8-17-15

Bonjour everybody! I had a magical week this week! Take a listen.

Monday we had a very very tranquille pday! We did a little shopping, I got three cool ties for cheap. Then we just kicked it at the apartment. We watched the Testaments, so that was fun! We had FHE and that was really fun! Really good time. We talked about the Striplings Warriors and how their faith protected them throughout the war. I also heard a remix of "Lonely Boy" by the Black Keys as we were shopping in a Jules. It was a really good day! 

Tuesday, we taught J, it went well! We talked to her about the temple a little but more and she really liked it. We took a train to Marseille for the zone conference in Aix the next day. It's always lots of fun to stay the night in a tiny apartment with 12 missionaries haha. 

Wednesday, we took a train to Aix en Provence for the conference, which was amazing! President Brown encouraged us to fully implement the temple in everything we do. He bore strong testimony and we all felt the spirit extremely strongly.

 

Shoutout to Elder Heiner for the letter he sent me! Great stuff. 

On Thursday, we got back to Carcassonne in the morning, then studied and did weekly planning which took a good long while. We had a lesson planned with J but she said she's struggling right now and can't see us. Just the time where she needs to see us the most haha! Height of irony right there. After that we just had a role-play with S chez lui. Then we met with another member at the chapel, M. We talked to him about the importance of the temple, we extended an allez-vous commitment: will you prepare to go to the Paris temple when it opens? He said yes! He loves the temple so déjà it was pretty easy.

Friday was a great day!! Most successful day so far, numbers wise. We had 6 street lessons! Great stuff, the temple is such a blessing for getting good street contacting. We set up 2 rendezvous on the street, hopefully that leads to more lessons and new amis!

Saturday we finally saw our ami J-C, he is doing very well! His half brother is living with him so he has company which he loves. He is very glad when we come over and he is understanding better! I am very very happy for him, I get really sad when I think about how sad he has been. I really really want him to be happy! He is such a sweet guy. Then we had a Samedi Sportif, but nobody came besides S! So we played a game of horse, which I won surprisingly! I am terrible at basketball but I shot alright. Then we had a few hours of rather unproductive contacting. All in all, a great day. J-C is coming to church tomorrow so I'm really happy about that!

On Sunday, we went to church, bien sur. Elder Bleak gave a talk on developing Christ-like attributes, our friend S gave a talk on Iron Rod. Both were great talks! Our ami J-C was there at church for all 3 hours, et en plus, we got to see him after church at 6 pm to teach the Ten Commandments! He is really excited about his baptism date. We taught him the Word of Wisdom at church, and he accepted it very well. He wants to stop smoking anyways so it was a no-brainer for him. We got in a few great street lessons today, mostly with tourists. A few great Scottish accents haha. We hit the 20 lessons a week Standard of Excellence his week, we had 23 lessons! That felt really good to see how much the temple has blessed our ability to work here.

Lessons I learned:  As my friend Elder Heiner told me, "The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary." Hahaha I love him and his advice! Simply put: work hard if you want to win.

 (free) Advice I have: 

* "Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!" -Neal A. Maxwell.  Sooooo true! We get to decide where our priorities are. We are in complete charge of that.

* You can't "ride to paradise on a golf cart."  If we want to get there, we will need to adequately prepare! Also very very true. If we want the victory in the celestial city, we need a celestial spaceship, not a ratty old Peugeot.

I love you all so much! Thanks for supporting me and thanks for being here on Earth! Really though, thanks for all you do. 

Love, Elder MacArthur

 

President and Sister Brown being hilarious at our zone conference in Aix en Provence