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Fun at district meeting PICS

Fun at district meeting

Zone conference with my companion and her pioneer dress, so classy can't stand it!

Sisters in Nice

The PAWS!

27 January 2014

Woo I'm still in Nice!

I just want to start off by telling that my companion Soeur Bailey is absolutely insane. That kid is crazy! Never have I met anyone like her. First off she is from America so that explains a lot.. secondly, she is from New Mexico so that explains it even more. She even speaks New Mexican, which is english spoken in a spanish accent. One of the members here actually thought that she was speaking in an other language. I'm just going to tell a few things she's done so that you can understand who I have to live with.. So this one time my companion couldn't find her planner, we thought she's lost it for good. We were freaking out because we had a lot of lessons planned and new numbers of potential investigators in it. She was freaking out dramatically! She was depressed and went lying under the table, almost losing all hope. I followed her under the table and there we were and didn't know what to do with our lives. We said a prayer to find the planner. After her wanting to sink into the deepest depression.. we found the planner on her table..

One time she was talking to an Asian man and then they were waving their hands to say goodbye and then suddenly she just high-fived the guy. Not awkward. Oh and she falls all the time! Like no sense of gravity or balance in her head. One time she opened a peanutbutter can with her bare hands and got some legit warrior wounds on her hands. One day she bought a toy gun and surprise attacked Soeur Hodder by shooting at her. Yhen she bought a whisel. I do not know why. She also has this funny blue flowery grandma nightgown that she wears every night. So the fact is that she is going to be a princess one day so that is why she sometimes practises her performances to us.One night she sat on the floor in her nighty and sang the little mermaid. I know, she was born to be a disney princess.

Just this last Sunday she gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting and as she was walking up she stumbled on something and almost fell flat on the ground in front of everyone. Talk about princess-like elegancy! It was funny though. The newest thing is called the PAWS! She makes me put my hands in hers and lock them together and look each other in the eyes. That's how we build companionship unity! Oh and one time we happened to be in the middle of locking paws when the bishop of our ward walked pass and laughed wierdly at us. Definitely building confidence in us!

Everyday is and adventure with Soeur Bailey and I love it! I've really been blessed to see her face every single day for the past 7 weeks. She is an inspiration for me and her enthusiasm is admirable. She touches people's lives and help to uplift their faith. She is an one of a kind missionary!

One of the greatest experiences we've had together was our investigator's baptism. He had a date fixed for him but we were thinking about pushing it with a week. But when we sat down with him in the beginning of the week, we all felt that we should keep the original date.This meant we only had one week to prepare for the baptism. After a lot of organising, we made it! The baptismal service was beautiful and so full of the Spirit. I know that God prepared Nic (our investigator) to hear about the gospel and to accept it. Nic made a lot of changes in his life and they were not easy ones. I feel like mt life was blessed by having this opportunity to see Nic change for the better and see how the gospel blessed his life. Happiness shines from his face and his faith and hope for the future are clear. Nice is a city of miracles!

- Soeur N

P-Day!

Pics from Soeur N

I’m only halfway blue !!

Week  6

Bonjour !

We started the week with pretty cool miracles. We saw at least three people we had contacted earlier and never heard of them anymore.  I’ll tell about one of them, there is this cool girl from England, she’s just the sweetest thing ever! The first time we saw her we invited her to an activity at the church and she said she would come but she never did. I was a bit bummed about it because I wanted to know more about her. Didn’t think I’d ever see her. Me and my companion prayed about it and asked our Heavenly Father to let us meet her again. Weeks passed by and we kinda forgot about her. And on Monday as we were walking home I saw this funky girl walking on the other side of the street. Looked just like her!! I asked my comp if she agreed and next thing we know we are running like crazy after the girl, just caught her before she went inside her building. Miracle! This time we got her number and invited her to an Christmas activity. 

I’m only halfway blue !! (blue is what they call new missionaries and normally it would be greenie but in France they call us blue) Just one more transfer and I’m not a newbie anymore.  C’est a dire that  a new transfer just began today. I am staying in Nice and I got a new companion, Soeur Bailey. Soeur Howden ( my previous companion got called to Chalon, it’s cold up there hah) But for me it’s going to be Christmas in Nice. It doesn’t feel like Christmas though without snow and absolute insane coldness, but I kinda like it this way too. Not a fan of cold… 

 The 6^th of December was the independence day of Finland, I made little flags and hung them up on the wall. And I got my companion to sing the Finlandia hymn in finnish with me, she did a great job haha! Points for trying. 

We go running every morning, one day we decided to take a different route than usually. After a while we ran by a house, and ohh my word what a house, straight from creepyland. They have huge teddybears laid out on the lawn, sitting on chairs. And they have these stuffed toy animals hanging from trees and just all over the place. I need to take a picture, it’s so strange. 

The greatest miracle of the week happened on Sunday. We have been teaching this mother with three young daughters for a couple of weeks and invited them many times to attend church but they never came. Don’t really know why but I think the mother feels like she’s not perfect enough to come to church. But after we taught with a member present the member took action and invited them, and they came!! Even the teenage girls.  I know that attending church will help them progress and feel the love  that Heavenly Father has for them more in their lives. Greatness. 

Motivation quote for the week: I’ll go where  you want me to go dear Lord.

Bisous, Soeur N

Did You Think to Pray?

Bonjour!

To start the week off as awesome as ever I catched a cold and had my nose being the worst mucus waterfall in the world. So awkward having to blow my nose every 5 seconds in meetings or lessons. Oh well, it's good now.

On Tuesday we had a musical night with the ward. Four Elders in our mission travels around and comes to perform in the wards. All the missionaries performed a song together, there in eight missionaries in the Nice ward so it was cool. My companion performed with one of the musical Elders and they sang Have You Done Any Good Today? Super good!

We've only had a few lessons with investigators and visited inactive members. We have this one interesting investigator who is greek/romanian and speaks only greek, romanian, russian and a little french, italian and english. Soo there is a slight language barrier but he really wants to learn more about our message. He came to church one Sunday and afterwords I asked him if he understood much because everything was in french. He said he understood little n his head but everythingin his heart. i was very impressed. On friday we went to Monaco , my companion has her cousins living there and Soeur Howden'd dad gave her uncle an assignmet to get her arm checked by a proper doctor. Haha, still the same outcome. But this trip gave me a chance to talk to Soeur Howden's uncle a bit about having faith, whilst waiting in the waitingroom. Monaco was gorgeous and so sunny! We got lost at one point and found ourselves in an underground roundabout. No idea how we ended up there but we got out pretty quickly!

Our mailman decited to go on a strike so we didn't get letters for a week of so. He needs the gospel obviosly. Would lighten up his day. 

OK so french is not the easiest languagein the world so making mistakes is inevitable. One time in the tram I saw a girl with a cool cardigan and I said "J'aime votre chemin" which means "I love your way", oops I got the word 'chemin' and 'chemise' mixed up. Well I guess the girl understood what I meant. Last week when I was on exhange in Montpellier we went to the McDonald's and I felt super confident in ordering in french. Finally it's my turn to order and I say "Je voulu trois cheeseburger", at that moment I didn't realise I'd said "I wanted three cheeseburgers". Where did the past tense come from?! Anyway the guy who took my order understood, and I got my three cheeseburgers!

Motivation quote of the week: Did you think to pray? from the hymn Did You Think to Pray? Don't know why but this song was stuck in my head and reminded me often to pray.

Bisous, Soeur N

25 Nov. 2013

 25 Nov. 2013

Bonjour!

This week was crazy in many ways. We had zone conference and got to hear some really uplifting thoughts by our mission President and his daughter who recently came home from her mission. Our challenge was to be the Lord's favourite missionary. Like that's not already the case! JK... it was a good challenge. Working on it.

So my companion broke her arm last week after faceplanting on the ground like a pro... We spent a lot of time at health care centers. She finally got a sling after wearing scarves like a true fashionista. True champion!!

On Thursday we went on exchanges (switch companion for a day) to Montpellier. Funny thing was that we actually missed our train by maybe 30 seconds!! So we had to take a later one. We finally arrived to Montpellier and it was freezing cold compared to Nice. The exchange was great, I learned a lot about being a missionary.

We came back to Nice on Saturday and went straight to a lesson. Great lesson! I hope our investigator felt the need of acting. I'm feeling like something grat is going to happen. Can't wait to see what the Lord has in mind.

Motivation quote this week was: Will you not seek for my lost ones? from the hymn Dear to the heart of the Shephard.

Bisous, Soeur N

p.s. Two weeks left of my first transfer. WHAT THE WORD

On the same day we went to Monaco

Bonjour!

The week just passed by so quickly and here I am thinking what in the world did I even do during the week. We had a lot of lessons that we taught to people who are interested in our message. It is such an honour to meet these people and get to know them and their lives. What  they believe in and how they see the world, the meaning of life and the importance of the gospel!

On thursday morning we went jogging and my companion fell flat down on the asfalt because she did not see the chain on the ground. She injured her arm and can't use it. Which has given me a great opportunity to help her. On the same day we went to Monaco. Because Monaco has a law against proselytingwe had to take our tags off, which felt a bit weird. We visited Soeur Howden's cousins. Such a lovely family!

Sundays are the craziest days. We had three of our investigators to come to church. My companion almost went nuts trying to take care of everything. I was just like chill. Everything is fine. We had a good sacrament meeting, hah even though I don't understand much. It's all in french. I'm suprised how much I've learned in three weeks though.

Life is good. We got to experience a sick storm one night. Thunder and lightning all over the place. Was cool though. Oh and a flock of birds flew over us today and one had a great aim and hit my shoulder with poop. My companion laughed so hard and haha next thing she knows, she has bird poop on her hand. HAH!

A bientôt! Bisous, Soeur N

Some Pictures

Me and Soeur Howden

Elder Ihalmo and me

The scariest thing ever, but still very rewarding

Bonjour!

MTC is in the past!! Can't believe it's over. We all arrived safely to France and stayed in Lyon for a couple of days. They made us go do contacting almost immediately. The scariest thing ever, but still very rewarding. Scary, only because I don't understand everything in french and most certainly can not talk it. Me and Soeur Metsatahti decided to contact this one young man standing by himself. We started a very awkward conversation and tried to get to know his religious background and told him about the book of mormon. Suddenly this girl comes up and the man just grabbed the girl and they started making out wildly. Haha oh gosh we just started laughing and kinda ran away. The next day we got assigned our first area and companion. I am now in Nice and my companion is Soeur Howden. She is awesome and really patient when it comes to me being new and totally lost. Nice is absolutely gorgeous!! Oh là là, I will have to write more next week! 

Bisous,

Soeur N

Picture from MTC

Let the 18 Months Begin

The last little goldfish left today, so now all of them are doing the thing they are ment to. I hope they'll have the time of their lives. May they be safe! 

- Jasmi