Happy is the New Chic, November 12, 2012

Hello Everyone!!!

So much great things to tell you and so little time. First of all, have you heard?! I am going to be meeting an apostle of the Lord tomorrow! Elder Andersen is finally here in our mission. Yesterday he did a stake conference in Bordeaux and then had a Zone Conference with the Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier zones and tomorrow we will have Zone Conference with him in Lyon,along with Aix-en-Provence, Genève and Lausanne Zones. After our zone conference with him we will then attend a fireside he is doing for the members. We are STOKED. Its going to be crazy to see TONS of missionaries, some of which I have not seen since the MTC, Soeur Kohler. Then ALL the missionaries will sleep over night in Lyon. And then we will leave the next morning. Ah its going to be so cool. Anyway I am sure I will have wonderful things to report next week. I am trying to remain super humble or humble myself even more so I will be ready to hear the words of an apostle and of the Lord, that are specifically for me and my life.

Something interesting I noticed during this email session. I have really seen my change of heart lately. I AM a missionary. I used to cry about the fact that my family was together or about how much i missed my family but this time I started crying about the fact that soon, in several months, I will no longer be a missionary. I seriously love my mission so much. I dont want to leave and I dont want to think about leaving. It made me sick to my stomach when I received an email from a companion of mine asking if I wanted to live with her in Provo in a few short months...

Moving on to greater things. My subject line. Haha. But seriously, dont you just love that? There is a picture included of one of the three posters here in Grenoble for a clothing company that says, Happy is the New Chic. Oh my word. I love it. Had to share that with you. I have taken pictures of each poster and printed out a picture for my desk so I can always remember to be happy every single day. I love being happy. I know that is how God wants us to be and he is willing to provide happiness if we are willing to keep the commandments. Sure there are hard times in our lives but if we have an eternal perspective we can understand greater how to be happy in times of despair.

This email is going to be really all over the place because I am going through a list of things I wanted to tell you. Dan, our awesome ami, is progressing very well. He still says awesome things. After we talked about the commandments I asked him, "Dan, Why do you think the commandments of God are important?" He then said, "If everyone were to keep the commandments the world would be a better place. Everyone would be happy!" Don't you just love that. Such simple truth but really have you ever thought of that. If everyone followed the commandments, what would that bring the world? Then after our rdv with him we were walking to the tram together and we were talking. Sr Standford (we were on exchanges) was saying the few words or phrases she knows in chinese. Dan then told us that the phrase they learned to say in school was, " I love the communist party" Haha so funny but so sad. Those poor people, so brainwashed.

Little reminder before I share what I learned this week, Christmas is 6 weeks from tomorrow. HELLO SKYPE SESSION!

Okay now that I got you all excited, I am going to share something spiritual. I learned something really cool from a conversation with Soeur Nish, who I love by the way. She reminds me a lot of Kelsie. Ah I miss her. Anyway, we were talking about missions and how they are hard but they are so rewarding and just that kind of talk. Then she said something that really touched me. She said how she had made several silly mistakes in life and that this is the last thing she could do to repay Heavenly Father for forgiving her. I then realized how much more I love my mission. I too am here because I have made several stupid mistakes in my life. My mission is part of my repentance process. I am being purified and edified every day, becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am here serving a mission because the Lord has been patient with me and has been so willing to forgive me that I am taking 18 months to try and pay him back through my full time service. I know that I will always be indebted to the Lord because I can never fully repay him, but I can try to do my best to show my love for Him. How do you show your love for the Lord?

Have a super duper week,
Love.
Soeur Addis