Deux Missions Françaises : L'espérance est l'ancre de notre âme (Hope is the anchor of our souls) (Katie-Toul)

Ah man. Guess what? The first day of spring happened this week, and now it keeps raining.

BUT that's okay. No, we still don't have a car, but that's okay! Everything is going to be okay. Hopefully by tomorrow, but who knows these days. Actually, speaking of cars that work, we had it for about 5 hours on Tuesday! I'll play it out for you simply and shorter than a novel.

We have a rendezvous in a ville (town) 2 hours away in a few hours and the member who was going to take us can no longer. So. Let's pray that we have a way to go! Nothing. And we keep thinking, oh maybe we should cancel the rdv...but then the Spirit says, no, just wait. So we do. And then we get a call that our car is almost ready! And then they throw me in the drivers seat and say, "Okay, drive!" So yeah, I learned how to drive a manual this week. But we made it! Barely. The lesson, however, was completely worth it. His name is Steven (he is an ancien ami (previous investigator) of the Elders from before us), and he has a wife and 2 kids. We watched the JS movie, and he had tons of questions and is super interested in the way we do our prayers, AND he is going to be in Nancy next week, so we can see him there instead. Such a good lesson. It was a miracle getting home, too, because the gear box was having a little bit of trouble. Down-shifting was practically non-existent. We made it home a little late, but alive! And happy. The next morning we went to take it back to the garage, and it wouldn't even shift into first. So yes, we still don't have a car. :)

However, we have been having some awesome lessons with our friend Nathalie. She enjoys being a coiffeuse (hair dresser) and long walks on the beach. And also, she is SO curious about why we would need to be baptized twice, and just keeps having more and more wonderful questions. I used to be nervous about answering questions, but now it's kinda fun. Why yes, we do have an answer to that. I love it! She couldn't come to church this Sunday, but somebody else could...that's right, Christopher came! If you remember, he is the son of the recent convert here. He is super smart and speaks like a billion languages. And he came to church. He said he liked it too, so now we just need to get him reading the Book of Mormon regularly.

On a different, but still super fun, note, we had a zone conference in Paris this week. It was with 4 zones, and we had formations (training) by President and femme (wife), the APs, the ZLs and the STLs. It was such a good day. I got to see some of my favorite people in the whole world, AND I got to learn all about how we are starting this new thing (similar to what we did at Christmas time) for Easter. It's fun, and as a result I have been studying the resurrection more deeply (that's our message for people right now). I actually was studying hope, and while reading in Moroni 7, I noticed that he talks about how Christ's Atonement and the power of the resurrection are what ultimately bring us hope in this world. How cool is that? The biggest part of our message brings us the most hope in our lives. Hope helps us endure. Hope strengthens our faith. Hope helps us become the most Christ-like because it gives us a reason to BE Christ-like. I also love reading about how hope is the anchor of our soul. It is steady and sure. It is hope that keeps us from straying from where we want to be. Even just studying about hope has given me more of it. So many wise things in the scriptures! I just love 'em.

Oh gosh, I have to tell you about yesterday. We had the Tahitians take over our Sacrament meeting. Of course, it's pretty easy for one family to take over our Sacrament meeting because there aren't that many members there in the first place...but this particular time, our Tahitian family (that just got sealed in the temple) had their extended family there again for some reason. And one of the sisters of Kaleo (the dad) gave a talk. I thought it was really funny that she gave a talk when she isn't even in our branch...bah. But anyway, at the end of the talk, she and her whole family went up and sang this BEAUTIFUL song Tahitian style. Music is one of my very favorite ways of feeling the spirit, and the spirit was especially strong during this song. Let's just say there weren't too many dry eyes when it was over. The song they sang was titled, "3 Néphi 27:27" and the chorus was two lines over and over. "Quel sorte d'homme? Oui, tel que je suis." (What sort of man? Yes, as I am.) Perfection.

Well, besides the fact that we walked and walked and walked everywhere this week, I have nothing else to tell you, except that the Gospel is so true. I felt the presence of the Lord especially strong this week. I have never so personally and so strongly felt His hand in MY life. I love it, and I love testifying of it.

And I love you all! Gros bisous (fat kisses)!
Soeur Pettingill