La chaleur commence Week 49

Bonjour a tous!
I hope you all have had a wonderful week, whew its been a little crazy here! It's been getting really hot and we have been super busy, hence Le chaleur So first week of the transfer is always crazy, especially here in Lyon. Tuesday we are in charge of all the missionaries that are training so I took three other sisters out with me, and we split up and did some contacting and me an another sister had an awesome rdv with Jacquline. Tuesday night we got all of the blues and they slept with us and in the morning we took them over to Ecully for their conference to meet their trainers. Then because buses were running late we had almost all of the blues and trainers come back and stay with us Wednesday night. Early thursday morning we got them all of to the Gare! Phew haha it's tiring and a little difficult to be in charge of all the sœurs, but its so fun as well. I don't know how but we really have the best sisters in our missions.... and no I am not at all biased;)

Haha thursday was just a crappy day, it was just long and our whole day kept getting changed and then we didnt' realize it was a jour férié so after having a lesson with Joy we were literally stranded out in Chapnost, which is like 40 min from Lyon by bus and metro. Ha so we got saved by the Rigby couple! They came out and drove us home, they are so nice. Ha we were only a little late home, and we it was fun to see Lyon at night (its really pretty;) )

Saturday though we had an awesome day! Melina (the mom of Pedro, who is from Portugal that we are teaching) invited us over for lunch which was so nice. We had a good lesson and the spirit was really strong, but Melina is wary of churches and is really guarded so I wasn't sure how much good we were doing. However after Pedro told us that he has noticed a difference in his mom, and he thanked us for teaching her! It so cool, and I know one day Melina will accept this gospel. Everyone just has their own timing, and Heavenly Father knows exactly what each of his children need. That's why we always put our trust him:)

After Pedro came with us to teach Joy and Tiawo, ha so it started off as a french lesson but after took a little bit of a different turn. Joy and Tiawo basically live together and are sisters, and they were just arguing and fighting. So we had a long discussion about charity and how serving someone will always help you love them. Ha they both calmed down and I hope its going to be better! However Tiawo did come to church yesterday, and for the first time stayed for all 3 hours! Atta girl!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! Also happy birthday to Taylor on the 27, missed you bro hope it was awesome!

Je vous aime tous! Passez une bonne semaine!
Soeur Soffe

Lunch with all the trainers 

This is our faces when we don't have a bus 😂

Le Temple Week 48

Bonjour à tous!!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week! So we got our transfer calls on Friday and we are staying together! Yes! We were both so happy, I love Soeur Crispi and I love Lyon I feel really blessed to be staying here. Also this means I get to be here for the baptism of Jacqueline and Tiawo.

So this week we had some really great lessons with Tiawo and we had a lesson were haha honestly we were pretty direct with her and explained why this church and baptism is so important. Because it really is the only way we can return home to our Heavenly Father. I love Tiawo, but she hasn't been coming to church and hasn't been putting forth effort. We talked to Tiawo about the joy of this gospel, and it's because we love her that we are here and we want her to make commitments. Well she has started progressing again and has fixed a solid baptismal date for the 17 of June. She has been praying and reading the BOM with us and she came on saturday for the cultural spectacle du Temple!!

So speaking of the Temple, on saturday was the cultural celebration and Sunday was the consecration. Saturday night we had quite a few of our amis who came, and the spectacle was incredible. It was the young men and women of each Pieu (stake) in france and Swiss and Belgium, and they did such an incredible job. It was fun to learn more about French history, and what really hit me was the incredible pioneers of the church who were and still are here in France. It's not easy to be a member here, but these people are incredible and so faithful.

On Sunday was the consecration of the Temple, and I can't even describe what a special spiritual experience it was. We have been talking about the Temple since I came on the mission, but that is nothing compared to the years these people have been waiting and praying for the Temple. I am so grateful to be here to watch this blessing be poured out on these people, and I am just so grateful for the Temple! This is sunday it was like we were able to go to the temple, and I miss it so much, but I am so thankful to teach these people how to return home to our Heavenly Father. We had zone Conference two weeks ago, and it was all about the temple. Me and Soeur Crispi presented on Eternal marriage (ha that was a little weird to present about to missionnaires) but we talked about that because everything we teach about leads to the Temple. The temple is the only path that leads home, and how thankful I am that we have the blessing of eternal families!

This email was a little all over the place, but wow I am so thankful to be a missionary. I love France, I love the Temple, and I love my savior and his gospel!

And of course

Je vous aime tous!!

Soeur Soffe

We literally use the Book of Mormon for children with like all of our amis, because they don't get thé BOM. So I was laughing as I was carrying it around on the street

Temple consecration! Such a historic day!! 

Temple blessings Week 47

Bonjour a tous!

I hope you have all had a wonderful week, I can't believe how fast time has been flying here. I don't have a lot of time because it's presidents p-day but I will share an incredible miracle this week.
So Jacqueline is our ami who we have been working with a lot, she has been taught by missionaries for many years and her husband who is a member who has now become reactivated:) So Jacqueline knows the gospel and the scriptures incredibly well. They come to church every week, and she has such strong faith. As we have been teaching her, we have had lessons where the spirit was so strong. As we talked about baptism Jacqueline finally told us that she has a fear of water, like a phobia of water. So she would always get really scared about baptism and tell us one day she would but couldn't right now. I didn't know what else to tech her, and honestly was a little discouraged. Well this last week she and her husband went to the Paris Temple open house! The Sunday after in church, Jacqueline- who is super shy- bore her testimony in church. I asked her about it and she said it was better than good there. In our rdv this week I asked her about her experience at the temple. She told me that was she was in the temple she had a really calm spiritual feeling, and as she thought and prayed about baptism she wasn't afraid and felt that Christ would be with her the entire time!! She then tells us that she choose 24 juin as her baptismal date because it's their wedding anniversary!! She was just smiling and I almost fell to the floor I was so happy and so shocked. Then Charles talked about how their goal now is to go the temple and be sealed, and we talked about eternal marriage. The moral of this story is if there is anything we can ALWAYS count on, it's the temple! It was incredible and I am so so happy for her. I really feel like Jacqueline is one of the reasons I was supposed to come to Lyon, I just love her. Though I know I might not be here for her baptism I happy that she has made her choice.

Another highlight for sure was being able to talk with my family of course!! I don't know how, but I was blessed with the best family in the world!
Je vous aime tous!
Soeur Soffe

Soeur Desvergez was with us this week and it was a party!

We had a birthday party for Tiawo as well this week!

I've never felt more homeless in my life Week 46

Bonjour a tous! 

   I hope you all have had a wonderful week! Haha it's been a week full of adventures here! Start off we were to go and see the musée de Confluence last week for P-day and it was so cool! I just really love natural history and they had some cool exhibits. It was also a beautiful view of the city! 

    In Thursday after a fun district meeting we started our exchange with the Clermont sœurs. I was with Sœur Rutter and it was such a fun exchange, and I hope you all are ready for one of the funniest and most embarrassing moments of my mission.... here it goes. So we had a little time before our RdV so I found a less active member we could go and try to see.  We took the bus and it dropped us off at the top of a hill around apartments, I whipped out my handy maps me to figure out where to go. We had to walk down the big hill and could either go through a grave yard or a big grassy park to get to the road. We figured walking down the nice grassy hill would be just fine, and it was until we got the the bottom and see a big gate that's locked. Well I didn't want to climb all the way back up the hill, so I found a side part of the fence that wasn't that tall and I figured I could just climb over. So in my pencil skirt and rain boots (and luckily I think I was prompted by the spirit to wear tights) I started to climb over. I got over the fence fine but then on the way down the back of my skirt got caught on the fence and as I descended it ripped a huge hole!! Yeah so again luckily had tights on so you couldn't see anything, but I had a huge hole on the back of my skirt. 

   We were both laughing pretty hard, but then I go around to open the gate for Soeur Rutter and it's locked from both sides!! So Soeur Rutter hands me all her stuff and then she has to climb over the fence! As I was helping her down the bottom of her skirt got caught on the fence, it didn't tear,  but as she was climbing down her entire skirt got lifted up! Also this fence was literally right in front of a round about with a ton of cars, luckily at this moment there wasn't many around. But ohh my goodness after I hurried and helped pull her skirt down. We both couldn't stop laughing for a solid 5 minutes. 

     Well after our little adventure we were late so we hurried out to see Joy, whom I just love and we had a wonderful rdv. And she is so cute so as we are leaving she just loads a bag up with food for us, we always tell her we don't need it but she says she won't eat it. Ha so we hurry and run out to try and catch the bus and we miss it.... the next one is in an hour. So we ended up sitting on the side of a road, eating granola cookies and I was in a torn skirt... hence my subject line "I've never felt so homeless in my life." What was awesome though is these two girls came up to the bus stop and we ended up talking and they were both so nice and we talked the whole bus and metro ride back into Lyon! It was so cool how Heavenly Father had made sure we would miss our bus, but we were able to meet these young women who were so interested in our message! 

     Well that was my funny story of the week! Something I learned, happened when we were in a rdv with José and we were talking about charity and forgiveness . I told him that love is something we can have for all of our family and friends- but it can have limits. Charity is the pure love of Christ, meaning it's a love we can have for people who hurt us or are mean to us. Charity has no boundaries and it's this kind of love that allowed Christ to forgive and love all of us! Charity is a gift from God and it's something that we have to pray and ask to have! (That's a goal I have this week is to pray every day to be filled with this love!)

    I hope you all have a great week, also SHOUT OUT to my brother for getting his mission call, busan Korea! I am so excited for him, and I can't believe two of my best friends will both be in Korea. Taylor and Lilly you guys are seriously going to be the best missionaries!

Je vous aime tous! Et passez une bonne semaine!! 

Soeur Soffe 

Musée de Confluence 

Me and Soeur Rutter drying after our fence incident, I'll send the video in another email 

Musée de Confluence 

Me and Soeur Rutter dying after our fence incident, I'll send the video in another email 

I should probably start learning Spanish🙈 Week 45

Bonjour a tous!
I hope you have all had a wonderful week, I hope its starting to feel like spring! I'm not sure we would know here because it has been raining all week, but hey that brings the flowers right?
On Tuesday we had our exchange with the Chalon sisters, so I got to be with my favorite Tahitian again for the day! That morning we tried to go out contacting... in the rain. Ha we were both dripping water but we were laughing so hard, and to make up for it, we had some really good lessons the rest of the day!

A huge miracle we had this week was on Friday, so we got a referral for a woman who only speaks Spanish (shout out to my hermana collègue!) That night Sr. Crispi called her and was so excited on the phone, after she told me that this woman is from Chile and she is golden! She has already met with missionaries before she came to france and has been searching for a church and found ours. She started watching videos on the internet, and she said she knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet and has a testimony! So we were both so excited, well we look up their address and the gare to get to their home is really far from our sector, but according to the map they could possibly live in Confluence. So after talking and getting permission from the APs we took a train out to see her on friday. They live out in this beautiful country side of rolling hills and little farms. I was loving getting to be away from the city for a little while, and driving through the french compagne. So their names are Soledad et Sergio, she doesn't speak any french but he has lived here for a long time and speaks french perfectly. Also Sergio used to be témoin Jehovah, but he said because we talk of Christ we are welcome to come teach his wife. (I had some interesting discussions with him, but what was cool is he kept coming in during the lesson and when we watched the video of the temple you could see that he felt the spirit! Super cool!) We had the lesson, and I could understand parts here and their but what was cool is I could still receive revelation of scriptures to use to teach her! Even though we couldn't communicate very well, I already love her a lot! Haha I can understand some of what she is saying, and she understands a little french. Ha soeur soffe might need to become an Hermana. our amis joke saying I'll be speaking Spanish soon hehe nope gotta learn french first😉
The sad part is they don't live in our sector, but we may still be able to teach them because she has to be taught in Spanish! Donc on verra! But even if its not us who teach her, I am so happy she is going to get taught because she is incredible.
I really am just so thankful to be a missionary. This Saturday we were seeing Tiawo and Joy (who I just love, they have become my family) and we showed Tiawo clips of the meet the mormons. What really hit me, is just how much joy this church brings into our lives! This life is not easy, missions are not easy- pas de tout. However even though life is hard we can have joy in everything we do, because we know what our Savior did for us, and we know that Heavenly Father has a plan. I am so thankful to be able to share that everyday!
I love you all so much! Thank you for your love, support, and prayers!

Je vous aime beaucoup!
Soeur Soffe

Soeur Autai!

Hehe loving the rain ☔️ 

Where Soledad and Sergio live.. gorgeous.