This week was very busy. Last Monday was a fun P-Day spent with Anas and Hilda. We went on trails with them and explored. What fun investigators! I only wish that they were more interested in the gospel than in being our friends, but oh well. I enjoy this too!
The next day we had a rendez-vous with Emmanuel and Stella, in which he once again made us some African food. He's a really nice guy, but is essentially too lazy to progress in the gospel. We're praying that he comes around and makes more progress soon, especially because our branch loves him.
Wednesday was an interesting day. We spent hours searching for the house of a self-referral named Anna and her "boo", Steve. It was nearly 3 hours into our search that we finally found them. They live deep in the woods, in a trailer, which is why we couldn't find them (they have no real address). They have a HUGE gated property and pretty big "attack" dogs, so it felt pretty sketchy. If they were killers, this would be the perfect place to kill someone. In the middle of nowhere with no neighbors for miles. There was also no telephone service, so that was interesting. Anyway, they were actually pretty nice and they want to really know more and progress. I just need to get past the creepiness I feel there and the creepy vibes that I sometimes got from them. Hopefully my immediate judgements are wrong and I'm just getting those vibes from all the scary movies I've watched that take place in settings like these. Just know that if I go missing anytime soon, it's at their place that you'll want to look first. Anyway, after that we went back to the church for a Family Home Evening with some members. It was a good time!
The next day we went all over town handing out 200 flyers to people on the street for a musical evening that we're hosting at our church this coming Tuesday. The idea behind it is that when you search our church online there is more negative than positive information. Our Branch President wants to change that in France, by showing how normal and fun we are in our church. We've set up a musical evening where people can come and perform/eat from a free buffet, with no religious base at all. A member will also be professionally filming it, to create a video advertisement for future events. We're hoping it's a hit and a great turnout. We spent the whole day inviting people to it and putting posters in the windows of some shops. Hopefully French people will start to realize through this event that we're not butter-churning, anti-technology, polygamists. It was a long day, but lots of people seemed interested!
On Friday we ate at the University Restaurant. I'm pretty sure you have to be a student at the University to eat there, but we couldn't find any signs and no one said anything to us. It was only 5 euros for a TON of food and it was actually good quality, nothing like American cafeterias haha. It would've been a really good experience, had the whole room of students not been staring at us and whispering "Les Mormons!" lol. We're planning on going again and hoping we're not kicked out. We ended the day, after lots of finding, with Hilda and a member, Jean-Cristophe. It was a great lesson.
The next day we went on a little excursion to a place called Louediac. It is a small town in the middle of nowhere, but we had an old potential there that we had set up a meeting with. Before his rendez-vous I found a friterie... One of the only (if not the only) one in all of Brittany, France. So reminiscent of my time in Valenciennes/Belgium, where Friteries are everywhere. It was so good and honestly the highlight of my week. The fries and service were top notch. Then we had his meeting and it went well. He also committed to coming to church the following day. Later that night, we got to church late, after the Saturday session of stake conference had ended. They had expected me to translate for all the English speakers, so I felt pretty bad. They all told me that they got a pretty good nap in though! Haha.
On Sunday we had the Sunday portion of Stake Conference. This was my first stake conference since I've been on my mission, surprisingly so, as I have always been transferred right before my area has it, to a new area that has already had theirs. I was asked to translate again, so that was fun. The couple, Anna and Steve, did come, as did the old potential from the previous day, Didace. They all enjoyed it and said that they would be coming back next week. Later that night we met with an in-active man and then a recently returned missionary picked us up and drove us to a look-out point about an hour away. It was a good Sunday overall.
I would like to testify to you all this week in the power of faith. Faith works miracles, I can assure you. Sometimes life is so hard that it's so difficult to see the positives. BUT one thing I know is that we all have many blessings in our lives. When we try to focus on those, we can find happiness and peace. This happiness only comes when we have the faith that it will. We need to remember that there is always a rainbow after a storm. God will help us through everything, we just need to have faith that He will! It's with this faith that we can truly find happiness in our lives. This is a lesson I've had to learn and re-learn many times on my mission, as it's such an important one.
Have a great week everyone!
Elder Connor Anderson
