Soer Larsen: Part XXXIII

We've been so patriotic today. We played ultimate frisbee (kind of, our frisbee is lame) this morning for exercise, and then listened to patriotic MoTab music all morning, and spent about 15 minutes of comp study just singing every American hymn we could think of. And I'm wearing red, white, and blue. And we just finished having a BBQ with the zone and we had steak and other goodies from the American base and bragged about America. It was fun. Made even more fun because of the only European in the zone, Elder Canonica, who insisted on wearing his Swiss flag t shirt. Anyway, we're such party animals. 
In other big news, MICHELLE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot express enough joy for this surprise. I already have been freaking out for ten minutes since I found out about it. She's the au pair from Florida that we started teaching just before I left Versailles, and SHE GOT BAPTIZED LAST WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HER. I LOVE THAT SHE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could express excitement with more than capital letters and exclamation marks. My soul can't hold this much joy! Which makes up for the fact that last week was the worst week ever. Probably not really, but it was pretty much a train wreck. 
Good moments from last week:
1. Once upon a time I called the number of this girl that we found in the area book and it turns out she lived with an LDS family in Salt Lake for a year and attended church with them every sunday. And now she lives around the corner from us and that family was going to come visit in June and she wanted us to meet them when they came! Rejoicing and excitement all around. Then I might maybe have misplaced her phone number. And then June came around and we were searching everywhere for her! We considered porting her entire street (which is about 3 miles long) to find her. We prayed and prayed that somehow we would find her phone number. Fast forward to district meeting, when everyone is sharing miracle moments. The elders say, "we were in the park the other day and we hear someone shout, 'Elders!' and turn around to find a cute little family. We talk to them and it turns out they are from Salt Lake and they are with their Belge friend who was an exchange student and stayed with them for a year and they're coming to church on sunday!" Sister Judd and I made fools of ourselves freaking out. She came to church on sunday and we met her and she is wonderful! We RAN up to her and said, WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! And she said, I have been WAITING for you to call!! Miracles happen, ladies and gentlemen. So, be excited for updates on her. 
2. Dominique came to church! In a suit and tie and everything! And he loved it! He was talking to me afterwards and he said, "Everything is so well organized here!" and I said, well, the Lord knows how to do things right. he laughed and said, "And you help him." You know what was funny, at our last rendezvous he said he wanted to make sure and always remember the sister missionaries who changed his life so he wrote our names down in his book and then he wrote a little 'g' next to Sister Judd's name. G as in GRANDE, as opposed to petite. Haha. Yep, la petite et la grande, they call us. I think it was one of those moments that was funnier if you were there. Sorry about that. 
3. We taught Armelle and her whole family and it was wonderful! So, Armelle told us to not even bother trying to teach her husband. She said he's never believed in God and most the time he's in France anyway for work. Well we stopped by Saturday night to make sure they would all show up to church on Sunday and her husband happened to be there, he'd come to visit for two days so we sat the family down and shared the Joseph Smith story. Her kids are so golden, we asked them all to pray about Joseph Smith and the two sons said, we believe it already! Haha. Pray anyway. Then we asked her husband what he thought about all this and he had kind of a stunned expression on his face and he said it was extraordinary. We invited them to get baptized and become full time followers of Christ once they receive their answers and they accepted! 
4. Last one. This one was more of a bizarre moment. We stopped this lady pushing a stroller in the street and before we could say much of anything she unloaded on us, saying she'd already run into our elders and we couldn't do anything to help her and she's lost three kids and we couldn't do anything to convince her that God was good, and then she took off up the street. We stood there for a second processing that super fast french, and then I decided if anyone could be healed by the gospel it was that woman so we chased after her up the street (she walked fast!). And ended up talking to her for about an hour and she cried and cried. She wouldn't really listen to anything we said, but she liked us and by the end of all this we were buddies. We finally got her to take a plan of salvation pamphlet. And we fasted for her on Sunday. So.... I'll let you know what happens with her. 
So, that was my week... the good parts anyway. Just kidding, there were other good parts. 
The church is true. America is the BEST!!! I'm proud to be an American. Party it up over there for me. 
Love ya lots, sorry this email is short, actually you probably like them better this way! I knew it! 
Peace and love, missions are the best, 

Soeur Larsen