is going great here and I can't wait to see how all of our amis continue to progress.  We were able to have a meeting with the branch and co-ordinate the work here.  This branch is so amazing.  The Branch President and Frere Bitanga have worked so hard.  The new plan is to help us be more efficient and re-activate many families for the branch temple trip in June.  The work really is "hastening" and there are people everywhere who are prepared for the wonderful message of the Gospel.  I'm so grateful to be here and for all of your love, support and prayers.  Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Player
Panoramic View of Grow Horlage

Soeur Hunsaker leaving!
Her eyes were so swollen from crying!

Picture inside the Grow Horlage
Thought it was a cool view!

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