Hope and Hump day! 🐪 Week 40

Bonjour à tous!

 This week was super busy and we saw some really cool miracles. Earlier this week we had interviews with President Brown and then on Wednesday we had multizone  zone conference in Ecully. My companion and I both had to do a 15 minute presentation on baptism in front of President Brown, the assistants, and all the missionaries. We were pretty nervous to say the least. But I think it ended up going pretty well. President talked a lot about how important hope is for us as missionaries, and then for the members and Amis we spend our time with. He said that we find hope in this life through the Gospel. So we as missionaries, we go out and we teach, but more than anything we share this hope for eternal life through the example and joy that we have. So we decided to present baptism along those lines. Baptism is the door onto this pathway of hope. Because what better hope is there in this world, that frankly is dark and hard, than the light of the gospel! I know it brings me so much joy! It's incredible that we get to be the little candles of light to shine hope and bring people into the sun! Wednesday was also my 9 month mark! What so crazy how fast time is flying by!

Thursday we had our exchange with the Porte des Alpes sisters. It was way nice having them here to work with us. We were able to have some great lessons with Le and Taiwo. We also finally had our first lesson with Jacqueline (the one scared of water) since she accepted the

invitation to be baptized. We were kinda nervous because it had already been a week since we last saw her. But when we walked in, she had her little pear tart and Schweppes sitting on the table for us. So that made us a little more reassured haha. But during the lesson she told us she still wants to be baptized, but that she refuses to fix a date for the moment. That girl kills me! She is so stubborn.

Saturday afternoon, the missionaries in the Ecully ward were having a baptism. So Friday night we had called and invited Taiwo to go to it with us and she accepted. Well Saturday roles around, and we were waiting at the metro stop for her to show up...but she never came.

That meant that we now had about 4 hours of free time with no rdv's fixed, and to top it all off it was cold and rainy out. Well we decided to go to the outer edge of Lyon and pass by some less active members on our member map that we had never met. When we got to the first door, a women opened the door and welcomed us right in! She was super nice, but we had absolutely no idea who she was. She started talking about her son Pedro (who was currently at a church activity), when the pieces all came together. It turns out that Pedro (an active member) just moved here with his family from Portugal a few months ago, but he is the only member of his family! So there we were, having an awesome lesson with his mother and he had no idea we were even there! We were definitely guided by Heavenly Father, and it taught me that if we will do our part, Heavenly Father will do his. But the best part of it all, was that she invited us back over next weekend!!

Passez une très bonne semaine! Thank you for your support and prayers.

Je vous aime!

Soeur Soffe

Funny quote for the week: "Don't you love it when French people's

trained dogs speak better French than you?" - Soeur Lowder

We all hit our hump day together!

Zone conference  

                Exchange with Sœur wendo the cutest bleu belge ever! 

 This is the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers! And when you serve in Confluence il faut que vous allez

Hump Day!!!

Sunshine and happy days☀️ Week 39

Bonjour tout le monde! 

I hope you all have had a wonderful week! It's been so warm here it's been wonderful, and we have even been able to take our rights off some times! Ha one day it was almost 80 degrees!Thank you so much for all of your birthday wishes, that really meant a lot! The missionaries have been wonderful here and last Monday surprised me with cake and ice cream, and then on Tuesday me and Soeur Lowder went to a crêperie! It's been a great week, we have had some amazing miracles with our amis. On Tuesday we had a really incredible lesson with Lé, he has changed so much! When we first meet him he was so sad and one of the first things he said to us is that he is depressed and has lost some of his family. Well now only a week later he was smiling, and telling us already the gospel has brought more joy in his life! He recognized how God has helped him in the past, and know because he believes in god he recognizes his hand in his life. Literally best present ever! It's incredible to see how this gospel is really a gospel of joy and happiness and if we just open our hearts we will receive so much joy! 

We had an incredible miracle with Jaqueline this week. So she is an ami that has been taught for years by missionaries, and knows so much about the gospel. Her husband is actually less active and in her words "mélanges his religions" what has been cool to see though is Jaqueline will correct him when he is wrong. She loves the scriptures and has been reading the Book of Mormon more and more, and comes to sacrament meeting (she has come a few times to the other classes) every Sunday. Really she has a strong testimony of the gospel, and knows that it's true. She has been invited by the missionaries over the years to be baptized, but always says no. Me and Soeur Lowder have been praying and trying to understand what her empêchement was. Well on Wednesday we had an incredible lesson with her! We talked a lot about temples, and as we talked about the Paris temple open house (which she is going to!) we asked her if she wanted to really go inside the temple one day, and she said yes. We then asked her what she needed to do to go there. The lesson was filled with lots of silences and was completely lead by the spirit. She finally told us that she is afraid of water, so we explained that maybe she can be seated or on her knees for her baptism. And as I extended the baptismal invitation she finally accepted!! President I was so happy, I really do love her so much! At the end of the lesson she was telling us how it's okay if we forget her, because we meet so many people on our missions. I told her she is going to be stuck with me calling and writing her for years, because I will never forgether! I think she finally realized how much we love her, and as she bissed us goodbye she just kind of held us in a hug. It really just made me realize that the only way people will ever be brought to Christ is by love, purely and simply loving them and helping them feel the love of Christ! 

Today we had a super fun morning and with the other Lyon missionaries went on a tour of croix rouisse with a member from Ecully. So basically a lot of the buildings have cool connecting tunnels, which were made for workers and merchants to get around Lyon. So in roman times Lyon was the capital of Gaul (France) and you can still see parts of old aqueducts. So after a few years Lyon was a center of trade especially silk, so all of these apartments connect and it was super cool to see!! 

Love you all so much hope you have a wonderful week!! 

Soeur soffe 

Birthday picture in the gorgeous compagnie

Lyon missionaries on a tour of croix rouisse

When life is just lovely Week 38

Bonjour a tous! I hope you have all had a wonderful week!! Things are going so wonderful and time is just flying and I am loving it here so much. This week has been busy but full of miracles! This week on Tuesday we had MLC, which was really good and of course so fun to see everybody. We as a mission have new goals for this transfer to help people prepare to go to the temple. Which is bringing people to christ through baptism. It's always been hard for me to focus on numbers, but I know that as a mission as we try to help people come unto to Christ, because we love them, we will find the people who are ready. Our goal always for baptism is to always help people be ready to go to the temple, because that is the reason people get baptized so they can start the path that will lead them home to their Heavenly Father! As we set goals for our mission, we talked a lot about the faith we would need to show to have these goals accomplished. It's the faith of a little child, that is total and complete and completely relies on the lord. Faith in my head really means trust, and if we have faith in Heavenly Father we trust in him and know that his will is what must be done:)It was a great meeting and I really needed the spiritual boast. Then what was amazing this week is we have two new engages!! So we found a number on an old potential sheet and a man named Le answered. We ended up seeing him three times last week, and already its amazing to see his progression. He is lonely and very sad, and it was really incredible to testify to him that this gospel is what will bring him true happiness! The members have been really good friend shipping him in our lessons and in church, so I am so excited for him. Then Joy brought a friend to church last week, who we have started seeing and she is really awesome! She is from Nigeria like Joy and her name is Tiawo she is really sweet and humble, and really spiritual. She was excited when we engaged her to be baptized, and loves the Plan du Salut and livre du Mormon!! She is wonderful I love her and Joy so much! Another really amazing miracle was that during our ward conference this week, as they were talking about the Paris Temple open house, Jacqueline decided that she wanted to go! So she and Charles will be going (I'm just a little jealous I wish I could go so badly!) We have been trying to figure what has been blocking her from being baptized for so long now, and I really think that her going to the Temple will change everything!! It was a really awesome week, and thank you so much for all you do! 
Your love and support and prayers mean more than you know!
Je vous aime!!Soeur Soffe 

MLC (missionary leadership counsel) 

Joy and Tiawo!! 

District meeting 

                               Pedestrian Passerelle St Georges Lyon

Cathedral tours and giving thanks! Week 37

 Bonjour à tous!    I hope you all have had a great week! It's been crazy busy here, but it's been a lot of fun! Since it's been the first week of the transfer, we had all of the trainers with us Monday night and Tuesday. On Tuesday we split off and I took two other sisters to go and work with me, and it was a lot of fun we had a few pass backs and a good, comme dab, a slightly crazy lesson with José. Then Tuesday night the trainers were supposed to sleep with us again, but the bleus (new missionaries) planes got changed so they came and stayed with us and the trainers went to ecully! So on Wednesday we took the blues to the office and worked a little bit. Then Thursday morning we took them over to Ecully for their conference and to meet their trainers! The new bleus are so awesome, and it was a lot of fun to be with them and see them in the first days of their mission:)  The end of the week we had some really great lessons, we actually had a few lessons with some new amis that we found in the area book! And two new amis ended up coming to church on Sunday so that was super awesome! Whoot! One day we had a lesson planned but our ami ended up coming an hour later at the same time as our next lesson with a recent convert. Haha so Soeur Lowder and a member ended up teaching Le (the ami) and I, across the room, ended up teaching Fred (the recent convert) ha it was a little crazy but it worked out! Our amis are also doing so good and we had really awesome lessons with them.   Today we had a really awesome p-day! A senior missionary couple, the Geddes, invited us and some other missionaries over for a wonderful breakfast of waffles.  And then class was in session:) So they both were professors at BYUI, and elder Geddes taught art and religion, and he taught us how to read all of the symbolism in cathedrals. He showed us a really cool presentation, and then we all walked to saint jeans cathedral in Vieux Lyon. It was so cool walking around with him and to hear him explain it! So know everybody I definitely want to go to Cathedrals with all of you when we travel! The cool thing is you can find so much truth, you can just tell they don't have all of it. A really cool story we talked about was Blandine, a young woman who lived about 150 years after Christ here in Lyon. She was a slave and during that time the kings tried to kill all Christians. The story is that she was put in a Roman amphitheater with Lions, but the lions didn't touch her. Later she was martyred, but died as an example of a true Christian. I just realize how thankful I am for all the people who have gone before us to open the doors for having our freedom of religion today! And we can do the incredible work for them and take the names to the temple for our ancestors to show our gratitude! I'm so thankful for this gospel and for that we have the fullness of Christ's gospel restored on this earth! Je vous aime beaucoup! Soeur soffe

Inside Saint Jeans

My favorite part of the cathedral. If you look on the right side it shows the creation, Adam and Eve and their fall from the garden. On the right it shows Christ's life and his atonement. The bottom circle shows the two meeting and that how we return home to our Heavenly Father is through our savior Jesus Christ! Cool right!?! You can still learn and feel the spirit in these church's, it's different but if you look there is so much to see!