Hey everyone! well this week was actually really good. it was just a complete opposite from last week. it's funny cause i think last week was just the smack in the face that i needed to get going again. not that i wasn't going before, but to kinda kick it into overdrive. cause last week was really just oof, but this week i was determined to change that around. so this week really any down time that i had whenever, i was either making calls, thinking about who i could call, sending out texts all to fix rdvs for this week. and did it ever pay off. this week, we taught a bunch of lessons and even better, found a lot of new people that we are going to teach next week. as of now, just at the beginning of the week, we have like 17 rdvs fixed and about 10 of those are new people. and what's funny is that most of the time we don't really have a ton for the beginning of the week, but we fix them throughout the week. so this week is going to be just stellar.
So as to the highlights of the week, we've been doing a lot of something we call enlarging the vision. which means that if something falls through, we find the reason that we are there and we go out and look for those people that do want to hear the gospel. so anyway, tuesday night we had planned to take the bus 5 to do some porting. so we get to the bus stop, and it doesn't come for like 10 minutes, so we decide to do a little contacting around the bus stop while we wait. so we go out and contact some people, and have a couple of good contacts, but then as we are contacting someone, we thought we saw the bus 5 go past, so we finish the contact and go back to the bus stop and are looking at the schedule to see when the next one comes past, and while we have our back turned, the real bus 5 drives past haha. it was super frustrating cause we hadn't missed it after all, but we ended up missing it anyway cause there was no one there to stop it. so anyway, instead of getting annoyed or mad or anything, we sat down and said a prayer to ask what Heavenly Father wants us to do, and we decided to go contacting in centreville, cause the next bus didn't come for a long time. so we went out and starting contacting, and we had a couple of good contacts, but definitely the highlight was when we ran into an old ami. his name is arnaud le roi, and he is super cool, he's a guy in his 30s, who is christian but doesn't really have a church. We taught him once a long time ago, but ever since he has been super busy. so as we were walking along, i saw him walking along just on the other side of the tram tracks. so i run across the tram tracks quickly, cause there's a tram coming, and i say hi. so we talk to him for a bit and we had a really good conversation with him and we're gonna call him this week to see if we can see him. but it was just really cool to see that even though we missed the bus that WE thought we should take, HE had better plans for us, and as we gave ourselves up to his will, we saw that miracle.
another miracle that we saw this week happened last night. so we had been out porting down a little south of caen. so we had to start coming home a little early, cause we had to check train times for district meeting at the train station before we went home. so we left a little early, but as it turns out it took a lot less time than we thought, so we find ourselves at the gare (station) with about 30 minutes left and trying to decide what to do. cause it's pretty late, so usually the only crowd you see out at this time are the partyers and drunkards. so anyway we were going to get on the tram and take it to centreville to do a little contacting. but the tram comes, and it is just completely packed full. there is no room at all for us to get on. and the next tram doesn't come for 15 minutes, cause it's late on a sunday night. so instead, we decide just to walk home and contact on the way. so we set off, and our whole walk, we saw about 3 people. one was extra drunk, but the other two were sweet. so the first one was named olivier. he was a cool kid, in his late 20s, who played rugby, and we got to talk to him for a bit and we exchanged numbers to talk another day. so that was cool, but the second guy was even better. so we are walking home, and we finally get there, but we still have about 8 minutes to go before it's time to go home. so instead of going inside, we just start looking for people on our road. and honestly there is no one. it kinda felt at first like we were just wasting time. just staying out because we had to. but we kept looking, and we saw a guy in the distance who we thought might be drunk, but we say what the heck why not. so we go up to him, and as it turns out, he is not at all drunk and he's a guy that we were supposed to teach this week, but that didn't come. so we talked to him, and he asked us what happened for saturday? how come we didn't call him for our rdv? and we told him we did and as it turns out he hadn't saved our number, but we gave it to him, he saved it, and we fixed a rdv for this week. and he was really cool about it and he seemed like he was excited for our rdv. so it was super cool just to see those perseverance points. we kept working until 9 o clock exactly, and the lord blessed us for it by making us run into this old ami. it was gnarly.
as to all of our amis, everyone is doing well. except one. remember how i told you last week that steve could choose either of two paths now? one he can want to change his life, or two he can decide it's impossible and he doesn't want to, and we're pretty sure he chose the second... we saw him once this week, and it was crazy how much he had changed. his countenance had just completely changed and instead of being the happy person that he was before, he had something dark about him this time... so we talked to him about what we can do to help him change, and he kinda just got defensive and i'm pretty sure he doesn't have the desire that he needs to stop. so anyway, we had a rdv with him later on in the week, and he didn't show up or answer his phone or anything. then he didn't come to church on sunday, so idk what he's up to. we've been trying with him, but we don't really know what to do anymore. we'll see. anyway, as to good news, jude, another nigerian guy who is here trying to get his papers, we fixed a baptismal date with him this week! he's going to get baptized the 28th of october. so he's excited for that. it was funny cause the day of stanley's baptism he came up to us and asked us if he could get baptized with stanley, but we explained to him he had to come to church and get the lessons and stuff so he said okay i want to so we saw him a couple of times this week, and he's preparing to get baptized.
on a sadder note, this week, we saw a less active guy from sierra leone, and he really opened up to us why he doesn't come to church anymore. he said that he feels that the ward doesn't care about him. he was sick for 2 months after his baptism, and no one came to see him. and he's been a member for about 2 years now and he has had one person come to visit him. it was a really frustrating towards the ward rdv. we've kinda decided that they are not going to see a baptism of anyone but nigerians and sierra leonians until they learn how to fellowship these people and love them. so we talked to our first councelor in the bishopric about it and he gave a sweet testimony this sunday about how we need to love these people and they were a lot better after that. but's it's hard. they are great people and i love them a ton, it's just that they haven't understood exactly. i think that they are going to do better though. hopefully.
anyway, that's a little our week here in caen! saturday is transfers, so we'll be finding out what's happening for the coming months this weekend. i'll keep you posted. i think that i should be staying. elder johnson has only 2 left, and i think that he will be training for these last two. so i should have a new companion, but i think i'll be staying in caen. we'll see. anyway, hope that everything is going great at home. i love you all and pray for you everyday! have a great week!
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