Insanity

July 28, 2014

Hello Family! :)

This week was...pretty great. Yes, it was another finding week (c'est la vie comme missionnaire en France) BUT it was more than that. This week was a week of miracles.

It started on Tuesday with District meeting. We have a BOSS district leader, Elder Louis. And at this meeting, some things he said really stuck out to me and hit me hard. The main thing that kept playing back in my mind was the definition of insanity (one of the things that stuck out to me during his District meeting). Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Another thing that has come is LARC-ing (working with Less Active/Recent Convert members). At the beginning of the transfer, the Zone leaders talked to us about larc-ing. Another thing that was in my mind was finding. Is the way that we went out finding efficient? Is there something we can do to improve?

And then another thing was in my mind. Elder Louis talked about when he did less-active work and it reminded me of Cergy and the success we saw from doing our less active hunts.

And as I was thinking about all of this, Elder Louis had my inspired to do a less active hunt in La Rochelle. Just because the transportation here isn't the best doesn't mean we can't work with the active and less active members that are in our reach.

So Elder Smith and I made a list of all the members (active and less active) in La Rochelle, and we bought a new map of La Rochelle to make different zones to group the members. We have 6 zones in La Rochelle. Then we started to pass them all by, contacting on the way.

We weren't able to find too many less actives, but we did find one new ami this week. But that's not all. I now have a testimony that Heavenly Father blesses us as we make efforts to work harder and more efficiently. These other miracles came about because we made efforts to go the extra mile:

First, Raphael. We taught him again this week. And we weren't too sure how to help him with his smoking problem, so this is what we did. We set a date with him for him to stop smoking. And he committed to the date!! He's already been making more progress to quit smoking. And I know that as long as we continue to pray for him, keep daily contact with him, he will be able to quit smoking by the 4 of August.

Next miracle was with Christian. We set up a rdv to come over and continue the new member lessons with him. When we got there, we asked how he was doing and he said he wasn't doing well. He told us he hadn't felt the spirit for the past week, and that when he reads in the D&C, he becomes almost critical of it, so he asked us for a Priesthood blessing. We gave him a priesthood blessing. A couple days after it was his birthday so we called him and left him a message, wishing him a happy birthday. He sent us a text back thanking for the blessing, and told us that he is doing so much better now, thanks to the blessing.

And the last huge miracle is with the Swanepoel family. We were supposed to meet with them Tuesday but weren't able to because Bokke passed out and had to go to the hospital to make sure everything was fine. He was in the hospital until about Saturday, and we were able to go see them on Sunday thanks to the Fitt Couple. The Fitt's went to their town on Saturday to do some less active work and to pass by the Swanepoel's. He talked to them to see if it would be possible for us to come the next day to teach them and also give Bokke a blessing, and they said that would be possible. So we went to their house Sunday afternoon and taught them. We did some How to Begin Teaching (basically a get to know you, get to know the missionaries, and set expectations and find out their expections). Usually when we do HTBT, we extend a baptismal invite. Bokke accepted right away but his wife, Georget, said she was already baptized. We then talked about Authority right there and then she said "well, I can get baptized again." And then we committed them to a baptismal date. It was very miraculous. I was freaking out so much inside from all the excitement! And then we ended in giving Bokke a blessing of healing, which he was very grateful for.

I'm so blessed to be out here to see all these miracles. And I know that this week, these miracles came as a result from us showing our faith to stop doing the same things over again. I'm sorry if this is rather confusing, but it makes sense to me. :) Good luck!

Thank you so much for the package! I loved receiving it. :) It was a nice surprise, as I didn't know you had already sent it!

I love you all so much! I hope all is going well. :)

Stay fly!

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson