What a great week!!!!
Tuesday we had our "branch day" all the members that could come met at the church and we cleaned together, had our branch council meeting (which included almost all the members there haha) and then ate a big lunch together. Perks of being a missionary: nobody let's you bring your own food :) Elder Alvarez and I showed up a little early and so I started messing around on the piano which I do whenever we have spare time at the chapel. I've been trying to learn the melodies to a couple hymns just for fun. Well, the relief society president who is also the pianist heard me and so she asked me to play for her on Sunday because she would be gone. Now obviously, I couldn't say no, so I said I could probably do the melodies. I got the list of the songs and seriously every spare second we had I was practicing for that. I had to use both hands to do the melody, but it turned out halfway decent. Note to parents: make your kids learn piano! If they serve outside of the US they WILL need it :)
Friday, we went and ate at the relief society president's home. Her husband used to be in the branch presidency and high council. They are just a super solid family! Anyway, they've got some money, and so we had a huge meal in their super fancy house. I'm talking amazing steaks, classy looking twice baked potatoes, four different kinds of cheeses, and eclairs for dessert. Did I mention we were there for lunch?! :) Anyway super cool. He was in different community choirs for years, so he and I talked about music a ton and sang some of his old songs together. Apparently I'm a real Dunkerquois (person from dunkerque) because I belted the city anthem with him haha! But the coolest thing about this lunch was our spiritual thought. Like I said, this family is incredibly solid, and so we were having trouble thinking of something that we could share with them that would really help. I spent the morning flipping through the topical guide trying to find SOMETHING to share with them. On the bus ride over to their house we were still trying to figure it out. All of a sudden, I thought about fasting, but it was gone in another second. When it came time to share the spiritual thought I found myself talking about fasting even though I thought I was going to talk about pondering the scriptures. I turned to a scripture I remembered about fasting and started a discussion. It turns out the hardest thing they deal with is fasting. She works at home for troubled kids and she cooks and eats with the kids, so fasting is hard because the kids ask why she doesn't eat and legally she can't talk about church. And his body doesn't handle skipping meals well. They try to do it the best they can, but when they do it's always just because they have to. I was completely led by the Spirit and gave them encouragement, tips, and promised them miracles. It was a really spiritual experience, and they were so grateful for it.
Now I'll finish up with my funny experience of the week.
There is a couple (Olivier and Virginie) that we are teaching who had a baptismal date, and a lot of potential, but right before I got here they dropped off the face of the earth. We hadn't made contact in weeks. But, this week we were on our way home for dinner and the thought popped into my head, "Go get a Kebab" (delicious Arab mystery meat sandwich). But I didn't want to spend the money, and we were tired and just wanted to get home, but the thought wouldn't leave. So I told Elder Alvarez we were going to get off at a different stop and go get a kebab. Right as we get off the bus guess who walks in front of us? Olivier! He was super happy to see us and we set up an appointment right there. Spiritual promptings come in all kinds of ways, and you never know what blessings will come from following them. Oh and the kebab tasted amazing by the way! :)
Love you all!
Elder Jorgensen
