Week 62 - Are you German??

August 10, 2019

BONJOUR!! Comment allez-vous??

Fun fact: As American missionaries speaking French in the Caribbean, lots of people think that our accent is German because we take the "R"s a little too hard sometimes. So this week I got asked a couple times if I was from Germany and once if I was from Norway!

Anyways, we had a great week! The work of the Lord is definitely moving forward and we are feeling it.

On Wednesday we had the special opportunity of having Elder Gamiette, a local 70, join our district council. He listened to us discuss the people we're teaching and counsel together on what we can do to help them. He gave some great input, and at the end shared a very powerful message with us about the power of setting a goal and being truly dedicated to it. We were talking specifically of having a goal to invite every person we talk to to be baptized. It takes boldness and longsuffering to accomplish big goals like that!

He also said something that shook us a little bit. He said, "We aren't baptizing as many people as the Lord knows that we can here in the Caribbean. And He isn't angry-- He knows that missionaries and members are still human and have weakness. But he read a really cool verse with us in the Book of Mormon about "renting the viel" and how it's up to US to do that-- to go past the status quo and what we're in the human routine of doing to reach heavenly accomplishments. I think this idea can apply to any goal we have or thing we want to improve on-- much of the time, it's ourselves who set the limit of how far we can get. Often, God knows and desires that we go much further. It's all a matter of our perpective and our way of looking at the situation.

Just in general this week, it struck me how wonderful the members are that we have the privelage of working with! Seeing a member connect to our friends is such a happy feeling!!

One struggle of this week... several of the people we're teaching that we have SUPER good lessons with will not come to church during summer vacation! And we're so sad because we feel that they're ready to receive the blessings of the Gospel now, not in a couple months when school is back in and weekends are less filled with family visiting and such. We'll see if this week maybe they'll feel more of a pull to be at church on Sunday!

On Saturday it felt like the Earth had moved a whole lot closer to the sun because it was HOT!! Contacting out in that sun was a little rough, but we drank lots of water and we were blessed by meeting a really wonderful man who wants to change his life. He told us about how lately he's been going down a path that he knows is distancing him from God, from his family, and from what he knows to be right. He really wants to change. We bore our testimonies to him of the power of repentance, how the Atonement of Jesus Christ can reach far enough to reach even those who have strayed the farthest from the path. He was really struck by the idea that God can forgive him completely of the mistakes he had made. I'm super excited to see how the Gospel can continue blessing his life!

After the crazy heat wave on Saturday, we had a HUGE thunderstorm yesterday!! Some of the streets flooded and it rained nonstop all day long. Caribbean rain storms are one of my favorite things :D It also felt like Christmas time (at least as much as it can) because it was a lot cooler, and rain is the closest thing we have to snow.... so naturally, Soeur Kitchen and I blasted the heat in the car, turned on some Christmas tunes, and I even made myself some hot cocoa and got cuddled up in a fluffy blanket. :)

The picture I attached includes Soeur Kitchen and I wearing dresses over our exercise clothes because we're silly :D Will hopefully be able to send more pics in separate emails :)

Love you all lots! Stay cool!! :)