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

 

Life in Toulouse (update #62)

Bonjour!!

This week has been a great week and I'll just share some quick highlights:

1. MLC!! Always so inspiring and also fun to see my favorite mission friends. 

I know it's only been a week but seeing Soeur Rutter (and Soeur Jones) again was a major highlight of the week.

2. Soeur Gowans!! It was probably pretty obvious how much I loved Sister Rutter, and I do miss her a lot... but Soeur Gowans is the only companion I think I could've gotten next. She's incredible. She's half-Korean, funny, chill, low-stress, thoughtful and so much fun to do missionary work with.

3. Marie! Our beautiful amie, Marie, came to samedi sportif, a baptism on Saturday AND church on Sunday. During Sunday School class she raised her hand and answered all the questions about the three kingdoms of glory... such a cool moment haha.

4. Lucille! She is the friend of a member who came to the baptism Saturday and church on Sunday. She's from Martinique and so fun and cool. I love Islanders. They are so loving and believing and open. We are hopefully going to see her again soon, but I seriously just love that the biggest miracles in missionary work always seem to come from members simply sharing who they are with their friends.

Well, it's been a beautiful week here in Toulouse! I still have a lot of people to get to know and a lot to learn, but I already love it here :)

I love you!

Cami

This is a Work of Love and Not Statistics (update #56)

Bonjour!!!

It's been a great week! I'll just go through some quick highlights:
MLC (Mission Leadership Conference) on Tuesday!! 

Got to see Soeur Jones and lots of other mission friends. 

And of course President and Soeur Brown who taught us a little bit more about how we will be using Facebook as a new missionary tool. In short, I will primarily be using Facebook to better communicate with our amis and members here in Bordeaux. It will also be a cool tool for keeping in touch with amis and members from my old villes. So most of my posting will be in French :) I'm super excited and I can see already that there is so much potential with Facebook. Before my mission I thought it was just a way to waste time/ stalk people/ a less good instagram. But I'm realizing as a missionary that it's a really good way to keep in touch with people. And a lot of times people are way more willing to be friends with you on Facebook than to exchange numbers haha. It's pretty funny that here I am using Facebook for the first time in a year and I think it's the coolest thing ever.

Then on Saturday we learned how to make sushi chez la famille T.-C.!! 

It was so fun. Frère T C invited his less active sister who invited her non-member friend and it turned into a great lesson about Heavenly Father and how much he loves us. I love that after a year of being a missionary, that is the fundamental truth that I always come back to. I LOVE this quote by Elaine S Dalton:

"I have always loved the story of the son of King Louis XVI of France because he had an unshakable knowledge of his identity. As a young man, he was kidnapped by evil men who had dethroned his father, the king. These men knew that if they could destroy him morally, he would not be heir to the throne. For six months they subjected him to every vile thing life had to offer, and yet he never yielded under pressure. This puzzled his captors, and after doing everything they could think of, they asked him why he had such great moral strength. His reply was simple. He said, “I cannot do what you ask, for I was born to be a king.”

Like the king’s son, each of you has inherited a royal birthright. Each of you has a divine heritage. “You are literally the royal daughters of our Father in Heaven.” Each of you was born to be a queen."

The knowledge of our divine origin and potential really can change everything about how we confront challenges in life. Souvenons-nous donc qui nous sommes, les fils et filles du Dieu Tout-Puissant! (Let's remember who we are, children of the almighty God)

Last miracle I'll share for the week was Monday night. We arrived in Lyon earlier than usual so we had the time to go with the Val de Saône sisters to pass by Constance. When I was in Val de Saône we went over to Constance's house every week to teach and prepare her 8 year old daughter for baptism. I remember one day we spent a whole morning bending over backwards to help get the program ready. It was a small thing, but important to Constance. We had already been showing her drafts for weeks, but the day of printing she had a lot of last minute changes she wanted to make. I won't go into details, but chasing Constance around that morning felt a little frustrating and perhaps even a waste of time. But in the end the program did turn out well.   :)

Anyway, Monday night when I said goodbye to Constance she just hugged me and said "tu es mon ange." She told me about how thanks to her daughter's baptism, her friend Fabrice was able to meet the Ecully missionaries and eventually get baptized. She told us that she was having a hard time and that she needed us that night. I didn't do much of anything ever. I was a blue, I didn't speak great French, I spent too much time making a little baptism program. But Heavenly Father let me be a little observer to how HE has supported this woman of faith through her immense trials.

My mission isn't about making perfect programs.  It's about people. It's about Gods children here in France who need to know God loves them. "This is a work of love and not statistics" and it was so cool to travel back in time a little to Val de Saône to be reminded of that.

Well, that's all I've got for this week. I love you!

Soeur Camille Goold

  

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