Nivelles

Bonjour tous!

 

       Nivelle is .......still dead! Ha ha.  Well, I take that back, we have a TON of less actives in our ward and we have fixed a lot of rendez vous with them. We have a lot of ,"actively reactivating the less actives", as Elder Clawson would say! We also have a ton of porting!!!!! Not so  successful but I am starting to get pretty good at squeezing my testimony into the 10 seconds most people give us!

         Ummmmm, we spent new years and new years eve in Bruxelles....or Brussels if your English, and we played a lot of soccer and basketball in the stake building.  I forgot how bad I suck at those sports, but now I remember he he.  Oh well, I was really good at the ........running part, and I was really good at stealing the ball part, but that was pointless after immediately tossin' up a clinker! Il était amusant en toutes façon!

          Well our district recently made a goal to hand out a ton more BOMs to people as a way of finding, and me and Elder Fortuna have gotten out three since last Wednesday so that was really nice. I know we are gonna see a lot of results from that!

       PMG really hits hard on focusing on the BOM and using it as much as possible. That book has changed my life and its amazing how it continues to do so! I have even seen it change the lives of others, which brings up REALLY AWESOME NEWS!!!!! I saw all of the other elders from my MTC district last Wednesday when we got our Belgium legality done! I talked a lot with Elder Wood, who took my place in Le Mans, and he told me some really good news!!!!!!!!!!!  For starters, Domitille has made some serious progress (who I normally referred to as Anne in my emails cause it was the name on the sonnerie/ (doorbell in french) she corrected us later) She was an old amie I found in the area book.  After I studied the area book prayerfully, me and Elder Crump decided to try and see her towards the end of the transfer.  First time we tried she let us in and she was SUPER SHY!!!!!!! Elder Crump felt SUPER awkward and didn't want to see her again. After our transfer was over I still wanted to see her and couldn't shake the idea of visiting her, so me and Elder Clawson picked her up again and we taught a really good lesson on the plan of salvation. She actually opened up to us and said she had been really wondering if there is a life after death because her mom had recently died. We taught her about the atonement and how Christ suffered not only for our sins, but for all of the emotional and physical pains we suffer. He was perfect and did not need to die but since he willing gave up his life in an incomprehensible act of love, he broke the bands of death making it possible for all men and women to ,in turn, conquer physical death. We all will be resurrected! We then talked about our sacred responsibility to keep Gods commandments because there is a spiritual death we need to overcome. Spiritual death is simply when we are separated from God and this happens every time we sin. However, the atonement conquers this death as well, but only on conditions of repentance and faith! We have a responsibility to follow Christs example, and though we are imperfect we can be perfected through Him when we repent! .....She really liked that lesson and we left her with some chapters to read from the Book of Mormon that explain the plan of salvation more and the atonement and to pray about its truthfulness! She always said she really loved our message but that she is catholic and doesn't want to change, so she wouldn't pray. However, she continued to open up more and more and the last rendez vous I had with her was with Elder Barrett on exchanges before I left for Belgium. It was very powerful and we hit really hard on the Book of Mormon and  how that was the key to knowing if our message was  true. It is either something Joseph Smith fictitiously created our he was inspired by God ,but there is only one person who can give her that answer, and that is GOD for He lies not! So....Elder Wood and his new companion went to see her recently and just got to know her anDomitile this? I testify that the Book of Mormon is not some concoction of the imagined feign! God Himself provided a way for this book to be brought into our time! Joseph Smith is a prophet, and by divine aid, he restored the fullness of the gospel again to this earth never to be taken away!!!!!!  Lots of other amies are also going really well and it sounds like Helen  wants to be baptised soon! WHAT?  Well, that is enough about LE MANS, but its nice to see what is going on after such hard work there.

        So in Nivelle we have also started to tare apart the area book to find old amies and try and reincarnate a few of 'em! I kid you not I made like 40 calls before anyone even answered the stinkin' phone! Finally I had the impression to call a random one in middle of the area book who hadn't seen the missionaries for 6 years! He was super surprised and excited to hear from missionaries again and was willing to see us, but you would think the Lord could save me time and just start out with those calls hehehe......yes I know it doesn't work like that!  It also turned out that he lives in Bruxelles now so we gave the referral to the Elders there! Blast! Oh well its all the same work! Love all of you  and sorry this was so long but I still haven't figured out how to get  post out yet ,so consider this my letter to ,y'all

Aime,

Elder Lyons