Blessings!

Bonjour toute la monde!

 

    So to take care of little stuff first, comme d'hab, Yes I got mom's package and it was AWESOME! Thanks loads! No, I haven't got Lili's packages yet, but I haven't checked mail today so maybe it will be here!? 

 

      SO... This last week was the toughest, most rewarding, flat out tiring, but full of miracles ....WEEK!  Last week we really REALLY focused on finding because our teaching pool has been continually shrinking and shrinking. So we did everything in our power to try and change that.  We prayerfully set goals as to what we should do and where we should go. We went through and visited ALL of the old potential investigators and contacted people on the streets. We went to prayerfully selected neighborhoods and knocked on all of the doors.  We stopped by, every reasonably close, less active and partial member families to try and reactivate them and help them to invite their families to come as well.

    The beginning of the week brought a lot of, "that doesn't interest me" and lots of people had moved.  We walked everywhere during the day so we were exhausted, but we REALLY wanted to find someone, so we just kept on chugging!  On Friday, we just finished climbing a huge hill to look up some old potential investigators but nothing really special came out of  it.  We only had an hour of time left to work, and the temptation came to just head home early and do porting (knocking on doors) in that particular spot later. But, we decided to finish strong, and guess what? A nice lady named Françoise let us in!!! I have only been let in one other time on my whole mission! Most of the time you can only fix a time to return later!! It was a miracle and we could tell that God had prepared her to be taught! She had SO many questions and we didn't have time to answer all of them, but we left her after fixing another rendezvous and giving her a Book of Mormon.  You could tell we left her wanting more!

    And that's not the end of the week! We also recieved loads of refferals from other missionaries and we are going to be teaching Phillipe this week!   He is a man who wouldn't give us his number but said he'd call us back..(.PS never happens...) EXCEPT for this time!!!

    We had a really good rendez vous with Sandrine and Coralie last Saturday. We taught a simple lesson on the plan of salvation, and we used Moroni 7:41 to illustrate how this plan is made possible through Christ and His atonement. We taught how Gods plan is a plan of hope and is centered on the family. That it is through keeping His commandments that we can strenghten our families and learn how to become like our Heavenly Father and obtain the blessings that He has in store for us. It went very well and Coralie wants to be baptised!!  The youth of Namur are on fire, and they are setting an example for the whole ward!

     This week was so sweet!  It was because we did our absolute best to work to the very end and to be optimistic and happily obeying the rules and commandments; even when it got super tough, or tiring ,or whatever else. Try the Lord in all of His commandments and see if He will not open up the windows of heaven and pour His blessings upon you, SO much that you have not room to receive it!! We have to trust our Father and if we have patience we will see the fruit of our labors!!    

  Always know that I love all of you and that your testimonies have strengthened mine even when you are on the other side of the world. I am so grateful for the endless blessings I have had.  To be raised in such an awesome family. I am also so grateful for the trials that I have had that have taught me to trust in my God. I am glad to hear everything is going so well and I look forward to hearing more about y'alls adventures!

 

Love Elder Lyons

Tender Mercies

      WOW! I can't believe Chris is at BYU in basically the same apartment as I was, with basically the same job as I had! That's creepy! He will probably run into a lot of my old friends. Beings he looks a lot like me, things could be very interesting for him! he he! 

       Wow! Junior High huh! That means Rachel can start taking some art classes and stuff, that will be cool.      Meagan is going to dominate running, no questions asked! 

                                                        The Joumotte Family at baptism

                                                             Jason on river bank in Namur

                                                             Castle in Namur

                                              Picture Jason drew for woman that was baptized

                                                                 Bridge in Namur
  What is little Natters doing already in the big grade one eh?! hehe I'm glad to hear she's rockin' purple converses. he he That's pretty tight!

     Anyways, This week went by really fast, which is weird because it was tough!  Andrés baptism would be this week, but we had to reschedule it because of his lack of church attendance recently. We have a rendezvous tonight on the commandments.   We will be clarifying a lot of things and recommitting him to be baptised on a different date.

      This week we did a lot of service, and visits to potential amies ....all of which went nowhere. We also worked a lot with the ward this week, visiting members and discussing the work during CEP meeting.

        We also had to go to Lille un France to do our french legality, which sucked a bit of time. Even though the beginning of the week was very unsuccessful, we did manage to have something totally awesome happen!    

        Last Sunday we met a less active. Sanddrine, and her daughter Coralie, who has not been to church since 2003.  I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten her. She didn't leave as a result of being offended, but she somehow lost faith in God in general. She said she didn't really know if he exists. She explained that she still had a little something inside that told her that He does, but wasn't quite sure why. We explained that it was the little seed of faith, and that it was it was there to tell her that HE does live and loves her very much! We didn't have to much time to teach much else, but we fixed another rendezvous, much to the excitement of her 9 year old daughter who is not a member.

        Sandrine was kinda skeptical at the first rendezvous and very surprised that we had even showed up.  Apparently she hasn't had any contact with the church for awhile. At the rendezvous last Saturday something had changed! The house,(  which was a disaster), was even cleaner. As we taught a lesson on faith and what it is, and how to obtain it, and in whom we place our faith, both Sandrine and Coralie were very attentive. They asked lots of good questions and the spirit was very strong! We emphasized the importance of exercising our faith in prayer, scripture study, and church attendance, so that we can gain testimonies of our Heavenly Father! We challenged them  this week to pray to know if God was there.  Coralie is a champ, she pleaded with her mom to take her to church and asked what baptism was! So we talked a little bit about baptism as well. Unfortunately they didn't get to church this week.  We almost forgot to fix another rendezvous, but Sandrine very enthusiastically asked us when we were coming back.  She basically fixed another one herself!! We have lots of hope for them!!

      Well, the baptism of the Joumottes is already changing this ward. Tons of less actives are coming more regularly and I am super humbled at the task that Heavenly Father has permitted me to take a part of! It is definitely His work.  Our main job is to get out of our pride and be worthy of His spirit so that He can do His job! The Church is true and it brings true happiness to all of it members.

    I love you all and wish you good luck starting school again! Gross Bisou for everyone!

Love Elder Lyons

Baptism's!

So, first off, the baptism was super awesome!!  Ton's of people that have been less active came to the baptism and everyone was SUPER touched by the spirit!  These boys are setting such a good example for these people.  It has been super awesome to see the re-activation that has taken place because of these young boys decision to be baptized! Confirming them was an interesting experience. On your mission you never use the "tu" form of you, (because it is too casual or something) I'm not quite sure exactly, but when you talk to kids you use it. Needless to say I kept wanting to use the "vous" form during Lloyd's blessing.  I managed to only use the "vous" form  once, so I think they'll forgive me ! 

    This week was full of finding.  We managed to find another family that said we could come back! Unfortunately it has been a little hard to get a hold of some of these newer people, but hopefully we can start to see some of them soon!

    One lady we started teaching is one of those eternal Amie's that pretty much every missionary has taught and she knows everything is true but has something holding her back. We had heard lot's of things about her.  How she was not very confident in herself and loads of everything else.  When we got there (her name is Rosalie btw) she opened up to us a little bit and it turns out that she was REALLY touched by the last missionaries that had taught her.   She made a commitment to stop smoking so that she can be baptized! I think the problem in the past was that everyone had been treating her as if she was super low on self esteem and tried ,probably a little too hard ,to build her up when she really just needed to feel the spirit and have some encouragement as she tried to stop smoking in the past! So we are now going to just help her feel the spirit so that she can overcome this addiction and be baptized!!

    We have a rendez-vous with Andrés this Wednesday and everything is still planned for him to be baptised on the 28th of August. Church attendance has been a problem recently so we are going to have to clarify some stuff with him at this rendez vous, but I have a lot of hope for him.

    SO, our district is pretty much on fire! We just had those two baptisms last Sunday, the sisters in Liège just fixed two baptismal dates, the zone leaders in Liège just fixed one, and we still have the one we fixed with Andrés and possibly one soon to come with Roselie! YEAH miracles!!!! It's been so awesome to work with our district and see how hard they work and be able to bask in each others miracles!

     Well, this e-mail was kinda scrambled and my thoughts aren't very well linked together.  Hopefully y'all got the gist of all the awesomeness going down! I have learned so much on my mission and I am amazed at how much I keep learning.  Every time I start to think that I have learned something ,MORE stuff comes up and I learn even more! This is God's church and He loves all of His children and has provided a plan for all of us to feel a fullness of joy in this life, so as to give us hope that we can obtain this fullness of joy on whole new level in the life to come!

     I love all of you.  Tell Joe ....wow, I mean Elder Weatherford that he is awesome! I love him...but I can't send emails.....lame I know but I have his address and I am sending a letter! Y'all are sweet and I hope this week is just awesome!

Miracles in Namur

     Alrighty, just to answer some questions first! Yes dad, a lot of the french people talk that funny up north!  Maybe now y'all can see how hard it is every time a missionary moves.  Depending upon where he or she goes, he could be going to a different country even, and even just in France there are so many different accents and new phrases to get used to!!  Also, no I don't want the red shirt back.  It didn't cost much money to buy those things, all of that stuff was on sale .....sending it was a different story.  Yes the art book of mine should be coming soon as well. It should be very useful for my art classes later!

    ummmmm OH! Elder Reed is from Riverton, Utah and our favorite pastime is singing random songs in french throughout the day!

     OK!  So this week was jammed with stuff! First off! We got a surprise call from the zone leaders right after I finished my e-mails last week.  They told us that we needed to go to Paris (last Tuesday) for a leadership training! It was really sweet. Most of it was focused on what the goals of our mission were and how to obtain them in each of our districts. That being: to start breaking down the walls that separate the missionaries and the members and to really start getting them involved in the work.

    President Ponzanski and his wife are super awesome and I have loved working with them and their inspiration!

     I also got to see all of my old companions, beings they are all leaders of some sort!

    So the following day was district meeting.  It was just a tad bit more stressful cause the AP's were there, but it went super well and we had a really good lesson on how to get our wards involved.  We incorporated a lot of what we learned in training!  So with all of that, we traveled a ton this week and I think it is safe to say, "I hate trains!!! "    Alas it's better than not being able to get to sleep!   My insomnia is much better btw.

 

    The rest of the week was just as crazy! We have found some more potentials to teach and the  coolest miracle was a man named Phillipe that we met at a bus stop! I saw him walking up and I said "bonjour comment ça va" (Hi, How are you?)and he answered " bah ça va" (I am well) and I said "meme pendant tout la pluie!" ( even with the rain?)  That kinda made him smile and we just kept talking to him in just a normal conversation. Of course he sees the plaque on my shirt and I  know he is wondering what in the world we are, so I introduced ourselves as missionaries. Then he just started asking tons of questions.  Like "what separates us from other churches?" and all that jazz.  We taught him about Christ's ministry on earth and what He accomplished here. Namely the atonement and also establishing His church.  Then we taught him about the apostasy and how after centuries of being lost God called another prophet, Joseph Smith, to restore lost truths so that we could enjoy the fullness of our Heavenly Fathers gospel plan! We also introduced the Book of Mormon and gave him one.   He was just loving it! I tried to get his address or something and offered him our number and he took it, but he wouldn't give us his number or anything. He said he was going to call us, but we have all heard that a thousand times, and that just means they don't really want to do anything more.......right? Wrong! Two days later we got a random call and guess who it was! PHILLIPE! He said he REALLY want's to learn more about the church and have us come over to teach him after he finishes his exams on the 25th of August.  So,  we will be going to chez Phillipein a couple of weeks, YEAH miracles!

     We also finished all the lessons with the Joumottes kids and they are super pumped for their baptism this Saturday! These kids are setting a great example for their family and are doing wonders for them! Their dad had been inactive for awhile but has now become very active and absolutely on the ball. Although he was skeptic of us and the leadership of the church,  he now trusts, and even likes us.  Life is pretty much sweet!

    We also saw Andrés and he has been reading and praying and progressing! He is your normal teenager and it was hard to convince him that church stuff was important.  He is very bright and he is preparing himself to be baptized on the 28th of this month. There is still some work to be done but we are doing all we can to help everyone out the best way possible!

 

Well y'all are awesome! Like always, and I will catch you soon!

Love,

Marathon Week!

I don't even really know where to start. I can't believe that Ben Moore has already got his call! Hawaii totally seems fitting for Ben.  I just keep thinking of surfer bums being converted by Ben's chillish attitude, he he!

     Chris is going to college. What a joke! Why is everyone getting old and stuff?

    Well this week was full of a little bit of everything. First off, there is a less active family that we had been trying to get a hold of FOREVER, because they expressed the desire to have their kids baptized, but their actions didn't really express their desires.  Me and Elder Wood spent the entire last transfer getting no where with them.  This week I just felt like stopping by their house, instead of calling them or talking to them the few times they were at church. We stopped by and apparently it was a miracle that everyone was home.  They said that normally they were super busy.                   Nevertheless the kids are SUPER tight and really want to be baptized.  We have since started the lessons and they will be baptized the 13th of August!  It's super cool to see how much good this is doing for a family who had been struggling a bit.  Now they are taking action and basically are AWESOME!

    We also had a super powerful rendezvous with Andrés about the simple commandments of reading scriptures, praying, and going to church. He is such a teenager, and well ...reading books just aint his thing.  We explained "why" we do all these things and "why" we keep the commandments.  How they help us develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father, and how all these things are for us. Not something to bore us to death, but actually there to improve our lives. He took it a lot more seriously and we fixed a baptismal date for the 27th of August!

    There are so many miracles going down in Namur and it is super exciting!   We just keep on finding new people to teach as well!     We have only had two weeks out of the last two tranfers where we haven't found someone else to teach.  The week afterward made up for it, and we found two to three more!

    We recently just found a man and the end of a porting session ( knocking on doors).  It was really rough.  We had been yelled at and slammed on all night but we just kept at it and then at this door the man answered by saying Je vous écoute!  I'm listening.   Elder Reed explained who we were and that we are here to share a message about Christ and he said....well I got to go in 5 minutes so.......come back tomorrow and you can teach me then! So I immediately got out the Book of Mormon and was like, well here, read this before we come back.  After explaining what it was, he said, "sure, why not have a wonderful night and see ya tommorow!"

     That's not all that happened this week. We have also been teaching English classes and there is one lady named Daisy who REALLY want's to keep up her English. She actually speaks very well but she had heard that there were missionaries that were from america that also did English stuff from one of our members.  That member passed her coordinates to us and we started teaching her English. So, for our last lesson we read from a talk by Elder Ucthdorf to work on pronounciation. Beings we have nothing else in English to read but church stuff, we were kinda hoping we could use that to maybe spark interest in the gospel hehe!

    Not really expecting anything to happen, we got there and went with the plan and read through the talk.  She really liked it and we ended up answering a lot of questions about the church and basically taught a short lesson on the restoration of the gospel! It was awesome! Every lesson we've had so far, she has started to ask us more and more questions related to the gospel.  I bet you she will soon want to learn more about the gospel as well! Yeah, somewhat sneaky english stuff!     Oh another thing, I have just noticed that I have given a ton of blessings in French recently. There are a few less active families that we have been working with that are doing really well at coming back, and I have been asked to give them blessings when they have been struggling. It is absolutely amazing to see the power of the priesthood and the love of our Heavenly Father for these precious sons and daughters through these blessings, and also to see how powerfully we can speak the language. I still can't remember all of what I said, but I become very humbled every time to see what God can do with as weak of an instrument as I am!

    It is so awesome to be a missionary and be Gods servant and be able to serve my brothers and sisters and bless their lives. I LOVE IT!