10-24-16

Hello hello everybody!! What happened:

Monday-pday chez le President Brown! Way fun. We played basketball, volleyball, had a great lunch made by Sister Brown. It was lots of fun. I got to talk to lots of zone members and get to know them better

Tuesday- M.T.! We found an Indian less active woman in the areabook. We went over with a member, and taught her. She has a long complicated story, but quickly, she has no testimony but loves Jesus Christ. We're going to help her gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. After that, we had RCM, and then dinner with la famille H! They invited a family over too. A few weeks back, we helped this family move for the whole day. Now they have a Book of Mormon and are going to come to church. Members can do so much more missionary work than we can, honestly.

Wednesday - F from Toulouse! Super great contact. I met this dude on a bus, he was the nicest guy ever. I had been struggling a little with bus contacting for the past few weeks, and this contact helped me get back into it. We also taught a lady I had found 6 months ago with Elder Nadauld! Her name is Mme. G. She is older. We taught the retab, she agreed with everything, but was hesitant to read the Book of Mormon. Ugh. I don't know why people nod their heads and say "yes" to everything and then obviously don't understand what we just told them haha. Weird. Afterwards, we had a rdv with an old ami named S. He is not interested. I won't divulge more. Then we had a week one coordination meeting with the office elders, Lyon ZLs and the assistants. We worked out the schedule for the trainers coming in next week. That's always a fun meeting. After, we had dinner with the B family. Their family friend, R, was finally there! I got to meet him, he's really cool. If we start to teach him the lessons, he'll get baptized for sure.

Thursday - raclette with the L family! They are awesome. Fr L is hilarious and they have the cutest family. We went over to the institute and gave M (recent convert) a blessing, then back to the church to teach D! We taught the plan of salvation finally. It went well. Our member there,  Brother Tropel, was a help. The lesson still went well. To end the night, we ate dinner with Brother and Sister S, and sister A. They are all young people. And English speakers. It was fun! We talked about missionary work, and next dinner they'll have a friend over.

Friday - we were both sick, so we rested. We got transfer calls! We are both staying here in Ecully. So I might stay one after as well, because this is Elder Burri's last transfer. I'm happy to stay here, it's the best. Our zone is jumping up to 26 people too! We got two new equipes. We had dinner with G (recent convert) and A (our ami). It was great! We gave A a blessing as well, he was pretty sick. After that, we had a sleepover with the assistants, Lyon zone leaders, office elders, confluence Chinese equipe, and Val de Saône elders. It was to celebrate elder Landry and Leon 's last week in the mission. It was super funny!! Elder Landry told us the story about a girl who stalked him....and still is. Haha it was great.

Saturday - we all played soccer together with about 30 Africans! There were so many there. We found Jer, an old ami there too!! We lost his number, so we got it back, and now we're seeing him again next week. I contacted a guy in the bus who told me that our conversation made him want to start praying again! That felt good.

Sunday - Z zone lunch, beef Wellington. Soeur Z is the best cook ever. We said goodbye to Sister Burton and Elder Landry, went to church, had dinner, then came back to send in Ecully zone numbers. Since assistants are a duo again, we're going to help them translate the mission newsletter into French. So we started at 10 and finished at midnight. It was pretty fun actually, a good language study. It really helped them out, gave them an extra two hours of sleep.

I am eager for this next transfer in Ecully. It is insane to think it's my 13th transfer, only 5 left. I know this transfer will be full of miracles. We want to baptize someone so bad. Our amis D, I, S, J, and V are all preparing for baptism. If we teach them with members, they will be baptized for sure.
During my personal studies last week, I studied charity a lot. It really helped me to see what I was doing wrong and correct it.

This transfer, we lost Elders Landry, Battezzato, Walton, Shirley, Ramirez and Hekking. Those are all great elders, it stinks to not have them in the zone anymore. I'm so grateful to have been able to work with them and meet them this transfer. Elder Landry will be sorely missed in Ecully. But Elder Menzel is great! Everyone loves him. He makes a great addition to the Ward. We are excited to have him here with us!

For this upcoming transfer, I have set my personal goals:
1. "Love is the Key"
2. "Meekness and power"
3. "Unaffected by pride"

These are things my mission president has counseled me on. They are the best goals I could have. I'm excited to devote myself to these goals and become better each day. As I read the miracle, I saw the baptisms in Brive and Carcassonne! I was so happy! It has been forever since Carcassonne had a convert baptism. It's been a while for Brive, too. It's the best feeling, to see a baptism happen in your old ville. That gave me great joy today. I can't wait to see those great wards again.

We had an incredible miracle this last week. We fixed a rdv with a man in the area book, named V. He has seen the elders a few times, has a Book of Mormon chez lui in the Congo. We met with him and testified of the restoration. He himself has been critical of his church, and is very humble, open, and prepared. He agreed to another rdv and will come to church, because he doesn't like the spirit of the church where he goes! He is the kind of person that you look at and say, "He looks like a church member!" We have high hopes for him. he understands the restoration and promised to read he Book of Mormon.

Our zone is incredible this transfer! We have the finest missionaries in our zone. Elder Burri and I know that the zone is capable of great things this transfer. We have thought of things we can do to work harder and be better. We will have a weekly challenge for the whole zone to work towards, perhaps the challenge given in the miracle. With some concentration, motivation, and follow up, we will all be able to teach lots of lessons in the presence. Elder Burri and I thought that 400 lessons in the presence for our zone this transfer could be a good goal.  That is slightly above five lessons in the presence per equipe per week. We will do it! This will be a faith-building transfer for sure. We have to do so much better to get to 250 baptisms. It's going to be hard, but we will do it.

Advice I have:
"Love All," by David B. Haight. An excellent General conference talk!! Simply beautiful.

"Whether you think that you will succeed, or you think that you will fail, you are right." -Henry Ford
How sick is that quote?! Very true.

I love you all!
Elder MacArthur

Our church made it onto the town map! (See right edge of map)

Elder Burri, me, Landry, Menzel, Wade, Sister Burton and Bright! The Ecully squad

10-17-16

Transfer 12 (10-17-16)

Stuff that happened:
Monday-solid pday. Went to Primark, bought some cheap French white shirts. Got a kebab from the Mosaïque. Pretty satisfied with that!

Tuesday-rough day. We were boy feeling a little sick. We did some contacted and got slammed. Lunch. Then transfer recommendations.

Wednesday-just about everything fell through.

Thursday-district meeting! It was pretty fun.

Friday-very good day. Lots of stuff fell through, so we had a slow start. Our rdv with a potential, K, fell through. We did get to teach D, we read 1 Nephi 11 with him. Then we had dinner with Sister S and her boyfriend from another Lyon Ward. We had raclette! It was great. We shared a thought about reading scriptures together as a couple and they committed to do it! It'll do them a lot of good.

Saturday-we taught a new investigator, J. He was contacted 6 months ago and we taught him the retab! He's been looking for a church to join so that's great!!

Sunday-we had studies, ate with the Zinn family (it was sister Zinn's birthday, so we sang her happy birthday and brought her flowers that we bought on Saturday!) and had church. None of our investigators came to church, which stunk. It's been hard to get people to church recently. It's almost a little discouraging but on fait avec. After, we did numbers and the Val de Saône Elders slept over chez nous for pday with President Brown on today!

Lessons learned:
RCM! We had a great RCM with our Ward mission leader. It was the best RCM I have ever had. He did role plays with us, gave us teaching tips, French advice, great advice. I  learned how much we can prepare for a teaching appointment. We don't ever prepare nearly enough teaching. That was a good lesson to learn, not a moment too late. We can never prepare too much to seek the spirit on how to help our investigators.

(free) Advice I have: "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." 1 Peter 2:17  A scripture I really like! Super solid advice when you think about it.

Elder Burri with flowers for Sr. Zinn and a funny photobomb

My testimony I wrote as a gift. I share it with you as well :)

10-10-16

Hello Hello everyone!

This past week was incredible. We saw so many miracles along the way! We had lots of stuff fall through this week, but with enough prayers of faith, miracles happened, and we were able to hit our goals. I really felt the power of faith this week.

At the moment, we have 9 amis! We have been using the area book to find new amis, and I'm dying to use the area book planner app. This will make area book stuff so much better. I can hardly wait!!

We had a great miracle happen on Sunday! On Saturday, our rdv with T fell through. We were frustrated, because we had a member planned as well. So we passed Sunday. Her husband, I, and his friend, S, were there. We taught them the restoration. The spirit guided us. They both accepted to be baptized. Incredible!! The Lord knew that S would be there on Sunday. So he simply didn't want us to see them on Saturday. That would have been counterproductive. The Lord knew what He was doing!! He put us there at the right time. No way could we have done this without Him. The Lord knows what He is doing. We had enough faith, and it paid dividends.

This reminds me of a poem I know called "The Race." It talks about being resilient in the face of adversity. One line says: "For winning is no more than this: to rise each time you fall." I really felt like that this week. We just kept on working and working and working no matter what, and we won the week. It was a great lesson for me.

Zone conference on Thursday was wonderful. Our discussion about policy, rules, safety, etc. did not touch me initially. But the spirit we all felt was undeniable. And I had an incredible experience during the assistants' presentation. When Elder Landry was testifying about how Joseph told the truth, that the Restoration was in fact a reality, the Spirit witnessed to me. It witnessed that what he was saying was true. That it was all true. Never before had I received such a compelling witness as that. I will forever be grateful for Elder Landry's testimony and example. He is a missionary at I respect very highly. He is an example of the Savior, through and through. He is a man. I have loved serving around him and getting to learn from his example. Giving him and extension wouldn't be a bad idea haha.

We now have 21 engages in our zone. This is incredible! Many of these people will be baptized and we will be much closer to our mission goal. I don't know if I have ever wanted something as bad as this in my whole life. What better goal could we have? My participation in achieving this will be the best success of my life. There has never been a better time to be in this mission.

Love, Elder MacArthur

Zone conference!

Exchange with Elder Raherimandimby!

10-3-16

Hello everyone! This week was great!

Monday: We went to a cathedral!

Tuesday: we had some things fall through, so we got normal studies. We saw M, a recent convert, with her boyfriend W. We helped her do missionary work!

Wednesday: we had a rdv with O. Another guy passed to us. He told us he wasn't going to act. That's life sometimes. We had a rdv with F, a less active. He was not acting either. Sigh. We visited the K family! We asked them about their friends and helped them set goals to invite them to hear the gospel. Then we did the same the with the B family, and we ate with them. Ecully is really turning into a model sector. We don't have much but the sisters have lots of stuff going on and the assistants do too. Hopefully we'll get real investigators who actually actively investigate, one day!

Thursday: district meeting, by Elder Raherimandimy from St. Etienne. Afterwards, we went to the office because we needed Books of Mormon. And I got a letter at the office, it was my old companion's wedding invitation! Crazy, even though I knew it was coming. Elder Nadauld is getting married in a week. Weird thought. Then we had RCM and CDP to end the night.

Friday: pretty hard day. Everything fell through, and our one rdv got delayed for next week because we helped in a service project for the assistants' potential amis. Who don't live in our sector, because we helped them move out. So that was alright. It was fun but not very helpful for us.

Saturday: General conference! So great. So great. We also found out, as we started to prepare for zone conference, that we are finally getting the area book iPad app. That will help so much.

Sunday: General conference and dinner at the Z's house! Really great time. They brought a friend that watched conference with the sisters!

Some good notes I took:
President Uchtdorf
-the more adept I get at technology, the more I take it for granted
- as we become more familiar with something, we lose our appreciation for it -in the church, we are given so much!
-think of yourself, your first testimony, and how sweet it was
- do we lose gratitude because our hearts are "past feeling?"
-our path is dotted with diamonds, but often, we perceive them as being ordinary pebbles -when I teach gospel principles, we must be grateful for the knowledge we have -the questions we ask have answers, answered by the gospel, the gospel found in Jesus Christ's church -the grand council in Heaven was a FAMILY COUNCIL -why am I here right now? Why was I born into a Mormon family?
-we trusted and had faith in Christ from the beginning (John 15:27) -all will be saved, but only those who accept and follow God's laws and ordinances will live with Him, where all will be made right -don't let anything cause you to miss out on a "much greater future"
-be grateful for his mercy and generosity -if I am not in awe with the plan of salvation, I need to study it again What shall we give in return for so much?
-God asks that we live up to the light that we have received
- Put our talents to work, multiply those 10 talents -understand clearly the plan of God to value and use life as I should

Elder Robert D Hales
-If we love the Savior more, will we suffer less?
- we can't be following the "Law of Moses" in our own lives
- We need to "live the Higher Law as taught by Jesus Christ"
-the higher law starts in the Home
-the parents are the missionaries, the children are the investigators -we are all seeking to be converted -when an opportunity comes to teach about the gospel, DROP EVERYTHING AND TEACH -the spirit must lead any teaching I give -God's power to influence us righteously is his love for us
- we love him because he first loved us
-have faith to testify of what you know is true -Am I consecrating my life to do this on my mission?
-FHE and family councils are important, we will grow stronger together, and suffer less -when we raise our voice in anger, the spirit leaves our companionships -what can we do when people do not choose the right?
- we cannot pray away another's agency
- We must love like the father of the Prodigal Son -the choice to love and follow the lord must be their own -be a caregiver for the Lord, and let Him be your caregiver -as I love him more, I will suffer less

Two of the great talks we heard this conference. I invite all of you to read and reread the talks to get the revelation you need from them. Unless we get revelation from the talks, there is not much point to General Conference.

I love you all! Have a good one :)
Elder MacArthur

Cool napkins!

Elder Burri and Battezzato in masks haha

9-26-16

Hey everyone! This will be another short letter, sorry.

The week was great. We now have four investigators with a baptismal date! We are excited for them.

We had a great week filled with great people and great things.

We had MLC this week, it was all about faith! It was great.

We went to a Cathedral and it was cool.

I love you all!
Elder MacArthur

Ben & Elder Burri

Meeting house in Lyon for Ecully Ward

Zone Training

9-19-16!

Hello hello everyone!

So this will be very short.

Lyon has been awesome. Everything is great. Elder Burri is awesome, the Ecully Ward is awesome, amis are awesome. We have almost 30 missionaries in the city of Lyon, that's really fun! Everyone here is great. Our DMP is awesome, everything is great. It's fun having 12 full time missionaries in your Ward! Lots of stuff gets done.

We're gonna golf now with lots of missionaries! So I don't have much time.

Pictures!

Love you all!

Elder MacArthur

Ben and Elder Bouaka

Some funny street art in Croix Rousse

9-12-16!

Hello hello! This was a great week. What went down:

Monday-pday. Played soccer, napped a little, not much to report on.

Tuesday-service for Sister R, two tombez-vous, and English class. We had six people there this week! It's growing.

Wednesday-we saw E, and then we saw a lady who we passed to Bastia a while ago. She moved for a few months to Bastia, and now she is back in Nice. Her name is Mme. G, she's really nice. She's pretty sick and old, but she loves the Book of Mormon and wants to come to church. After that, we went to the Riquier neighborhood to visit the Ms, a less-active family we ran into last week. We talked about the temple, and they have a really desire to go again. They have been less-active for 10 years, but we think they can be reactivated. Right after talking to them, we bought some patisseries from a boulangerie right across from the Riquier train station. The lady working there was super croyante, and really interested in talking again. We'll be buying more pastries soon I guess! They were pretty bad honestly, but the lady is great so whatever. We went right to the church afterwards for RCM & ward council. We split the equipes, and I taught a Chinese amie with Elder Zhu. We watched the restoration video in Chinese. Really funny actually, watching American actors dubbed over in Chinese!

Thursday-we went to Cagnes-sir-Mer and saw Sr. B, a sister who is married to a non-member. It's been a while since she's been visited, and she really appreciated the visit. We talked about eternal marriage with her and her husband, K. He's not really interested but he was very respectful. After that, we went back up to the church to teach D with Frere C. D didn't read or pray, and just spent the whole time questioning the doctrine. Frere C answered questions really well, but D just isn't ready yet I think. Afterwards, we went to La Turbie, a small town right above Monaco. On the way there, we met two Americans from Arizona! They were really cool. They knew who we were, and they had lots of questions for us. At the end of the 45 minute bus ride, we gave them a Book of Mormon in English, and they were touched, even if they were not religious. We met Frere O in La Turbie, and he took us to his house in St. Martin-de-Peille, a super small village in the mountains. The Os have a beautiful home, and a swimming pool that looked really nice haha. They have a great view of the Italian border as well, they live only 10 km away from Italy. We had dinner and invited them to invite friends to our ward missionary activity on the 30th. We're gonna have a dance, last time it worked really well! The Os are Australian, but have lived all over, because Fr. O works for the UN. They don't speak French, so they are pretty quiet at church. But at home, in their own environment, they are super cool! It was great to get to know them and build a member-missionary relationship. Fr. O told us funny mission stories, and his oldest daughter loves Harry Potter and LOTR so we had some commonalities.

Friday-transfer calls. I'm leaving Nice. Big bummer, since Nice is the best sector in the mission. I don't care what anybody else says. But, I'm going to Lyon finally! I'll be in the Ecully ward, the Orange County of Lyon so to speak. I'll be with a good friend, Elder Burri. He served in Carcassonne so that's awesome! We'll be the leaders for the Ecully zone, the biggest zone in the mission. Having lots of missionaries close by will be super fun! At church, we'll have 12 full time missionaries in the ward, including the mission nurse, an office senior couple, and President and Sister Brown. So it's bound to be lots of fun! We played a prank on St Raph Friday morning as well! The Nice elders were in St. Raphael for transfer calls. Elder Zhu changed my phone's name to "E Assistant 1" on St Raph's phone, and I called them and impersonated the assistants. They freaked out when I gave them their fake transfer call! Then I called them a minute later and told them who it was, and they were relieved. They bought it hook, line and sinker. It was pretty funny, they got a good laugh out of it. It was Elder Sweet's first transfer call haha. After calls, we visited a sick member in a clinic, and packed, bought some stuff for the sisters apartment because Nice is getting sisters next transfer. A pretty crazy and busy day.

Saturday-we played basketball with two potentials, and Elder Sauro and I actually won! My hook shot was working well and we are a lot taller than the other guys so we scraped out a win haha. We showed them the church building and talked about religion and whatnot. We have another basketball appointment next week with them. We finished cleaning the other apartment, packing, saying goodbye, and for dinner, M took us out to eat at Don Carlo, a great pizza place. It's fantastic. It was fun eating pizza and hanging out with M, he's so cool. An ideal RM. we shared a message about patience and gratitude from Hebrews 12 with him. I'm gonna miss him a lot!

Sunday-the last day. Sigh. Church went well, despite us inviting everyone to church and nobody coming. I said goodbye to everyone, took lots of pictures, and we ate lunch with the ward. After some contacting, and putting in numbers, we had dinner at K's house one last time. It was super bitter-sweet. I'm gonna miss K so dang much. Maybe the best human being I have ever met. I seriously don't think he has a weakness. It's incredible. He gave me a goodbye gift, which was really touching. We shared a message about the priesthood and its power. He'll be receiving the Melchizedek priesthood in a few weeks after stake conference! I have never met a recent convert who is so converted. It's nuts. I finished packing, ready to leave at 7 the next morning. I'll go to Marseille, then Montpellier, then up to Lyon. An 8 hour trip.

What I learned:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." I read this somewhere in a talk this week, and I really appreciated the poem. I guess this is where that book comes from. Indeed, how often do we see people figuratively "blame the stars" and fail to ascertain the true source of failure. No selfish post hoc justification can resolve the problem. This goes along well with another quote I found this week: "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." -Booker T. Washington. Here in Nice, we have worked hard but have faced great opposition. I know that it wasn't for nothing, that we were still successful in fulfilling our calling!

(free) Advice I have:
"And Peter Went Out and Wept Bitterly," by President Hinckley. A great talk about Peter's conversion and how it relates to us. "Put on the Whole Armor of God," by President Tanner, April 1979 Gen Conf. President Tanner speaks persuasively about the necessity of keeping the armor of God  on at all times! Really great talk.

Well, that's all for this beast-of-an-email. I love you all! Thanks for listening. God bless you.
Love, Elder MacArthur

Ben and his next companion Elder Burri in Ecully

Ben, former BYU basketball player Brandon Davies and Elder Suaro in Nice.  Brother Davis plays professionally for a team in Monaco.

Elder Suaro and Ben