First of all, I'm pretty sure we're only supposed to have one pday per week...and it feels like it hasn't been long enough to have been a whole week already...correct me if I'm wrong. This week went by SO fast!! It kind of scares me. Right now I'm just trying to live day by day, and hopefully it will go a little bit slower. :)
Thanks for all the pictures! Funny thing, Dad, about you sharing Jacob 5 is that I read that exact same chapter in French/English (I read it in both right now) this week and had that EXACT same though that I shared with Sr. Hafen. She even thought it was weird. Haha I guess great minds think alike! ;) I really do love it though. I love it that the Lord is humble enough to labor WITH us in his vineyard, when He could just leave us and command us from afar. And I really do feel it. I see the hand of the Lord in this work every single day. I see miracles, even the little ones, every single day. It's incredible.
Speaking of miracles, let me tell you about our amis. Mirjana has been hit HARD with opposition this week, and it's been really hard on her. She is already fragile, and Satan knows that she is and also that she wants to be baptized and is even hitting her with everything that he can. She kind of relapsed into smoking again in order to deal with it all, and I just feel for her. We've been praying a lot for her. Actually, we had a little miracle happen on Sunday with her. She didn't come to church, so we had been trying to call her all day to try to see her that night but she wasn't home. Finally, after dinner we were calling and calling and she still wasn't answering and we weren't really sure what to do. Should we just...leave and go contact and call her tomorrow? So we said a prayer and we asked Heavenly Father to help us know what to do. Then we decided to call her one more time...and she answered! But it was already like 8:00 by that time and she said it was too late. Then she proceeded to tell us all about how she had been feeling that day and how she smoked a lot and she was so stressed and how she didn't know if she could do this with everything that had happened. She kept forgetting to pray and read the LdM (Book of Mormon) and she felt so bad. Right then I felt impressed to tell her about opposition and I had had it too for my mission. As we testified to her over the phone, I could feel the Spirit so strongly testifying to us and to her that everything would be okay. We even prayed with her (yes, over the phone) and she said we could come over tomorrow. What a tender mercy! I love this family so much.
Marjan, our friend that the Elders are now teaching (we met him through Xhoana), has a baptismal date!! He's getting baptized the 6th of December. Pray for him. He is incredible! He threw away his cigarettes himself and loves coming to church and loves reading the LdM. It's amazing to watch this. Also, Xhoana committed to stop smoking, so pray for her. She went from 5 cigarettes a day to 1/2 in two days. It was amazing. She is so incredible...pray that everything will go well in Colmar on Thursday! We need to get them baptized. They're so ready.
One more little miracle that happened was with a Muslim girl named Fayroz. We met her porting, and she let us in because it was cold outside, not because she was interested in what we had to say. But as we talked and told her a little bit about what we did, she opened up. And when we told her that we had a living prophet on the earth she just about died. She couldn't take her eyes off of us. At one point during the lesson, I was testifying to her about how I know the Livre de Mormon is true. I felt the Spirit telling me which words to say and they just came out, I didn't even have to think to form phrases or translate or anything. And after I bore my testimony to her, she paused for a second, and then said something like, "I believe you. There is something in your eyes...in your face that makes me believe you." It made me think of Matt. 5:16. "Let your light so shine..." You all have that light too! All it takes is a little bit of testifying for the Spirit to truly shine in your eyes. She took the LdM and promised she would read it. We prayed with her and left. There are people everywhere--even Muslims!--who are so ready to hear this Gospel!! It is amazing.
Church was awesome yesterday!! I loved it. Only a few of our amis came, but it was awesome anyways. Wanna know why? PRIMARY PROGRAM!! And it's super cool because it's exactly like in the States but waaaay smaller. Probably about 15 primary children. But it was so cute! And all of the songs are the same too, just in French! It's a lot harder to translate child French then adult French. No wonder french people can't understand us...hahaha but it was good. I loved it. And also, only in France would we have pieces of baguette as the sacrament bread.
On a funnier note, at district meeting this week we finally got around to doing a tradition that's been around forever. France has this thing called flan, and so we do this thing called the Flan Suck. You basically flip the flan upside down on a plate and in one breath try to suck it all up. It's weird. But super funny! So this is actually a picture Sr. Hafen took and I look super awful in it, but I wanted you to see what it was like! It tastes suuuuuuuper yummy too. It's kinda like jello, but not as thick. And yummier. It was fun :) We all did it, and it was my first time! I know, awkward. But it was good.
I love you guys so much!! And I love hearing about life back home. Keep sending those letters! ;)
Love ya!
Sœur Pettingill
P.S. Sorry I forgot my camera cord...so only one picture from Sr. Hafen today :)
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