Doubling the Sister Missionaries in Rennes - October 28, 2013

Until this transfer, there have had four missionaries in Rennes, one set of Elders (our zone leaders) and the Soeurs (which is my companion and me). However, this next transfer, we will have six missionaries! We will have two sets of Soeurs and our Zone leaders!! We are the first ville in our Mission to have two sets of Soeurs (that I know of).

Usually it is distributed with two sets of Elders and one set of Soeurs. And what's more, THEY'RE SPLITTING SOEUR BARTON AND I UP!! Mince. I love her so much. So we will be both getting baby blues this Wednesday. Our new companions are probably leaving the MTC as you read this.

I’m sad to be splitting up from Soeur Barton…but we’ll still be in the same apartment so the split is not that permanent. (Yeah!J The mission is in the process of finding us a bigger apartment but until then, we will just have to rearrange…and snuggle haha. But what this means is that most likely I will be in Rennes for another two transfers!! So I’ll be here for Christmas!! In this ward that I love SO much. WIN!

One of my favorite moments from this week was from our lesson with Annabelle. We had a FHE with her and a couple from the ward. We visited her later that week and Annabelle suddenly had this new fire for the Gospel. “Il faut croire! IL FAUT CROIRE!!” She went on and on about how you have to have a desire to have faith first and that leads to an increase in faith and it’s a continual process. She said, “I know that you have told me these same things many times…but it finally clicked when that man was talking about conversion!”

Happiness! She has a new fire for the Gospel and it has finally clicked for her that it is so much more than just reading scriptures (although-she is doing AWESOME at that. At the last lesson, she had read the all the way to Mormon so she’s almost finished! She’s read the entire conference ensign many times over, the proclamation to the world…basically all the materials we have given her haha). It’s still hard for her because she comes from a French Catholic background and although she is not practicing, getting baptized would be like a betrayal to her culture and heritage.

Slowly she is realizing that it is more about our relationship with God than anything else. The first time we met her she was deeply opposed to going to ANY church…and now she’s coming! And in her words “the three hours actually passes pretty quickly”. So she is doing well!

Ayn (anne) is doing really well too. We had a lesson with her this week and she told us about how much she LOVES institute. She loves hearing the experiences from the returned missionaries and everyone’s testimonies. She was so sad that she missed Stake Conference. She asked us to recount all we remembered to her. So sweet. We’re really starting from the beginning with her because this is her first time learning about deism…let alone Christianity. But she is doing really, really well and she has a strong desire to have faith and to learn more. Which that is a lot already.

*We interrupt this email for an important update: I will be spending the rest of the day moving our stuff into the Elders apartment and moving the Elders stuff into ours. Oh what JOY!*

Anyway now that I know we have SO much to do, we should probably get off emails and get to work!! Pday fail.

Haha I love you all so much.

Soeur Bitter

Soeur Barton, Tugsuu and me

Another Great Day For Missionary Work

Tugsuu and the Plan of Salvation - October 21, 2013

Hello,

I can't believe this transfer is already ending!! We are in our last week! So crazy.

This week we had exchanges and they were amazing!! I was with Soeur Hoover. Soeur Hoover and Soeur Rhondeau (my trainer) actually went on a study abroad together before the mission (CRAZY SMALL WORLD). Anyway, she is SO great. So sweet, and such an amazing missionary. I'm so grateful for my mission in giving me the occasion to meet all these amazing missionaries that I probably wouldn't know in any other circumstances.

On our exchange we taught a few lessons together but probably my favorite was with Tugsuu. So for a quick reminder, Tugsuu is our recent convert and she is doing so so well. She brings her friends to church all the time and shares the Gospel with just about everyone she meets. So Soeur Hoover and I decided to review the Plan of Salvation because it had been a while since she had been taught it. Soeur Hoover asked Tugsuu what the Plan of Salvation meant to her. She then turned to me and said "It's like the story that you and Soeur Hilton shared with me." *instantly racking my brain. Shoot what story*. Luckily then she continued "the story of the son who leaves his fathers house. It's like that. Like we're away from home and we're trying to find our way back and our Father will come and get us when we start walking back to Him". GLORIOUS!!! So amazing. She is such an example of pure faith. Every lesson with her is so edifying and so spiritual because she is so meek and open to the spirit. I love it.

So last Monday, our evening was a little open and I had been thinking of this area near one of our members. We decided to go out there. So we get there and all the apartment buildings are locked…or porting is not allowed. At this point I’m thinking “mince. Where have I led us? We’re just going to walk around all night and talk to no one” because at this point it was raining…and let’s be honest, no one is out when it rains haha. But as we keep going, we’re both reminded that we felt that we should come to this area and that it is important that we keep pressing forward. We turn the corner and we find this house snuggled within all these apartment buildings. WOOT! First port of the night! 

We run up to the door and ring it. The man answers and out runs his puppy (oops). “Come on in!” he says immediately. Suddenly I’m frozen. I think “uhh…we have not announced ourselves. Maybe he’s having a party and thinks we’re his guests…maybe this is an open house…does he know why we’re here???” At this point he’s grabbed his puppy and then says again “don’t just stand in the rain! Come in!”. We then hesitantly step into the foyer. By now, he is in the living room and welcoming us further into their incredibly beautiful home. He looks at us and then points out our tags and says “The Church of Jesus-Christ…SO you’re the Mormons”. BE COOL SOEUR BITTER! BE COOL! 

We then proceed to have a wonderful lesson with them. The father is not believing, the mother is a REALLY practicing Catholic. She said she goes to church about 3 times a week. The son is believing but not practicing. They are an incredibly nice family who really believes in ‘going about doing good’. 

We talk more and then they say that the other day they met a Mormon and he told them a little about our faith. “Maybe you know them. He is a very nice man. The Guiheux family.” Oh you mean our 2nd counselor in the bishopric? Ya…we know them haha. SO AMAZING!! They had just met Frere Guiheux at a garage where he was getting his car fixed. They were talking and Frere Guiheux had shared small truths about our Faith. Then, 2 weeks later, we knock on their door. So cool. 

They invited us over again for a classic French dinner (excitement) in about a week. And they wanted us to give the Guiheux’s their number. Such a cool miracle.

That’s probably long enough for a weekly letter J I love you all so much. Remember that you are loved by a Father in Heaven. By a King and creator of all. He knows you by name and he loves you.

“Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God”

Soeur Bitter

Vitré castle with Soeur Fellon (the member who drove us there. SHE IS SO AWESOME!)

Vitré

Best friends for life. Our picnic outside the grocery store

Pastry Mirage - October 14, 2013

Hi,

I can’t believe that it is already Monday again. This week was awesome and Sr. Barton and I are left just AMAZED at how we are living the dream out here. When people found out that I was coming out to Rennes, the response was pretty much the same “YOU LUCKY DUCK!!”. When people found out Sr. Barton was coming to Rennes, people told her something similar “THAT IS MY DREAM VILLE!!”. And here we are J In the most beautiful place, with the best ward and we are constantly amazed at our unbelievable amis.

Sophie is doing amazingly. She is about our age but she takes these lessons so seriously. As soon as we show up she tells us that she watched conference online and watched Finding Faith in Christ. She delves into all the things she thought and felt. Favorite quote “I didn’t understand every word but I felt AMAZING.” She went on to talk about how now SHE has started talking to others about how great it is to believe. That it is a normal thing. Missionaries are normal people but they have this amazing gift to give. It is absolutely amazing to me how much she is letting the Gospel come into her life. She told us this last lesson that some things are still hard for her to understand but she thinks it’s because of the way she was raised. All these ideas are so new and so she is slowly but surely putting all these beliefs into her previous way of thinking. My favorite part though was during our lesson of the plan of salvation. Towards the end of the lesson, she bore her testimony of the Father and of Christ. It has been amazing to see someone’s progression of faith. A few months ago-did not believe in God. A few weeks ago-doubting the faith she had in God. And now-this undeniable Faith that has now become a fact. God exists. Period. No dispute. She is so awesome. I love her so much.

Other great news: Last Monday we went and saw Leo!! We haven’t seen her in a while but I’ve been thinking about her a lot so we decided to call her up and then voila! Beautiful lesson. (For a refresher, Leo was the woman that I took down her number wrong but Birthday MIRACLE we saw her again and she gave us her right number). So we went with the intention of getting to know her, finding out her beliefs and then teaching the Plan Du Salut. We get there and she shows us her 2 week old baby *precious!*. And then we start talking to her. She tells us that she is nonpracticing Muslim and that she has been interested in Christianity in a while. She has been seriously searching and she told us that she is “looking for the path that will bring [her] closest to God.” And that she knows that there is one path that will do that. She just needs to find it. Drum roll please for my favorite moment of all: She said that she hasn’t been interested in religion a lot because she said that a lot of people let “their lips speak of Him but their hearts are far from Him.” Does that quote sound familiar to anyone besides me? It was amazing. Everything she said just made me more and more convinced that the Lord really does prepare people for His message. We’re excited to teach her more J

Ulzii is doing really well too. We saw her a couple times this week. We had a FHE with the Pahio family and it was amazing!! We decided to have it at the church right after church because the Pahio’s live super far. The Pahio’s are AMAZING!! They are a tidal wave of love. We talked about Jesus Christ and the blessings that come from believing in him. The Pahio’s shared such beautiful and powerful testimonies. It was a great lesson.

Funny story of the week: So somehow Sr. Barton and I have developed a very weird ability: the ability to NOT find a pastry in all of France. Haha. Granted it is good for our health to not eat pastries but…come on! You think we could at least find ONE in an entire transfer!! Sometimes we’ll be out all day and so for our ‘lunch break’ we’ll try to find a boulangerie to get something to eat and grab a treat as well. Well it usually turns out that we just wander for our entire lunch time…and then just go hungry. So after weeks of this, we were getting pretty desperate. Haha. We were coming back from porting in an area just outside of Rennes on Saturday. We had met some REALLY awesome people! BUT we had been out since like 9 am going to RDVs and what not…and we hadn’t brought anything to eat. At this point it’s about 5:30. We’re driving on the bus when we pass a store that says “Le Grande Magasin de gateau”. Or in English, “The Giant store of CAKE!!”

Mont Saint-Michel Where I Played a Concert as a Teenager

Mont Saint-Michel

Pastry Mirage

We jump off the bus and run for this seemingly irrefutable store of treats. Fueled by a burst of energy I stormed into the fantasy land of cakes….only to discover that it was a store for wedding cakes and mass produced party favors. What else added to our disappointment? Well, in my zeal for sugar, I didn’t realize that it was Saturday…the day of infrequent buses. Haha sure enough, we go back and the next bus is in 40 minutes. DEPRESSION!! So we started our long walk back to the Church and contacted people on our way. No treats, more exercise. C’est la vie de la missionnaire.

Other cool happenings, our ward threw a Fest-noz’s or a tranditional Bretagne (Brittany) party. Mom and Dad: remember when we went to that one small Abbey and we learned traditional French Dances? Well, they’re not traditional French, they’re from BRITTANY!! It was so much fun to see the ward laughing and having fun together. SO MUCH LOVE. And they swarmed our amis and just showered them with love. I love this ward so much. We never worry about our ami’s fitting in. This ward just accepts everyone. It’s a beautiful thing.

Happy Birthday Grandma!! 91! Woot woot! I love you so much and I think about you every day out here J I hope your day was awesome and that you know you are loved much by many. Since I wasn’t able to be there for your birthday tradition, I’ll write it here. My favorite memory of Grandma is when you came to Arizona to watch us. You had a bright pink raincoat on and the hummingbirds thought you were a flower so they kept coming and trying to eat you hahaha. Another was when we were all swimming but you had not brought your swimming suit but you still wanted to play with us…so you just jumped in the pool fully clothed BAHAHAH. So sporty. Love it

Love you all!

Soeur Bitter

Joseph Smith Story From Mainland China - October 9, 2013

HELLO, HELLO!!! So let's just start by saying that this week was AWESOME!! My companion and I were nervous about this week. All day Thursday, we were in Angers for a tri-zone conference and with General Conference, we thought "Wow...that doesn't leave a lot of time for Missionary work". But the Lord takes care of his work.

The Rennes ward has had a lot of recent converts this year (WOOT! GO RENNES WARD!!) and so each week we have about six recent convert lessons. However, this week, we had only one. Why is this a celebration? Each one of our recent converts brought a friend or family member to their lesson, who wanted to know about the Gospel.

So the lesson quickly turned into a lesson with a new ami!! WOOT! Talk about convert power! It is amazing to me, the faith of these recent converts. They don't know everything about the Gospel and some of them are so new that they still need refreshers on the basic doctrine BUT they know how they feel WITH the Gospel and they remember how they felt without it. They are so ready to share that with others. It's such an example to me to NEVER take advantage of the Gospel and to share it will all our friends and family. Because in all honesty, what better gift can we give?

SUPER cool thing this week: So we were in our RDV with Sophie and we had decided to talk about the Restoration. Some background on Sophie: we have taught her a few times. She is from Mainland China so Christianity is really new to her…actually believing in God is really new to her. Before, it was something that she had read in textbooks, not a way of life. So teaching her is really slow.

We have to describe in depth each word we say (I.e. Faith, Prophet ≠ Profit). Anyway, so we sit down and we start talking about Joseph Smith and then she exclaims “I KNOW THIS STORY!!” And I thought to myself “I doubt it.” Haha She had just learned of the miracles of Jesus Christ last week. She described Christ’s miracles as “supernatural”. But then she starts to recount to us the ENTIRE story of Joseph Smith. *Pause for moment as I pick my jaw off the floor*. I then ask her how she knows of Joseph Smith and she explains that Joseph Smith is in every history textbook in China. So any girl who was a good student will know the story of Joseph Smith. Mind Blown.

Also, conference was just great. Themes I noticed:

· Missionary Work…ya and I don’t think I noticed it because I’m a missionary. Haha.

· Making and Keeping Sacred Covenants

· Protecting the sanctity of the family

Conference was SOO good. I loved what was said (can’t remember who it was) about watching conference will not build your testimony but LIVING the things that you learned sure will. It’s true that we can have such wonderful experiences at conference and feel the spirit so strong but it is when we apply the things that we learn that we really grow.

Great news: Annabelle, Anne and Ulzii all came to conference!! WOOT. Annabelle came to the R.S. session and she LOVED it. She told us that she was so nervous on the bus and almost turned back but she came anyway. YES! Anne was able to stay for both the R.S. broadcast and Saturday Morning (here those are back to back). She loved it as well. She understood most of it but I’m excited to get them to her in Vietnamese. Ulzii is a new ami this week that Tugsuu brought to her lesson. Apparently she has wanted to come to church for a long time and so when we invited her to conference, she was THRILLED. We weren’t able to talk to her after but we will see her this week and ask her what she thought.

Dear Howard and Lori: Thank you SOOO MUCH for the Birthday cake. We had SO much fun with it haha. And it was surprisingly delicious! Below are birthday fun pics. It also worked out really well because my companion’s birthday was this last Sunday :) So we both blew out the candle haha. Love you! Thank you so much!

This week in Mission Conference, our mission set a goal that EACH companionship bring a FAMILY unto the Gospel for Christmas. This meant for me to SERIOUSLY change my style of missionary work. The way I find, teach and even pray. We are working harder than ever; and then with the Prophetic demand at conference, who could deny that the work is moving forward.

"If every member, young and old, will reach out to just “one” between now and Christmas, millions will feel the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful gift to the Savior." -Elder Bednar

The Lord has called you to the work—each and every one of you. Now the only question is, Will you respond to the call?

But no stress :) Just remember that "the task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us."

I love you all.



Soeur Bitter

Arabic Translation Fail - September 30, 2013

Hello,

First off can we just say this week was an explosion of love!! With Nicole having her baby, Kati get married and Jon and Sarah having their baby, I got an explosion of emails and love from everyone!! I'm sorry I'm not there for all these huge events but I love you all so much and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

So I was thinking we could start this week with a missionary fail moment. So once upon a time, Fatima was going to Morocco. She will be gone for two months which is a HUGE bummer because she is making so much progress BUT she does so much good work in Morocco so it'll be a good thing. Anyway, we were thinking of what we could do while she is gone to help her to keep progressing. We decided to make her a "Calendrier de Vacance" with specific chapters of the Book of Mormon or talks from online. Well, since Fatima only reads in Arabic...I've been studying a little bit of arabic this week haha. I would sit down and compare my english Book of Mormon with an Arabic version. I learned quickly what the different numbers were and so finding scriptures was a lot easier. I fill out the calender and at the bottom, there is a blank space. I thought to myself "Hmmm..I should put a scripture there. But what Scripture??....I KNOW!! Moroni 10:4".

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Obviously, this scripture was very easy to find because it was at the back of the Book of Mormon (or the front in Arabic). So I start the long tedious process of writing out a scripture in Arabic. Needless to say, it looked pretty legit. At the end of the scripture (literally as I'm finishing the last character) I think so smugly to myself "Fatima will be so touched." Almost as a response, I feel the spirit tell me "Maybe you should double check that scripture". I quickly look back to the scripture and realize "MINCE!! This isn't Moroni 10:4...this is chapter 9!!!....what a second...THIS ISN'T EVEN THE BOOK OF MORONI! IT'S ETHER!!....it's ok. I'm sure this scripture is good too." So I quickly pull out my english Book of Mormon. Imagine my worry when I turn to Ether 9 and none of the scriptures in that chapter are highlighted. THEN Imagine my dismay when I read Ether 9:4

And it came to pass that Jared was anointed king over the people, by the hand of wickedness; and he gave unto Akish his daughter to wife.

Fail. Yup...I'm sure "Fatima will be so touched" by that scripture. Hahaha. Pride comes before the fall n'est-ce pas?

Annabelle is progressing really well and is planning on coming to Conference!! We talked about prophets and a few of the commandments this week. She LOVED the conference ensigne we gave her--especially Soeur Dalton's talk "We are daughters of our Heavenly Father". She went on and on about it haha. She's so sweet and teachable. I've never met anyone so teachable in my life. When we taught the law of Chastity this week we asked her if she will commit to keeping the law of chastity and she said enthusiastically "I WILL BE PERFECT!!" We also started bringing Sr. Hamzic to a few of our lessons. Annabelle LOVES Sr. Hamzic. Everytime we are there now, (Whether or not Sr. Hamzic is there) she prays for Sr. Hamzic and thanks Heavenly Father for the touching things Sr. Hamzic said to her and the testimony she shared :). Happiness. Imgaine how thrilled Annabelle was when the next time Sr. Hamzic came, she brought a potted flower for her. It sits proudly on display in front of her front window.

Miracle of the week: Earlier this week I had been thinking about Annick. She is a recent convert in this ward. She had been an ami for 30 years and then one day decided she was going to get baptized :). (Fun insert, it was my mission president's wife, Soeur Poznanski who first found and taught her). Anyway, we don't meet with her a ton because she is pretty timid but I was thinking "Hey, with a new comp, I bet we could get another RDV with her". Sure enough, I'm getting on the bus and I see Annick is calling. I think to myself "SR Bitter, this is one call you can NOT ignore and call back later".

So I immediately pick up. She asks if we had called her. I think to myself "I had been wanting to call her...did I call her....?" I told her we hadn't but that I had been thinking about her a lot this week and that we would love to have a RDV with her and introduce my new companion. She said that would be no problem (!) and that we could have it after church on Sunday in one of the classrooms. We were planning our lesson for her and we thought that we should talk to her about Patriarchal Blessings and to prepare to receive hers.

We get into the RDV and we're just talking about her conversion story (and Sr. Barton is asking her questions about her experiences) and then suddenly she tells us "and then today during the Sacrament. A word just popped into my mind 'Patriarchal Blessing'". We told her that we had actually prepared that very thing to talk to her about. She was SO INCREDIBLY touched that we had received the same though as her. We started talking about Patriarchal Blessings and the personal guidance we receive from the Lord. "So it's like a letter from the Lord!" I sat back and thought about it and then realized...that is exactly what it is.

I can't even begin to describe our lessons with Annick. We don't have them often but when we do, there is a feeling beyond description. Soeur Barton and I were talking afterwards about how it is really a privilege to meet and know these people. We get to feel a little bit of the love that our Heavenly Father has for these people. Those moments make the weird encounters, the sore feet and the early mornings all worth it.

As always, our members are amazing! I can't even begin to describe. We get calls from them all the time asking us how they can help our amis. If they can have a specific amis number to help them move or telling them about their missionary experiences throughout the week. It's a beautiful thing and they uplift us as missionaries.

I love you all so much.

Jon & Sarah: Congratulations again! And that is super cool that you are looking for opportunities to share the Gospel and people to invite over with the Sister's. You're the kind of members that missionaries talk about and adore :)

Love love love you!
Soeur Bitter

Streets of Rennes