A Trip to Strasbourg

January 19, 2015

Hello Family!

Wow, sounds like the TJ's (JW's) are trying too hard! Ha I'm super impressed by the way you handled that, Mom. Also, just for fun, there are scriptures in the New Testament that talk about how Christ, after his death of the cross, went and preached to the dead. 1 Peter 3:18-22. There is actually tons of doctrine in these few verses.

This week went by pretty well. Remember those 10 rendez-vous we had set up? We ended up only seeing three of the people. But they were super great lessons. I feel like this week was a great success. We did our best and made the best out of every situation.

We finally saw Yannick again, after a couple months. He is doing super well. He wanted to know our viewpoints on the whole Charlie Hebdo stuff that happened, so we quickly referred to the plan of Salvation. Yannick loved the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was so strong, we invited him to baptism. He declined because he doesn't think he's good enough, and because apparently he's been baptized "republican" (I didn't know we could be baptized into a politcal party...ha) but we reassured him that he is good enough and talked about authority. He said that he would pray about it. After the rendez-vous he kind of asked about temples and wanted to learn more about them, so we said we'd teach him more about temples next time.

Another ami we saw is called Flori. He is from the Congo. (Nzambe a pombo la yo! Lingala for "God bless you.") We taught him for the first time. We gave him a very brief outline of the missionary lessons and then taught him about prayer. The spirit was so strong that we invited him to baptism. He accepted and then asked a couple questions. He told us that he could come to church this week because he'd be in Paris, but that he really wants to come. We set up another time to see him and we'll be seeing him this week.

Friday, I finally had the opportunity to go to the East side of France. Elder Davis started his 2nd year legality there...but never received his Titre de Séjour, so we got to go to Strasbourg to go pick up his Titre de Séjour. While there, we were invited to go to a Soirée Familial with the Jeunes Adulte (JA's, pronounce "gee-ah"s). Elder Nicholson (one of the Elders with whom I was at the MTC) gave a super splendid spiritual thought on Jeffery R. Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon. After which we ate some food and played a couple games. The game we played was called "Big-Booty". I'll have to teach you how to play it. It's pretty fun. :) We also played BANG!

This past week was also very serendipitous. It seemed as if every where we went, while we were in Le Mans, we saw either one of our amis, or a member of the church. It was really cool. Sadly, each time either us or they had some where specific to be.

Sunday night we had the occasion to eat with a member and her less active son. Soeur Lecourt invited us over to come and eat with her and try to help her 16 year old son. We talked with Tristan, her son, while she cooked and got to know him a bit. We had prepared a spiritual thought on Prayer, but while talking with him, we felt prompted to talk about the Atonement. We shared with them Alma 7:11-13. I encourage you, as a family, to read it together and to discuss what it means to you individually. (Family Home Evening idea?) The spirit was really strong as we testified about the Atonement of Christ and shared the reasons for which we are on our missions.

I love this Gospel. I know it is true and is the Gospel which Christ preached while He was on the Earth. I know that through Him, we can be cleansed of our sins. I love Him and I love our Heavenly Father.

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

P.s. Could you send me Shelby's email? :) ha I'm glad to hear that Ky's doing better, and also I hope that Skyler gets better soon.