Monday, January 13, 2014

There's a static…that the average recent convert runs into the missionaries seven times before being baptized. We just easily knocked out her first three. 1/13/13

Bonjour Ma Famille,

It's been a great week, just kind of normal.  Working hard as usual.  I guess the only unusual thing here was the weather.  Oh my gosh, it feels like summer.  Okay, not an Aix-en-Provence summer, but maybe a colder summer night in Utah.  It has been in the 60's nearly all week.  Wait, what?  I thought I was sent up north for the winter--no gloves, no coat, and most mornings I can't even see my breath.  Hmm, something tells me it's too good to be true, it will be freezing again soon, but for now I'm enjoying it.  I think all of the cold weather must have been saved for the States.  Thank you very much.

Other than that, the only other bizarre thing was having to renew my French legality (the joys of hitting your year mark).  Talk about a language test...

Crazy news of the week, our branch president got released after 19 years of service (Okay, so as I thought about this, I realized that maybe you wouldn't think this was super cool or a big deal.  But, I totally think it is and it's going to completely change the branch.  Haha, oh the things that shake the world of missionaries...).  He really served with everything that he had, but it was time to give him a little break (seeing as he has held the calling since only months after his own baptism).  Our new branch president is awesome, I'm so excited to see what's going to happen here.  He's a 25 year old student, returned missionary, and is a convert himself of only a few years.  He loves missionary work and has been one of our closest allies since arriving in Besancon this last semester.  Things are going to change here, I can feel it.  Cool sidenote: since we had the whole stake presidency in our branch yesterday we over tripled the regular sacrament meeting attendance (again, sorry for the things that shake the world of missionaries).

I absolutely love Besancon...not sure if you're allowed to have favorite villes, but this one is mine.  It's so incredible to see a sector and a branch grow so much in only a few months.  It's seriously exploding, I'm not sure that I have ever had so many amis to teach...only one of which was here when we arrived.  There are tons of potentials too and member referrals that we are just getting to start working with.  I love seeing how God works.

Cool miracle: We contacted this girl earlier on in the week who knew us.  Turns out that she had helped Soeur Pagano and I with our bags when we first arrived back in September.  Apparently we aren't too easy to forget...two blonde Americans, 6 huge suitcases, and nothing but scribbled out instructions to get us to our new appartment...or maybe it was the Spirit.  Either way, she remembered us.  Although she wasn't interested in learning more about the gospel, it was a nice coversation.  Several days later we met her again on the bus when we were headed to the gare to take a train.  Then, she ended up taking the same train as us and we talked to her for nearly an hour.  She's awesome.  There's a stastic (not sure if it's worldwide or just in Europe), but that the average recent convert runs into the missionaries seven times before being baptized.  We just easily knocked out her first three.  One day she'll be a member...

Everything is wonderful, I love you all.  I love being a missionary.

Je vous aime,
Soeur Alisa Hulme

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