8 months Old

Bonjour!!
Sorry this email is coming earlier than normal but we are going to the valley of monkeys with some members and I am so excited it's like Christmas!!!!!!!

So last week started out kinda sad, we went to the funeral of a member in our branch. Her name is Soeur Perez and she was like my mission grandma, we would go to her house and sing to her and I loved her so much. She was 91 so she lived a really good life, and there were a zillion people at her funeral. Members, non members, friends, family, it was great to see all these people and how she had touched their lives. I gave the opening prayer which was slightly nerve racking, just because there was a lot of people and speaking French while trying to listen to the spirit and not mess up is kinda tricky sometimes, but it was good. It was a beautiful service and she will be missed by many.

Wednesday was a fantastic day!! Arnaud Meloen a member in our branch who is getting ready to go on a mission taught like all of our lessons with us and it was so great! He has a rock solid testimony and I was really grateful he was able to share it with so many people that day! So we had a really cool miracle on wednesday. We were going to our lesson with some old amis Maria and Fabian and we get to their apt and they are not home and they aren't answering their phones and it's really sad cause we were super pumped to see them! So we decided to go find another family who we had met on the bus a couple weeks earlier! So we find their apt and we are at the sonnerie trying to find which apt is theirs! When all of a sudden they just show up behind us! HOLLA. It was super cool, they were really excited and they invited us in! Their name is the Di Salvo family and they are from Italy. We talked about the Bom with them and we are going back tomorrow to teach them again! Then later wednesday night we had our young adult activity at the church! Our ami Ruhina came and brought her friend Cindy! Funny thing is that Cindy is from Tahiti and her boyfriend is actually Mormon but not active! But his family is like really pushing for this boy to come back to church so Cindy is looking into our church so that her boyfriends family will accept her. I don't know if that is the best reason to start taking lessons haha but we will see how it goes:)

Thursday was our district meeting in limoges!! So fun!! So our district is all sisters besides our district leader and his comp, so we call ourselves the Limoges Relief Society. haha Elder Pettingill has appointed himself as relief society president. It's actually quite hilarious. We talked a lot about Project Elijah and just how we can become even more effective by really transitioning from the questionnaire to teaching the gospel. It was a really good meeting and it's always fun to see other missionaires! So as soon as we got off the train back at Poitiers we headed straight to this lady named Karla's house. So our ami Ruhina is of the baha'ai faith. I don't know if I told you this but pretty much they accept all religions and want world peace and love and stuff. It's actually pretty interesting and Ruhina is like the nicest person I have ever met. So she invited us to this devotional at Karla's house. Pretty much they just said a couple prayers and then we prayed for them and it was nice:) then Karla fed us after and that's when we really got to know her. Karla is from New Caledonia and is so cool. She has 3 kids and one of them has special needs and she is a single mom. But she is so kind and patient and loving and I just felt like I was at like a family members house or something. We explained to her a little bit about our Church and what we do as missionaires and stuff like that. She was super interested and she has a lot of the same beliefs as we do. AND she said if I come back to France I could stay at her house:) haha But really she is incredible and light just radiates from this woman. I don't think it is an accident we met her. I'm really grateful for Ruhina and all the cool people we are meeting through her! First Cindy now Karla! I'll keep you posted on how it goes:)

Oh rewind! So we've been teaching a less active family named the Tu'ungasfasi's and Soeur Tu'ungafasi has been a member her whole life and her husband got baptized in 2011. But they don't come cause her husband plays rugby every sunday and has the car, therefore the family doesn't come. So we've been going over like 2 times a week cause she wants her kids baptized. They are 11,9, and 7. And I am obsessed with them, they are so cute and adorable and get so excited when we come and they always ask when we will come back and I just love them! So they will hopefully get baptized in October and we know have members bringing the family to church, so hopefully all keeps going well!!

Friday was a cool day! We went to a chinese buffet with the young adults in the branch and that was so fun and it was SUNNY AND WARM. Then after that we went contacting with Dominique and we had a really cool miracle! We knocked on the door of a lady named Madame Gremillion and we asked her if we could do the questionnaire with her. She did not look excited but Dominique made her laugh and she let us in. We did the questions and started talking about the family booklet and she was being so darn sassy and saying "I need to put my make up on! I'm going out with my friends!" She's 88:) But we just kept talking and she said "ya know I'm not interested in your church, but I am curious." We fixed another meeting for next friday:) As we left she told us she never ever ever ever lets people into her house:) it was really cool!

Yesterday was great!! Soeur Rousselle is a boss and brought two people she met on a bus to church! They were really cool! Saad is from Iraq and Amelia is from Portugal. During the lesson in amis class Amelia cried twice, the Spirit was super strong. Soeur Rousselle is going to invite them to eat lunch with all of us on Friday so I am super pumped! Then yesterday afternoon we decided to go to some contacting at the park because it was so sunny and beautiful! We met this really cool lady named Stephanie who was just so open to listening to us! At the end we prayed with her in the park and we told her we would call her to fix a meeting and she said "I'll be waiting for your call":) I was really excited because I just got the feeling that she was so genuine and really ready to recieve this message.

Well kids the valley of monkeys is calling me so I have to go! But I hope your week is great and that you see miracles in your own life:) I love you all!!

avec amour,
Soeur Holmes

ALL ABOARD!!

Valley of the monkeys

Miracles

Bonjour!!
This week was a really good week! The longer I am on my mission the faster it goes. Sometimes I just wish it would slow down so I could catch my breath. haha This week was intense! So our district had a goal for each equipe to teach 20 lessons this week. That may not sound like a lot, but in this mission, it's a lot. It's hard but totally do able (is that a word??) anyway! So Soeur M and I worked super duper hard and we literally talked to EVERYONE. And we saw really cool miracles:)
Miracle 1:
So I have this thing where I really love contacting people who are smoking. I play this game called "lets see how long we can talk to them so their cigarette will go out" so we start talking to this girl, and at first she is just kind of answering our questions and not being very enthusiastic. But then we start to show her our my family books and talking about the family and really just asking her about her family and she just got really happy. She started telling us about her family and she was laughing and smiling and it was great. At the end of the conversation she gave us her number and she told us we could come over another time  to talk more about our message. Oh and her cigarette went out:)
Miracle 2:
Sunday morning we were heading to church and we still needed to teach one more lesson to get to 20. So we see this old lady and we kind of did the creepy missionary stalker thing and followed her for a second. We start to talk to her about her family and she opens up to us about how she lost her brother and sister on the same day. We started talking about the plan of salvation and we testified that she can live with her family again. She got all wide eyed and said, "really?? I've never heard that before! That is some good news." She's right. The Gospel is good news and I'm pretty sure in some language gospel literally translates to good news. We left her with a plan of salvation pamphlet because she didn't have a phone, but I hope one day Janet gets a phone and calls us so we can keep sharing the good news with her:)
After church on sunday we headed to angouleme to help the sisters there teach so that they could get their 20 lessons to! We took the 45 minute train ride their while it poured rain. We got off the train and it was still raining. The soeurs there still had 9 lessons to teach. So we prayed a lot and we put together all of our faith and we went out in the pouring rain and between the 4 of us we taught 9 lessons in 4 hours. It was incredible. We were all soaking wet but I didn't even feel cold. We talked to old people, young people, possibly drunk people, all sorts of people. And what I realized is that the gospel is literally for everyone. It's not exclusive to the wise or the rich. But the message of the gospel is for every person. Our message touches every person in a different way. My faith was built a lot yesterday as the Lord helped us accomplish miracles.
So remember Gladys? The less active we found on the bus?? Well we had a lesson with her this week. We first just tried to get to know her a bit and after that we asked her if we could pray with her. She burst into tears. She told us that she hadn't prayed in years. That her life had been really hard, so she turned away from God because she was hurt and angry. My heart broke for her, but President Achar bore an extremely powerful testimony of turning to God in times of sorrow, he shared his experience of losing his 3 year old son Celestin to cancer last year. We talked about the atonement with her and how if we use it in our lives we can feel so much peace. By the end of the lesson she seemed a little better. She shot down our invitation to come to church, but I hope that one day she comes back:)
This week I went to Bordeaux and did an exchange with Soeur James my mtc home girl and it was the bomb!! SO much fun!! I felt like I was just hanging out with my friend but doing killer missionary work! We had a crazy two hour lesson with one of their amis Thibaut. He asks really crazy questions and a lot of them, but it's because he's super hungry to learn the gospel which is great! Probably the longest two hours of my life but as we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ he started to understand the steps he needs to take in his life to be truly happy. And he wants to get baptized:) I'm excited to see what happens with him! Soeur James is just delightful and such a great missionary, and she taught me a lot. It was a great day. Oh and Bordeaux is beautiful. Ya'll should go.
Well sorry that this was so long but this week was just great! The transfer is flying by so fast. 2 weeks left in the transfer and I feel like it started yesterday. I hope you all have a great week and that you can share the good news of the gospel with others. I love you!
Love,
Soeur Holmes



                                               

                                                Eating tacos with our ami Ruhina.
                                            She has never had a taco in her life!!

Zone Conference

                                                                           Bordeaux      

                               
                                 Me and Soeur James                                          I love Bordeaux!!

Wild Pig!!

Bonjour!

Wow this week has been really interesting! 

MATHIEU:

He is progressing like a champion. We had a lesson with him this week and it was so great. We sat down and before we started teaching he whips out his computer and shows us all of his notes on the book of mormon! He writes a summary for each chapter so he makes sure he understands it better and doesn't forget it! Holla. He's the coolest 18 year old I know! Our lesson was on the plan of salvation and it was really great. The spirit was strong and I felt like it touched him. So he is still getting baptized but we don't know when cause he has to come 3 times before he gets baptized and he hasn't been to church yet, but now that he moved out of his grandmas house and he doesn't have to take her to mass he can come! So keep him in your prayers:)

GLADYS:

I don't know if I already told you this story so sorry if I have haha so a couple weeks ago we were on a bus coming home and I go sit down next to this woman and start talking to her. She saw my tag and said "I'm already baptized" and I'm thinking "yeah you are probably catholic or something" so we keep talking and then she points at my tag and tells me she is already baptized into our church! So I'm like what?! She's been inactive for like 15 years and she's lived in poitiers for 10 and she didn't know there was a church here. We are going to visit her this week and I am super excited to see what comes of it!

FRERE CHEVALIER:

Had a bomb lesson with him this week as well! He started reading the Book of Mormon and praying again, he told us he feels a difference in his life and he sees how the Lord is blessing him. I was so pumped for him! Please pray for him to stay strong! 

EXCHANGE WITH SOEUR ZENGER:

So Soeur Zenger came to Poitiers on Thursday and we did an exchange and it was so so so so so so so good! Ah I miss her. We had a lesson with Yazid and I didn't tell him that Soeur Z was coming, and so when he saw her he freaked out and it was so fun and my heart was so happy. We then went on to have a killer lesson about the Prayer and the Book of Mormon. We read 3 Nephi 11 together about when the Savior comes and it was beautiful. Yazid was really touched by the Spirit. At the end of our lesson, he told us he would never leave the church:) just about the best words you can hear your convert say! After Yazid we went and saw Soeur Rousselle and talked to her about Project Elijah and how we are trying to help people connect to their ancestors, she wants us to give her another My Family book so she can share it with her doctor! The spirit of elijah is really making miracles here in our mission!

ZONE CONFERENCE:

I love Zone Conference. It's the highlight of every transfer. I love getting spiritually fed by President and Sister Roney! Of course at Zone Conference we talked a lot about Project Elijah and how we are really trying to help these people connect to their ancestors. It's been cool cause as I have been trying this new family questionnaire people really do open up. Before our questionnaire was about prophets, we had a family one too, but not like this one. Those questionnaires were good and sparked a lot of interest, but this one is incredible. The first question we ask people is "what member of your family has made the biggest sacrifice for you or has been the best example?" People really start to open up, it then invites the Spirit super fast, and then it gives us a great lead to talk about the Gospel and how the family is so important. I'm excited to keep going with this!

Also in Zone Conference we watched Meet the Mormons! It was SOOOOOOOOOO good and everyone should watch it! I loved it! 

So at ZC the missionaries who are going home give their dying testimonies. A sister in our mission who I love gave a beautiful testimony that really touched me. She was talking about how her favorite story in the bible is in John 9 when Jesus heals the man who was born blind. The pharisees ask him how was he healed and who did this and why? The man replys something like "whether this man is a sinner I know not; whereas I was blind, now I see." The sister compared this to her mission and how she felt like before her mission she was "blind" but now, "she see's" I loved when she said that. I still have quite a while on my mission, but I feel like I am beginning to see:)

WILD PIG ATTACK 2015:

Ok so we were on the train home from ZC and everything is normal and we are sitting with the Angoulême soeurs and just having a jolly good time, when the train makes this awful noise and comes to a screching hault! We are all like what in the world is going on??? So the lady comes on over the speaker and tells us they are going to check it out, like 20 minutes later they come back on and tell us that we have hit a giant wild pig and it broke the train!!! So we were stuck on this train for 4 HOURS!! No water. Always bring water on a train, you may hit a wild pig. We were going crazy and so tired. Our poor district leader, and zone leaders couldn't go to sleep until we got home! We got to angouleme at like 11 ish and then went back to poitiers the next morning! haha it was definitely a night to remember!

BRANCHE ACTIVITY:

Saturday was crazy and started out bad! So saturday we had this branch activity. Our dmb thought it would be a good idea for the branche to do some contacting with the missionaries as part of the activity. So we were all suppossed to meet at the church at 3 and head out contacting. Well everyone, starts sending us these texts saying that they aren't coming contacting but they will show up at 5 to watch the movie. So I'm super irritated, cause I knew all along that they didn't want to do this, so I had no idea why they agreed to it. SO we show up at 3 and the only people there are Dominique and Catherine. We were all a little frustrated, but Dominique said a killer prayer and we went out and worked. It had been raining all day, but for the 2 hours that we were contacting, the rain stopped and there was a tiny bit of sun.:) No one gave us a number, or wanted to see us again, but everyone was nice, and a little old lady bought us juice, and we testified of eternal families and I was happy:) The Lord blessed us and I am so grateful  for Dominique and Catherine and their willingness to help us out.

After contacting we met up with everyone else at the church and watched Ephriams Rescue and it was SO GOOD. Everyone go watch it, everyone was crying. Like I have always known that the pioneers did so much, but it really hit me on Saturday. I am grateful for the sacrifces they made so I have the Gospel in my life today. The day ended really good:)

This week was interesting but I saw so many little miracles. The Lord is always with us and he will never leave us alone. He loves us. I love you! Have a great week!:) 

Love,

Soeur Holmes

Bonjour

Bonjour!
Ok so this week was good but for some reason I am having the hardest time figuring out what to wrtie about so bear with me!!

MATHIEU
He is great and so so cool. He accepted to be baptized on March 14th:) Hopefully everything goes according to plan. He sent us a text that was like "can't wait for tuesday so I can tell you about what I read in the Book of Mormon" so I am super pumped for our rdv tomorrow with him

RUHINA
Ruhina is a girl I met on the bus and she is so cool. She speaks english. Love that. So we set up a rdv with her and she is really cool! She was drilling us with some tough questions though. Like what will it be like when the Savior comes again? Why is your church the best church of all the churches? How did you get your testimony? When did you know the bom was true?? AH! Like I know the answers to these questions but sometimes on the spot it's a wee bit hard to come up with a hit you straight in the heart response ya know?? She seemed satisfied though and we have another rdv tomorrow which I am really excited about cause she is cool!

JULIE
Julie. I love Julie so much. We cracked her. We figured out why she won't get baptized. She said she doesn't feel worthy. We had a beautiful lesson about repentance. Julie cried, I cried. The Spirit was strong and it made me think of my favorite quote from President Uchtdorf,“He is not waiting to love you until you have overcome your weaknesses and bad habits. He loves you today with a full understanding of your struggles. He is aware that you reach up to Him in heartfelt and hopeful prayer. He knows of the times you have held onto the fading light and believed—even in the midst of growing darkness. He knows of your sufferings. He knows of your remorse for the times you have fallen short or failed. And still He loves you.”
He loves us always. I know He loves Julie as much as He loves each and every one of us and He wants nothing more than for her to get baptized. I hope she gets an answer soon, because she is ready, she just needs to believe in herself.

For Valentines Day we went to Zone Training in Bordeaux and it was an absolute BLAST. Gosh I love seeing all of my missionary homies:) Our whole zone training was on something called Project Elijah. In the France Lyon Mission we will be turning the hearts of the children to their fathers as we really dive into working with family history. We have a brand new questionnaire for contacting about family history as well. It should be really great and I am super excited, the best way to invite the spirit is to get people talking about their families:) so if anyone has some good stories or facts for me about our family, send them my way!

YAZID:) he blessed the sacrament on Sunday. It was a proud mama moment for me. I'm seriously so proud of him and the choices he continues to make to follow Heavenly Father. I love you all! I hope your week is great and full of lots of love! It doesn't have to be valentines day to show love:) I love you!

avec amour,
Soeur Holmes

It snowed!!

Bonjour!
Wow this week. The first week of the transfer always feels kind of slow, but this one was super super slow, BUT a lot of great things happened:)
I got my new companion Soeur Mattinson! She was serving in Toulouse before which is like the 3rd biggest city in France of something so Poitiers is kind of a change! haha She is wonderful, she is so so so nice and loving and you can't help but be happy around her, it's impossible to be sad. She's a great missionary and she is helping me become a better missionary myself. I always get nervous when I get a new companion but the Lord always knows exactly what we need, I'm grateful for that.

This week was really good, we contacted A LOT. Contacting isn't my favorite thing, but Soeur Mattinson is so enthusiastic about it that it makes it kind of fun. We talked to some really great people and we even had a couple cool miracles. One of them was that we approached this family and starting talking to them, they told us they were from Brazil and that they didn't speak French very well, so we tried to talk really simply and slowly and the Dad was able to translate what we were saying to the Mom. After a couple minutes of talking I felt really inspired to testify hard core about eternal families so I did, they were really touched. We got there number and hopefully we will be able to see them this week.

Something else that was really cool that happened was Yazid passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday at church!! Ahh! I was so happy, the whole time I was just beaming as he walked up and down the rows. He was so nervous but he did such a great job. I love seeing him progress:)

We were finally able to have a rendez-vous with Aurech this week, we hadn't seen him in a really long time. The rendez-vous was good but he just isn't progressing. He told us "I just need to make the decision to keep the commandments and then it will be easier to keep them." Valid. With anything in life we first have to make the decision and then do it, but unfortunately Aurech is just not really acting on his faith right now. I hope that one day he comes around because he would honestly be the coolest member ever, until then we will just keep loving him and praying for him.

So we have this ami named Mathieu, I've known him since I got here in September. We teach him english every week and that's about it. Well we were having our dmb meeting and Joe our branch mission leader was like "why isn't Mathieu being taught??" And I'm like he is.. we're teaching him english! And Joe is like well try teaching him the Gospel. That kind of hit in me in the face because until this point we have only taught him english because he never seemed too interested in the Gospel. So we called and asked if we could teach him a little bit more about what we believe in, he said of course:) our renez-vous went super well and I could tell he was touched by the Spirit, I'm actually really glad we waited to teach him though, I feel like we first needed to establish a friendship with him first. I can't wait to see where things go with him:)

Ok so yesterday was really cool. We were getting off the bus to walk to the church and Soeur Rousselle was getting on the bus to go home. We thought this was super weird because church hadn't started yet. She looked really really upset and I was worried. We got off the bus and called her and she didn't answer her phone. Well we went about our day and we thought we would try and see her sometime this week to make sure she was ok. Well later last night one of our rendez-vous fell through so Soeur M is like lets go see Soeur Rousselle. So we did, we got to her house and she did not look happy to see us and she was super hesitant about letting us in. But after a second she did, she made us hot cocoa and we sat down and started talking. She told us about how she was having some problems with her family and neighbors and such and that this week had just been awful. We shared a scripture with her about prayer and by the time we left her house she was so happy and smiling. She even gave us chocolate butter, you heard me chocolate butter. I was so glad our rendez-vous fell through because Soeur Rousselle needed us last night. The Lord is so aware of His children.

I hope you all have an incredible week and think about the Savior a little more. I love Him, and I love you! Que Dieu vous bénisse!

Love,
Soeur Holmes

Ps it snowed in Poitiers!
The other pic is soeur zenger and I when I dropped her off at the gare

Poitiers

Bonjour!
Welp I am still in Poitiers! This will be my 4th transfer here and I love it so much. The day I leave is going to be a really hard day. I am so grateful for all the amazing experiences that I have had here. Soeur Zenger got transferred to Talence, which is in Bordeaux. I was heartbroken, I just cried and cried. She became my best friend. I loved being her companion, we had so much fun, but we also worked really hard and saw so many miracles. I'll miss her so much but I know that she is needed in Talence. She will do amazing things there.

This week was really good. Soeur Zenger and I had a feeling that someone would get transferred which means that so many members invited us over to eat with them! haha So we got to spend time with Soeur Rousselle and Soeur Chevallier! They fed us Raclette which is my favorite and then Soeur Z and I made Speculoos Cheesecake which is SOOOOO good and I'll make it for ya'll when I get home. I love these two women, I loved spending time with them as they told us their stories and shared their testimonies.

We also did exchanges this week! Soeur Cherry came from Limoges and we did some killer work in Poitiers. We were able to see aurech for a little bit. He is probably the most frustrating investigator we have. He knows the church is true, he just really struggles with commandments. I know one day he will get baptized, but maybe now just is not the time. I refuse to give up on him though. We also were able to see Yazid! We are teaching him all the lessons again. It's been really cool, he practically teaches us the lessons he knows everything so well! It's been really cool just to watch him grow even in just a little over a week since his baptism, it's incredible.

Yesterday was my favorite day of the whole week! It was fast sunday which means testimony meeting and I love testimony meeting. President Achar always invites the missionnaries to bear their testimony first, so I get up and I start talking and then I talk about how I will miss soeur zenger and I just burst into tears and it was really awkward but it was ok cause everyone else started to cry haha but I love hearing all of their testimonies. This branche is incredible, their faith is unshakeable. I love them so much.

Yazid got the priesthood yesterday:) we were able to be there for it and it was incredible. I love to see him progress and take steps in his life that keeps bringing him closer and closer to the Savior. The Spirit was so strong in the room when he was getting the priesthood and even though I didn't understand every word cause French, the Spirit is the same. It's the same in any language and I love that.

Last night we went to the Meloen's for the last time with Soeur Zenger. Soeur Meloen of course made amazing food like usual cause she is such a good cook! It was so great, the Spirit is always felt in that home and I kinda consider it my second home:)

It was a good week. Sad and hard to let Soeur Z go but I am grateful for the time I had with her. I love you all and I hope you have an amazing week!

Yazid got baptized

Bonjour!!

Wow this weekend was one to remember! It was amazing! Yazid followed the example of Jesus Christ and got baptized. Yazid is truly a miracle. Little did I know that by calling a bunch of random phone numbers on a really old potential list, that it would turn into us getting to teach one of the most prepared people for the restored gospel. I was there when Yazid said his very first prayer to a God that he wasn't even sure if he existed or not, about a month later I was able to watch him step into the waters of baptism and then testify to our cute little branche that he knows that God lives and loves him. It was an incredible experience for Soeur Zenger and I. My faith was built so much. Yazid always would tell us that he was so thankful for what we were teaching him and that we were bringing him such an amazing gift, honestly we didn't do anything. It was the Lord doing all the work, we were just there to pass the message along. But as much as Yazid learned, I think I learned more. My testimony grew so much this past month and a half. God lives and loves us. He wants all of His children to come back to Him. It was a pleasure to teach Yazid, I can't wait to see all of the great things that happen will happen in his life because he chose to join the true church! He is an incredible example to me.

I gave a talk at the baptism about baptism! As I was writing my talk I learned so much about what it really means to take His name upon us. The Spirit was incredible that day, as Yazid went under the water I had the warmest feeling come over me, it was like I was getting a giant hug. I cried of course. Nothing is more beautiful than watching someone choose our Savior Jesus Christ.

I love Him, I know that my redeemer lives and loves us personally. I feel blessed every day that I get to wear His name over my heart. I love you all:) Have a great week!

Avec amour,

Soeur Holmes