Deux Missions Françaises : 6 Reasons why I have mixed emotions about boys (Katie-Toul)

Hey errbody: So here's a little twist on the normal email...something that really affected my week (fyi: all of these stories are about our men amis...that's the point ;) )

6 Reasons why I have mixed emotions about boys, and why I'm convinced I'll never understand them:

1. They don't ever listen. Loic is so sad all of the time! Angélique doesn't want to see him right now, and he is just so depressed. We tell him it's his choice. We tell him God loves him. We tell him the Gospel will help if he just makes an effort. We had an fhe with him last Monday, and the whole time he just refused to agree with anything we said. So we've decided to be as patient as we can...ahem. Or until he listens anyway.

2. They are so willing. We had a miracle this week. The first week that me and Soeur Johns were together, two men contacted us (we aren't allowed to contact men). The one just wanted to flirt; the other was sincerely interested in our message, but had no address or phone number. Kiiiiiiiinda sketchy. But then, just last Sunday, he called us on his new phone and said he wanted to meet. So we did, and he is SO READY. His name is Slauco (sl - ow - coh) and is from Romania. He has been searching literally his entire life for the true church. He has every brochure you can come up with from every religion that exists. He even had a BoM (not sure how) but has never met the missionaries before us. He is so willing to act, and so sincere in everything he does and says. Pray for him. When we showed him the baptismal font after church on Sunday, he asked if he could get baptized next week. We said no, but figured in about two weeks should be okay. :D

3. They lie. One of our amis lied to us TWICE in one phone call this week, just to get out of seeing us. Offended? A little. The worst was that we caught him, and he never even apologized. Then another of our amis fixed two rendezvous with us, but then wasn't there for either of them. Agh.

4. They love so easily. We had our last zone conference with Président and Soeur Poznanski this week in Paris. He is SUCH a good man, and loves each of us so individually, and so much. I will miss them. Him. I feel so loved every time I'm around both of them (or either of them, actually). We even got to HUG him (against the rules) and soeur Poz. I feel so blessed to have been able to spend half of my mission serving under them, feeling their love and their testimonies strengthen mine. Also, one of our amis, Louis (who celebrated my birthday) almost started crying when I told him I might be leaving in two weeks. I don't know what I did to deserve his love and respect, but somehow he loves me.

5. They tell us we're boring. Not even kidding. One of our amis, the son of a recent convert, told us that we bore him, and that life bores him, and that nothing we could possibly say or show him could ever change his mind. Talk about heart broken...:/ The worst part is that two DIFFERENT amis told us the same thing. Should we change our teaching methods?? Awkward.

6. They have such fire. Remember the story I told you about Christophe from last week at church? So he wasn't able to come to church because of work this week, but he apologized and apologized and apologized (wouldn't stop apologizing) and then fixed a rdv and said that he would be there next week! It was nice to know that he cares :) But "fire" isn't always a good thing. Another ami came out to greet us in his underwear. Okay, it's hot, but that isn't an excuse for you to take off all your clothes! We're missionaries for crying out loud (literally, Soeur Johns cried out loud).

Basically, it was a good, weird week. I love being a missionary, even if, even as missionaries, boys play with our minds. Silly boys.

Gros bisous!

Soeur Pettingill