Lift Up Your Voices

December 22, 2014

Hello Family!

This past week went by pretty well. Not too much happened, but some great stuff did happen, nevertheless.

Wednesday, we had a rendez-vous with an old French guy named André. I don't know if I told you about him. He came to the ward Christmas party a while ago, because he received an invitation mysteriously. He liked the party so much that he decided to come to church the next day. Well, we fixed a rendez-vous with him and had it this past Wednesday, with the DMP, Frère Tréhet. It went very well, we talked about the Book of Mormon and engaged him to read it. After the rdv, Frère Tréhet took us to his house to eat with him and his wife. It was super delicious.

Thursday was the Christmas conference. It was super great! Elder Texiera is a super fun speaker. He also apparently loves to tell stories, as, he kept saying "You want to hear a story?" or "Do you like stories? Hears another story." He talked about many different things, notamment of how to let our amis clearly understand why we are there teaching them. His version of "How to Begin Teaching" really clarified things and showed me how to properly do establish expectations. It was really cool.

Saturday we met with Kouassi again, this time it was chez-lui with his Uncle. We applied the new "How to Begin Teaching" and then taught the Restoration and Book of Mormon. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it, they accepted the invitation. We'll be seeing them hopefully after this week. :) It was a pretty cool rdv. The spirit was super strong during the 1st vision and while we bore our testimonies of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was pretty cool as well. Sunday night we set out to go porting. As we started getting to where we had planned to port, we saw a guy on the other side of the street, who was looking at us, so we said "Bonsoir". He stopped and asked if we were English. We then told him that we're from the U.S. and gave him a card that had the website for the "He is the Gift" video. He then told us that he believes in Christ but that the way he lives doesn't reflect his beliefs. So we testified of the power of the Atonement. We then asked if we could pray with him, so we did. The spirit was so strong. After the prayer we asked if we could share with him the unique message, he accepted and we set up a rendez-vous. It was a pretty cool experience.

The Spirit will guide us and fill our mouths with words. There is no need to have fear of what to say. "Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men; For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say."

I love you all!! :) Have a great week! Joyeux Noël

-Elder B. Stanton Wilson

For skype, I'll probably be skyping sometime between 3 or 4 P.M. relative to the time here in France.

As for the package and the letter, I got them both. But I didn't know that was the Christmas package, so I already opened it...but I haven't eaten the Reese's yet! :p sorry.

I love you!