Cups

musical number performed at zone conf.

Letter March 14, 2016

I never really know what to email about mission life because it is an
entire week written in an hour on an iPad. Not very easy to do.
Furthermore people change all the time because they are either
progressing or not. So i might--actually will--email about new and
different people all the time. We are working with these people all
day for 7 days, so a lot can change!! I sure appreciate all your love
and prayers though :). Our investigators were so happy and surprised
that you were praying for them! Peter keeps saying, my name is in
America? Oh wow. Hahahah he's hilarious.
Okay so Imma give an update on the people...
PETER--Oh Peter is the greatest. He has been keeping commitments so
well and last week he received a personal testimony that the true
church was restored through Joseph Smith!  It was incredible and so
humbling to hear him simply bear witness of it!! And after church this
week he came up to sister Cummings and me and said, "I'm never ever
missing a week of church! I love it!" We laughed and said we would
never ,it's a week either. His eyes got big and he said, "really?
You'll never miss a week either? Wow!" Oh Peter he's a hoot. Oh and
huge news, his baptism interview is TONIGHT! Gah so stoked for him!!!
And his baptism is scheduled for March 26th (the elders are also
bringing a man named Kingsley to be baptized on that date.
MARC--  He was actually
the first lesson I taught with sister Cummings after the MTC. He found
the church by typing in "life change" and the LDS church popped up!
Well, he started chatting with the sisters and was referred to us.
When we first met with him, he was only interested in wildlife service
and had no religious background. Well, by the second lesson we had him
on date (March 26--yes the same as Kingsley and Peter!!! What a day
that's gonna be)!  He is so good. He is reading from the Book of Mormon
and praying everyday. He hasn't missed church yet! Except he left the
first third hour because he was too hungry to stay lol. Oh and during
our first lesson when we prayed he said it was THE FIRST TIME he had
ever prayed before!!! Oh my goodness. This is incredible. Prayers help!!
These are the only two on baptism date so far (except we found 2 new
ones last week!! I'll tell you about them in a minute).
It is so so so sad but we have lost contact with Ailine, Michelle and
Shomara. We have tried again and again to reach them--but it is
impossible!!! :( we might have to drop them which would be really sad
and what will probably end up happening. Oh Ailine was SO CLOSE! Gah
she just won't answer us all of the sudden. We will keep trying
though.
Okay I'm sorry I'm throwing all these names at you--but a lot can and
does change in a week!
So new people on date, JULIET and ALAN. I will talk about Juliet in my
group email so check that it please :). Alan though...
Dad, you're gonna love this. I just wish you could be here teaching
Alan!  We met Alan on the bus. He is from Africa and speaks French
with a little tiny bit of English. Oh man, I was just dying because I
don't know any French! All I could do was ask him how he was. Which
somehow led us to getting an appointment with him. Luckily Sister
Barnjak (a sister I was with in the MTC) is from France and agreed to
skype call us and translate for us. So we found Alan's tiny flat and
taught him in broken English the gospel. It was SO COOL! Took a while
cuz of the translating, but we got the message across. At the end we
asked him to be baptized and he said "Sure, why not?" Yes Alan, why not?
But guess what? He is moving soon. Of course. Why do all the Africans
move? So, what can we say, we are building up the church everywhere
except for England!  I might've recorded a bit of the lesson to send
to you to see if you can decipher the French....and Lily could you do
me a huge favor and email me your testimony in French? I would love to
give it to Alan to read!  And anybody else, cuz I swear everyone in
the family speaks French.
So besides speaking to the French, I've also run into a couple of
Italians! And wow every person I've met from Italy just loves to talk.
The Italian elder in our zone left us a ten minute voicemail wondering
if we could come and play futbol on P day. Sister Cummings and I also
talked to this Italian girl at the bus stop, on the bus, at the tube
stop, and on the tube. Same girl and we barely got a word in. Oh but
it's hilarious. If I run into anyone from France or Italy I always
say, oh my mom or dad were missionaries there! And there you
go--perfect segway into the gospel.
Joanna has come to church 3 times now in the past 5 weeks!!! We are so
proud of her. She's doing so well. She is working on personal progress
right now and will hopefully get a calling soon!
Oh gosh, and this predicament....the ward boundary is so large and
people move in and out of it very quickly. So we just learned from a
high councilor that there are 700 records of individuals in the ward
but they think there are only about 300 people in the area. Keep in
mind about 80 come to church so that is a crazy amount of unknown. As
missionaries, we are going to help bishop track all of these records
down. Luckily there are three companionships in the ward, but this is
going to prove to be a lot of work!
And I gave a talk on Sunday, so that was fun. I was literally given
about 20 ,mins when I had written 13. It made for an interesting time.
Sacrament meeting is usually like this though! There are only enough
people to give two talks a week and almost all who speak are converts.
Those passing the sacrament and blessing it are all converts too, some
only a year or two. Which makes it amazing and so different from
home! I mean it's not perfect. If sacrament meeting starts at 10:05
then it's a really good and unusual week. One time it started a
quarter after. And the meeting usually ends 11:05. Not perfect, but
wow the people's hearts are so good. And it's hilarious when the
African Women get back from holiday in Ghana or Nigeria and they are
wearing their huge head scarfs and gorgeous layers of African fabric
but you can see their garments poking out.
Also on Sunday, I as wearing these shoes that I had torn a little hole
in. (Not my expensive shoes or the boots but my cheap ones).  Anyway, I
was wearing them and this woman named Sister Jenkins comes up to me
holding literally three pairs of shoes and hands them over to me. She
exclaimed, "a missionary can not be walking around with a hole in her
shoe so I went and bought these shoes for you! 

Sis. Soulier gets new shoes

She literally got up in the middle of Relief Society and went and bought shoes for me. So kind! But awesome that she got them during church.
Other than this, missionary life is just SO FUN. I hope every transfer
is like this because it is honestly some of the most fun I have ever
had. I love it so much.
And zone conference of course!!  Wow that was fantastic too. President
and Sister Stevens are something else and they make the meeting very
special and sacred. We had an incredible meeting about the Atonement
and got pumped for Easter week. Cuz the new Easter initiative is
out!!! Come follow him. #HALLELUJAH. GO WATCH IT NOW. HURRY AND SEE IT. It's so good.
But anyway, this is everything about me...I want to hear all about
what is going on at home!  Can I get an update on everybody's week?!
Actually, will you do me a favor? Email me your favorite scripture and
favorite moment of the week. Yep that's a favor from everyone so I
hope to learn of 5 new scriptures!!