Hello all you wonderful human
beings. This week has been an adventure for sure.
Training a blue is wonderful
and challenging. I know that I can help him become a great missionary though,
because we were assigned to each other through revelation and the Lord will
give me the capacities to meet my new calling. You know how some missionaries'
goal is to become AP? My goal is to train a future AP.
Elder Harris, my blue, is a
really good guy. I love him. His French is excellent for someone this new, and
he's got a huge desire to learn more of it. He's also a fearless street
contacter. It's great. We have lots on common. He is the 3rd of 5 children, he
does park skiing like me, and he's got a desire to work hard and see great
things.
I prayed much for us to have a
great spiritual experience to help start Elder Harris into his mission with a
love for the work. It happened. Remember Helder, the miracle find from months
ago? We were finally able to see him again! We had a PERFECT rendez-vous, not
because we were perfect or said anything incredible, but because the Spirit was
so strong. He has a huge desire to change his life. It's amazing. He accepted
to read the Book of Mormon and pray to see if it's true, and he even came to
church! He liked it and got to tie a friendship with some members there,
including some who speak his native language of Portuguese
. Anyway, after the
RDV, Elder Harris and I just couldn't stop talking about what an incredible
lesson it was. We were on a spiritual high for the whole next day. Prayer
answered.
Okay, now let me tell you about
the Belair family. They were found by Elder Wheatley while he was on an
exchange, through some inspired tracting. They were legitimately led by the
Spirit straight to this random apartment building, felt like they should start
knocking on the top floor instead of the bottom, and found her on the fourth
door they knocked. Sister Belair is a less-active who stopped coming to church
due to an illness, never made it back, and somehow got lost from the ward
directory. She let them in right away, we've been teaching her, and she came to
church last week too! First time in years and years. It was a great Sunday
yesterday, sitting there in between Helder and Simone Belair as they experienced
a (re)exposure to the Spirit that is present in sacrament meeting.
We finally got to see Christian again! It required playing
soccer with him and his buddies for a whole morning so we could talk to him
after, but I won't complain. He told us a lot about his life that I didn't
know, a lot of which is too personal to share over email, but suffice it to say
that 1) He has so so much faith, and 2) He thinks his parents would be okay
with him being baptized! It worked! The letters and prayers and rendez-vous
beside soccer fields and his consistent desire to attend church has finally won
them over. He would like to set a baptismal date for after school is over, so
he won't be as stressed about the massive exam French people have to take. But
I'm okay with it. A July baptism is a baptism.
Other than that, I've just been
showing a jet-lagged and confused blue the wonders of mission life in Paris
France. We've taught some great lessons that I will never have time to talk
about in fullness, but we've experienced lots of joy and adventure together
already. And we've only gotten lost once.
Much love!
Elder Stanford
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