July 28, 2014

What a week!  One thing that is exciting is that we got a ton of new information this week at our District meeting.  We will finally be getting two new missionaries :D  They are both Tahitian (an elder and a sister) and went to the MTC in New Zealand which is super cool :)  The new sister will be coming to ST.  Pierre so we will pick her up this Thursday :)  That means I will finally not be the newest missionary on the island;) 

This week was fantastic:)  I love how much the mission is changing us (my companions and I) and how much we are working together to help each other change.  I cannot believe how much patience I have been able to exercise and I never would have been able to without faith, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel.  But if we bear our trials with patience it is incredible how much the Lord will bless us.  I like a quote sister Thomas often shares which says that you will never regret having been too kind.  I also love the scripture in proverbs 16:1 I believe, that says "a soft answer turneth away wrath," it is so true, and my companion Sister Isham has been an incredible example of this principle and I am trying to learn from her:)  We have all practiced a lot of patience, and this week for our companionship it really paid off, because even though the work was the same work, our attitudes and our unity were incredible and we were smiling and singing all the day long:)  We have had to let some investigators go these past two weeks which is sad because we really tried to go back to the basics and explain as simply and clearly as we could and then invite them to be baptized, but  sometimes people just don’t want to change or they are not ready yet:/  But they are all super kind and we love them still and who knows what the Lord has planned for them.  We think it is the answer to our fast to know with whom we needed to concentrate, because now we have 4 or 5 progressing investigators that really are doing great.

 The branch talent show this week was a blast, and we had 8 investigators there and 5 participated!!!!  Soeur Thomas played the flute, Sr isham, Chris and I sang, and Antoine played his bass guitar for two numbers:) we were also in a dance with the young woman:)  It was a great night and there was a dinner and music and dancing afterwards (it was SOOOOOOOO hard resisting the urge to dance!!!! ;)  So that night when we went home, after planning, we went up and had a dance party in our room to EFY music before going to bed:)  

It hit me again how spoiled I am to be in this mission again, and especially in the south, because even when people don’t want to learn about the Gospel for the most part they are super nice, and offer you things to drink and snacks and invite you to dinner, and ya.... spoiled, spoiled spoiled.  Not to mention, that everywhere we go it is incredibly beautiful and I love being next to the ocean, and the forest and the mountains all at the same time:)

Yesterday was Soeur Thomas birthday and Soeur Isham and I stayed up a little late to hid sticky notes with things we appreciate about her all over the house, and decorated the stairs with papers spelling out "joyeux anniversaire" :)  we made her breakfast, and we had crepes for dinner, and it was cute how everyone at church remembered that it was her birthday as well.  Hurray for love:)  and hurray for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has made me all that I am and will continue to help me be better all my life:)  have a wonderful week! 

Love, Soeur Wilson

July 21, 2014

So last week when I didn’t get to write we had a good week and also this past week was a good week:)  The past week was super awesome because Soeur Thomas and I had been working for quite some time with the mission, district, and branch leader to organize mini missions for the young women (youth) in the church and we finally got to do one :D  It was with Minelli Delnard and she was awesome.  She worked with us four days and stayed with us three nights and is such a cute little thing :)  It is amazing how motivated the youth of the church here are even though they aren’t numerous.  I don’t think I ever would have been interested to do a mini mission, but every girl in the branch here has signed up and think that it is cool:)  tant mieux ;)  I love it:) 

I thought that I was going to be transferred last week because we got a phone call from the zone leaders telling us that there would be transfers on sunday.  I was pretty sad at first because I really love it here, and I feel like we are really starting to see miracles after all of the hard work (also you cannot imagine how excited I am for the ward talent show this coming friday and I thought I wouldn’t get to participate anymore;).   but pretty quickly I got over myself because I know that the Lords plan is the best plan, and that if I moved places there were just as many blessings and beautiful moments to be had there as there are here.  Whenever I had a little "but..." come into my mind I sang the song "I'll go where you want me to go dear lord" to myself and smiled because it is true, and I hope I can stay like that and be even better throughout my whole life :)  I was 100 percent ready for any news on sunday and I got a happy little surprise and I am still in St. Pierre:)  I don’t know when I will leave for Maurice but le president told me soon because normally I will go to replace Sr packer if my visa nonsense works out. 

We had an all-day ward picnic the 14 Juillet (their independence day) which was super fun:)  we had two investigators come (Marie Elise and Isabelle) and the elders had three :D   We had a little hike, we ate, we danced, played games, and had a marvelous time:)  The coolest thing is that Marie Elise and Isabelle made friends with each other (they actually live in the same apartment complex) and made little plans to go on walks together, and hopefully we can use that to help them have a friend nearby to support them in the gospel :)

I think a lot about my testimony being on a mission and it is interesting how it is changing and growing.  As I am going about my day sometimes little thoughts will come into my mind and then I think "hey wow that is so true!" for example this past week I thought "I live the Gospel and I know that it's true."  Exactly, and what could make more since?  Who knows better if something is good or not than someone who has tried it out.  I do live the gospel, and I know that it is true:)

I love getting the chance to talk about my parents while out here.  You cannot imagine how proud I am of them and how much it fills me with joy to tell others about them and how incredible they are.  What incredible examples; they are both converts to the church and were baptized at eighteen and it is only recently that I have really realized how alone they were with all of the changes they were making and how deep their testimonies/conviction really had to have been, and I will be eternally grateful for what they did for our family:)  They changed the course of our history forever.

We had an incredible tender mercy/miracle this past sunday.  Every last one of our investigators who had said they would come to church this sunday and were excited called and canceled that morning.  It was super discouraging and I was quite sad inside as I went to church, but I cleared my mind and told myself that we had done everything it was possible for us to have done and the lord knows our hearts.  In the middle of sacrament meeting we almost died of surprise as Antoine (our investigator who looks like jack sparrow:)  and his girlfriend Chris walked in and came and sat by us:)  talk about tears of joy:)  they stayed all three hours and were super social with everyone, and at the end I was talking to Chris and she told me that she has never felt comfortable in a church, but when she walked in that morning she felt the spirit and felt like she was finally where she needed to be :D  HURRAY:DDDDD thank you heavenly father:)  they are excited for the talent show this friday because Antoine is accompanying me on the bass guitar and Chris is going to sing with me:)  I hope that everyone has an incredible week!!!!  I love you all:)

Love,

Soeur Wilson

Well that is highly unfortunate.... I finally had a nice enough computer to send some pictures and my camera just died and all I uploaded was nonsense.... 

This photo is from today.  You can’t really see my nails, but the daughter of one of our investigators did our nails today (ironically something none of us--soeur isham, sr thomas and myself-- never did at home;)  on my thumbnails there are sparkilly monkies;D  I’m super pleased ;) Our investigators name is Marie Elise, she is 68 and has won miss mammy numerous times which makes me smile so much:)  she makes me think a little bit of Grandma Tone:)  She is incredibly nice and just loves dressing up.  She helped us learn some more creole today and I got to have a little dance party to creole music with her granddaughters :D

This picture is from the middle of this past week.  We had an exchange with the sisters from the north (In St. Denis) -I went up and worked with Soeur Stewart (who crazily enough had actually been in a french class of mine at BYU but we never talked) and we had a great time.  It was a needed change and she gave me some great advice and I felt like I got to refocus on how to be a better missionary:)  the photo is sr isham, sr thomas and I waiting for the other sisters, and eating our fast-food (for the first time since I left home;) on the side of the road like hobos :)  We were super pleased with ourselves, and just about died laughing because we had also accidentally bought three Ice Age dvds at the drive-in (because we thought they were free...) but we also are just not supposed to have dvds like that as missionaries.  You know now that I’m telling the story it doesn’t seem as funny, but it really was amusing in the moment;)

July 7, 2014

Okay it was a crazy crazy crazy but a good week:)  Our mission President was on the island this week and we also had District Conference (a church meeting for the members of the whole island) with a member of the Seventy from South Africa, Elder Hamilton, and his wife who had come to speak.  Both were super good experiences but we also had to travel a lot and they lasted all day and now I’m exhausted;)  We had two investigators come with us to the conference on sunday:)  They are two sisters named Marie Elise and Yvonna and they are just the kindest people.  They make me smile because they both are little fashion queens and have won multiple times "miss mammy" awards (fashion shows for grandmas) and they love dressing up:)  They both have the sweetest spirits and have been really touched by the spirit.  They have told us multiple times that every time we come over they feel so good:)  even their daughters, who were over once, told them that they had been touched by our visit and want to come back and talk with us again:)  We had a picknick with our branch afterwards for lunch and they came and it was beautiful to see how well the members greeted/fellowshipped them.  Everyone brought food and everybody shared with everybody, and everyone talked with everyone, and the sun was shining, and there was just happiness and love:)  Even our bus driver (because we'd rented a bus to go up all together) was invited to come eat and enjoy with us:)  He was touched by the moment and invited us (the sister missionaries) to come talk with him more about the Gospel tomorrow:)  On the way back we all sung hymns together and it made me smile to think how strange latter day saints can be but how much I love it:)  I love looking at young boys who are well dressed and kind and respectful, and young girls who are so beautiful in modest dresses and who know that they are daughters of God and who love themselves and virtue.  It is a beautiful thing, hurray!!!!!  I can imagine them sitting next to Jesus just glowing with light:)  I love virtue, I love good values, I love kindness:)

Saturday night was exciting and it was a miracle that I survived Sunday. Soeur Thomas had been feeling bad all week and she worries pretty easily so she decided to talk about it with our mission President while he was here.  He told her that she could go to the hospital that night (we had been in St. Denis for a meeting, two ours north of home).  We got there at about nine, she was admitted, and we ended up leaving to go back to our apartment at 3:30 a.m.  Heinous!  She didn’t have anything seriously wrong with her which is good, but boy were we tired.  Soeur Isham and I amused ourselves fairly well though:)  I talked to just about every single person in the waiting room about the restoration, gave out brochures, made lots of new friends, and invited everyone to our branch picknick on the 14 of July and one family said yes:)  It was pretty funny.

One thought I had about myself this week that was interesting is how sometimes when things are going super well I get stressed because I think "what if it doesn’t last."  It’s that natural tendency to think "why not quit while we're ahead."  But that is lame, and it is silly really to be afraid of difficulties or failures.  They are going to come so why worry about it, it’s not like we won’t be to overcome them.  So we shouldn’t be afraid of success because that limits our potential.  I don’t know if I explained that thought very clearly, but in short my advice to everyone is give it your all every time, because there is nothing to lose:)  have a great week!

 Love, Sister Wilson