It's Almost Conference... Again

March 27th, 2017

Bonjour,

It's been a wonderful week here in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In briefing, we had:

A nice return rendezvous with our new ami, Gregoire. We had a nice talk about the differences between our church and other churches. He asked lots of great questions. He's met with missionaries in the past, so he more or less knows what we're about. He is already a believing Christian, but not pertaining to one church... yet. He's a very genuine guy, so we believe we can go really far with him.

Our boy, Sylvain, is doing alright. We had a pretty nice rendezvous with him with our member, Guy Francois. I love teaching with Guy because he's so passionate and he says what's on his mind. Sylvain knows the road he needs to take and we want to make sure that we're helping him out as much as possible. He's a really humble guy and I have confidence that he is going down the right path.

Lebrun is doing good. I love reading passages of the scriptures with him because he takes it all in so well. I love his faith. Whenever we teach a doctrine to him, he gets it well, and he explains it right back to us. If we could get him to church soon, we could see bigger things unrolling for him in the future...

And us? We're doing great. We're looking forward to the assumed last two weeks together as a companionship. We'll have exchanges here and a finding day next week as well so we've still got a lot to look forward to.

I hope y'all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Aburto

P.S. Enjoy Conference Everyone.

And I hope you get home safe, Elena.

Push Along, Push Along

March 20^th, 2017

Another week, another P-day, boy, time sure does fly, huh?

Life is good as usual up here in the North. It's weird to think I have only 3 more weeks up here with my Bleu. It feels like I just got here a couple of days ago. It's pretty mind blowing...

This week was nice and solid, I'd say. We were able to get our ami, Annie to come to church again this last Sunday and she enjoyed it again. Understanding her life situation lets us know that the gospel can help her so much. She's super worried all the time and is worried about her loved ones who've passed away, and we're so certain that this path is hers to take. She's still a little apprehensive about committing to just our church, but we know that with time and spiritual experiences, she'll make the right decision.

We finally met with Sylvain again and man, the guy is so cool. Apparently, he was a super progressing ami back in the day and would come to church slot and had a baptismal date and all, but little by little the priorities got out of placed and after some time the missionaries stopped meeting with him for a while. Now, however, his soul is humbled and he wants to make the change. We're working on making coming to church a priority and the law of chastity, but we feel great about him.

A couple days ago we went porting and this dude opens the door and was very happy to see us. He's studied the church a little bit and likes what he sees. He's been taught by missionaries in the past and really wants us to come over again. Go figure!

We also ported in to this other really nice guy who's very religious but doesn't have a church. He gladly chatted with us and is down for another visit. So we'll see how that goes.

Just a little thought: Lately I've been thinking about how for us missionaries, it's required to have faith. Believing miracles can happen. If not, then why the heck are we even here? We need to rely on God and have faith that we will se success.

"Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even the ends of the earth." -Moroni 9:21

Love,

Elder Aburto

Zone Conference in Lille

March 11th, 2016

Already Gone

March 13th, 2017

Bonjour,

Another week gone. This week has been a little different from the others I guess mostly because we had District Meeting, Interviews, Zone Conference, and Exchanges.  So it was a little all over the place, but we know it was all for our benefit and now this week we'll have a lot of time in our sector to get more work done.

A cool note about zone Conference was in President and Sœur Babin's formation they did together, what they did was they did a little practice teach using a Slide Presentation on the tablets. It was very nicely done. It seems like a very useful teaching tool and we'll probably try it out one of these days.

We did see some progress in our ami, Annie, though. She's feeling more and more desire to do things and yesterday she came to church! She stayed for all three hours, partially because our member made her stay for the whole time, but she really enjoyed it and wants to come back next week. She said she likes our church but she likes her Catholic Church as well and she doesn't know what to do. We're hopefully going to help her figure it all out. She's had some pretty hard times in her life and we know this is the best place for her.

On our exchange in Calais, we were just walking down the rode when this dude walked up to us and started talking to us about his faith. Apparently, he's met with missionaries before and lost contact with them and really wants to learn more. He's super cool! It was a nice little tender mercy.

Just remember, don't let up and never act like it's over and done with before the whistle blows. First there's what the Falcons did in the super bowl, and then what Paris Saint-Germain did last week. What a disgrace. Go Barça.

Have a nice week,

Love,

Elder Aburto

À Pied

March 6, 2017

Hello!

Well, it's been another dandy week up here in the North. It turned out a lot differently than we expected. Going into the week we had lots of rendezvous fixed, and by the end of the week, lost all of them fell through. A little disappointing, but what can we do?

A couple days ago our car nearly broke down on us as we were driving down the highway. The engine was burning out really bad, so we took it to the shop today to get it fixed and we'll hopefully get it back tomorrow. In the meantime we're walking everywhere, just like the good ol' days.

We were able to teach a new person, Annie, she's a real believing Catholic who loves everything related to Christ. We taught some of Le Rétablissement and she really loved it. When we gave her the Book of Mormon, she began to read it immediately and marveled at the book. It's comforting to know that there are people out here who do accept it fully. We're meeting with her again this upcoming week. We're looking forward to see her progress in the gospel. 

Our boy, Pierre is still in a state of doubt. The man loves doubting. Which will ultimately be the barrier of his progress. We consider him as a friend as well as an ami, but boy needs to commit.

Yesterday we had a killer 3 hours of church. It was Branch Conference and the theme was temple attendance. Everyone here is so excited for the dedication of the temple in Paris. The members in this area in particular are very committed to attend the temple, in fact. There are more Frenchies that go to the London Temple than actual British members, go figure! Our whole mission will go in a private tour on April 20-21 before the public open house. Qué Momento!!

I hope y'all have a very excellent week.

À bientôt,

Elder Aburto