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| Caen from a castle point of view |
Bonjour chaque frères et sœurs!
Not much excitement this week - actually a rather slow week, but I've got the highlights!
On Tuesday the sœurs, elder Walton and I went to our ward mission leaders home for dinner. Frère Richard has a beautiful home and garden. He has been working on this garden for seven years and has a large variety of fruits, vegetables, and flowers growing. Our salad that night was made from the lettuce from his garden. His wife is inactive and doesn't like him inviting missionaries over. She was out of town for a few weeks, so he took full advantage of the opportunity. Its rather sad because they used to have the missionaries over ever week, so it was a part of their life and frère Richard misses that a lot. We helped him peel potatoes and mushrooms. I've never peeled potatoes before and it was actually pretty fun. Frère Richard thought it was funny how much I enjoyed it. He served us a really nice five course french meal. We started with cantaloupe, then fish, salad (which is just lettuce in France), bread and cheese, and then yogurt. Overall it was a super nice evening and I was able to practice my French. I'm very grateful for his generosity.
Something happened on Wednesday, but I remember what.
Thursday most of our day was spent going to the middle of no where to get a package for one of the cherbourg elders. We began that journey at 10:30a, and finished at about 2 or 3pm. Only one bus takes you out to wherever we went and only one takes you back and they pass about once an hour. We missed the one taking us back by 10 minutes. So in a rather posh little town elder Walton and I sat down on the cement, because there were no benches at this bus stop, and watched johney lingo. Eventually the bus came and we left. Later that day we went to a lesson with the sœurs because the woman wanted a blessing. I had studied all that day to know how to give a blessing in french, but luckily elder Walton did it.
This lesson was the most spiritual lesson I've been to thus far on my mission. So the woman is married to a less active man, and the husbands brother is a bishop in one of the local wards. Her husband had told her about the book of mormon and she decided she wanted one, so her husband got her one and she began to read it. She read all of the pamphlets for the missionary lessons and had read from the beginning of the book of Mormon into most of Mosiah. She called the missionaries because she needed another book of Mormon and that's because one of her colleagues at work had said she needed some help in her life and this woman gave her her book of Mormon. (I'm sorry I forgot her name, it was super super french, I'll refer to her as Madame.) So Madame needed a new book of Mormon, wanted a priesthood blessing, and said she wanted to be baptized. Can I get a WOW? She did all of this missionary work and study by herself, without ever knowing about missionaries.
The blessing really set the tone for the rendezvous. It touched her husband, Mark, so much that he was very emotional the entire meeting. At one point he was trying to share his testimony on prophets and he could barely speak he said "there are a lot of emotions flying around in this room. I couldn't understand most of what was being said but I could feel the spirit so strongly. Marks wife basically gave US, the missionaries, the restoration lesson and they were both glowing. You could just tell that the gospel had already changed their lives so much. They were such a faith filled family and they have 4 young children as well, so that would be awesome for the entire family if they come to church.
I realized after that lesson that I really want to figure out the language because there are people like that out there and I want to be able to communicate with them and be able to find them.
Friday we had a professional piano player come play for us, Robert Nakéa. He was incredible and the concert was so refreshing to listen to. I was able to watch his hands as he played and was blown away by the speed of his hands. He's been playing since he was six years old and played in the Honolulu symphony orchestra when he was 15. I was able to talk with him and his wife and they were both super nice. They both speak fluent french, Italian, and English. He speaks Norwegian as well because he wanted to be able to read the Norwegian music. I'm guessing he speaks more than that as well. I thought it was really cool that he and his wife are taking time out of their vacation schedule to perform for the people of France and help out the missionaries here. I really respected how generous they were.
Nothing else really happened, I'll tell you two funny stories that happened though.
At frère Richards, he makes this special salad dressing, which is full of vinegar, and of course he puts it on my salad for me and drenches the thing in this vinegar dressing. As we all know I hate vinegar, so I was choking it down with a smile on my face, but screaming on the inside. Well frère Richard left the room for a moment and when he did I quickly transferred the remaining salad to elder Walton and he quickly ate it! Life saver.
On Sunday I had to get up and share the missionary moment for priesthood and knew exactly what I was going to say. I was going to mention an experience elder Walton and I had walking home for ward counsel on Wednesday night, we met a really nice man who's daughter was a member and had been praying her father would meet missionaries. So I got up and said with confidence in my voice, "Apres la parole de sagesse nous avons recontré deux hommes." Then elder Walton quickly whispered "conseil de paroisse," and I quickly fixed my statement. I started laughing though and everyone else in the room did as well. Frère Richard was sitting behind the stand and was laughing so hard. It was a really funny mistake. In English what I said was, "after the word of wisdom We met two men." I was supposed to say after ward counsel.
I've been realizing lately what people mean they say missions are tough. Physically it's demanding, yes, but for me it's really a mental battle. Constantly it feels like I have thoughts of how inadequate I am, how I can't speak or understand, and just a storm of negative thoughts and doubts. It's really hard to keep yourself motivated, when all you get is rejection from taking with others. I made a goal for myself to keep more positive thoughts, so hopefully that will help. I've been praying a lot and I think I'll be praying even more because to me this work seems impossible in France, but I know that anything is possible with Jesus Christ by my side and I'll work hard to remember that. Finding joy against such odds is difficult, but I know that if I put my trust in the lord then I will see success. That success might be with investigators or it might be within myself, but I know that the Lord will help me along the way.
That's all from me,
Salut, until next week
Elder Nicholas Molinari
Oh almost forgot, someone snatched 20 euros out of my hand while I was in the grocery line today and I didn't even notice. Maybe I'll laugh at that memory later in life.
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| wooly mammoth remains |
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