Birthday WEEK is over!

         

This week has been crazy busy and loads of fun. So as I told you last week my roomies decided on Birthday week—not just day. It was surprisingly extremely fun!! Monday the other Sisters found a Thai restaurant and off course we went! It was extremely delicious!! I got a lot of the usual and wasn’t disappointed one bit!! It was fun to sit down and chat around a table. I have really missed that! Gotta love Pdays!! Tuesday night was "birthday eve" We pulled all our mattresses into the study room and had a sleepover!! We painted our nails and told mission stories. It was extremely fun! I think Birthday Eve should be an official thing. Birthday Eve Sleepover!! Wednesday (BIRTHDAY DAY!) We left bright and early for Genève! As soon as I walked through the door President greeted me with a huge!! IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!! I felt special! Throughout the entire meeting and day everyone would call on the birthday girl, reference my birthday, or just randomly say Happy Bday. I felt extremely special. I told Soeur Bowman that this was probably the most attention I have EVER gotten on my birthday. We have started a Chambéry tradition where we all match when we go to meetings. We wore pink lipstick, bows, and black/white. It was a hit!! President loved our Unity had us stand up in front of everyone and said....Elders where is your matching lipstick?! Hahaha, classic President! I love that man! Soeur Bria and Soeur Roney...demanded a photo shoot of us. Hahaha! It was great!

The highlight of the day was interviews with President. We had a great interview!! He is just so inspired and really does love me! We talked for a long time about the work I am doing and I expressed how I was worried I was doing something wrong in my Missionary work because I wasn’t have the standard "success" of a missionary (aka baptisms) He just chuckled and told me, "Soeur Richardson you are in Chambéry aka most of your work will be with the Branch. The branch here is just not able to support a lot of convert baptisms right now." He then told me if I were in a more compatible ville I would be baptizing every month. I was really shocked and he said..."Well it’s true!! Unfortunately that is just not the type of work the Lord is needing you to do right now!" We then discussed many other random subjects. I am just so grateful for President and the time he puts into each missionary. The rest of the meeting was AMAZING!!! Such fabulous speakers!! The Bria's are great! They instructed us on how to better teach to Families needs. We also discovered Elder Bria is the inventor of the Snicker wrapper!! Pretty cool claim to fame!! They are the missionary couple in Nice. They told me they wanted me to come serve with them. My Zone leaders Elder Olivier and Elder Elvidge bought me special chocolate bars (that were incredibly delicious)! Over all my Birthday was absolutely amazing, filled with love, happiness, and lots of laughs!! I am so grateful to be a missionary. I am so grateful for the occasion to serve EVERYONE around me. (Members, Non Members, and Less Actives, and just everyone).            

After we got home from Conference (we left for conference at 8am and got home 8pm) we set up the Tangled decorations and had a little party (sang, blew out candles, laughed, ate, ate, ate)! One we had about finished we had my BIRTHDAY CONCERT! Each Sister sang their song they wrote from me and my heart literally melted!! I will treasure those moments FOREVER. Each song was so personalized, love filled, and just SO cute!! Ne vous inquiétiez pas..... I filmed them!! And I am getting copies of their lyrics!! It was so much fun!! Dare I say the best birthday of my life!! 

Thursday was quite and experience!! We attended Catholic Prayer with a Soeur who is less active who went back to Catholicism.  She invited us and we felt good about going with her. Let me tell you it was a learning experience! Now I can completely relate to our Amis who are coming to Church for the first time and how weird and unnatural it feels! We sang songs and they passed around a microphone so they could "pray." I just really know 100% that our church is true. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind. After the Catholic prayer they invited us to a little get together after to eat. We decided to go. Boy, oh boy, was it a great experience! There were about 17 of them and us. We decided that our less active is actually an undercover missionary for our church because she provided us with the following opportunities: Give a blessing on the food (to show how we pray), sing a couple hymns from our songbook, and give a lecon 0/our role as missionaries. Needless to say there is now a whole congregation of Catholics that have had their minds changed about how we are as Mormons and changed in a very positive way. It was amazing! I want so badly for this Soeur to come back and attend church. But I have to rely on the Lords timing. 

Speaking of the Lords timing. A lot of great things/baby steps have been happening with our Amis. We help a Soirée Film night in which we played Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. We had 2 families attend!!  We also had a potential Chatale come; she was VERY touched by the film. It was a very positive situation!! A few members came as well! It’s amazing to see the Lord work on these people in the ways that are best compatible to them. All I really have to do is follow the spirit and provide an invitation. At the very last minute we had another amis show up! She was extremely happy to see me (and I was extremely happy to see her too)! She told me I was glowing and we had a great conversation and I told her to come to church again. She came. She came and was welcomed by EVERYONE!! She came up to me after church and asked for a rendezvous. I was extremely happy....I almost cried! Our Rendezvous is tonight. We have decided to treat her like a newish ami. Pray your guts out people that it goes well!! 

So as you know in France things for missionaries are a little rough. We get mocked and laughed at constantly and rejection is just unfortunately too normal! Well it was taken to a whole new level. Haha!  I forgot to compost my ticket (meaning I didn’t stamp it before getting on the train). So I went to the conductor and asked if he could compost it. Well...he saw my nametag and began to mock/sarcastically question me—in front of the whole train car. Of course it was extremely embarrassing and very rude on his part. But it gave me an opportunity to testify AND I counted all the people who were staring wide-eyed at me as contacts. TAKE THAT EVIL CONDUCTOR DUDE!!! Basically the fact of the matter is this. I would not endure being mocked, laughed at, or shot down for something that is not true. That would make no sense. My testimony is deepened by the fact that there is opposition. Unfortunately opposition is always present. But lets look at the brightside people—this church is true!! Hip hip hooray!! 

Valentines day was great. Soeur Bowman and I made pink crêpes, which ended up creepily looking like raw meat.  In truth, however, they were delicious. We then ate a Candle light Pizza dinner as an apartment (Soeur Witt’s Family tradition). I really love this holiday!! It gave us a great reason to celebrate love. Everybody needs to love today!! What a fabulous opportunity I have to be in France sharing that love!! I just love love!! I love you all! You are probably noticing I am emailing later than usual. Well we went snow shoeing again. It was even more perfect than the first time!

So gorgeous and ended with Pain au chocolate et chocolate chaud!! YUM!! Profitez les montagnes!! That’s my DMPs moto! I am so grateful for him and his work!! Such a member missionary!! So grateful for my Branch. Their capacity for missionary work is growing sooo much!! At branch council they all made a pack to make missionary work #1 priority!! It was so cute!! Go President Ferraris!! It’s such a blessing to see progression!!  

Love you all time is short!! gotta go teach and preach!! 

Challenge: Pray for my amis to come to church.