Two more weeks... (update #75)

Bonjour à tous!!

I don't have a lot of time this week but I promise to tell you more about all the AMAZING things that are happening in 2 weeks when I get back :)

For now I will just quickly update this last week. We went to Montpellier for an exchange with Soeur Manea and Perry and I forgot to take pics (hence the picture from google), but it was GORGEOUS!!

We had zone conference with President and Soeur Brown. We made the food and some cute boxes for everyone....

and I gave my departing testimony...which was weird. Still doesn't feel real that I'm going home in 2 weeks.

We had a rendezvous with Marie and Soeur Jill Thomas and we learned SO MUCH. Soeur Thomas has so many incredible insights about the gospel, I'll never forget this one thing she said: "it's impossible to go deeper unless we do more." I think so often in life I find myself wanting to have deeper experiences, feel closer to Heavenly Father, have deeper relationships with family and friends. But I have to remember that if I want "deeper" anything, it's going to take more effort.

Marie is doing great. Honestly it's going to be so hard to leave her. (thank goodness she's moving to America for her studies this summer!!)

Lucille is KILLING it as a missionary!! (She not on a mission, but she may as well be). Sunday at church she just pulled aside our amie, Valerie Anne, and was bearing her testimony about how God will help her and baptism is how she will be able to better access that help. To which Valerie Anne said that she knows she needs to be baptized!! Then that night Lucille sent US a list of scriptures to pass to Valerie Anne to help her in her studies. THEN Lucille texted us to tell us that she was able to invite someone to church and got their phone number!!! What?! She is so strong and such a blessing to me and all the people around her. The gospel works. And it brings so much joy.

Well... life is amazing!! I don't really have much else to say. This week in my interview with President Brown, memories flooded back of an interview I had with him 16 months ago at the very beginning of my mission. In this interview I told him my plans to go home 30 days early, so I could get back to school in time to start the semester. He said "lets pray about it." So we did. And we both felt like I needed to stay. At the time I didn't know why, I just knew that God wanted me to be in France until January 30, 2018.

As I sit here now I can't really find words to express how grateful I am for these "extra" weeks of my mission. And by extra I mean the weeks that I wasn't planning on, that God clearly had planned all
along. I've seen more miracles, felt more strength in my relationships with amies and felt more joy in missionary work than ever before. God is good. And he has a plan for us that's always, 100% of the time, better than our plan.

Have a wonderful week!!

See you soon! Talk to you next week!

Love,

Soeur Cami Goold

And They Did Give Thanks.... (update #68)

Bonjour tout le monde!!

The weeks are honestly flying by over here in Toulouse.. we've been running left and right and just having the time of our lives. This week has been super exciting but before I update you I just wanted to document a simple but powerful experience during church on Sunday.

This Sunday was the primary program in sacrament meeting. Always the best Sunday of the year. For the opening hymn we sang "En Sion, pays si cher" (don't worry about what that means). Anyway, during the chorus of the song we sang the words:  "entendez-vous la musique, de ces douces voix d'enfants? Confiants et pleins d'amour, ils font monter chaque jour vers le ciel lemurs chants joyeux et innocents."

The English version doesn't do it justice, but it's basically asking in a much more beautiful and poetic way: "do you hear that music? Do you hear the children singing with confidence and love their joyful
song to heaven?"

I'm not describing the situation very well, but as these beautiful words filled the room I was just suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for everything my mission has brought
me. For this opportunity to live amongst the French people, to share my heart and my testimony with them, to be a witness to the perfect love Heavenly Father has for his children, to hear the beautiful music of the gospel with all of my heart and soul.

Does every moment feel like that? Of course not. But when we let God be in charge of our lives, no matter what arrives, at the end of the journey I think our overwhelming emotion will always be gratitude. And I'm just so grateful that God is patient enough with me to carry me through the moments when maybe I forget the gratitude emotion and focus on all the negative ones.

This Friday will be our tri-zone Thanksgiving conference and I'm so excited!!! I really wanted to make something to hang up (it's in our chapel so we're in charge of decorations) so I made this little quote thingy today...

but anyway, I just wanted to share this scripture: "They did raise their voices and give thanks to God."

I love its beautiful simplicity and I love the power of true gratitude. In the words of President Uchtdorf (a modern day apostle) "true gratitude heals the heart and expands the mind."

They may not celebrate Thanksgiving in France the way we do, but the spirit of giving thanks is all over and I'm just so happy to be a part of it.

As for what happened this week...

First and foremost, Lucille had her baptism interview and is SO EXCITED to be baptized on the 2 of December!! They announced it in church on Sunday and she was just glowing and beaming from ear to ear.

God is so good to His children when we are faithful and patient.  Lucille has been through a lot in her life and she's been searching for the truth for a long time... and now she's found her place where she feels at peace. And she is so full of excitement and energy for the gospel... it's incredible.

Speaking of her excitement for the gospel... she's already being a missionary! She invited her little sister, Léa to church last Sunday. Since then we have taught Léa twice and she has also decided to get
baptized!! I just love that when we feel the joy of the gospel, it's just natural to share it. I wish all of you could meet Lucille. Honestly, she is just the kindest, happiest, wisest human being.

Changing the subject, another weird/ fun thing that happened this week is that our friend Lou followed us around for an afternoon while we taught lessons and went contacting. Lou is a journalist and is not a member, but she's writing an article about how Mormons live their faith in Toulouse. So she followed us around for a day to get info/ pictures for her project. We were kind of freaking out/ super nervous, but it actually ended up being a really cool experience... because absolutely nothing changed having someone watch us. It kind of made me realize how normal being a missionary has become and how much I love doing it.

We also had an exchange with the Montauban sisters this week. Soeur Driggs is the absolute coolest person and we have so much in common.

So fun to spend the day with her :)

well... I think that's all I have to say for the moment.

Sister Gowans is incredible. Chill and funny and such a good missionary. Toulouse is the best. I hope you are all doing incredibly well and enjoying all the sweet potatoes and stuffing and homemade rolls this week. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love,
Soeur Cami Goold

This is a picture of the missionaries in the Toulouse district, sitting on the number of chairs that equals the number of transfers they've been on their missions.  So fun to see Cami on the tall end of things!  

FHE with a family in their ward...

Est-ce que je pourrais utiliser vos toilettes? (update #64)

Bonjour tout le monde!

Before I talk about anything else, I have to tell you about Lucille.  She is literally so cool. She's from la Martinique, we met her a couple weeks ago when her friend, Kristen, invited her to come to a
baptism. Then she came to church the next day, then this week we had a rendezvous to talk more. She has literally been so prepared. I have never seen someone so excited as she was when we put a Book of Mormon in her hands and told her she could keep it. She was bouncing with joy... it was really humbling to see.

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, 

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."  Luke 2:10

Sometimes I forget how powerful this book is, but I should literally be jumping with joy every time I give it to someone. It is literally the evidence that Heavenly Father loves us each individually, that He still speaks to us today and that He will continue to gather his sheep and take care of us. So cool!

Anyway, at the end of our rdv we asked her if she'd like to be baptized and she said "of course!" We had another lesson with her last week, she came to church in Sunday and we're seeing her again on
Wednesday. Honestly, time and time again I am just blown away with how God does His work. And I'm just so blessed to be along for the ride.

A story that I've been thinking a lot about lately is one of a Father building an IKEA dresser. The father has built this dresser before, he knows exactly how to do it. He's skilled with his hands, he has the tools and it should take him about 30 minutes to get the dresser built. But, his cute little 4 year old son really wants to help him. He's so excited to try to build the dresser. So the father lets him.  He patiently walks him through each step, lets him hold the tools, fixes his mistakes. With the "help" of his son, the dresser took 4 hours to assemble... 3.5 hours longer than it should have. But the joy
and sense of accomplishment in his son's face was worth every moment.

I think Heavenly Father feels a lot like that when He uses us to do His work. He is perfect, He knows each of us perfectly and He knows how to do His work perfectly. His work being to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." That's God's Ikea dresser. And we're like the clumsy little 4 year old down here, wanting so badly to be a part of it and help. And because He is a perfectly loving Father, he lets us. In all of our beautiful imperfection, our perfect Heavenly Father uses us to do His work of loving, serving, and bringing His children back to Him. Because he loves us and He wants us to feel the same joy that He does.

Literally every moment I've spent knocking on doors, contacting people who aren't kind, or just feeling like a bad missionary is worth it a million times over for these celestial moments where I get to be present and witness one of God's children start to come back to him. How grateful am I that Heavenly Father is patient enough to let a clumsy little 4 year old like me "help" him with His work and his glory.

Other fun activités that happened this week include zone conference  (we got to make all the food and  give a presentation which is always so fun :).  President Brown also pulled out his bow and arrow which was so cool.

Then we had an exchange with Soeur Friolo and Soeur Tway from Perpignan, a sleepover with the Carcassonne sisters last night. 

We did some Tahitian dancing on Saturday. Hahaha that was an adventure. Let's just say that my white girl American body was not made to move the way that Tahitian dancing requires... I'm still sore.

Before I go, one super funny story. Friday night we were trying to visit a member to bring them cookies. We followed our map on our iPad until we "arrived" where they were supposed to live... except instead of their house we found ourselves at a French military base complete with guards and big guns and everything. Normally we would have laughed and left... but I had to pee SO BADLY. And if you know me well, you know that it's not a good idea to make me wait to pee. So we walked up to the military base and asked if we could use the toilettes. I think they were so taken off guard to have two 20 year old foreigners ask to use the bathroom that they let us... so I peed on a French military base this week. Love the random adventures of a mission haha.

I think that's all the time I have for this week, I'll try to send more pics next week. I love you all! Thank you so much for your faith and prayers and love!

Love,

Soeur Cami Goold

(update #63)

Bonjour tout le monde!!

Fall is the most BEAUTIFUL here in Toulouse and I'm loving every second of it. Heavenly Father was very kind to send me somewhere warm for the winter... he knows me well.

This week has been great! Highlights include:

Exchange with my crazy Italian bleue (a missionary I trained back in my first area), Soeur Friolo!!

 

 Love her to death. We may have only been companions for her first three weeks in the mission, but she'll always feel like my companion. It was so fun to spend a day with her again and we saw so many miracles with her Spanish skills!!

Another exchanges this week with Soeur Rule! Who happens to be Soeur Gowan's bleue. So that was fun. She is literally so cute and artsy and just fun to talk to.

Exchanges are so fun to get to know so many other missionaries... but at the end It's always kind of a relief to be back with my real comp who is just the best!

 

We went to the driving range today which was...comical. I'm thinking I should probably not change my career to professional golfer  ;)

But the hugest miracle this week was with Marie who came to a baptism again on Saturday. That night she sent us a text and just thanked us for helping her figure out what she believes and learn more about baptism and what her next step is. Marie is so incredibly prepared and it is so humbling to watch her faith grow as she puts in her own efforts to pray and learn and come closer to God. She honestly just feels like a friend... I'll try to take a picture with her this week to send next week, but she's so cool! And being with her as she genuinely tries to figure out what she believes is only confirming and expanding my vision of what I believe. It's beautiful how that works. We go in missions to help others come unto Christ, but really we just end up learning so much ourselves.

"The gospel is a transcendent message of hope, happiness, and joy. It is the pathway that leads us home. As we embrace the gospel in faith and deed, each day and every hour, we will draw a little closer to our God. Our lives will be better, and the Lord will use us in remarkable ways to bless those around us and bring about His eternal purposes."   Dieter F. Uchtdorf

In other news, this upcoming week is zone conference which means the Browns are coming to Toulouse: yay!!! We're in charge of lunch which I'm excited about... I love cooking for groups of people.

I've got to run, have an incredible week. JE VOUS AIME!!

Soeur Camille Goold