Soeur Ethington | Week 28

This week was bittersweet. We said goodbye to Elder and Sister Bush, who were one of the amazing couple missionaries who work at the Visitors' Center with us. We threw a goodbye party for them and went to this fancy expensive steakhouse called Hippopotamus. Through this experience, I learned that in France, "medium rare" steak = very very rare steak. The meal itself was delicious, with bottomless mashed potatoes and ratatouille, but boy was that steak raw. 

*I would just like to add that I had to correct "stake" to "steak" like 5 times when I was writing this. Missions are rough, you guys.*

We taught Chantale the Plan of Salvation this week, and it was a really powerful lesson. We taught her in this gorgeous little park in a city called Issy-les-Moulineaux. When we started the lesson, we asked her if she'd prayed to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. She told us that she had, and that she knew it was true! I can't describe the joy I feel every time one of our amis tells us that they received an answer to their prayer. It strengthens my testimony SO MUCH that Heavenly Father answers our sincere prayers--all we need to do is ask. 

As you know, we do lots of work on mormon.org here at the Visitors' Center, and this week we had a miracle! We accept lots of chats from people from all over the world, but on Friday morning we saw a chat for someone in France. I cannot stress how RARE it is to have a French person come to mormon.org. We got super excited and jumped on the chat. The girl on the chat was named Lucile and she lived in Paris! We started getting to know her and told her we lived by Versailles. She then asked if we worked at the temple and started talking about how much she's always wanted to go. We invited her to come visit the Visitors' Center and she said she would! We met her later that day and showed her around. She loved it and said she wants to come back! We invited her to go to church where she lives (St. Ouen sector) and she actually ended up going and LOVING IT. Anyway, Lucile is awesome and we're so happy we had that cool miracle. 

This week, we also went finding with the Guy family and the Paris ZLs, Elder Ludwig and Elder Durant. It was so fun and we got a few new amis out of it! We contacted this lady who ended up getting really aggressive and saying that she didn't believe we were all God's children because not everyone accepts God as their Father. It made me sad to see that some people don't see God as the merciful, loving Father that He is.

We also had Zone Conference this week. Here are some thoughts I had about what we learned:

- More commandments equals more blessings! 

- People give Peter a lot of crap for sinking when he walked on water, but I think we need to cut him a lot of slack because he's the only apostle that actually GOT OUT OF THE BOAT. As missionaries, we're out of the boat, spiritually speaking. We're out here, relying solely on our faith to pull us through and let us see miracles. As long as we keep our eyes on the Savior, no wave will be big enough to sink us. 

- Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

- The woman with the issue of blood in the Bible didn't only have faith in Christ, she also ACTED on her faith. She reached out to Him and touched His robes, and only then was she healed. How can we reach out to Christ in faith? 

I love the scriptures! I love my companion! I love my mission! Life is great, even though it's getting cold here. I guess I'm just going to have to learn to love the rain. 

À bientôt, 

Soeur Ethington

We baked cookies with the Valenzuela family and my aunt Arlène! She happens to be the YW President in my ward and it was so much fun spending time together.