Tender Mercies

Dear Everyone,

This has been a wonderful week. :) Let me think. The beginning of the week is already a little fuzzy in my memory. We didn't have a whole lot of rendez vous and we did a lot of contacting.

On Wednesday we went to visit a less active member of our ward. She was a really great lady! We shared a message about the daily things we need to do to stay anchored in the gospel. Not far in we could see she had a strong testimony of scriptures and prayer so we focused on church attendance. She was very frank and told us she didn't feel like the church members were reverent enough during the meetings and that bothered her so much that she stopped coming. We explained that we need to have patience because the church is like a hospital. We don't come because we're already in perfect spiritual health. We come to be healed and we don't judge other and we don't be impatient with the sicknesses of others in a hospital so neither should we at the church. I'm glad that she is so respectful of the church meetings, but at the same time we need to keep working to help each other gain that same respect by setting a good example in our worship.

On Thursday we went to Bordeaux for district meeting. We learned about how to use the scriptures more in our teaching. I just recently got my own Bible in French and I've been marking it. I like having a physical book so much better than using my tablet for the Bible! I love the visual of the Bible and the Book of Mormon side by side to testify of the truth. I'm so grateful that we have them both to give us the fulness of the gospel. While I was in Bordeaux one of the sisters had the Lamb of God music! I don't know if you have all heard of it, but it's a musical performance of events of Christ's life and it is beautiful. If you can, look it up!

On Friday we had a miracle coming home. We ended up mission the first train because when we got to the bus stop there were too many people in the bus and we weren't able to get on to go to the gare or train station! So we missed our train! But there was another one for later. So we waited for the next bus, but it was also full! Finally we squeezed onto the third but we took a very long time to get to the gare and I was sure we were going to miss the next train too and it was our last chance of the night. But finally we got there and made it into the train with the minutes to spare! It was a tender mercy that we were able to get home. We ended up standing up on the second train for an hour and a half because the train was also extremely packed.

Then on Saturday we finally had contact with M! It's been over a week and we were really worried. We studied a chapter with her. We've been trying to help her see the power in the scriptures and she really likes reading over the phone, but we don't want her to become dependent on us either. It's a difficult balance. Please pray for her and us to know what to do to help her.

On Sunday we had two miracles! The first was at the bus stop on our way to church. We said bonjour to a man who was waiting there. After a couple seconds he asked us where the closest church service was and we were like, come with us to church! So he came to sacrament meeting! He couldn't stay for the other meetings because a friends was coming to visit him from Toulouse, but he échanges numbers with us ! He's a student here studying law. So that was the first miracle.

Then the second was that we finally had a rendez vous with the man that we found porting at the beginning of this transfer! He works a lot and travels for his job, so we hadn't made it work yet. We called again this week and fixed for yesterday! When we got to the park we weren't sure if it would work out because he hadn't responded to our call to confirm. But we waited and did our comp study in the park because we hadn't been able to finish studies. Then he called us and said he was coming! He got there really late, but it was a great rendez vous ! He was very respectful. We taught the retab. When we asked to start with a prayer he said "c'est rare!" and really appreciated that. He had lots of questions afterward. One of them was "what do you expect of me?" and we basically told him we expect him to keep engagements in order to gain his own testimony. He suggested that we continue to have rendez vous so that we could persuade him and we were like, yes ! For sure! We'd love to!

I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. I'm grateful for the commandments because it's in keeping them that we receive blessings. He is so merciful. This week we read Alma 26 with M where Ammon boasts in the Lord. It really stuck me that they went through so many trials (being stoned and put into prison for example) but still he rejoiced! When the Lord is on our side, there is no difficulty that is insurmountable, there is nothing that should keep us from being joyful.

I'm so excited for général conference this weekend!! Six months of looking forward to it!

I love you all so much!

Sœur Marriott