Elder MacArthur's Mission to France : 7-25-16!

Transfer 10 (7-25-16). What went down:

Monday- fun pday. Went to Èze, saw a castle. Tranquille.

Tuesday- we saw Frère F, shared a thought, ate lunch with him. Had horse meat! It was delicious. Then we got on a train to Marseille for our conference.

Wednesday- multi-zone conference in Aix en Provence. We talked about our mission initiative "Feux De Joie" (French for bonfires) and how we can start these sparcs in members. It was really fun. Elder Sauro and I presented on Ancestry and indexing, which went very well. After the conference, I got to talk a lot with an old comp, Elder Hansen, who is going home in a week! He's at the end of his mission, it was good to see him again and catch up. He was doing so well, and it made me very happy to see him before going home. After that, we drove back to Nice with the Bastia (Corsican city) frères, which was a blast. They are super fun missionaries.

Thursday-exchange with Elders Ramsey and Wilkey from Bastia! We got Elder Ramsey's legality, had a tombez-vous, then went to Monaco to visit a member! They got a kick out of being in Monaco haha, it's a very fancy place. We had to take off our tags which was weird. Just before our RDV, a lady stopped us and asked us if we were Mormon. We got to talking, and she told us her sister is a member in Italy, and she went to church in Italy a lot! So we exchanged numbers and she wanted to come to church this week! We're really excited about her. Her name is V, and she has huge potential! Our RDV with Sr. C went really well. After, we took a bus back to Nice, then the Bastia Frères dropped us off at Cagnes Sur Mer, right next to Nice, for our RDV. We ate dinner with the M family, they are really awesome. It was great being on exchange with Elder Ramsey and Wilkey. They are so sick. I wish I was in Bastai with them all the time!

Friday- we went to Cannes to turn over an old apartment to the agency, we had to drop the keys off, we signed for the apartment and everything. We got back, did transfer recommendations for next week's transfer calls, had RCM, then we all went with our DMP to the Tep's for dinner! It was cool going to a RDV with our DMP.

Saturday- we cleaned a lot (this week's district meeting is cancelled mission-wide for the "DeClutter Olympics." We got rid of lots of stuff! We cleaned a lot too. We saw L and E, both RDVs went very well.

Sunday-normal stuff, and a great dinner with the other elders and members to close things out. K's non-member aunt was there (who asked for a BoM to give to Kevin's non-member mom, how cool is that?) so we went over the plan of salvation. It went super well, minus one member bringing up outer darkness, which triggered a "there are no women in outer darkness, it's only the 'sons' of perdition!" That discussion lasted longer than it ever should have, in that it happened at all. Bon. A good day!

What I learned:
“Duty is the sublimest word in the English language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.” - General Robert E. Lee. This is something I learned this week. "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." -Ecclesiastes 12:13.
This is all we have to do.

“A man filled with the love of God,” wrote the Prophet Joseph Smith, “is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.” (History of the Church, 4:227.) This is what happens to us, in our hearts, when we do our duty!

(free) Advice I have:
"True Greatness," by Elder Howard W. Hunter, April 1982 Gen Conf. A wonderful talk about what that important word means. One way to achieve this in the family, as President McKay taught: “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."

Thanks for listening! I love you all. Remember the people of Nice in your prayers. They need them more than I do.
Love, Elder MacArthur