France Paris Mission 2014-2016

Week 8 --- Bonjour! I'm in France finally!

My first area is the city of La Rochelle right on the western coast of France. I absolutely love it here. It's beautiful, the people are super friendly (mostly), and we've already seen miracles.

Mon papa (my dad/trainer) is Elder Godfrey from Kaysville, Utah. He's been out for 16 months, and is amazing. We're getting along so well and I couldn't be happier about our companionship. 

I'm going to apologize right off the bat, there aren't any pictures. I had to put my camera in my checked luggage because it uses normal batteries, and I've been too busy/exhausted to take pictures here in La Rochelle.

Anyway, Tuesday and Wednesday in Paris were awesome on our train ride from the airport to the chapel in Paris where we were meeting we had our first experience contacting and then we did street contacting in Paris after lunch. It was intimidating! Although, I really enjoyed it. Wednesday evening Elder Godfrey and I took off for La Rochelle (3 hour train ride that actually took us outside of our mission for a bit), and we were picked up by Elder and Soeur Fitt, the senior missionaries in La Rochelle. 

So here in La Rochelle it's just me, mon collegue, and the Fitt's. Our area is about the same size as Saint George and the surrounding little cities. We don't have a car so we do A LOT of walking and for the outskirts we take the bus. If you want you can google street view La Rochelle and see where I'm working each day.

Right after we got here, we ate a little something and then we went porting (door to door tracting). We got a ton of no's but there was one African lady, Muriel, and her young son, Leo, who let us in to pray with them. She was so friendly and seemed very interested in our church, so we're going to pass by again this week. Then there were a lot more no's... :)

Thursday we taught a lesson to un ami de L'eglise (investigators are called friends of the church) named Raphael. It was a little awkward for me because of the language, but still fun. Then we did a ton of street/park contacting and porting.

Friday we had taught a Brazilian lady named Macilene and her niece Izzy. We taught them about our life on earth and the Atonement. They are such wonderful people, and incredibly nice. Also, we had our weekly planning session and one of our goals was to work on a Christ-like attribute each week, so for the rest of that week it was patience. We also had some goals for the transfer, one of which was to appreciate the weird, strange, and funny experiences we'd have, and to just have fun. Well, the Lord gives you what you ask for... We taught another lesson to a man that was street contacted, and it turns out he didn't want to learn the gospel very much. He wanted to sit and tell us why he didn't like Islam and problems he had with other churches, so we just had to leave. Then that evening when we were porting it just started to pour and neither of us had umbrellas and I didn't have a jacket, just my light sweater. And to top it off nobody would talk with us. But when we were in the elevator going up to our apartment, we looked at each other and we remembered what our goals were, and we both just started laughing! It was hilarious! 

Saturday it continued to rain (apparently winters in France are just rainy all the time), but I was blessed to find a wind/rain jacket that one of the former missionaries left and it fits perfectly and looks great, as well as an umbrella. That evening we were porting in some batiments (apartment buildings) about 40 minutes from our apartment and 2 people let us in to pray with them. Now let me put this into perspective, a good week porting here is if you get let in once, and we got let in 3 times! Anyway one of the people we prayed with was an older gentleman named Lelong who used to be a helicopter mechanic in the army. At first, he just wanted to talk to us, and explained that he couldn't believe in anything he couldn't see or feel, but after I bore my testimony of prayer (en francais) he agreed to pray with us. Elder Godfrey asked me to offer the prayer. As I was praying I felt prompted to ask God to let us know if He was real and if He was there. After we finished the prayer he was on the verge of tears. Unfortunately, he hurried and changed the topic (probably because he was scared of what he had just felt). He, in the words of Elder Godfrey, felt the Spirit hardcore. Thankfully, he said we could pass by tomorrow and talk with him again.

The Lord really is with us in this work and there are wonderful people here in France that have been prepared for the gospel. 

I love all of you so much!

Elder Jorgensen  

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