March 26, 2018

Gold plates?

So today was cool! Last week during zone conference President told us about the gold plates that are in the Louvre. So today we went and checked it out. Apparently it's writings from about 700 years before Christ. It was a palace of a guy named sargon. He also had inscriptions on other types of material but look at the difference between the gold and the other ones. It's so much clearer. More evidence that the book of Mormon is true :)

Cynthia's baptism went really well!! Other than the fact that they were late because of a train strike and she forgot to close her mouth while going under water. So she coughed up her lungs right after! But she was happy and it was so good. She is going to do so many good things.

We went to le Havre again on exchanges and we had a really cool experience on the train ride there. We were just talking and about 30 minutes in the guy next to us asks us about our plaques. He just spent time looking up the church on his phone but wanted to ask us about it. So we talked for another hour before he had to get off. He was super cool and he was happy to have a book of Mormon!

One thing I'm super grateful for is the sun shine! It's been so long since the sky has been blue. Just looking up at it helped me to widen my perspective more. It was so clear that there is a plan and that Heavenly Father is there !

I didn't slip on a slug but I slipped while running up an escalator and now my shin is a little bruised up. Moral of the story- stop being so late to trains!!
Love,
Sœur Giles

Cynthia was baptized! Best part of the week! Of the month!! Of the year!!!

March 19. 2018

Invite someone to baptism through text? Why not!

Cool story of the week:
Exactly one and a half weeks ago, we received a text message from a random person asking for information about the church. We call him and talk for about 30 minutes. He had met the missionaries 10 years ago, took most of the lessons but stopped after he saw something on the TV. 10 years later he is talking with one of his friends, a member, and she gives him our number. Anyways we meet with him 2 days later in a members home and it went really well. He showed up already having read all of 1 Nephi. We cleared up some of his questions and he was really willing to listen and act. We asked him to pray if the book of Mormon is true and he said he didn't want to pray to know if it was true because he didn't doubt that it was. There's still a little to work on there. It's cool that he believes us when we say it is true but it's even better if he feels a confirmation of the truth for himself! Anyways he actually lives quite a while way so we send him to the closest church address. Then he sends us a message Sunday asking when it is possible to be baptized . So we explain a little bit more about baptism and send him some scriptures to read and then we get to the point where Sœur van Duyse is begging me to let her invite him to prepare to be baptized on a certain date over text message. He said yes!
Well he goes to church, talks to the elders, really likes it and now is getting baptized on Saturday.

In other news, it Snowed!

Have a great week!
Sœur Giles
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Snowed again!

First of all, on Saturday Lindsay and Cynthia both passed their baptismal interviews!! Yay!!! Cynthia's baptism is this Saturday so we are getting everything ready for that. But for Lindsay we will be skyping into the United States for that one. That was the highlight of the week for sure! We were actually able to teach both of them from the very very beginning, it's been awesome!

It was starting to warm up. Soeur van Duyse even started to not were tights (i didn't dare) but then it snowed this weekend! It's pretty but cold again haha it'll probably warm up this week though. Maybe.
So the elder's have an investigator from Argentina ! He moved to France like a month ago and found the church here. He said there are tons of churches in Argentina haha he is from Azul, quite a ways from Buenos Aires. But Lucas and Kailee what cities did you serve in ? I told him both of you were there and he was wondering! His English is super good.

We did some service this week for a family in the ward. They are from Madagascar . The mom is really sick and the dad is almost blind. The daughter is about 28 and going to school for her doctors degree. The mom and daughter live in one room and it hasn't been cleaned in years probably. So we spent several hours there going through papers and clothes. Cleaned the walls and the door and the floor. It was nice to be able to help out like that. The daughter sent us a text that night saying she will be able to sleep better than she has for years. It was such a better place to be in :)

A new set of missionaries came in this week and soeur van Duyse and I got to be with them on their very first day! We went to consecration hill where i went my first day too and did some contacting. I was with soeur Olsen. She is going to be serving in the temple visitors center! It was so fun and so cool to see how much energy and excitement they have. And it was weird to realize how fast time has flown. It still feels like I'm where they are!😅

Another cool thing happened. We were getting ready to leave the church to go home when a tourist family walked by and saw us! They came in to say hi and also asked for help getting to the metro. We were able to help this half American half Brazilian family get to the right line in the right direction. The cool part is the dad served in Brazil but he was assigned for the first 6 months to a mission in California, guess which one! Yep you got it right, Ventura! He was there in 1995 so we missed him by a few years. He served in Bakersfield and Ventura I think. We are probably going to be seeing a lot of tourists soon...they are everywhere!
It'll be fun though!

Thanks so much for all your emails! The kitchen looks good and good job Clay on your Eagle project! The gardens look really good. It stinks that baseball is being cancelled though! Hit a home run for me next time! :)
Have a great week !
Love,
Sœur Giles

March 12, 2018

Week end at the temple!

This week went by so fast! It was the last week of the transfer but Sœur van Duyse and I are staying together for another so that's really good.
One day we road the metro for almost two hours just talking to every one that sat down next to us. It was pretty fun! And really effective!

Lindsay picked a date for her baptism!! She is actually going to be in Salt Lake City in April and wanted her boyfriend to be there so she will be baptized there on April 7th! We are for sure skyping in, but we had a lesson with her and a young Tahitian couple in our ward. And it was so fun!

On Saturday we went to the temple with Cynthia and her husband!! It was so special and beautiful. They are really excited to be able to go inside together one day .
We also were at the temple on Sunday with our investigator souleman who is leaving for Africa today. He was really touched as well! We barely missed the train again, this time we made it by 1 minute with lots of running at the end.

On Saturday there was also the baptism of Jean Louis! One of the elders' investigators. He is one of the greatest people ever. And I gave the talk on the holy ghost! It was cool to be able to prepare a little talk specifically for him and how the holy ghost will help him in his life. It was a great experience !!

Have a great week!
Sœur Giles



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Letter to Family:


Sorry I don't have much more time! We went to Notre dame ( I think I saw Quasimodo's shadow) and got ice cream today but here are some more pictures from the week.

The work is going so well here! A few days ago I texted a random number in the phone and it turned out to be a girl from California who is really searching! I'm excited to see where that goes.

Also we taught a man with an awesome member named Terri Lee! She is from New York.
There is so much more that happened but I just can't remember right now....
Oh we went to do some more legality stuff. I am now really legal ! It's a cool pink card with my picture on it.
We bought a delicious tropezienne dessert and an olive pizza as well.

Saturday night we had 4 sisters sleeping over for stake conference the next day and we made our home made chocolate mousse that was delicious.

Cynthia bore her testimony to us this week about how she came to know that the book of Mormon is the word of God. She is so ready and prepared it's crazy!!!
I now understand when people say they didn't do anything, they just showed up already ready :)
Paris is awesome!!

Love,
Sœur Giles

March 5, 2018

 Sunset in Paris

So yes this was a good week! To answer your questions dad, the weather is becoming so so so so so much better! A lot warmer but still cold haha I still sleep in the under armor shirts that we bought for soccer many years ago. The heating in our apartment doesn't work too well. No to the beaux baton students maybe in the summer? No broomstick flying... my favorite french dessert is chocolate mousse for right now! The members feed us occasionally. The life style is different here, people go to school late, work late and eat late so it's a little more difficult but we are taken care of :) no tour de France t-shirt either, possible birthday present though this summer!
Anyways this week went well. We had a mission council and an exchange!

We also did some service at the bishops house. They ordered new dressers from Ikea and so we helped build them, that was super fun! And a good opportunity to help them out. They are from America but have been here for almost 20 years. They have 6 kids and the youngest is a year old! It's pretty crazy in the front row during sacrament meeting haha

On Friday we had our first family home evening with our investigators and members of the ward and it went so well!! There were a few members but it was mostly investigators and they really enjoyed it. Another sister and I gave the spiritual thought about hope. We read Ether 12:4 and talked about how hope compares to an anchor. And that even with just a little bit of hope, God can work miracles! Then we played a form of charades and had some snacks.

On Sunday they started a visitors sacrament meeting! So now at 11:30 there is a sacrament meeting for all the tourists. We walked into church and it suddenly felt so normal...like we actually knew who most people are and it's not as crazy. We were able to sit closer to the front and save a seat for our awesome investigator Lindsay who invited a friend on Saturday to come to church but the friend was busy. Too bad but such a good example! She is going to Salt Lake in a few weeks for general conference!!! So cool! She is super excited.

We also planned to go with our investigator Cynthia to the temple visitor center on Saturday ! She has a baptismal date for the 24th of this month, pray for her!!!

Sometimes it's amazing how Heavenly Father works. We had just finished our exchange so we hopped on the metro to go home but we started talking to this lady and missed our stop. We went to the end of the line and got off but she wasn't very interested. She took our card and said she would say hello. But we decided to take a bus home because it would be faster so we get on the bus. And immediately a man starts talking to us in English! He was baptized in 1989 but later had some difficulties and is no longer a member but said he still believes the church is true. He wants help in his life but has little hope. But we were able to testify that hope is the anchor of our lives. Hope in Jesus Christ will get us through any storm!

Have a great week of eating out ! :)

Love,
Sœur Giles