The elders here are the best. I dont know what I would do if I was in a ville without elders.
Soooo. its been a good week. Minus the fact that I am super sick at the moment. At least I was able to keep from getting sick so that we could sing for the funeral and for relief society on sunday. Not like any of us are super good but aparently it sounded good all together. The funeral was great. Brother M. was a divorced man almost 67 years old. He has two kids, a son and a daughter, and both are not active. His ex-wife apparently still lives here in Grenoble but I dont know if she was even at the funeral. I was also told that it has been quite some time since the daughter had talked to her father and only recently Ben, the son started talking to his father again. Yesterday at Church the Bishop reminded us that we never know when our loved ones are going to leave this world and that we should ALWAYS show each other the kind of love that the other person deserves. It was a pretty eye opening experience to me that I want to be nice the everyone so that if anyone every dies I will have good memories with them and that they know before they part that I love them. I love you very much, all of you!
Christmas is coming fast, in two short weeks we will be skyping. How wonderful it feels to prepare to see your faces again. It has been a long time and I am very excited. Still not sure exactly what time we will be skyping on Christmas day but that will be more fixed next week I believe. I think we might be going to the Lala Hariniaina's both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Here the bigger event is Christmas Eve, with a huge feast and all your family together. It will be really funny to experience a French Christmas.
Updates on our investigators. Julien is still doing really really well. He comes to church, family home evening, institute, and we have rdvs with his about three times a week. Last week we taught him the Law of Chastity and he accepted it so easily. He said that it was kind of logic, that it made complete sense and that he would follow it. Its amazing how accepting he is to everything we teach him. We are just praying still that he will be able to FEEL the truth. That he will have his own testimony of these things.
Dan is also doing well. He is just so dang busy. We only get to see him about once a week. He understands that he needs to get baptised and wants to he is just trying to learn more before he commits himself.
Our other great ami, Vaber. He is a pill but I love him. On Wednesday I called him to ask if he would be coming to help the ward with there Christmas show. He said he would and so then I asked him if we could see him before or after and he started thinking. He then tried to tell me that he would be making his decision to stay in the Catholic church, that the Mormon church was too hard. It was a total cop out. Anyway I said that we would talk to him at the church and we would see him in a little bit. When we got to the church he still wasnt there yet and in my heart I was just praying that I would be able to say that words of the Lord.
He finally arrived and it was very awkward to try and start the conversation but I knew I had to. I asked him questions to try and better understand where he was coming from. Besides many other things he said that there were too many rules and that he liked having his cigarette whenever he wanted and not feeling guilty and blah blah blah. So I asked him how long his happiness lasted after each cigarette, maybe 15 minutes, he then said not even, maybe 5. I then was able to testify that the commandments that God gives us are so that we can have eternal joy. Not just 5 minutes of pleasure. After proving many points, not in a debating way, I purposed that he take all of our lessons before deciding. That for the next three weeks he really learns what the church is all about and why we have it. He agreed. We had two awesome lessons with him last week. The first one being the Restoration and then the second the first half of the Plan of Salvation. The spirit is working with him. I can see it. I know ultimately it will be his decision but I know what I am here to do and that is to teach people the gospel so that they can have that choice. Please send your prayers this way, for Vaber, Dan and Julien. I know that these are three souls Heavenly Father is longing to have back in his fold. I am more than priviledged to particpate in their journey.
I hope that you all have a wonderful week and are feeling the Spirit of Christmas. We learned yesterday from President Monson that the Spirit of Christmas is sharing the love of Christ. What can you do this Christmas season to share greater charity unto others?
I love you all,
Sister Addis
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