NEWS
(INVESTIGATOR'S NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO MAINTAIN ANONYMITY)
OCTOBER 14, 2013 - Stress in it's wonderful forms!
Here´s the thing... Never in my wildest imaginations would I ever have imagined that I'd be stressed out about HOW ON EARTH WE'RE GOING TO FIT IN ALL THE PEOPLE THAT WANT TO SEE US... But.. It's a problem now. We have been so incredibly blessed with miracle people this week, I don't even know where to begin..
First off, HI everyone! I Love getting your e-mails and hearing about what's going on back home. It's nice to know this little valley i'm in isn't the only thing on the planet. (Although.. it would be a pretty nice place to be if it was the only place.) First off. Dad, I'm sorry I don't take as many pictures as Brianna. You should just know that whenever i'm on the streets, i'm talking to every human being I can see. The only chances i get to take pictures are when there's no one else around.. which isn't ALL the time. But. I have a few. I'm going to send the memory card this week to you. I'll write a letter that explains some of the pictures...
Speaking of pictures.. (before I forget). Craziest tender mercy ever. Here I am, at a members house, they just got the new Liahona in the mail and we were flipping through them before dinner, and BOOM! camrey bagley's face is staring at me. Holy smokes. Here I am in this tiny little village in the swiss alps with this little member family and their non-member friend looking at a picture of Camrey in the Liahona (which is all in French). Weird. But pretty awesome. :)
Ok. We've got to get started on miracles asap.
So, we had an emergency planning session last night to figure out how we were going to work with all the people we need to.. and sadly enough, we needed to organize our people based on priority. or in other words, potential.. It felt weird sorting names like that... Normally we just get every name we can possibly scrape out of the lists and contact all of them. Now we have to save some for later? what is this? ha.
As far as AMIS goes, we have 6 huge potentials, and about 5 other fairly great potentials. And less actives we have almost 10 we are trying to work with. That's potentially 20 rdvs a week. But with people only being able to see us after 5 pm because of work and school. Eh. You do the math. It's pretty tough to puzzle them all in there. But I guess this is what missions like masons and bris must be dealing with... ha. OH well. it's a good problem to be having.
New person miracle Number 1:
Ok, to tell you the truth, I have an obsession with Asians. I have this weird bucket-list dream to teach someone from an asian background with absoluetly no concept of God or Jesus Christ. I think it'd be really cool and challenging. SO... any time I see someone that could maybe be even remotely of Asian decent, I am bookin' it to contact them on the street. (My companions all have laughed at me for it). So. We were in a little city called Monthey contacting people and I saw a girl/woman that seemed about our age walking down the street, and booked it to talk to her. Come to find out she is from Mid-northern China and is a student here in Monthey. She spoke English and no french. She's about 22. Her name is Rui Qi. I just began speaking with her and making friends, then introduced who I was, and asked if she had like 20 minutes to hear a message about God. She looked at me confused and simply said, "God?" Yup... all my wildest dreams came true. We got to talk to her for a solid half an hour about who God was and what her relationship was with him. She lit up when she heard that her Father in Heaven loved her and wants her to be Happy. She later went on to describe that the culture here is very different than there (obviously) and she's just bored, so she would love to chat with us every once in a while if that was ok. haha. She also asked where our Church was, we told her Martigny, and she quickly added, "I have a Friend in Martigny and I am down there all the time!" Long story short. As soon as I get off the computer today, we have a RDV with 2 Chinese girls at the church, that are interested in getting to know what crazy things we belive about a man called God. Wish me luck. ha. :)
Miracle person Number 2:
Well. After a super motivational companionship inventory, we decided to just work our TAILS off from here on out, and come into the appartment each night just panting and sweating and dragging our feet. (That's all I've been waiting for with all my companions! Halleluja!) SO. we made tons of plans for the day and started heading out. But as we were leaving the apartment I took one last look at the map and saw a little village in the mountains called Gryon, and felt like for some reason we needed to go there first. It's like a 40 minute trip by car (ps. I drive the car now.. that's pretty cool. It's fun driving in this gorgeous area.) But.. we took the time risk, and just followed my weird gut feeling. The problem was, it was like 1 in the afternoon, and it had just snowed. Normally the people in little villages aren't home during the day because they work in the larger cities.. So logically it didn't make any sense to go there. But we went anyway. We got up there and......... No one. Not a single person was in this entire Village. I'm not even kidding. we were standing in the middle of the street and we both were silent. and I couldn't hear a SINGLE sound coming from ANYWHERE. It was so weird to be the ONLY people in an entire village. We knocked some doors anyway, no one. So we decided to go to the only grocery store in town to ask the person working where the party was at today and maybe even teach him. ha. He was honestly as surprised as we were. He said it's so weird for NO one to have come to his store ALL day. weird. We left the store and saw a lady down the street and ran to ask her where the party was at, and all she said was, "It's almost here, be patient!" I was so confused... we talked to her for a little minute or two and found out she works with one of our members so she already knows the mormons, but she wasn't interested. In the middle of one of her sentences she stopped and motioned as to listed to something. Faintly I could hear a little jingle jingle getting louder and louder. Then I heard a scream. And it kept getting louder. Then people started coming out of the houses around us and standing on the street next to us like we were going to see a parade. And parade it was. We happened to be there RIGHT during the anual move of all the cows. They hike all the way up the mountain in the spring, and all the way down it in the fall. Every one of them had a big bell hanging from their neck. It was SO SWISS. ha.. SO that was that.. not a soul in that group of people was interested. We got an awesome show and started heading out discouraged. We knocked on one more door before heading to the car, and surprisingly a woman answered, but wasn't interested either. (very nice though). We just decided to get out of their and not waste our time any more. Just around the corner up a hill we saw a guy building a fence. I yelled up to him, "Bonjour monsieur, Est-ce que vous avez besoin d'aide?" (Direct translation: "Good day sir, is it that you have need of help? haha). All he said was. "HEY! You're Mormons!" (in english).. um.... "yeah?. How do you know the Mormons?" "I once saw two missionaries like you back home in Latvia about 10 years ago." "Did they give you a Book of Mormon?" "No, what's that?" "It's the coolest present any random person on the street could ever give you, do you want one?" (Then he SPRINTS down the hill he was working on with this HUGE grin on his face).. The problem is, right now we only have one in French. But we could get you one in your language if you want. (or even english because he speaks so well). He was SO excited! He asked SO many questions about it. We answered them as best we can. He asked when the next time we were going to be up in Gryon was, We said, any time you want! ha. He said, Can you come next wednesday? YUP! Then he pulled out his phone faster than I could ask for his number and swapped us numbers, and said, Does 3 o'clockwork? YUP! The next phrase was awesome.. ha. "So.. you can't drink alcohol right? well, I guess we'll have to sit over a couple of glasses of water and talk." ha. Turns out He's 28. Married. Latvian. LOVES Mormons. His name is Artis. I'm so excited.
Man. I could keep going. But. I need to get off. Hmph.
Jimmy is going well. He's definitely going through some trials right now. There are some days I feel 100% sure he'll get baptised next saturday. Others where I'm like 10% sure he'll get baptised next saturday. We'll do the best we can. And see how it all plays out.. :)
Dad. Elder Leit is from Copenhagen Denmark. I'll work on getting a better picture of him on the card before I send it to you this week.
I love you all!
I hope all is going well.
Don't you worry about me. about anything. I'm in paradise.
Je vous aime!
-Elder Lago
First off, HI everyone! I Love getting your e-mails and hearing about what's going on back home. It's nice to know this little valley i'm in isn't the only thing on the planet. (Although.. it would be a pretty nice place to be if it was the only place.) First off. Dad, I'm sorry I don't take as many pictures as Brianna. You should just know that whenever i'm on the streets, i'm talking to every human being I can see. The only chances i get to take pictures are when there's no one else around.. which isn't ALL the time. But. I have a few. I'm going to send the memory card this week to you. I'll write a letter that explains some of the pictures...
Speaking of pictures.. (before I forget). Craziest tender mercy ever. Here I am, at a members house, they just got the new Liahona in the mail and we were flipping through them before dinner, and BOOM! camrey bagley's face is staring at me. Holy smokes. Here I am in this tiny little village in the swiss alps with this little member family and their non-member friend looking at a picture of Camrey in the Liahona (which is all in French). Weird. But pretty awesome. :)
Ok. We've got to get started on miracles asap.
So, we had an emergency planning session last night to figure out how we were going to work with all the people we need to.. and sadly enough, we needed to organize our people based on priority. or in other words, potential.. It felt weird sorting names like that... Normally we just get every name we can possibly scrape out of the lists and contact all of them. Now we have to save some for later? what is this? ha.
As far as AMIS goes, we have 6 huge potentials, and about 5 other fairly great potentials. And less actives we have almost 10 we are trying to work with. That's potentially 20 rdvs a week. But with people only being able to see us after 5 pm because of work and school. Eh. You do the math. It's pretty tough to puzzle them all in there. But I guess this is what missions like masons and bris must be dealing with... ha. OH well. it's a good problem to be having.
New person miracle Number 1:
Ok, to tell you the truth, I have an obsession with Asians. I have this weird bucket-list dream to teach someone from an asian background with absoluetly no concept of God or Jesus Christ. I think it'd be really cool and challenging. SO... any time I see someone that could maybe be even remotely of Asian decent, I am bookin' it to contact them on the street. (My companions all have laughed at me for it). So. We were in a little city called Monthey contacting people and I saw a girl/woman that seemed about our age walking down the street, and booked it to talk to her. Come to find out she is from Mid-northern China and is a student here in Monthey. She spoke English and no french. She's about 22. Her name is Rui Qi. I just began speaking with her and making friends, then introduced who I was, and asked if she had like 20 minutes to hear a message about God. She looked at me confused and simply said, "God?" Yup... all my wildest dreams came true. We got to talk to her for a solid half an hour about who God was and what her relationship was with him. She lit up when she heard that her Father in Heaven loved her and wants her to be Happy. She later went on to describe that the culture here is very different than there (obviously) and she's just bored, so she would love to chat with us every once in a while if that was ok. haha. She also asked where our Church was, we told her Martigny, and she quickly added, "I have a Friend in Martigny and I am down there all the time!" Long story short. As soon as I get off the computer today, we have a RDV with 2 Chinese girls at the church, that are interested in getting to know what crazy things we belive about a man called God. Wish me luck. ha. :)
Miracle person Number 2:
Well. After a super motivational companionship inventory, we decided to just work our TAILS off from here on out, and come into the appartment each night just panting and sweating and dragging our feet. (That's all I've been waiting for with all my companions! Halleluja!) SO. we made tons of plans for the day and started heading out. But as we were leaving the apartment I took one last look at the map and saw a little village in the mountains called Gryon, and felt like for some reason we needed to go there first. It's like a 40 minute trip by car (ps. I drive the car now.. that's pretty cool. It's fun driving in this gorgeous area.) But.. we took the time risk, and just followed my weird gut feeling. The problem was, it was like 1 in the afternoon, and it had just snowed. Normally the people in little villages aren't home during the day because they work in the larger cities.. So logically it didn't make any sense to go there. But we went anyway. We got up there and......... No one. Not a single person was in this entire Village. I'm not even kidding. we were standing in the middle of the street and we both were silent. and I couldn't hear a SINGLE sound coming from ANYWHERE. It was so weird to be the ONLY people in an entire village. We knocked some doors anyway, no one. So we decided to go to the only grocery store in town to ask the person working where the party was at today and maybe even teach him. ha. He was honestly as surprised as we were. He said it's so weird for NO one to have come to his store ALL day. weird. We left the store and saw a lady down the street and ran to ask her where the party was at, and all she said was, "It's almost here, be patient!" I was so confused... we talked to her for a little minute or two and found out she works with one of our members so she already knows the mormons, but she wasn't interested. In the middle of one of her sentences she stopped and motioned as to listed to something. Faintly I could hear a little jingle jingle getting louder and louder. Then I heard a scream. And it kept getting louder. Then people started coming out of the houses around us and standing on the street next to us like we were going to see a parade. And parade it was. We happened to be there RIGHT during the anual move of all the cows. They hike all the way up the mountain in the spring, and all the way down it in the fall. Every one of them had a big bell hanging from their neck. It was SO SWISS. ha.. SO that was that.. not a soul in that group of people was interested. We got an awesome show and started heading out discouraged. We knocked on one more door before heading to the car, and surprisingly a woman answered, but wasn't interested either. (very nice though). We just decided to get out of their and not waste our time any more. Just around the corner up a hill we saw a guy building a fence. I yelled up to him, "Bonjour monsieur, Est-ce que vous avez besoin d'aide?" (Direct translation: "Good day sir, is it that you have need of help? haha). All he said was. "HEY! You're Mormons!" (in english).. um.... "yeah?. How do you know the Mormons?" "I once saw two missionaries like you back home in Latvia about 10 years ago." "Did they give you a Book of Mormon?" "No, what's that?" "It's the coolest present any random person on the street could ever give you, do you want one?" (Then he SPRINTS down the hill he was working on with this HUGE grin on his face).. The problem is, right now we only have one in French. But we could get you one in your language if you want. (or even english because he speaks so well). He was SO excited! He asked SO many questions about it. We answered them as best we can. He asked when the next time we were going to be up in Gryon was, We said, any time you want! ha. He said, Can you come next wednesday? YUP! Then he pulled out his phone faster than I could ask for his number and swapped us numbers, and said, Does 3 o'clockwork? YUP! The next phrase was awesome.. ha. "So.. you can't drink alcohol right? well, I guess we'll have to sit over a couple of glasses of water and talk." ha. Turns out He's 28. Married. Latvian. LOVES Mormons. His name is Artis. I'm so excited.
Man. I could keep going. But. I need to get off. Hmph.
Jimmy is going well. He's definitely going through some trials right now. There are some days I feel 100% sure he'll get baptised next saturday. Others where I'm like 10% sure he'll get baptised next saturday. We'll do the best we can. And see how it all plays out.. :)
Dad. Elder Leit is from Copenhagen Denmark. I'll work on getting a better picture of him on the card before I send it to you this week.
I love you all!
I hope all is going well.
Don't you worry about me. about anything. I'm in paradise.
Je vous aime!
-Elder Lago