Another Great Week!

Bonjour ma chere famille!!

 

     First off, yep! I got the wonderful package from grandma, it was delicious! Thanks much for the sweet note and goodies!! Second off, I don't think its the orange juice that made you consto Chris .....(it just wasn't powerful enough to blow through the junk you eat at the MTC he he. )!! 

    I just sent out a letter to ya mom and one should be coming to g-ma soon as well. I must say one thing, I really do try to keep up with the letters but Elder Fisher doesn't give me much of a chance to breathe on P-day and I never have time to write.  I am not supposed to write on other days, but I figure I want Elder Fisher to be able to see as much of the ville as possible before he leaves next week because I would wanna do the same ...so hopefully I will be able to balance things a little better next transfer.

     This week was super great and I traveled everywhere again, like Paris!! We had a big conference with all of the district and zone leaders there! Almost everyone in my MTC district was there.  It was SOOo cool to see them and how they've progressed!! We talked a lot about the goals for this new year.  Something super cool the Pres. did was to ask all the missionaries to help their wards and branches fix a goal for the amount of baptisms they felt like they could get this year, and then plan how to achieve that goal. Then, we gathered all of these goals and the combined total of baptisms became the new mission goal. This makes it so that the goal that we have fixed is really France's goal and everyone is involved and responsible for it. Rather than fixing a goal with simply the missionaries faith and their leaders, we have taken the faith of all the members and thus we are united in one purpose! This is what the president explained to us and let's just say the goal ain't small. It has doubled, maybe even more than that, and we as a mission are striving to bring 675 new converts to the church!! Already we are seeing big changes in the mission as members are getting more excited about the missionary work. The amount of new amies we are finding has nearly doubled since last year as well as lessons taught each week!! "We have a great work to do and we cannot come down." This is our theme from Nehemiah, when he built the walls anew around Jerusalem, and many things tried to distract him and prevent him from diligently working.  But he was persistent and never gave up. So too must we place our faith in the Lord and never give up because we too have a great work and we cannot afford to go down! We also talked a lot about the importance of prayer, obedience and many other things I hope to share with you in my next letters.

     This week we taught Damien , (well me and Elder Pieper, due to exchanges), more in depth about Joseph Smith. We related his story to Damien, to help him see how he can find and strengthen his testimony of the gospel of Christ, and the restoration. We explained how Joseph was an ordinary boy looking for truth and how he had enough faith to ask God, in mighty prayer, where to find the truth. His church wasn't immediately restored to the earth and Joseph wasn't even immediately called as a prophet. He had to endure many trials and persecution, due to his vision, and he had to overcome temptations and even repent, I imagine. BUT HE DID PERSEVERE! And, he did prepare himself and become closer and closer to God through prayer and studying the scriptures.  This is why Moroni came to him one night to reveal to him the location of the Book of Mormon. He even had to prepare himself more and diligently keep the commandments to be ready to translate the record. Over time and during the translation process of the Book of Mormon, Joseph and his colleague pondered over several chapters in the Book of Mormon about baptism and how it was to be done. So they asked God! John the baptist was sent to them and conferred upon them the priesthood power to baptize and later they received the higher priesthood necessary for other saving ordinances. They were baptised and prepared to organize the Church of Christ once again on earth and it will never again be taken away! What a blessing to have this knowledge!  And boy did Damien love it! He is going to be more than ready for his baptism the 28th of this month!! He was really touched by our testimonies of how we came to know of the truthfulness of this history and we are so proud of him.

     Armelle is also progressing very well and she even came to church during the craziest snow storm yesterday!! We have been really trying to help her understand how to receive answers to her questions and we taught her a lot about prayer and scriptures last week. She told us that she has been making a big effort to pray and is starting to feel peace. Even during rough times she's been able to better cope with stress and difficulties!! She's starting to recognize the spirit and after explaining the first four principles of the gospel to her and showing her how she's been in the process of doing the first two, faith and repentance, we challenged her to be baptized. She's not ready yet, but she says she really wants to get to that point, and she is continuing to progress.

Lyons