NEWS
(INVESTIGATOR'S NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO MAINTAIN ANONYMITY)
AUGUST 12, 2013 - Papers, papers and papers...!
So.. Not a TON to report for this week really. I mean, you already heard about how transfers went. But more on Elder Leau. He is pretty much the best missionary chef ever. We eat some great food! Plus we decided to try something crazy out.. Let me explain.. Switzerland is like CRAZY expensive. So the missionaries living here get quite a bit more money than the missionaries living in france. But... my sector happens to have both France and Switzerland in it. So we decided that on P-days, we're going to take the trip to france and go shop at the grocery store there. That we we can buy much more produce and fresh food instead of the regular vacuum packed frozen stuff we can afford here in switzerland. Well... we tried our little trip out today... yeah.. what is wrong with Europe? why do grocery stores not open until 2 pm? that doesn't make any sense to me.. but basically. we took a 3 hour trip just to eat lunch in France. We'll do better next week and go later. :)
Ok.. we had a meeting with the sisters in our same sector, to try to figure out how to turn this area around. First off.. The sisters are: Sister O'connor and Sister Crowley. (sister crowley happens to have been Kar's companion for just a week or a couple weeks in the MTC) (more on Kar later)... But any way. our meeting was super effective. We realized that God is absolutely willing to just pour out miracles to this area, in fact he is trying! But.. there is just something holding these miracles back. (think of a big river with a dam in way.) haha. Our goal for the next few weeks is to rid our sector of anything that is holding back these miracles.. We are focusing on three things: Organization, communication (between missionaries and members) and Optimism.
Organization is something I've been dying to fix since I got here, but my last companion didn't really want to take the time to do it.. So.. we did. (well we started). I'm going to attach some pictures of my saturday. :) haha. We basically went through our monsterous area book and organized all of the potential people into neighborhoods, gender, and amount of potential. That gives us something to work with instead of looking at an entire book full of names and phone numbers all jumbled up. Our next project is the Less actives. We have about 300 members in our ward... we had 80 at church yesterday.. yeah.. we need to find all those people. (although it is summer some some are on vacation..)
Friday I got to go to Lyon to the "blues conference". basically all the people just starting their second transfer get together for a fun conference. It's the BEST. Because I got to see all my MTC buds. Plus... I guess Sister Lewis is companions with one of the blues! So... I saw Jenna Lewis.. That was weird. I never thought I'd be speaking to her in French.. But I did. And it was weird. Ha. It really was the weirdest thing ever. ha. But it was awesome to see her!!! Ha! She's doing so well out here. She's crazy happy. So that's good! I imagine it won't be the last time I see her.
Turns out Kar happened to be in Lyon that day too. All the NEW blues were doing their legality stuff.. All I was hearing from EVERYONE ALL DAY was about how they met her, and how awesome she is.. yadda yadda. we all know that stuff. But she's going to Pau (for those that don't know). That basically is as far away as she can be. ha. All I Know is she's doing so well. She's excited to be out here, that's for sure! And EVERYONE loves her. The president was at our little conference, and I guess he had done her interview just the day before, and the only words that came out of his mouth to me were, "she made it in one piece." haha. I was honestly so confused. He walked up to me, said that, then walked away. It took me a second to figure it all out. haha. But yeah, That's basically all I know. So.. to answer your questions mom. That's what we know.. haha. Although some of my closest MTC friends are in her district this transfer.. And For some reason that is making them so excited..
Sunday:
Woke up. Had a tombez-vous (a fall-through lesson) with our favorite ami.. That's never easy..
Got ready for Church.
Got on the tram.
Got Heckled pretty badly by some guy on the tram. In fact it was pretty harsh some of the things he was saying about us.. We got to sit there while he made sure the entire train knew how incredibly stupid we were, and how we are only there to bring them misery. We're such a cult. We hate everyone. Don't you dare listen to them. There was some spitting. Etc.. When he got off the tram everyone just laughed at him. A couple of 'em chuckled at us. But one lady came, simply told us thank you, then got off the tram. Nice people do exist in Switzerland, I promise. :)
Then Church..... I just want to give a little shout out to this INCREDIBLE ward here in Salève. HOLY smokes is this the best ward in the world. The members humble me every single time I talk to them. Our sunday school teacher brings down the house EVERY time he teaches. In fact, yesterday in our class we got all caught up talking about the temple. (we all know how hard that is to talk about in sunday school.. well try doing it with half the class not being endowed..they had a lot of questions that were answered very vaguely.. haha.) But.. my word. Frere Junod (the teacher). At the end, he just simply said, "the truth is theres no way we can answer everyone's questions about the temple. all we can do is get ready to go to the temple and ask them there ourselves. And although it might not answer your questions, in fact it doesn't answer all my questions, I'm just going to bear my testimony about the temple." And boy did he bear his testimony. The room was silent. Basically everyone was in tears. I've seriously never in my life heard anyone testify like this guy. phew! It was awesome.
Well my family. It's so good to hear from you! You're all my heros! I love this some much. I really do. I'm constantly reminded of one thing. Hollands quote: "This work isn't easy, because salvation isn't cheap. And besides, it was NEVER easy for Him." (or something like that). But basically. That's the truth. We heard about some elders that got beat up in france last week, and the truth is, I think EVERY ONE of the Elder's I'm serving with would be more than willing to get a couple of bumps and bruises for Christ. He's the reason we're here. He's the reason we're happy. He's the reason we can have Eternal Families. And He's the reason I am in Switzerland right now. I Love you all so much. Don't you dare forget the real reason why we're all doing this. Go bring Jesus to someone this week. (or in the words of our incredible president Roney).. "Get someone to do something Jesus taught!" That's all we do out here. Just get people to do something Jesus taught, because THAT is how we find happiness. :)
I love you all!
Elder Lago
Ok.. we had a meeting with the sisters in our same sector, to try to figure out how to turn this area around. First off.. The sisters are: Sister O'connor and Sister Crowley. (sister crowley happens to have been Kar's companion for just a week or a couple weeks in the MTC) (more on Kar later)... But any way. our meeting was super effective. We realized that God is absolutely willing to just pour out miracles to this area, in fact he is trying! But.. there is just something holding these miracles back. (think of a big river with a dam in way.) haha. Our goal for the next few weeks is to rid our sector of anything that is holding back these miracles.. We are focusing on three things: Organization, communication (between missionaries and members) and Optimism.
Organization is something I've been dying to fix since I got here, but my last companion didn't really want to take the time to do it.. So.. we did. (well we started). I'm going to attach some pictures of my saturday. :) haha. We basically went through our monsterous area book and organized all of the potential people into neighborhoods, gender, and amount of potential. That gives us something to work with instead of looking at an entire book full of names and phone numbers all jumbled up. Our next project is the Less actives. We have about 300 members in our ward... we had 80 at church yesterday.. yeah.. we need to find all those people. (although it is summer some some are on vacation..)
Friday I got to go to Lyon to the "blues conference". basically all the people just starting their second transfer get together for a fun conference. It's the BEST. Because I got to see all my MTC buds. Plus... I guess Sister Lewis is companions with one of the blues! So... I saw Jenna Lewis.. That was weird. I never thought I'd be speaking to her in French.. But I did. And it was weird. Ha. It really was the weirdest thing ever. ha. But it was awesome to see her!!! Ha! She's doing so well out here. She's crazy happy. So that's good! I imagine it won't be the last time I see her.
Turns out Kar happened to be in Lyon that day too. All the NEW blues were doing their legality stuff.. All I was hearing from EVERYONE ALL DAY was about how they met her, and how awesome she is.. yadda yadda. we all know that stuff. But she's going to Pau (for those that don't know). That basically is as far away as she can be. ha. All I Know is she's doing so well. She's excited to be out here, that's for sure! And EVERYONE loves her. The president was at our little conference, and I guess he had done her interview just the day before, and the only words that came out of his mouth to me were, "she made it in one piece." haha. I was honestly so confused. He walked up to me, said that, then walked away. It took me a second to figure it all out. haha. But yeah, That's basically all I know. So.. to answer your questions mom. That's what we know.. haha. Although some of my closest MTC friends are in her district this transfer.. And For some reason that is making them so excited..
Sunday:
Woke up. Had a tombez-vous (a fall-through lesson) with our favorite ami.. That's never easy..
Got ready for Church.
Got on the tram.
Got Heckled pretty badly by some guy on the tram. In fact it was pretty harsh some of the things he was saying about us.. We got to sit there while he made sure the entire train knew how incredibly stupid we were, and how we are only there to bring them misery. We're such a cult. We hate everyone. Don't you dare listen to them. There was some spitting. Etc.. When he got off the tram everyone just laughed at him. A couple of 'em chuckled at us. But one lady came, simply told us thank you, then got off the tram. Nice people do exist in Switzerland, I promise. :)
Then Church..... I just want to give a little shout out to this INCREDIBLE ward here in Salève. HOLY smokes is this the best ward in the world. The members humble me every single time I talk to them. Our sunday school teacher brings down the house EVERY time he teaches. In fact, yesterday in our class we got all caught up talking about the temple. (we all know how hard that is to talk about in sunday school.. well try doing it with half the class not being endowed..they had a lot of questions that were answered very vaguely.. haha.) But.. my word. Frere Junod (the teacher). At the end, he just simply said, "the truth is theres no way we can answer everyone's questions about the temple. all we can do is get ready to go to the temple and ask them there ourselves. And although it might not answer your questions, in fact it doesn't answer all my questions, I'm just going to bear my testimony about the temple." And boy did he bear his testimony. The room was silent. Basically everyone was in tears. I've seriously never in my life heard anyone testify like this guy. phew! It was awesome.
Well my family. It's so good to hear from you! You're all my heros! I love this some much. I really do. I'm constantly reminded of one thing. Hollands quote: "This work isn't easy, because salvation isn't cheap. And besides, it was NEVER easy for Him." (or something like that). But basically. That's the truth. We heard about some elders that got beat up in france last week, and the truth is, I think EVERY ONE of the Elder's I'm serving with would be more than willing to get a couple of bumps and bruises for Christ. He's the reason we're here. He's the reason we're happy. He's the reason we can have Eternal Families. And He's the reason I am in Switzerland right now. I Love you all so much. Don't you dare forget the real reason why we're all doing this. Go bring Jesus to someone this week. (or in the words of our incredible president Roney).. "Get someone to do something Jesus taught!" That's all we do out here. Just get people to do something Jesus taught, because THAT is how we find happiness. :)
I love you all!
Elder Lago