Happy New Year! (update #73)

 Hello everyone and Happy New Year!!

For a funny story from this week I will quote Elder Alvarenga:

"We all had a great time! After district meeting, we went to Dominos and got pizza! 🍕However, the most unexpected thing happened, heavy rain started pouring while we were on our way back to the church. We all started walking a little faster then I turned around for a minute and as she was walking against the wind, protecting herself from the rain and having Sœur Brooksby holding on to her left arm, Sœur Goold stop paying attention to her pizza box and her pizza slid out of the box and fell on the dirty sidewalk 😬😂! We were all shattered... oh well they still got to eat a pizza so in the end everyone was happy! 🍕 "

It was pretty funny hahah.

So one day this week I was honestly just having a weird/ rough day for no good reason and then I felt really guilty about not being the kind of missionary I would want to be after 17 months. All of us are imperfect and we know that, but sometimes our imperfections get pointed out to us and it hurts a little bit, haha.

I love this scripture from the Book of Mormon (with my own little disclaimer added in there):   

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness {and it will probably really suck for a minute}. {But don't worry about that because}, I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."


I am so eternally grateful for little moments like these that remind me exactly how human and imperfect I am, because it reminds me that all I can do is "rely fully upon the merits of he who is mighty to save."

We have seen so many many miracles in the last couple weeks that it is clear to me that Heavenly Father is not letting my many weaknesses in the way of Him doing His work.

Some of the miracles from this week include:

--Lucille getting her patriarchal blessing (click the link to learn what a patriarchal blessing is)!!

--Hearing from Kevin after 3 months of nothing!! Turns out he's been to visit the temple in Paris and was super happy to hear from us and wants to see us when he gets back from vacation!

--Seeing my favorite people (Soeur Wilson and Soeur Rutter and Soeur Jones) at MLC!!!

--Watching "Beauty and the Beast" and playing games with the Thomas family  for New Year's Eve. (watch Jill Thomas' instagram stories for occasional glimpses of Cami)


This time of year just makes me so grateful to be living in this beautiful place amongst these beautiful people. So grateful to have 4 more weeks to enjoy it. (And so pumped to see all of you in 4 weeks)!!

Thank you for you faith and love and prayers and letters. They mean the world to me!!

Love,
Soeur Camille Goold

 

Last Six Weeks (update #72)

Hellooo Everyone!!

This week officially marks the beginning of my last transfer (6 weeks) as a missionary. Lots of crazy emotions that we don't need to go into right now. But, what that means for the moment is that Soeur Gowans left me :( it was really sad to say goodbye to her, we've had a lot of good, funny, spiritual, crazy moments these last 12 weeks and it was rough to see her go. (For me and all our amies).

 

 But also so exciting because she's heading home back to America and school and dating and all the exciting things haha.

And my new companion is... SOEUR BROOKSBY!!

 

 She is honestly the greatest. She was in Carcassonne and Angoulême (close to Toulouse) the whole time I've been here so she's been here for exchanges, district meetings and zone conferences so many times. It's really fun getting a companion that I know (a little) and love (a lot).

In other news this has been such a fun week as we went around having final rendezvous (for Soeur Gowans) with all of our amis.

 

On Sunday we got to go to our amie Paloma's evangelist church before leaving and it was such a fun experience. They sang a lot of hymns that I've never hear before, all to the beat of bongo drums. It was a very different experience, but very eye opening to see how so many people worship God in different, but beautiful ways.

It made me so happy to see other ways of worship, but it also made me a little sad to think of the very essential element of the gospel that they're missing: eternal families. They're missing the temple and the ability to be sealed to our families for time an all eternity. They are stuck in the belief that marriage and earth relationships are only "till death do we part." It's something we've talked about a lot with our amie. She wants to believe in eternal families and temple marriages, but her education makes it hard for her.

It makes me so incredibly grateful for the knowledge that we have that families can be eternal. That because Jesus Christ conquered death, each one of us can live with our families again after this life on earth. The grave has no victory.

Especially during this Christmas season, a lot of people I meet are really surprised that I won't be going home for Christmas and that I haven't seen my family in 17 months. They always ask me if it's hard. I never have a good response. Because it is hard to be away from my family... I love them more than anything and of course all I want for Christmas is to be with them. But on the other hand, it's really not hard at all to be here in France as a missionary because I know that my family is forever. And the chance to share the joy of forever families with other people is more than worth every one of these 18 months I'm spending across the ocean from my family.

This week we saw Marie and talked about temples and it just reminded me of all of these beautiful blessings that come from temples and eternal marriages and families. Marie has become such an amazing friend these last 12 weeks and I can't even express how much I love teaching/ spending time with her. Before my mission I never thought that our amis (de l'église) would actually become my friends. I don't really have words to describe how amazing it is to share the joy of the gospel with real friends.

Speaking of which, Lucille got her recommendation to receive her patriarchal blessing AND go to the temple for baptism for the dead this week!!! #purejoy

Well, I think that's all for this week. I love you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Don't forget to #LighttheWorld

Love,
Cami

Some picturesque spots around Toulouse:   

Dinner with Lucille, where I ate a fish eyeball.  

Some more shots from around town: 

The other Toulousian missionaries:  

Our Metro stop:

Angels Near and Far (update #71)

Bonjour!!

First off, here are some pictures from Lucille's baptism, since I didn't have any to show last week:

I wanted to start this email with a funny story, but the only thing I could think of was was more embarrassing than funny.   Today at the marché de Noël in centre ville we were at a stand and Soeur Gowans and I were speaking in English and there were two French ladies that came up to look at the stand. One of them cracked a joke about leather and Christmas cows and without meaning to I laughed super loudly. It kind of just came out and they both looked at me super weird like I was an alien and then walked away. Haha. C'est la vie.

One thing that I wanted to share was from this Thursday. It was a little bit of a rough day in general. Actually a really good day, but I wasn't feeling like myself. I felt like I was doing a lot of things wrong and basically just exhausted from running around and still never doing everything that needs to be done. When we finally got home to our apartment after a whole day of running from place to place in the cold rain I just sat down on the couch and wanted to never move again. Anyway, I opened my iPad and read an email from Ash (currently in the MTC going on her mission to Armenia) where she shared the scripture Alma 32:7 (I think) which says: "be humble, and be submissive and
gentle. full of patience and long suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God."

Reading her email it felt like God was sending me a clear message:  "you're doing a good job. Stop feeling bad for yourself. Pick yourself up off the couch, be humble and be diligent in keeping my commandments. I'm here to help." I love that our ministering angels can be seen or unseen. That cold, rainy day in France my angel that I needed was my best friend thousands of miles away in Utah. Sometimes angels come from heaven, sometimes they're the people around us and sometimes they're people really far away.

Speaking of angels, here's a video that a lady in our ward made that shows a big Christmas service project we helped with last week.  It was such a cool thing to be a part of and you can see a couple glimpses of me and Soeur Gowans in there if you look!  I love being a small part of  #LIGHTtheWORLD

Something I love about this whole #lighttheworld thing is that every single day so many people are taking just a little more time than usual to turn outwards and help others. And in doing that we become the Savior's hands and the angels of this mortal world. Thank you for your lights.

This upcoming week is Soeur Gowans' last week as a missionary so we are living it up over here in Toulouse seeing all our amies, and going to member's houses and trying to eat as many patisseries as possible ;)

Speaking of finishing missions... shout out to Katy who is going home from Argentina this week!! So proud of you, you're my role model.  Well, that's all the time I have, love you lots!

Cami