Ah man, He loves us (Katie-Toul)

Hey everybody :)

What. A. Week. Contrary to most weeks, this one felt...not long, but full. Full of miracles, and happenings, and just STUFF. I'm actually not really sure. But one thing this week absolutely taught me was that Heavenly Father loves us, and that no matter how inadequate or incompetent or whatever we feel, He still loves us. Because that's what dads do, am I right? 

Soeur Johns and I literally felt the strength of all your prayers. I've never felt the power of prayer so absolutely in my life...and it was only after I found out how many people had been praying for us that I even realized it. So thank you :) I saw a lot of beautiful things this week...one is this amazing less-active family in our ward. They are less-active because of a car accident that happened 5 years ago, and they are also fairly aged. Haha, BUT one thing cool about them is that he was actually the first bishop in France. Yep, the very first. Never thought I would get the occasion to actually meet him...but they're so great. They invited us over to eat, fed us an entire -- VERY FRENCH -- 7 course meal where I thought I was going to throw up after, AND invited their less-active son and his non-member wife. Yep. They are superstars. Pray for Annie's health, she's struggling, but so so so wonderful. She needs it.

me and Sr Lefrandt!

I also got to go on an exchange with my lovely new friend, Soeur Lefrandt. She is so wonderful. It was absolutely PERFECT and we saw lots of cool things. We contacted this girl named Lana who is 18, studying for the bac, and let us leave her with a prayer. She speaks fluent english because her mom (now divorced) was married to an american and they lived in Georgia for 3 years after she was born before coming back to France. She doesn't have a phone, but kind of pointed out her batiment for later on and then had to go. She was super nice and very cute.

Something else beautiful? Oh, yeah, so we were porting some batiments (tall apartment buildings), and remember Lana? Yeah, so the very first door that let us in just so happened to be her mom. HER MOM. And she let us leave her with a prayer as well, telling us that she is extremely believing and would love to see us again. Then, the next door that let us in (different bat), was this cute, older woman who at first wasn't interested, but by the end was telling us all about her 9 children and how she had a granddaughter that lives in Toul who is 18, studying for the bac, and lived in Georgia for 3 years before coming back, completely fluent in English, and very cute. Picking up what I'm putting down? Yep, same girl. We met, in two doors, people from the same family, and BOTH were interested. Cool, huh? We thought so too.

We found dragon snap flowers and had a little conversation with them :)

Something funny Soeur Johns and I enjoy talking about is how as sister missionaries, we're very good at charming people. It's called using our feminine charm to our advantage: no, it's NOT flirting. Because you can charm anyone, not just men :) but apparently sometimes we need to lay off the charm a little because one of our brandnew amis (we'd only met with him once), who is spanish and very tall decided that he can't meet with us anymore because he wouldn't be able to help falling in love with me because of my accent. Apparently American accents are pretty charming as well? Talk about awkward.

One more beautiful thing: Remember the B family? It had been a couple of weeks since we last saw them, but finally Christophe and his two kids came to church last week (wife is toooo pregnant. Twins, and both boys we found out!), and we were talking about the priesthood. This other ami was asking question after question (kind of in attack mode) about why the africans couldn't hold the priesthood in the past. Afterwards, we were talking to Christophe and we asked him why he wasn't arguing with us as well about that, and he said, "Well, because I get it. Of course there is a time for all things, and the Lord knows best. So why argue with the Lord?"

Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. He's totally getting baptized :) 

Thank you all for your love, support and emails! I LOVE getting them, even if my replies can't always be super long. You are the best. And remember, Heavenly Father loves us, even if we aren't perfect. He loves us literally too much. :)

Love,

Soeur Katie Pettingill

Porting in a tiny village...and randomly happen upon a beautiful cathedrale and its garden :) 

Oh, and a random jeanne d'arc statue was there too. Oh France, stop it.