Another One with my Bleu

February 27^th, 2017

Hey,

The repertoire came out this last week and it turns out me and Langley are doing another transfer together. This upcoming transfer will most likely be my last one here in Saint-Omer so we must take advantage.

We were not able to see many of our amis this week because it's week of school vacation for the youngsters, we were however, able to see our less active, Gwen, and she's doing great. She's so passionate about her beliefs and truly loves the gospel. She's reading the Book of Mormon and loves everything that she reads and sees how it applies to her life, something cool she said during our rendezvous was, "Chacun pour soi, mais Dieu pour tous." Which means, "Every one for himself, but God for all." I thought it was well said. We feel great about her progression and know she's on the right path. 

We were able to see our catholic friend, Stephanette, she's super closed, but she likes discussing with us, so we understand that it'll take a bit of time to get her progressing, so we'll see what happens with her. 

We did many a finding and found some new people to teach, one of them being this cool Brazilian chic we found in Hazebrouck, everyone knows Brazilians are awesome so we're really excited about working with her and her família. 

We went porting one afternoon, and this old man opens the door and tells us that God doesn't rule the universe, but planets do, and miracles happen because of the planets. He told us that we were both rich because we had nice coats on. And he said it's not good to do volunteer work for a church. People these days.

Not much else to say, so hasta luego!

Elder Aburto

Comprométete, Faitelson!

February 20^th, 2017

Bonjour, Bonjour, ça va?

It's going well here, the temperature changes every single day. Last week it was cold and snowy, and this week felt like spring. It's like I never left Utah...

En fait, with pretty much everyone we're teaching right now, it's easy for them to accept the message, but not so easy to commit. Everyone basically is having a hard time reading the Book of Mormon. So what we ended up doing in most of our rendezvous was explain the importance of reading the Book every day. We got everyone to commit to read again. Pierre is interesting, he doesn't like the format or the way the Book is written. The old style of writing throws him off. He likes reading the pamphlets a lot I guess cause of the pictures... it's hard to get him to understand that if he wants an answer, he needs to make an effort himself.

Our less-active, Gwen is going good. She's been reading and praying and wants to come back to church again in the near future. She's doing awesome.

We got back in contact with an old ami who was in a relationship with our other ami, Rhode, he's Sylvain, and is a super sweet, humble guy. He dropped of the map for a long time, but we were able to get a hold of him. His life is a little complicated, but we feel really good about him.

Elder Langley is not a bad driver for a kid from Arizona. To talk about food for you, papi, I did have lengua a couple weeks ago, it was so good! They eat it a lot here, too. Something else that's popular is raclette cheese on baked potatoes. It's pretty good. The car is automatic. Goedemiddag is Dutch.

Other than Paris Saint-Germain destroying Barcelona in the Champions League there's not a lot more big news here, à plus!

Fraternellement,

Elder Aburto

L, is for the way you look at me...

February 13^th, 2017

Hello, Hola, Bonjour, Goedemiddag, and what not,

It's been another fantastic week over here in Saint-Omer. It's hard to believe that it's already mid-February. I've been in this ville for over 2 months now. It's also hard to believe how fast time goes. Before I'll know it, it'll be time to leave Saint-Omer.

This week we were able to see Lebrun again. His wife was on vacation at her mom's house, so it was just him this time. Man, it was a great lesson. He understands so well and he just takes everything in. We gave a soft baptismal invitation and he accepted without hesitation. I'm so excited for all that we're going to do together with this young couple.

We also saw Pierre again this week. He's the agnostic guy. The lesson came out pretty nicely. He came prepared with a lot of good questions, a lot of which I've never heard before. He's a really deep thinker and he feels like he already lives a happy life. We've seen this a lot with people especially over here in St. Omer, that people feel like their life is good enough and they don't necessarily need God. With Pierre we just tried to get him to understand that if that's not the case now, it'll happen later, that there'll come a time in his life when he will want to know if there's a God. At the end of our rendezvous together, we were able to get Pierre to pray for the first time in his life. It was pretty cool.

A couple nights ago, we went with Baptiste, in the priests' quorum to go contact a couple of referrals that his family gave us. The first guy told us no, but the second person open the door and let us in. It was a younger couple who were friends with Baptistes older brother. They were both really young and surprisingly believing. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they accepted to read it. It was great.

Yeah life definitely is good for a missionary, even if you're serving in St. Omer 😀.

Happy Holiday Of Love,

Elder Aburto

A picture of our car...

Making More Friends

February 6^th, 2017

Bonjour,

It's been another great week in the wonderful city of cloudy Saint-Omer, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, Europe. We were able to have exchanges here this last Tuesday and the extra manpower helped us out in finding some new Friends. President doesn't like the term investigator because it doesn't come off too nice, and since we say "ami" in French, he wants us to say "friend" in English. So we were able to find us some new friends, including a super awesome young couple, named Lebrun, and Elodie. He's from the Congo and she's from here. When we met them in the street, they were super Down to have us over. They had such a special spirit about them. When I looked into their eyes I could feel something particular about them. They said they loved God very much and asked for a Book to read before we were going to tell them anything. It was amazing. Then later this week, we were able to visit them in their home. We had a nice first lesson with them and they committed to come to church in a couple of weeks. Walking away from the rendezvous I felt really, really good. There's truly nothing greater than when you have the assurance that you're doing the right thing.

We made a few other friends that we're going to all see this upcoming week. One of them was when we stopped by one of our old "Amis", Rhode, to see how she was doing. And we saw an African dude painting inside her living room. We rang the doorbell and he let us in so nicely. He was explaining how Rhode hired him to work on her home interior and his life situation. We spent a little while chit-chatting, and got his Contact information and left him with a BOM. He was an awesome guy. Like most people over here in France, do not like Donald Trump. Which is pretty embarrassing for us, because now everyone on the street that we talk to when we mention we're Americans just talk about him. I've gotten asked a lot if I'll be able to go home, since I'm Hispanic. Lol.

It's interesting to see that a lot of people here just can't give an answer as to why they don't believe in God or go to church. "That's just how it is" they respond.

Something that President Babin wants us to focus on for this year is to become "Master Teachers". And something I really appreciated of Elder Young when he was my district leader was his emphasis on teaching simply. It's something we all have to work on. And I believe like President that it'll be key to seeing more Amis get baptized. If we all could teach like the Savior, we'd see lots more miracles.

It's too bad the Falcons choked, but to be honest, why do people still watch NFL? Don't we all know it's all just a game for Roger Goodell to get as much money in his pockets as possible? And if anyone starts naming Brady the greatest of all-time, then that's that. With that team and that coaching staff with that offensive line, I could've won three super bowls. A man on a good team is merely just a man on a good team. Praise the coach Belichick, and also the new rules protecting quarterbacks and wide receivers, and spygate, and hmmm, perhaps I've said too much.....

Have a good week,

Love,

Elder Aburto