Graduated From BYU While Living in Paris - April 29, 2013

Dearest People,

I'M GRADUATED. To celebrate such an occasion, we had a graduation party in my honor - French Style. See picture below. It was quite sophisticated and you can all be jealous if you so chose.

Best College of Fine Arts Convocation Ever - Short and to the Point

This week was awesome. Let's start with Romain. Romain was the miracle of last week. He just walked into church and instantly was an ami. Major side note. So new investigators are called "nouveaux amis" or new friends. So sometimes when we are on the train and we're talking to each other or to someone on the phone we'll say "ya! And found two new friends today" and people will look at us like we're really sad and pathetic. Oh those poor girls. Must be so hard for them to find friends. Anyway, so we had an FHE planned with Romain and two guys from the ward on Wednesday. He said that he wanted to meet us at the Train and then we could all go to the church together. We figured he must have forgotten how to get there. Well we are waiting there and we start to think that he has bailed on us. We call him at about 10 past and he says "of course I'm coming". Ya. Duh sister missionaries. Well we are waiting and then we wonder what train he is coming in on because the next one doesn't come for another half hour. Next thing we know, here comes Romain in his car, wearing his aviator sunglasses. Side note: sister missionaries can't ride in cars with anyone but members. He then is like "hop in and we'll head over to the church" we then have to awkwardly say "uhh...we're not allowed". This happened on two separate occasions this week. Our cool new friends will be all nice and offer a ride and we're just awkward little sister missionaries "uhh...we're not allowed" haha it's too much. He was really cool about it. But at this point, we're already 30 minutes late. The other two guys are waiting at the church because we're the only ones who have key's of the 5 of us. He zooms over to the church and we're sprinting there (another mile or so). Soeur Rhondeau and I were thinking "there is no way to recover from this. That was by far too awkward. How do you recover from this??"

Eventually we got to the church though and it turned out to be one of the best lessons EVER. Soeur Rhondeau said that it was probably the best lesson she had had her entire mission. He really opened up and he kept saying "I have been looking for a reason to change" or "my faith is this big" (and makes a mini circle with his hands) "and I just don't know how to make it bigger". He really is the sweetest man. It was a beautiful lesson and he didn't want it to end. We closed and were ready to pray and he just kept wanting to talk about repentance and how to improve your faith. It was awesome. One of my favorite moments though was when Frere Prunin was talking about how they had a soccer team as a ward. He said that Romain should come and play with them. "Do you play Soccer romain" "yeah. In Guadalupe." "Oh are you any good" "Well, I was on the national pro team..." So no big deal. I'm just teaching a retired pro soccer player and he may or may not have offered me a ride. So ya. The sisters are kind of a big deal.

Another awesome miracle happened yesterday. So we got a call from the assistants about a week ago giving us the contact info of someone in our area. They met him in Paris but he lives in our area and wanted to hear about the Gospel. We try to contact him and things just keep falling through. Finally we set an appointment but we come to the apartment building and we can't find him. We proceed to knock on all sorts of doors and no one knows who Cover is. After calling him, he calls his wife who is home (he wasn't) and she comes out and the moment I saw her, I just loved her. Her name is Sephora and she is from the Congo. We decided beforehand to just do a basic overview of the plan of salvation and just get to know her. We have never met either of them before so we just wanted to know more about them and then introduce them to why we were there and what we do as missionaries. The whole time Soeur Rhondeau and I kept wondering if she was starting to cry or just had more glazed eyes. Towards the end of the meeting, Soeur Rhondeau and I talked about how it doesn't matter what your problems, preoccupations or trials are. The Gospel will help you and your family. At this point she broke down and cried. She opened up about her incredibly hard situation. Her story is seriously one of survival and it just made your heart break. Soeur Rondeau and I already love her so much. You can see that she just needs the Gospel and the hope and peace that it can bring. That night the husband called us to apologize that he couldn't be there and asked how the lesson went. We said that we really enjoyed getting to know his wife and son (rufus). He said that he heard it went super. He said he was really excited for our appointment next week.

This week was very humbling. It reminded me of an experience that I had in my marriage prep class. The teacher handed out playing cards at the beginning of class but he told us not to look at our card. At the end of class he gave us permission to look. Mine was the Queen of spades. He went on to say that in this life, each of us is dealt a different card and a different suit. Some of us, from birth, are given a lot. We are born in the church, in a free country, in a loving home. Each of us there had the luxury of a University education. He said that with the higher suit/cards came a higher responsibility. God gave us gifts not just for ourselves but also for his other children. Some are dealt a very low suit and they do the very best they can. This week reminded me of why I am here and why I came in the first place. It reminded me of the things that a truly important and that while this life is sometimes incredibly imperfect and unfair, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect and in the life to come, everything unjust is made perfect.

OH! I almost forgot! We have a new place! I AM SO EXCITED!! We are getting Elder's in our area and Soeur Rhondeau and I have been secretly hoping that we could get the new place. Well at interviews with President on Tuesday he said to Soeur Rhondeau "one more question. Would you like the new place?" Soeur Rhondeau replied very shyly "...maybe..." After he learned of where we had been living (not that it's super bad. It's just above a couffure) he firmly said "you're Soeurs. You're moving." SO WE GET THE BEAUTIFUL BRAND NEW APARTMENT!! It is seriously so nice and it's in a super nice part of town and it's right next to a great little farmers market :). Happy day. I'll attach pics in another email.

New Apartment Includes a Sky-Light

I love you so so much

Soeur Bitter

P.S. I hope you're all doing what the First Presidency asked and opening your mouth about the Gospel once a day! I heard that last week Jon did so he wins the prize!