So last monday was a district P-Day in Lille. We went shopping, got O'Tacos, and then headed back to the church to play games with some recent converts. Afterwards, we started exchanges with the DL and his companion. We drove to a member's house in between Lille and Valenciennes to finish the day and start the exchange with a service activity. She was really nice and even spoke English because she went to the U of U for a little while. She had us pulling some HUGE weeds out of her back and front yards. They were so hard to get. She eventually gave me scissors to do the job. I told her that weeds need to be pulled from the root, or they're only going to grow back, and she said, "I don't care. I'm just trying to sell this house. Whether or not the weeds are actually gone will only matter to the next owner. I just want to give potential buyers the appearance of having no weeds." What a snake of a woman haha. But, knowing me, I still tried to get the root. One was so hard that when I pulled it out, about 2 feet of soil came up with it. This made a huge, deep hole in her backyard. Her son then came over and tried to get me in trouble with it, saying I "ruined" their backyard. Luckily, she was chill and didn't care. It was a huge hole in the middle of their grass, but I was just trying to get the whole weed/root out. Then she gave us ice cream and lots of compliments and we were on our way back to Valenciennes.
Tuesday showed a lot of success! I was with the DL, Elder Chang, and we decided to go to a small ville for some finding. Within 30 minutes, we contacted everyone on the street and they all became potentials and a few even became investigators! One woman even stopped me and asked me about our church. She said that she really wanted to be baptized, because she never was, so that was fun! We told her that we have to meet with/teach her first and she was so happy. I then gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so happy that she threw her cigarette on the ground and planted a huge kiss on my cheek. After all this finding, we headed out for a rendez-vous with Huge. He's the one that's usually not very receptive and doesn't really respond to anything. Surprisingly, however, this rendez-vous went really well! Huge was responsive and said that he wanted to get baptized! He even said that his dad was a Mormon bishop down in Africa. We were shocked by this revelation, but it was nice to hear! We then continued and finished off the day with more finding. There was another time that a man actually approached me and asked me questions. This like never happens, so for 2 people to approach us first in one day is incredible. He ended up not being interested, but he was so nice about it!
On Wednesday we all drove up to Lille for district meeting. Afterwards, we came back with the Zone Leaders for another set of exchanges. I was put with Elder Melanson, my old district leader, so it was just one big throwback. We didn't find any immediate success this day and the highlight of the day was us getting Burger King haha.
Thursday was better. Elder Melanson and I had a rendez-vous with Hiba and the Broadways, so we headed out to that. It was a long almost 3 hour rendez-vous, but we were able to teach her the whole Plan of Salvation, so that was nice. I also asked her for a lot of referrals haha. As it turns out, one of them was for the Prince of Morocco. Hiba's from there and her father is the Minister of Justice. She's friends with all of the royalty/government officials. This was so cool to learn! You know what this means? I might be the reason that missionary work gets legalized in Morocco. Her dad has control over this, so if we can open his heart to our cause, it'll be legalized! One person can change a country. What a great teenager to have found on the streets of northern France. A whole country could possibly hear our message now. Then we came back and had O'Tacos for a late lunch lunch and then dropped the ZLs off at the train station for their train. It was a long week of exchanges, that's for sure. From Monday night to Thursday night. Then we headed to Mons for a dinner appointment with an African member. He's so nice and made the best Belgian food! His wife (who has been bed-ridden for several months now) is awesome too. She said that she prays for me multiple times a day. They also said that they want to see us more which I'm totally fine with, but Elder Larson straight up told them that he doesn't like working with members! I had to do some damage control and at least they know that when he's gone I'll use members a lot more.
Friday involved a lot of finding and appointment cancellations. Not much there.
On Saturday we had a rendez-vous with Hourya. She wants to get baptized and will pick a date by this Saturday! We're so happy. So many people are so close to baptism and it honestly makes my day. However, she has a hard issue with stopping with the coffee, because it's "natural" and people have been drinking it for centuries. So that's fun. We won't let this hold her back though, so please pray for her and us. We could really use it!
Sunday was Mother's Day! During church, Adam was announced as our new mission leader (the American military guy), so that's fun. Brother Broadway is kind of annoying him, however, because he wants to be at all the meetings for a whole month with us so that everything will continue to be done "his way". This kind of annoyed me too, because Brother Broadway likes to see investigators progress really slowly, because to him it means that we're teaching correctly and making sure that the investigators understand everything. Without him, I feel like we'll have more baptismal dates and we'll be able to work faster and more efficiently. He also doesn't like us working with members either and encourages us not to have dinner appointments, so I hope he doesn't pass this logic onto Adam. It's definitely part of the reason that the Ward doesn't think we do enough right now. All relations will improve with a new companion and a new Mission Leader. After church, I got to Skype call my family! Technology is amazing, isn't it? My mom, my dad, and Brooke were all in Amsterdam, while Landon, Mikayla, and Gabriel were all back in Utah, and we were all able to Skype in. It was so great to see them and so hard to hang up!
Thanks for all the encouragement today, everyone! I hope you all gave your moms some extra love yesterday! :) Have a good week and feel free to email me whenever you have time!
Love,
Elder Connor Anderson
The Kabongos at our dinner appointment
Mother's Day 2018 Skype with the family (Mom, Dad, & Brooke in Amsterdam, and Mikayla, Gabriel, & Landon in Utah)
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