Salut!
I want to thank the Finlay's for sending their Christmas/New Year's card, that was so nice of them; and thank you to Evan for his letters. I forgot to tell you Happy Birthday Brittany (and happy St. Patrick's day ;o). Also I don't know when Max and Sam's birthdays are, if you could get back to me on that, that would be great.
Well a little update. I forgot to tell you about Veronique. On Monday night when the huge snow snorm came in Soeur Edgerly and I went out to go do our emails since the buses were finally working. We saw a woman standing by the Bus stop and I thought to myself, "We've been stuck inside all day, we have an opportunity to contact a woman and I'm not going to let it pass me by." I told Soeur Edgerly that we should go contact her so we went up to her and started to talking with her. Her name is Veronique, she's Catholic and from Afica. We started talking to her about the Book of Mormon and she asked, "Do you sell that book?" We told her no and that it was free and asked if she wanted it. She said, "Yes!" and the rest of the bus ride she kept thanking us. We had our first RDV with her and she understood really well the importance of authority and at the end when we gave her the soft commitment to baptism she said yes! I was shocked, because most Catholic people I have taught say that they have already been baptised. It was a really good lesson though and I know she felt the spirit and that's why she has nothing against being baptised again. We have another lesson with her on Wednesday, so I hope we can fix a baptismal date.
We finally got ahold of Raïssa. She's near Arras at the moment (that's where Soeur Carter and Soeur Murray are serving). She's not sure when she'll be back, so we asked if she's willing to meet with the other sisters while she's there and she said yes, so I hope they're able to see her. Soeur Murray actually contacted Raïssa when she was here, so it's thanks to her that we found Raïssa!
We also taught Charli and Valéri a week and a half ago. They are two young men from Gabon doing their studies here. I saw them staring at my plaque in the metro so I started talking to them and, even though they're 7th day Adventists they were open to having a RDV. We taught them once and they're both anxious to read the Book of Mormon. We passed them to the Elders since they're single men and they just happen to be good friends with the Elders ami, Clavier (I think that's his name) so it was perfect; and both Clavier and Charli came to church yesterday. We have awesome Elders in our ward, so I was happy to pass them and I'm always excited when we find people for the Elders (as Evan pointed out in his letter we should never joy in the failure of others, but joy in their success). I have found that we're much more unified with the Elders when we are excited for each other, supportive and help each other out. We also got a random call on Saturday morning from a man named Robin. He said that Elders had contacted him a couple of years ago and given him some brochures. He said he knows we're not the same missionaries, but he wants to meet with us because he's starting to ask a lot of questions. Yesterday we couldn't find any women who could come teach with us, so I called Robin to ask if the Elders could come see him, he said yes and when I started to confirm his address he said he was in the hospital! (So he can only have two visitors at a time anyway.) He said, "I really need to see someone, send the Elders as soon as you can." Thankfully they were available and I'm anxious to find out how it went. I was shocked that we got a random call from someone; it reminds me of when Regna called us back in Versailles, because she knew she now needed the gospel in her life. As we're told in Preach My Gospel when we are working hard and worthy of the spirit either the Lord will lead us to those who are ready or lead them to us.
I'm grateful that I have this opportunity to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord.
I just want to mention one last thing. We had a RDV with a less-active family and the dad told us why he had gone inactive. He no longer has a testimony because he had some deep doctrine questions that never got answered. I looked at him and asked, "When did you last read the Book of Mormon?" It's been almost 20 years! And he's only read the whole thing through once or twice! He thinks that he's past the point of needing to read it and says that he has more knowledge than that Book can give him. Soeur Edgerly and I both bore testimony of receiving personal revelation through the Book of Mormon and that it's not about having a certain amount of knowledge. My goodness, the prophet even reads the Book of Mormon every day, and who knows how many times he has read it. We challenged this brother to have his personal prayers morning and night for one week and then hopefully next time we can get him to start reading the Book of Mormon again. I just want to throw out a warning to all that if you at this moment are not doing your personal scripture study in the Book of Mormon you need to start now. I have learned so much from it during my mission! It has made me so sad to see how many people go inactive simply because they quit reading the Book of Mormon and/or praying each day and then they quit going to church. I know that the Book of Mormon comes from God and that it contains the fullness of the gospel. I have grown to love my Savior Jesus Christ by reading it and I find answers to my questions. Please, please, please don't ever miss a day of reading it.
I love you all!
Bisous, Soeur Reeves
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