Learning to See the Hand of the Lord

BIG news of the week! The baptism and confirmation for Holly was successful! I'll get to that in a moment though, I did a lot of stuff this week.

Alright on Wednesday we went into Paris for our exchanges with the Zone Leaders, Elders Christensen and Chang. I taught a lesson with Elder Christensen first and it went pretty well! I was really trying to focus and listen to the spirit and be able to understand. As I tried and focused on this man, I stopped worrying about what to say. I did make it a little too complex when I spoke but by the end I was feeling the spirit and understood what he was saying. As he spoke I felt prompted to ask him that if he prayed right now and had the faith, did he think God would give him the answer to if the Book of Mormon was true. He said he had the faith, so we all knelt down and he offered a prayer. The room filled with the spirit and the truthfulness of this Gospel was again confirmed to me. As he prayed I said my own silent prayer that he would receive an answer to his question. He finished his prayer and we knelt in silence for a few minutes. The spirit was so strong and when he stood up, he said that he could feel the presence of the Lord, he could feel his spirit. It was a really cool moment and he committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon every night. It was a great testament of the Lord truly directing and being a part of His work. 

After the lesson we went and did some contacting. We weren't having that much success, so I made the comment that the grass is always greener on the other side - so we switched to the other side of the sidewalk. We ran into this woman from New Zealand, who was super cool! She spoke very officially and proper and told us how she is a devout Christian and doesn't need the Book of Mormon. She kept talking with us though because she was very impressed that two young men were out trying to spread the Gospel of Christ. She made the comment that she would like her two daughters to marry "fine young men like us," then she added that one is already married and the other is engaged - darn! So we kept talking to her and Elder Christensen asked her a killer question, "Why are there so many churches?" She didn't know the answer, so we explained the restoration and then asked if we could pray with her. Elder Christensen gave a really beautiful prayer and asked that the woman's heart be softened. After the prayer ended she was very touched and accepted the Book of Mormon because she was so impressed by us! Super cool experience, the hand of the Lord was there. Funny moment in the contact, Elder Christensen was pointing his finger at her and she scolded him for pointing because it's rude. 

I'll just skip to the next day when I went on an exchange with a brand new, transfer one, missionary all by myself. WE HAD SUCH A FUN TIME! He has had a rough time during his training, so he was really eager to get out and do some contacting because he hasn't had the opportunity to do it yet. So we went right to work and began contacting. To my amazement, I was given the ability to understand the French as it was spoken and the words were given to me to speak. The hand of the Lord was there as we went about his business. We may have messed up the numbers we got, but we still had fun. We also went and gave a blessing in French and the words were again given to me to speak. I wasn't nervous because I knew the Lord would be with me. The imperfections of man will never hinder the work of the Lord. 

The next morning we went contacting again and had a cool experience. We handed out his Book of Mormon and wanted to hand mine out as well, so we went about trying to do that. We ran into a woman who said she didn't have enough time to talk with, but right before we were about to go back to the apartment we decided to go down a side street. Well there was nobody on the street, so we knocked a few houses - no luck. Then we see someone walking from the other end of the street and sure enough it was the woman we had contacted earlier! She walked up to us and asked who we were. again the words were given to me to understand and speak. She asked us about our church and said she wanted to go to one of our meetings. So we gave her a card and then I gave her a Book of Mormon! It was a tender mercy and another testiment to me of the Hand of the Lord in His work. 

I can honestly say, and it might be a little sad, but after these two exchanges and all of these tender mercies - I really felt like a missionary for the first time. I was giving it my all and I could see the Lord directing myself and my companion to where we needed to be. 

So on Saturday Holly was baptized. Her father did the baptism and it went great...almost. I was a witness and because of my more quiet nature, I didn't say anything when he said the words to the baptism wrong. So everyone thought the baptism was good and I did too because the other witness hadn't said anything either. But then I started thinking about it and got worried, so we called the Mission president to ask his opinion and he said we should probably redo it, just to be safe. So we did a secret baptism while everyone was eating and redid it. It's all good now though! I learned a valuable lesson that night. If someone's salvation is on the line - SPEAK UP! It was a very happy occasion for Holly and her family. It was great to see her love for the Lord manifested in this covenant with her God. On Sunday I was privileged to stand in the circle as she was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and receive the Holy Ghost. The spirit was so strong in circle and I felt an overwhelming feeling burning in my bosom. It was a great day. I'm happy for them.

It's been a long week, but I have been surviving. As a missionary you experience the world differently and that is a blessing. I'm not perfect and neither is anyone else, but it is a great blessing to try and help others become more like their Father in Heaven. Hard times still come though, not everyday is perfect and the hard times really seem to mold you into the person you are trying to become. I'm learning a lot right now, I know it's for my benefit, my on the job training. When the natural man wants to turn in, you should turn out because that is what Christ would do. So I am trying to turn out and love my neighbor. 

Thanks for reading my weekly's, I hope that you each are able to get something out of them. I pray for you all each night, for your well being and success in all you do. I love you all very much! Keep up the good work and always put your trust in the Lord and turn out to help others.

-Elder Molinari

Elder Molinari's Weekly

Salut salut,

As many of you may have notice I updated my profile on Facebook! I don't remember if I mentioned in any of these emails that our mission is authorized to use Facebook now. Well... WE ARE! I haven't really used it at all yet and still need to start posting, etc. But before I release an official post on my page, I will say that we are not allowed to use the Messenger Application and if you want to write to me, it will still have to by e-mail. I will be posting spiritual thoughts, quotes, talks, videos, etc. So if this is something you are also interested in reading then you can Friend me on Facebook and enjoy whatever I post! I am on my only Facebook account, which is Nicholas Molinari. My posts will be most likely be in French, but don't worry! Facebook will automatically translate for you.

As far as this week goes, we did more than last week! Let me look back... 

On Tuesday I woke up with some terrible stomach pains (yeah, again.) and wasn't allowed to leave the apartment, so nothing really happened that day! I only ate a bowl of rice that day, which was not nearly as filling as other food, but that's ok I was being spiritually fed all day! I did receive a blessing of healing that morning and I was impressed by the words. Elder Seymour performed the sealing of the oil and told me I would recover and then mentioned how Heavenly Father wanted me to relax and stop worrying about not having enough time to change and grow. That I need to realize I still have a lot of time left for me to learn and gain the experiences I need to grow and become the person He needs me to be. I was very comforted by that blessing, especially since I had not mentioned my concerns over that subject to anyone. A small testament that God knows his children and gives us the Fatherly comfort and counsel we all need. 

Wednesday was better and we were able to go visit a woman name Lea and her husband. We taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel and we were able to answer many of their questions that they had about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Lea's Husband had a specific concern about whether we were a cult or not, since we are called "Mormons," yet we profess to be of Christ. A friend of their family, who is also a member, was there and in much better French than Elder Shenkal and I had, explained that Mormon is basically a nickname. We are in fact called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we are the only true Church on the earth. We are not a cult - at all, we "talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our Children may know to what source the may look for a remission of their sins." (2 Nephi 25:26 It's in the Book of Mormon, check it out some time if you don't know what that is.) After we made clear that we are in fact a church, we continued with the restoration and used the Joseph Smith video to explain the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith. As we were watching I was sitting there listening and the spirit overwhelmed me and I felt this complete peace, to the point where my emotions almost overcame me. After the video ended I stopped having worries about my French and began to testify and the words flowed from my mouth. It was a powerful moment for me, as I truly saw the scripture come to pass that says "seek not to declare my words, but first seek to obtain my word and then shall your tongue be loosed..." (Doctrine and Covenants 11:21, also scripture, check that one out too!) 

I'll just briefly go over the other three teaching appointments we had this week! I have failed to mention that we have three baptismal dates. Two are for October 28th and one is in December! 

We met with Buki and Rejoice, who have recently been reactivated and they have a little 9 year old daughter who is prepared for baptism. I'm not sure if this is the way it's done in America, but we teach all of the missionary lessons to anyone who is over the age of 8 and they can choose to be baptized. So she has chosen to be baptized and she is one of those baptismal dates. Her Parents are super nice people and it was amazing to go over to their house and discuss the importance of Baptism and keeping our covenants after baptism with them. 

We also visited our investigator, Colette, who is also planning on entering the waters of baptism on the 28th of October. She is an older woman, who is engaged to a member and because of him has been investigating the church. Her fiance lives in America and recently had emergency Heart Surgery, so we decided the best message for her would be to talk about trials and not to worry if you put your trust in the Lord. We shared the talk by Elder Holland, a member of the Quorum of the twelve apostles, "Tomorrow the Lord Will do Wonders Among You." She was very touched and the meeting went very well. Unfortunately her alarm didn't go off on this past Sunday and she missed church, but here's to next week!

Our last meeting this week was with another investigator, Happy. Going into the lesson we were planning on giving her a lesson on the Word of Wisdom, but she expressed concerns about work and the stress from that, and so we completely scrapped the lesson plan and followed the spirit. She showed us that she is in Ether right now, in the Book of Mormon, and I mentioned a scripture I really like in Ether. From that scripture we followed the spirit and spoke about putting our trust in the Lord during our hard times. Unfortunately she has to work on some Sundays, so we had to move her baptismal date to December, I am glad that I will be able to teach her more throughout the coming weeks and really get to know her. 

Many good things throughout the week, but as always it was faced with many trials as well. Missions are difficult in a way that is hard to describe, but I think, the positives outweigh the negatives.

Best Regards,
Elder Molinari

P.S. Elder Shenkal and I went to the doctor and got me a prescription for some meds (I'm fine, don't worry) and then we bought Steak N' Shake. IT WAS SO GOOD! Don't get me wrong French Food is super good, but American food is super good too and their Steak burger tasted just like an american burger. Also got a HUGE milkshake, was way good!

What a SICK Week!

Alright, There isn't much to say this week. Long story short, our entire apartment got sick this week. It started with Elder Shenkal and then traveled to Elder Dunoskovic and then to Me and then a little bit to Elder Seymour. But ironically, the week we were all sick we were still SUPER busy. We had two dinner appointments and we helped a less active move on wednesday and Thursday. I really don't have much to say other than that, so I suppose I will share some spiritual experiences/lessons I learned this week.

The first miracle I witnessed was when we were at our dinner appointment on Saturday night. We shared the video by Gordon B. Hinckley's talk "Lessons I learned as a Boy." Prior to watching this video I was struggling to follow the conversations (there were 8 people in total at dinner) and was pretty quiet for that reason, since I had no idea what was going on. As we watched the video I felt the spirit pretty strongly and as soon as my companion asked the family what they thought about the video, the french clicked and I could understand what was being said. Tender mercy, grateful for it.

The second experience is also concerning the video Lessons I learned as a Boy. For a long time I have never really been able to understand what the meaning of the story was, but I finally connected all the dots and I have an idea of what the video represents. (If you haven't seen the video, just youtube it.) I'll write a little description of the video.
First you will see the two boys and then you see the man working out in his farm fields. The younger boy thinks it would be a good idea to hide the man's shoes and wait to see the reaction of the man when he comes back. The older boy doesn't think that is such a good idea and suggests another experiment. The older boy discerns that the man must be very poor by the looks of his clothes and decides they should put two silver dollar coins into the man's shoes and see his reaction to that. They decide to do that. They put the silver dollars in the shoes and then hide. Eventually the man returns and puts one foot into his shoe, feels something hard and then takes out the first silver dollar. Wonder and surprise show on his face and then he puts his foot into his second shoe, feels something hard again, pulls it out and then finds another silver dollar. His emotions overcome him and he kneels down and offers a prayer of thanksgiving. In which he tells of his wife who is sick, and his children who do not have anything to eat. He thanks the Lord for this bounty from unknown hands and evokes the blessings of heaven upon them. He leaves. The boys were touched by this man's prayer and as they leave one says to the other "Now don't you have a good feeling?" 

My interpretation of this video is as follows;

The two boys can represent many things. They can be missionaries, the members of the church, or the older can represent Jesus and the younger is us. These boys see a man in the distance, who is poor and without, he could represent those without the gospel of Jesus Christ. The boys hiding the coins in his shoes could represent how there are many without the gospel who are searching but don't know where to find it. Now the boys give the man the two silver dollars, which could represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The material value of the coins is temporal, but the spiritual value will last through the eternities. As members and missionaries we share the gospel with others and give them the fruits of the gospel, which can heal the sick (his wife) and spiritually feed the hungry (his children). We may not always know the outcome of our efforts, as the two boys didn't know the effects of giving this man 2$. But they are always blessed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and when we are finished sharing the Gospel with others, we leave, saying "Now don't you have a good feeling?"  

I'll probably have more to say next week!

Catch ya later!
Elder Molinari

Some pics of Monets Garden paintings and me touching the bottom of the louvre triangle.

Cergy Woo

This week has been a blur, so much has happened! 

Alright, where do I even start... probably with wednesday when I moved out of Caen and into Cergy. I'm living in a four man now, so most of the day was spent meeting up with everyone I will be living with so that we could all travel to Cergy together. 

My new companion is Elder Shenkal, He is sweet! He is a convert in his 13th transfer and has had a pretty wild life and mission. Super out going, funny, and hard working. We have been working hard already, and I'll just summarize what we did this week, since I am mildly distracted right now and do not have much time to write because we are going into Paris to check out the Monet museum! 

Thursday we went to Ikea because the Cergy apartment became a four man, so two new elders are living here. They are Elder Dunoskovic and Elder Seymour, both super funny and awesome missionaries. So we had to go buy dressers, desks, and get other materials for them because the apartment literally had nothing in it. That took the first part of the day. Then Elder Dunoskovic and Shenkal had to go into Paris to get some X rays done, so elder Seymour and I went to teach two lessons that Elder Shenkal had set up. The first one was a woman named HAppy who has a baptismal date and the second is a woman named Colette who also has a baptismal date. The first woman was actually going to the hospital, so she cancelled the appointment once we got there. So we left and went to travel to Colettes house to go teach her the word of wisdom. She is super prepared and is totally ready for baptism. She made the comment on how on how she drinks some wine every now and then, but she said that she can totally get rid of drinking a little wine at parties. I bobre my testimony at one point and she just stared at me and then went, "how old are you?" Totally random, but funny. Everyone thinks I am a young man. She fed us Chicken afterwards and it was incredible! We returned to the apartment after that.

Saturday we went out contacting and believe it or not, people actually listen to us here! It was way nice and we actually got a few phone numbers. Then we went to an African Baby shower, which was way fun. We talked to a bunch of people and had more african food. All four of us missionaries were invited to the party and we tried doing a little proselyting during the party. There were a lot of members there and I started talking with one lady who is from Peru and has lived in France for twenty years or so now. It was sweet because we were having the conversation in French and I understood everything she said for the most part. 
There was also this African Ginger juice, which was basically straight ginger and I had a huge glass of it. Oh my gosh, that stuff BURNED SO BAD! My nose started dripping because it was so hot. I didn't think I would be able to finish it, so I just chugged it and dealt with the burn for a while. Drank some juice, but the ginger drink totally tired me out. We eventually left the party and actually got quite a few phone numbers of people who were interested in going to our church. 

Sunday we were able to watch conference. I haven't seen any Sunday sessions, but I was able to watch the Saturday sessions. The talks were all really good and the questions I had going into conference were all answered. I really like Bonnie L. Oscarson's talk about helping those who are closest to you. I have found that on my mission, a large majority of my work has been helping individuals that are closest to me. I've figured out one of my greatest strengths is listening and I have really been trying to develop that on the mission by helping those who are around me. In large part that has been other missionaries, and members. So I really appreciated her talk that we should be trying to help the people who are closest to us. Many times we fail to realize that those closest to us are struggling and we might be the ones with the tools to help them. Ask yourself "who needs me today?" Instead of "what am I going to get out of it?"

I also really like Elder Holland's talk, which definitely helped me out.  The quote that "beating ourselves up will not make us the person God wants us to be." I really think that is the truth. If we beat ourselves up, then we are doing exactly what Satan wants and not what God wants. We need to be continually uplifting ourselves. Focus on what we have done, what we have achieved, and not what we haven't achieved. We all start somewhere, so start where you are and start to achieve the results you desire. I quote I like is "What we think we become." Think positively and have the attitude of "I can try" and you will be able to become what you hope to be.

I am having so much fun in our four man. We are constantly joking around and having a fun time. My companion is awesome and super down to work, which I am excited about and I know that we will see miracles in Cergy. I can honestly say that I am enjoying myself. The mission isn't easy and there are a lot of challenges to overcome, but overall I am happy.

Love,
Elder Molinari

P.S. Cergy is pretty ugly, I'm not in the countryside any more! 
Oh I almost forgot a way funny story. All four of us were waiting for the bus and this person comes sprinting to try and catch the bus that was about to leave and they trip and then faceplant! They had a ponytail and long hair, so a french woman looks at him and goes "Ca va madame?" (which is are you ok mam) but then the person turns over and actually has a beard and it was totally a dude! The woman quickly goes "oh pardon monsieur." We all died laughing. It was way funny because the guy actually looked like a girl and this was basically adding insult to injury, way funny. Alright peace.

Also have bad internet, so pictures next week!