Week 5: Raclette parties and a freezer full of cake

December 11, 2017

Week 5: Raclette parties and a freezer full of cake

Bonjour to everybody!

It has been a really good week. Christmas season is fully underway in France! There are decked out Christmas trees lining all the main sidewalks and Christmas lights everywhere! And markets almost every day. It's so fun. It's a good place to contact people, too! And buy fantastic cheese.

I don't know if I mentioned that we haven't had a freezer this whole time, but we just got one last week! We were so excited to buy frozen meat and frozen berries and stuff, but mostly what's in our freezer right now is cakes because at almost every rendezvous people send us home with desserts (which we feel bad throwing out, but we find it easier to exercise self-control when it's frozen solid). France is determined to fatten us up. So, we've got a pretty good food storage set up in case of emergency.

A legitimate miracle occurred this week with our ami Johanna. She had a TON of questions about the Book of Mormon that she asked Soeur Bennett and Soeur Sedrick before I got here. Soeur Bennett and I studied and found answers for her in the scriptures, and we had a rendezvous set up to talk through them with her. We were a little scared because at our last brief rendezvous she said if we couldn't answer her questions, we probably shouldn't bother coming back.

So, we fasted and prayed last Sunday for a miracle, specifically that her heart would be softened and that she would feel prompted to reread the Book of Mormon with real intent (the first time she took 20 pages of notes of things she felt contradicted the Bible). And our rendezvous was AWESOME!! We were able to talk through her concerns with ALL the hard questions that could possibly be asked about the church, no joke, and she was satisfied with our answers. She shared her testimony with us and we had a wonderful conversation. She told us that she had begun rereading the Book of Mormon that we to find out if it was really true, and this time she said she would look for similarities between it and the Bible. She promised us she would pray to know if it was true. She wants to continue to have lessons with us, too. We are so, so happy.

Sunday morning I was delighted to see that it was snowing hard because it was so pretty and Christmasey, but my happiness was somewhat ruined when I got to church and realized that a couple inches of snow in a place that's used to rain means nobody comes to church. Well, not nobody. 15 people came. Only one ami, Terii, was able to make it, but we were really glad he came because HE'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON FRIDAY! We are so excited for him. He is so full of faith.

We had a rendezvous with Alex this week that was 90% fantastic and 10% what the heck. The fantastic part was when we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it, and he told us he had been reading the Book of Mormon and decided that it was a sacred book. Things were also going fantastic-ly when he committed to be baptized January 20th. The what the heck portion of the lesson began when the member present, said "Are you sure you'll be ready to be baptized by the 20th? Because you know that you'll have to follow all the commandments. Which includes something we call the word of wisdom....." and then he proceeded to rattle off the entire Word of Wisdom. Poor perplexed Alex then told us he wasn't so sure he wanted to be baptized anymore, but that he would pray about it and let us know. I was so sad! But also very grateful that he wasn't turned off completely from the Gospel. It's good to know that this is God's work, not man's, and no amount of human error can keep it from being accomplished. 

Sadly, Alex couldn't come to church because his ride forgot to drive him.

Sebastien is doing great, he's on a mission right now for the military but texts us his favorite parts of what he read in the Book of Mormon that day every day, so we're not too worried about him!

And last but not least, I have discovered something fantastic about Christmas time in France--raclette parties! I had my first one yesterday but I have been warned they will continue for the rest of winter. (Did I mention France is determined to fatten us up?) Raclette is a sharp and delicious cheese that you melt in little pans on a grill-thing (think pancake griddle). Once it's nice and bubbly, you scrape it onto a baked potato and eat it with sausage. Yolande piled at least ten different types of sausage onto our plates, so every bite was unique. It was crazy but soooo good. 

Yolande sent us home with raclette and her least favorite of the sausages (all of them were amazing though so I'm not disappointed in the least) so we will be holding our own raclette party this week! Yum.

All in all, it's been a really great week. I can promise you that miracles do happen! God always hears our prayers. He will help you with whatever you need. I know that.

I love you all! Happy first day of Christmas (tomorrow)

Soeur Alice Jensen