Called to Serve. Paris, France: Such a Simple Act of Service

Hey guys!

Once again, already running out of time, so I'm gonna be a little short again.

For P-day, since there are 4 of us in the apartment, we divide up the chores, Elder Kelley and I do groceries and Elder Sumsion and Elder Blais do the cleaning. Which is fine with me, but it's a little hard considering that we have to carry all of that food home in bags, all of that food being enough food to feed 4 guys for a week. Then, on top of that, we decide, for example, that next week we're going to go to Mont Saint-Michel (yeah, it makes Vianden look a little sad), so to save time, we shop for 2 weeks in one. Meaning Elder Kelley and I are now in charge of carrying, in one trip, enough food to feed 4 missionaries for 2 weeks. Talk about a lot of food.

Things like this are not something that I really expected to be doing as a missionary, nor are they something that you probably think about me doing when you imagine me as a missionary. But they're a part of the life of a missionary, and, yes, even shopping can help us grow (in Elder Kelley's and my case, physically, in the shoulder and fore-arm areas. :) ). On our way back to the apartment today, after doing that. We entered into the building, and started to take everything upstairs to where ours is. Of course, we had a little too much to heft all the way up there in one load, so we went up with what we could carry. But as we turned back around to go and get the rest, here came our neighbor hauling what was the heaviest part of all the groceries. He was currently in the process of cleaning his car, vacuum and everything downstairs, but he saw that we were a little tired and needed some help, and jumped in to do it. It was such a simple act of service, something that he really didn't even seem to think much of, but something that really hit me. People aren't always nice to the missionaries, believe it or not, and when someone does something like that, especially for their weird white-shirt-wearing American neighbors, just to help, it means a lot. The last couple weeks in Rennes have been kind of hard, as we've worked just o find a few people to teach, but I know that God watches over us and is thankful for the work that we do, and that he can show his love to us through others.

A Lot of Missionary Shoes with a Lot of Miles on Them

This last week, we set a goal to have 10 lessons with random people in the street. For us, that was a pretty high goal. But the week went pretty well, and as we got to Sunday evening we had made it to 8. But, it wasn't 10. We had an hour and a half left in the evening, and honestly, I don't think either of us thought we were going to be able to accomplish our goal. But we said we'd do our best. And, surprise surprise, the Church is true, and within speaking to 5 people, we got our last two lessons! It came, but only after the trial of our faith, after a few hours of getting rained on without umbrellas throughout the week, a few mean words yelled at us, and a few days of sore feet. It just took that extra little push to get there, to reach the point where miracles happen.

Things are starting to pick up here, and I really feel so great! My feet have hurt more than in a long time when I go to bed at night, and I'm more tired when I wake up than I can remember, but I feel happier than I've ever felt on my mission. I'm really trying to do my best to make these last few months the best that they can be! It's a lot of work, but it's all worth it.

En Mission pour le Seigneur,