Hey There...

A really nice dinner we had with a member and the cheese cake!

Hi, Bonjour, Good Morning, Afternoon, Evening! I write to an audience that lives all over the world, so it may be any of these times when you read!

What a week, where can I even begin?!

If you read the letter from last week, I am sure you may be wondering about the family across the street! Well, it went incredibly well!

We went over and shared a great meal with them. They are probably some of the nicest french people I have ever met - who aren’t members - and they were so welcoming. They had that ability to just make you feel like you had been friends for years! We chatted about all sorts of different things and had a great meal. I forget what it was called, but it is cooked beef inside a giant tomato - sounds weird, tastes incredible, 5 stars, would highly recommend.

They have a cute little family, the mother works at a school and the father is a master swim coach. That’s right, he teaches professional swimmers - pretty cool huh? The mother is used to working with kids, so she kindly slowed her speech down and enunciated everything she said, because we probably function at a primary school french level.

By the end of the evening, they had asked all of their kids to go to bed and the father asks us “Who is Mormon?” and so ensues a short Gospel discussion. They didn’t show any interest in meeting with us again, to take the lessons, but we left them with everything they need to succeed. We were able to give them a Book of Mormon, with a hand written testimony in it, with a book of mormon challenge book marked at 3 nephi 11, and we had also snuck a restoration and plan of salvation pamphlet in there as well! So, they have everything they need in order to find out if our message is true!

They told us to stop by before Elder Lloyd leaves, and we are going to stay in touch! We are literally just friends with them and I am fine leaving it like that, we are not here to force people into the Church, we invite, and it is up to them to decide if they are interested or not. My fingers are crossed that one day they will pick up that book and read it!

We went on exchanges with the Arras elders and I had a great time with Elder Ellsworth. He is a comedian and we laughed so much. We had a completely open day, so we went to work talking with people and visiting people who used to be interested in the Gospel. We had a great time and ended by visiting a member family.

We prayed to know where we were needed and ending up going to an area around their church building. We stopped by the church quickly and then headed out and walked by an old man who was working on his fence. I suggested we turn back and chat with him, knowing full well the risk that comes with talking to the person that lives right next to the church and has probably been spoken to by every set of missionaries that has ever been in the area! Well, it turns out this kind man and his wife had listened to missionaries a long time ago, but I don't really think people have passed by very often. We chatted for a solid forty five minutes and it was a great chat. Turns out he had been living in the area before it was even a town and when there were only farm fields surrounding the area - which was over fifty years ago! We just chatted like friends - You know how I love talking with the elderly - and we ended on very good terms. He even said we could come back and help him paint his fence another day. We left him with the Family a Proclamation because we could see how important family was to this man. I took a picture with him :)

Elder Lloyd was sick the rest of the week, so I did some work behind the scenes and was able to set up a few lessons for next week. He is feeling better today and is basically back to 100%.

That’s the week folks, hope it was worth the read. If you want to send me an update on how things are going on your side of the pond, I would love to hear about what is going on - I might even respond to you ;)

Alright, Love you all,

Elder Molinari