At the parc (also, Soeur Carter is on the right).
Best surprise of our lives.
Sunbeams
My heart was almost ripped out of my chst and stamped on because this week was transfers, and Soeur Francis is off to Suisse. It was surreal leaving her on the train, but she will do incredible things. Never have I worked with someone so similar to me. Love you, Sister British!
Oh, as for me, I'm staying in Ecully, receiving Soeur Carter (aka, best missionary in the mission). Aaaaand our equipe is becoming the new Sister Training Leader equipe.
For those who have no idea what that is, it's basically like a ZL for sisters..but with more sisters to cover. Lots of exchanges, and who knows what else. Soeur Hulme and Soeur Bragg screamed when I told them, so that's a good sign, yes? The subject of this email is because our equipe and the other STL's in Lyon decided to become the Fellowship. Mom, if you could send 4 rings of power, that'd be great..
The week started with the greatest P-days of our lives (minus the one at President's). We went to Parc de la Tete d'Or with other missionaries, had a picnics, and rode bikes through the zoo and the botanical gardens there. Also, we had one last visit to Soeur Theroomy, our less active from Malaysia. she was so sweet, and so sad at the possibility to see one of us go. She even gave us Malaysian jelwelry, which looks very similar to Garment district jewelry...
This week, we were able to teach Lydia twice, out golden, French ami. We taught her the Retab and the Plan of Salvation, and the Spirit was incredibly strong. She kept trying to relate it back to Catholicism, so I talked lots about the priesthood, which I KNOW they don't have, and that's what got her. By the end, she was asking about baptism and inviting us for dinner at her house.
We ate with the famille Rouffet, a classic French family this week. it was an adventure trying to even get to their house out in the country, but the best part was when Frère Rouffet said "A meal without cheese is like a day without sunshine." Welcome to France, everyone.
We did lots of less-active/recent convert this week, partly because we got tombez'd like 4 times in one day. We had 10 minutes before our next rdv, so we tried passing a random name we didn't know on the list. It worked. The famille Richa, as a whole, weren't there, but the non-member husband was happy to see us, and invited us back when his wife comes back from vacance. We also did activities centered on family history, which weren't super successful, but we stood out in the cold for a good part of the week, trying to talk to as many people as we could about family history.
Calls came Friday, and the rest of the weekend went by way too fast. With packing, lessons, lunches with members, and lots of goodbyes, we were running around up until when Soeur Francis got on the train this morning. But we got matching shirts #alliswell.
Yesterday was pretty much the best day of my life. Started by missing the bus on the way to church and walking. Then we taught sunbeams. We got the call Saturday night at around 8/30 from the desperate Primary president, begging us to teach the 3 year olds "WHATEVER we want". Yeah, cue us finding the one coloring page we had in the apartment (Joseph Smith), and planning to "teach" the Restoration. It became very apparent, very quickly that we haven't dealt with small children in a long time. A tidbit of our...interesting...planning for the lesson.
"We could watch the full Retab movie!" (20 minutes long...with 3 year olds....no)
"Well, we could just watch the vision part..?" (.....)
"We could teach them English!"
"We could talk about prophets?"
.......Yeah, we ended up holding up a picture of Joseph Smith and telling his story in about 2 minutes, and they colored the rest of the time.
Zamir came to church, telling us he had a surprise for us. Sadly, it wasn't Zamira (she doesn't want to meet with us anymore..) After Soeur Francis gave a rockstar goodbye testimony and finished crowd surfing back to our seats (sacreligious..sorry), we looked back and there was SOEUR FAHL. SOEUR JO FAHL. (Whatever her "real" name is.) Sitting, with her mom. We freaked out, especially since we were all emotional from Soeur Francis' impending departure. Soeur Fahl came to surprise us, bring her mom and the rest of her family. It was SO great to see her, and she's doing well. Her family is awesome, and I know she will do incredible things. Also, she brought us a huge box of peanut butter, Double stuffed Oreos, Doritos, and other smuggled American goods. Guys, if you didn't figure it out yet,
I HAVE THE BEST BLEUES.
We ate at Ivalani's, visited Soeur Berger-Perrin, and then had one last visit with Zamir and his parents. They were very sad to see Soeur Francis leave. But I just sat back and marvelled at the miracle that has happened since she's been here. It went from being completely not interested, to loving us and being so sad when Soeur Francis left. But that's what she did, she came, she touched hearts, softened people up, and then left. She did what she needed.
So, I'm excited for my new..calling? I guess that's what it is. We're over 7 or 8 equipes (including Soeur Richardson's, YAY), and will do exchanges and whatever else STLs do. I'm excited, especially for all I will learn, from my new comp and all the sisters!
Je vous aime,
Soeur Luthi
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