An Instrument in His Hands

October 6, 2014

Salut la Famille!!

So, this past week was pretty cool.

Tuesday, we went and saw the Swanepoel's for Elder Smith to be able to get a picture and say good bye before he parted for Tours. They fed us a DELICIOUS lunch!! Seriously, it was so good. And I guess now I like butternut squash. Georgette made some...and it was SUPER great! We reviewed the Plan du Salut with them. They remembered it pretty well.

Wednesday, the Fitt couple picked us up around 7 and we went and dropped Elder Smith off at the gare. I then hung out with the Fitt's all day until my comp showed up. Sister Fitt made Pancakes for breakfast, she made around 15-20 pancakes. She at two, Elder Fitt at three...and they had me eat all the rest. We then went to the Church to help a lady clean the church. We got it done in an hour and 15 minutes, verses the 3 hours it would have taken her if she tried by herself. The Fitt's and I then went to a place called Celle-Sur-Bel which is east of Niort, to visit an ami. We taught him the first part of the Plan of Salvation, it went very well.

Elder Godfrey got in to La Rochelle around 15h30. We then took his stuff to the apartment and dropped it off, then went out contacting. Elder Godfrey had some incredible energy coming into La Rochelle. We contacted this old lady named Christian and shared some of the Restoration with her, then prayed with her. She didn't really want to learn more, though. But she did keep saying, "there's something different about you two. You're not like the rest of the youth. Your face just glows." It was a cool tender mercy to have met her. I hope we will have the opportunity to cross paths again.

Thursday, we taught our ami Mehdi. We talked about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read, he accepted. We gave him a baptismal date and he accepted as well. I really am so grateful for the opportunity that I've had to teach Mehdi. He is very sincere in his demarche to learn about the restored gospel. He came to General Conference this Sunday, many of his concerns were resolved in listening to the apostles and Prophet, as well as talking to the members of the ward. Mehdi definitely has been prepared.

We also taught the Less Active Mehdi. We talked about how he felt when he was at church. And we shared Helaman 5:12. It was a pretty great discussion. Mehdi is definitely coming back to church, every sunday he can.

Sunday was pretty great. So, for the schedule on General Conference, Saturday evening at 6 PM we watch the Saturday Morning Session live. Then Sunday Morning at 11, we watch the Priesthood session. 14h00 we watch Saturday Afternoon, then at 18h00 we watch the Sunday Morning session live. Then we are to fend for ourselves to watch the Sunday evening session.

Generale Conference was really cool this year. I saw Sister Potter, Sister and Brother Jensen, Tori Fawson, Breanna Eyre, Brother Dangerfield, my freshman photography teacher (Sister Autry), my calculus teacher (Brother Mouritsen), Sister Christensen (Anna's mom), Brother Bradfield, an old Swim coach (Kevin), Bishop, and you two!! Wow. And I have forgotten some others as well...but that was so cool to see you all on the télé!

I feel like General Conference just gets better and better each time. This time I really felt like the emphasis was on personal spirituality/testimony. It was a super great conference and afterwards, Elder Godfrey and I felt the spiritual power that came from it. As we worked for the last hour of the day, we were blessed.

We saw a guy in the street and contacted him. We were both overcome by the Spirit and were compelled to testify. The Spirit really took over, and we were as an instrument in His hands. We testified how He would have had us. Our contact wasn't too interested though. We both felt super great after that contact nonetheless. Because we had done our best. It was a really spiritual contact. Every contact should be like that.

We then started porting. We decided to just knock on the doors with lights on inside, since it was 20h00. We ended up frapping the port of a 19 year old Catholic, studying in La Rochelle. He let us in to show him how we pray and then to show us how he prays. We explained to him how we pray and then prayed. After he thanked us and said that was really cool. He then explained how catholics pray and then proceeded to recite 'Our Father in Heaven' and then did Mary's prayer (which is sung). It was really interesting. I am grateful for our knowledge of continued revelation though. I'm very glad I can express myself when I pray.

Well, I love you all! Thank you for the recipes!! :)

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson