An Experience that Changed Me

So I talked to my companion and she agreed to stop scheduling work on our P-days (preparation days) so we can actually rest from serious business. Hooray for real blog entries!! And hooray for hard-working companions who understand my need to wind down!! (She's Tahitian...it's so oxymoronic!) 

I also want to express my gratitude for all the wonderful birthday messages I received but not yet had the chance to respond to. I still love you!!

FACTS I LEARNED:

• Aix-les-Bains + Faverges = paradise

• Spaniards are just as bad as Italians when it comes to physical contact in conversation. Or maybe my American cultural bubble of personal space is bigger than normal. Comme même.

• Fact I keep being reminded of: I have the greatest family and friends. Ever. 

So I only have an hour of computer time each week now because I'm not willing to pay 5 euros for an hour and a half. Basically, I'll just quickly share an experience that changed me and hopefully will change some of your perspectives as well. 

I was on an exchange in grand Lyon last week and I had the chance to teach a Muslim man for the first time. He had told us he had snuck out of his house to hear our message because he can't let anyone find out he's learning about another religion. That's how dedicated this man was. As we dove into our lesson, we realized that we had to start at square one because this man didn't even know who Christ was or what He did. All he knew was that He was some kind of "prophet." So, as expected, we shared our testimonies. But I felt something very different this time. 

I felt gratitude beyond what I've ever felt before while teaching about the Atonement. What a crucial piece of knowledge it is to know that there is someone who loves you so much that He was willing to die for you to be able to return to live with God. How crucial it is to know that you can find happiness in your trials here in this life. 

We then went into the concept of prayer once we felt he understood who Christ was. He did not understand at all that prayer was a conversation between us and God and that we can communicate to him through the Spirit. He was incredulous for the entire lesson up until my companion and I prayed for him so that he could hear and feel what a real conversation with God was like. Immediately after, we asked him to try. 

I cry thinking about this. Never on my mission have I gotten the chance to hear someone talk to God for the first time and describe the feelings that they felt. How blessed I am to have seen that. How blessed I am to know about prayer and God's love for each of us. I encourage all of you who have all had the opportunity to utilize this blessing in your life to think about that when you are praying this week. I can't describe it really, but for me, I feel a new level of sincerity and peace. Que Dieu vous benisse, tout le monde. Je vous aime avec tout mon coeur.

Sœur Green

In Which I Make a List or Two...

For my blog this week I will make a list or two...

(But before I do that, THANKS FOR THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!!! I did not ask my mom to announce that....just sayin'.)

FACTS I LEARNED:

• Tahitians will look at you as if you are the diablo in the flesh if you squash an insect.

• There are Muslims in the world named Christian. 

• Italian men and women of all ages are the touchiest people I've ever met in my existence. They will make sure they are touching a part of you if you are engaged in a conversation with them. Everytime.

• Half-Cambodian children have awakened a dormant desire in my heart to adopt every ethnic child in the world.

~SPECIAL EDITION: FACE-PALMS OF THE WEEK~ (because they're too priceless not to report)

• During a lesson, our investigator looked us straight in the eye and said: "I do not believe in answers to prayers. I believe in....magic."

• That same person came across a great discovery in the middle of our lesson that I was a mormon who was baptized and my companion was too. 

• The closing prayer during Relief Society given by a recent convert (who I love so much): "Thank you, God, for the chance we had to go to....Oh, what's it called..." "The temple." "AH YES! The temple."

• During a RDV with an Evangelist: "This textbook I hold in my hand is the word of God."

And, of course, THE MIRACLES:

Okay, I'll be brief... 

Basically, my companion and I got the feeling we should pass by a less-active church member who lived quite a-ways away. We felt strongly enough that we cancelled a lesson we had to go to in order to see this woman. 

When we knocked on her door, she opened it and immediately started bawling. She told us that her son had died three days ago and that if we had tried to come any sooner, she wouldn't have let us in. She talked to us a bit and mentioned a few church members in the branch she remembered were really nice to her and she would like to go back to church to see them again. 

AND BEFORE WENT TO HER HOUSE, we were talking with one of the members she mentioned who told us if we ever had a less-active church member that needs help, just call her. God did this on purpose, folks.

I don't have time to write all my experiences, but I could go on for days probably. Know that God has the desire to work through you, even if you're not a missionary, EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT A CHURCH MEMBER.

I love you. I pray for you. You make me so happy :)

Sœur Green

How I Learned to Love Wearing Spiritual Lenses

My first day of work in Annecy was fit for a screenplay. It consisted of teaching a man garbed in American flags and British flag do-rag, talking a drunk woman down from committing suicide, dodging broken glass bottles, and me getting a fever that caused my nose to run like a faucet and my voice to sound like a chain smoker's through all of this. Missionary work will lead you to experience the strangest of things, and sometimes you have to step back and think, "God, did you do this to me on purpose?"

I am truly in love with this ville, our investigators, and our branch of 40 active members. My companion, Soeur Sovaleni, is magnificent (although sometimes my brain feels like it's going to melt from not being able to express any thoughts I'd like to say as eloquently as I'd like to). 

I am praying that I'll finally get to settle down. Traveling is nice when you're young, but I'm getting too old for that. I'm dreaming of an Annecy Christmas. Speaking of, our investigator with a baptismal date is a young man from the Congo. His name? Christ. You think I'm kidding.

FACTS I LEARNED:

• I eat like a Tahitian, according to my colleague.

• The easiest way to share the gospel with the man sitting next to you in a train station is to offer him a cookie from your travel stash.

• If you give a Moroccan businessman a cookie... chances are he'll tell you his life story without you having to say anything. You're welcome, future missionaries.

• Porting (knocking on doors) in Annecy can also be considered as simultaneously house shopping for you and possible husband + kiddies...if you're into that kind of stuff....  

• It is a bad idea to teach a guy with attention-deficit in a park. Why I didn't think of this before, I don't know.

One thing that my mission has truly helped me develop is a new perspective on other people. Today, we had a scheduled rendez-vous with a young man who was baptized several years ago who is less-active in the church. He is what you would call....how to I put this....a little obnoxious. He might have ADHD to give that personality a little more zest as well. Throughout our lesson, it was hard to keep his attention. After he refused to pray, he started grabbing my hands and writing on me (which I decoded as a form of European flirting) and telling me that he needs someone to read the Bible and play guitar with in the park every day. I never felt like I've wasted so much time with one person in my life. We sat there and testified and testified to only get these results. He told me at the end that I was really persistent about "all this."

You want to know why I was so persistent with him? Because he took upon him the name of Christ. He knew at one point in his life that these things were true. He knew that he is a son of God and that He loves and knows him personally. I'm persistent because I can see that in him. I can see that in a lot of people who deny it. It comes with being His representative. Missionaries are given an extra dose of patience and love because they need to see everyone as they can become. This boy noted that the missionaries weren't fazed by his behavior and still wanted to help. It's a real thing. 

I am so grateful for the people I get to teach and those I meet contacting. Through their discouraging comments and rejections, my testimony still grows; because I can see that God still loves them. I hope that more members of the church, especially RMs, can keep these special lenses on. It's a defining quality that people DO notice.

I love you. I pray for you. Your support is, as always, appreciated :)

Sœur Green

P.S. This is an excerpt from the letter we just received from Danielle.  I wanted to share it with everyone... Kim

"It's incredible how much I've seen and how much I've learned in such a short period of time. God is blessing me with a quick growth spurt. I can tell you that the mission wrings out every drop of faith you have. 

Before my mission, I thought I had a solid testimony and a good understanding of gospel principles... But in hindsight, I wouldn't call what I had "real faith", because I never really had to exercise it. Now I know for myself what is truly the most important and what I should be working on each and every day. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I could never repay those who are supporting me financially to be here. 

I have no idea how horrible my life would be if I hadn't have come here. Yes, horrible. I would be blind to so many of the blessings that God has given me. In other words, I would be stuck in ignorance that I'm not even aware of because I didn't have these experience to teach me."

How I Learned to Love the 'O' Word

AHHH!!! Alas, I have been sent to a far away land once again. I am currently residing in the city of Annecy, a tiny village in the Swiss Alps by a beautiful lake that inspired the artists of "Beauty and the Beast" (this is actually true). 

It gets better... My new companion is a 29 year-old Tahitian that doesn't speak a lick of English. God did this to me so I can do exchanges in the Spanish ward in Geneva, Switzerland, I'm convinced. My French has already improved in the last 24 hours, but I must say that my neurons are burning out a lot quicker than they normally do...

Leaving Bordeaux was hard, but coming to Annecy made it easy to get over pretty quickly. 

FACTS I LEARNED:

• Getting left in a city all alone and having to ask strangers to use their phone so you can tell someone where you are is not as fun as you'd think it'd be.

• French people are extremely protective of their phones. You'd think I was a leper asking to cuddle with them......

• The things I say in English are funny. The things I say translated into French offend people.

• God blesses me too much. But, I won't ask Him questions.

Oh la. Optimism has been something that I struggle with for my entire existence. In fact, I used to cringe when people would say the word around me because I knew it was something that I should have but don't. 

Optimism. Why is it so easy to shrug that off? There's a scripture I love in 2 Nephi that I would give you the exact reference for if my English Book of Mormon was on me, but I'll summarize. It says something along the lines of being of good cheer because the Lord has and will continually bless you; it is your choice to accept the good things or focus on your trials. I have a strong testimony of this. 

What can all of you do to become more optimistic? What are some things we tend to focus on because it gives us an excuse to complain, when in reality we should be thanking the big guy upstairs for being patient with us until we notice how much He has blessed us? Consciously note the thoughts you have and things you say this week. replace the negative with the positive and see how beautiful your life already is.

I think the thing I will work on this week is patience haha. Always room for improvement. Sorry for cracking down on you folks. I love you comme même. I actually have been thinking more often about how many wonderful people I have back home supporting me in this. I love you and thank God for you every day. Thank you.

Sœur Green 

How I Learned to Love "Suffering with Patience"

If I can be frank with you wonderful people, I feel as though a semi has driven over me, backed up, and then parked itself on top of my mangled corpse. Picture this for a moment.

This week was a wonderful chain of no-show appointments, awkward lessons with the people that actually did meet with us, and debilitating fevers. My companion and I stood in a baptismal font and scrubbed it down for a hour and a half with really strong chemicals and with no windows open, so I guess we were asking for it, haha. 

The miracles were still there though, despite the digging we had to do to find them. Aline, the one who dropped us temporarily, has re-fixed a baptismal date!! And Lorena is progressing quicker than she used to. They both have baptismal dates for the 28 this month (best birthday present ever!). Thank you so much for your prayers. They mean the world to me!

FACTS I LEARNED:

• Muslims deserve a change in their sub-percentage I gave them earlier. 8% are truly polite and respectful of our beliefs, even if they aren't interested, the other 2% just kind of look at us like they can shoot lasers from their eyeballs. Either way, I actively seek them out now.

• Mussels look like angry Pac-men and taste like salt water :) miam miam!

• Scrubbing a baptismal font in a skirt will make you feel like the main character in "Spirited Away". I apologize if you aren't familiar with the awesome movie I am referring to.

• If you contact a man from Punjab that is grandkid-hungry, chances are he'll invite you to his house to meet his two sons....that live next door to us.....

While I was flipping through the Book of Mormon during personal study one morning looking for scriptures to share with our investigators, I happened upon several that fell into the same theme. I swear, on every page I turned to, there was a verse I had highlighted before that said something along the lines of, "be patient in thy afflictions and the Lord will send blessings." 

God is obviously not subtle when He wants me to change my behavior, I suppose. I have a confession: this perfect missionary has trouble with patience (good thing I've been working on humility). 

When I ask God for answers to my questions about what I should do or help with something that seems really hard at that moment, I realize that it's kind of an empty-headed thing to do... demanding God for all these things and not considering the reasons WHY you're in the situation you are or that you're in the process of learning the things you're confused about. I only have a glimpse at what He sees.

Patience. I think that word is beautiful, both in English and French. 

I feel like that little kid at Disney World that has to wait in line for an hour to get on the tea cups. An hour to an adult (which is what I'm supposed to be) is like an eternity in child years. And right now, I feel like I've been waiting an eternity for the light at the end of the tunnel. But paaaatience. I have to remind myself of that. God is seeing how far He can stretch my impatient self with these investigators that keep pushing their date back and others who tell us they can't see us. Patience. That's my two-cents for the week.

Keep being the amazing people you are, especially those of you who are already patient. You are wonderful examples to me. 

Je vais envoyer plusiers bisous à vous cette semaine. Merci, vraiment!

Sœur Green

How I Learned to Love the Moments in Gethsemane

Besides the miracle that we survived to the end of last week, we actually found someone who wanted to listen to us! Two, in fact. The first is Maria the Bulgarian Atheist and the other is Shahood the Syrian Business Man (Don't they sound like awesome comic strip characters?). Both come from Muslim backgrounds, how cool is that? We've only had luck getting rendez-vous's with Maria, but God is truly blessing us for talking to everyone, regardless of what background they come from. Lorena is starting to get the baptism jitters and wants to push her baptismal date back, but the ward is a really great support system and she loves the principles of the gospel. Thank you so much for your prayers, everyone. Even when this work gets really discouraging at times, your support makes it possible.

FACTS I LEARNED:

• Spaniards can't figure out why this translucent white girl is talking to them in their native tongue, so they assume that I must be from Portugal because it's not Spain, but close enough for the people to still know how to speak it. I can't fit anywhere guys. The French think I'm a German and the Spaniards know I'm not from Spain and start spitting Portuguese words out at me. It's an ugly duckling situation, folks.

• My patriotism comes out if an only if someone that's not American starts cracking down on my country. You don't see me pointing out the faults in their government and culture. Simmer down, people. I mean, frick.

• There is a pastry here called "pistol" and it's basically a soft pretzel with chocolate chips and it's a little doughier. And I discovered its existence........

This week, all I want to share is an excerpt from a discourse given by Jeffery R. Holland that was shown to us at our last Zone Conference:

"Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have the occasion to ask, why is this so hard? Why doesn't it go better? Why can't our success be more rapid? Why aren't more people joining the church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don't people just flock to the font? Why isn't the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

"You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer you my personal feeling. I am concerned that missionary work is not easy because SALVATION IS NOT A CHEAP EXPERIENCE. Salvation was never easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend a few moments in Gethsemane...to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

"Now, please don't misunderstand. I am not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That should be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries AND investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price...If you wonder if there is an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there was an easier way...When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand TALL and GRATEFUL that the LIVING SON OF THE LIVING GOD KNOWS ALL ABOUT YOUR SORROWS AND AFFLICTIONS."

This week, I was given the occasion to ask these questions. On an exchange, I had to train a 19 year-old Dutch girl who has only been in France for 3 weeks (By the way, I am still learning my way around massive Bordeaux). It was one of the hardest days I have ever experienced. I had taught three lessons that day and asked 20 different people for directions because the map looked like cave writing. BUT I DID IT.  

I laid in bed that night feeling as if my chest were going to collapse because my heart was constricted from stress that entire day. And then I remembered what this Apostle said, and I was immediately filled with gratitude. The difficult things thrown my way is God giving me a chance to better understand the Atonement, to spend a few moments trying to understand what my Savior went through. I love this work. I can't fully explain what you go through as a missionary, but it's the best thing I know I can be doing with my life.

Thank you so much to everyone who continues to support me, especially all my family members and the ward in Saratoga Springs who made it fiscally possible for me to come here and put on my big girl pants. 

All I can say is: Te amo con todos mi alma. Everything sounds more dramatic and beautiful in Spanish.

Je vous aime (see? not the same.), 

Sœur Green

How I Learned to Love Being Honest

Sœur Gardner and Me

Rough week. We only saw Lorena once (and she is loving life, thank you for your prayers) AND WENT CONTACTING. Have I ever provided you with a percentage of what people believe here in France? On a day where we contact say, 130 people, 60% will be absolute atheists that tell us we're wasting our time and "we'd have better luck talking to pigeons", 20% Non-practicing Catholic that tell us Jesus was a Catholic and we're blasphemous, 10% Muslim (sub-percentage 3% really kind and willing to take a pass-along card, 7% angry for no reason), 7% Buddhists, 2.9% kind but not interested, .1% willing to give us their phone number.  

There is good news to all this, however. I finally got to meet the Das family from Bangladesh that Sœur Gardner and her companion started teaching before I came here. They are wonderful people and their English accents are so adorable. Lorena and this young family have an interest in what we have to offer. They're GOLDEN. Thank you so much for your prayers. They are truly showing in this work. We are not giving up on Aline, either. She means so much to us.

FACTS I LEARNED:

• 40 year old hipster Icelandic men think Mormons are "hip". True story, folks.

• According to my companion, the reason I don't get hit on as often as the other sisters is because I have a boy back home praying that I'll stay with him. Ethan, stop worrying. Your prayers are killing my ego!!

• We may not have a cockroach problem here, but thanks to the river by my house, I wake up with a couple new mosquito bites on my legs and feet every day. I have to cover my feet when I sleep in the blazing summer heat in a country that doesn't believe in air conditioning, or I get eaten alive!! (This isn't even a reference to "The Other Side of Heaven". I'm serious.) 

For some reason I was able to act more comfortably at Zone Conference this go around, despite how nervous I was to have an interview with president. I guess my mind decided to shut off all the stress that's been building up and I could be more of myself around this huge group of people. I noticed that I was laughing and enjoying myself a lot more than usual, and everyone else noticed as well and asked me if I was okay. 

Despite how sad it is that people thought I was naturally emotionless, I loved that I was able to stop pretending to be the missionary I imagined my mission president wants me to be (which turned out to be wrong, because he even told my companion it was good to see me having human contact). I don't know what caused the change, but I all know is that I'm glad it happened. 

Moral of the story: be honest with yourself (*queue 80's motivational video music*) FIST PUMP!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: either you will be given something to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."

-Anonymous

iMuchas gracias por su amor! I pray for all you as well, not just the French/Bengali people.

Sœur Green

P.S. May I toot my own horn for just a moment? In my interview with my mission president, he shared with me his absurd claim that I was learning the language at an accelerated pace and that I should consider picking up a second language a*k*a Spanish because we need more missionaries to talk to all these Spaniards. And with that, I was given the green light to add Spanish to my scheduled studies. So, if ANY of you know Spanish and want to practice with me so I can start preachin' the way by the border, necessita su ayuda, por favor :) Please write me if you'd like y que tenga un buen dia!