Oh my gosh, I feel like my life just got crazy. I completely crash every night when I go to bed. I've really got to work on not turning into one of those people who sleep through all of the meetings in church...haha yesterday seems a bit hazy. But, it's because we have been working so hard. This last week was wonderful.
First off, Jedi Council was fantastic. Loved it. Flying was really weird, we both had these really freaky "deja vu" (French word...)/looking foreward moments when the plane was landing. I was defnintely not ready for that and would prefer not to have any other flights that would remind me of my eminent fate this summer. I felt like I learned so much at the conference and was thrilled to be counseling with many of my missionary idols.
I received so much amazing revelation during the conference. People always say that inspiration comes through the Spirit and not necessarily the words that come out of the mouth of the speaker. I had such a cool experience with that. I remember at one point in the conference getting all of this revelation for worries and questions that I had. Haha, it was like 10 minutes of pure gold. I thought the assistants were the most inspired people in the world (maybe they are, but...) and was writing down every word I was "hearing". After a while, I "clicked" back into the conversation and was super super confused. None of the comments made sense. No one knew what the real topic of the conversation was. Haha, then I realized that it was just me.
Our mission is really putting an emphasis on love this coming year, this is the main thing that we are to be teaching other missionaries. President explained that if we can truly teach others to love, we will change the entire mission. It was incredible to recognize what a profound statement that was while working with our sisters this week. There were several companionships that saw unreal miracles, going from 0 to up to 5 amis with set baptism dates (even in some of the smallest, most struggling villes of the mission). As Soeur Stevens and I were reflecting on this, it dawned on us that these sisters who were seeing so much success were the strongest companionships in our zones. While they are all wonderful missionaries, these companionships were the ones that worked so well together and clearly have so much love between them. We have seen the same thing in our own companionship, we saw so many miracles this week and really feel that it had a lot to do with the strength of our relationship. We love each other and have such a genuine friendship. I could not be happier with the companion that I have.
One of the coolest miracles this week was when we had about 30 minutes before another rendez-vous. So we decided to go porting! I've never had much success porting my whole mission, but it's fantastic in Talence. We did almost a whole building with no success, then a lady opened up! Her name is Dominique, she is from Africa and maybe in her 60s. She was with her three beautiful granddaughters, literally the cutest little girls I have ever seen in my life. Turns out, Dominique has been taking the lessons from the missionaries in Paris where she lives. And her daughter, Catherine, had a Book of Mormon in the apartment so we think she has been taught before! It was incredible. At the end, we all knelt down together in this little apartment, and Dominique offered the prayer and CRIED! It was so powerful. We are going back on Wednesday! Miracle!
The next miracle this week was with this guy named Alain! So he randomly came to church about two weeks ago because his cousin is a member. We got his number but he wasn't really interested in meeting with us and a member told us he just wanted to come to church to learn how to teach his students better (apparently he is a Catholic teacher to young children). But, we set up a rendez-vous and taught him right after church and it was incredible! He said he reads the Liahona during every lunch break and he has been finding all the answers to his questions... He pulled out about 4 church manuals from his bag and explained that he has so much to learn and doesn't know where to start. Haha, we knew he had come to the right place. We just testified about the importance of starting from the beginning and learning the basics and the spirit was so strong. The member with us just kept testifying like a boss and kept telling him to listen to exactly what we tell him. Now we are teaching him again this week!
One of the biggest miracles of this week was Soeur Teruhia came to church! She is the Tahitian lady we have been working with for the last three weeks. She called us because she wanted to come back but there was lots of drama so she was scared. We have been seeing her a lot and teaching her. It was her first time in forever coming to church! We think about 20 years.
Other than that, we had several awesome exchanges. We found so so many people to teach. Up until this week, our sector has been nearly dead for months. After all of the numbers we received and things that have set last week, this coming week is going to be insane. For example, we have one day with an exchange coming up where we have 10 rendez-vous set, WITH AMIS! That one day will more than double our weekly total last week. Crazy, the Lord is in this work and it is Talence's time.
Oh, funny moment... We were porting one day and knocked on this door. It took about three minutes for all of the different locks to open and then the door swung open. No one was there. Automatic door. I thought I had seen everything. The guy talked to us from one of the back rooms, wasn't interested, and then the door closed (and very securely shut all twenty locks). Haha, it took a second to get the confused looks off our faces and to move on.
Well, as you can tell, I'm loving life and everything is great. Thanks for everything, I love you all.
Je vous aime,
Soeur Alisa Hulme
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