Paris!

This week was pretty crazy! I found out that I was getting transfered to Anthony (which is a Parisienne suburb) and so I had a really awesome night where we ate at a members house on Tuesday and then I got to Paris on Wednesday! And so far I've pretty much gotten destroyed. I came into an equipe (which basically just means team in french) that has no progressing investigators, which was pretty hard when we just had 7 people keeping all their commitments and we're on track to being baptized and now we don't really have anyone. I decided that it was alright though, I was going to get to work. Me and my companion planned for what we needed to (which wasn't very much) and then I dragged him out of the appartment. Pretty much my week from wendsday to sunday was talking to people as boldly as i could without offending them, testifying my heart out, feeling the spirit start to work on them, ask for another rendez-vous, get shot down, ask for their phone number, get shot down again, give out a lot of cards, call people missionaries found 3 years ago, and see VERY little success.

 

Paris is hard. I can't lie when I say that I feel like i've been working as hard as I could and i'm just not seeing any success. Which isn't something i'm not used to, I went a long time in Le havre without seeing success, I think the hardest part is just that the Zone Leaders live in the same appartment as us and they're seeing a ton of success. I know that i've been seeing a lot of success, I've taught the restoration six times since i've gotten here (it didn't actually count as a lesson because the person would always refuse to pray with us in the street, which I can't really blame them for because it's basically like praying in the middle of Paris with two random guys in white shirts) and we've given out 4 Book of Mormons.

 

 I even told a story the story about the debtor who demands justice while the man who owes money asks for mercy and it's only resolved by a friend paying the debt for the man (Jesus parable!) and right before I talked about Jesus the man who we were talking to (who was Muslim) said he felt goosebumps. Then I said the man was Jesus and the man got very defensive, buuuut I KNOW that he felt the spirit. That basically sums up my entire week, and i know that it sounds a lot like complaining, but it's not! I'm just telling you guys this now so that in 6 weeks when this area is rocking with baptisms and baptismal dates you guys can know how truly amazing the work of the Lord is. My spiritual insight this week is much like my spiritual insight a couple weeks ago: si nous ne voyons pas le point plus bas, nous ne pouvons jamais savoir quel hauter nous sommes. In English, If we never see the lowest point, we can never know how high we are. Low points are always going to be there, work through them and when you look down, you'll be able to truely understand how incredible everything in this life really is.

Sorry if it's not new insight, but hopefully it helps you a little throughout this week

Thanks for making it through my jumbled mess of random thoughts and words, Love you guys.

Love, Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

P.S. I kind of forgot my own birthday oops

Deblueification

I'm not blue anymore! It's a good feeling. This week was pretty awesome, we did a lot of porting(knocking on some doors!) and we actually saw a ton of success. Every single time someone told us to come back another time we did, and then we did again, and then we did again, and finally they would let us in (or yell at us and tell us to stop coming back). We taught 4 first lessons this week though, and we have a lot of really awesome people lined up for next transfer. The only sad thing about it is that I'm pretty sure that I'm getting transfered. I'm glad I got to open up this area though, it was awesome! We're getting somewhere with all our Ami's, even if it's incredibly slowly and because everyone can only meet once a week and it seems like they're all Roman catholic or they don't believe in God. Our miracle ami's are still stuck on the Word of Wisdom, but they're still really excited about the whole idea of baptism and they seem like they can get over it (fingers crossed, trust in the lord, what else can you do?).

Again, we had a strange week

1- we almost had to deplaque because we walked right next to a mosque that must have had 1000 muslims in it

2- I got yelled at by a muslim guy for porting because he said people we're sleeping (it was 8 at night) and he kicked us out of the appartment building very angrily.

3- A drunk muslim man talked to us for an hour without letting us leave. He said something about loving jews and at the end he made us take a bag of nuts and some money, honestly I didn't really understand a lot besides that...

4- While riding on the Tram a muslim man asked me how Jesus was doing, then he started yelling things about Mohammed and prophets (I have no idea what was up with people of the Islamic faith this week)

5- we saw a guy without pants on...

6- a couple of chinese guys who spoke no french and only a little english asked us where they could find a strip bar...

This week was weird...

If I've learned anything in France though, It's work your butt off, you have to be EXTREMELY persistant to get appointments, and always give people a nice big smile. With those three things, life is made much easier

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

A Strange Week with Amis

Soo, this week was a little tougher than normal. Honestly we worked pretty hard, it was nice to get a full week of work after all the holidays, but we didn't really see a ton of success. It's kind of just one of those weeks you feel a little discouraged about, you look back at what you could have done differently, don't find too much, and know that you just need to shrug it off and try again. We had some interesting things happen this week though

#1- Let's just say that the plan of salvation got sidetracked by incest

#2- A bomb went off in a trash can while my companion was on an exchange

#3- We got asked to do an exorcism

#4- I got kissed by a man (not on the lips thankfully)

Needless to say, it was a strange week. I was a little bit sad at the end though, because we had to stop teaching someone because they just couldn't even open to the IDEA that God could or did exist and our two amis with a baptismal date are getting snagged on the Word Of Wisdom. It's all good though, we can't really do a ton to change the choices of others and this week the idea of God being the only person that can truly convert someone got emphasized a lot. The missionary purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ, I think this week more than ever I learned that an invitation can be rejected. All there's left to do after that is to find someone else to invite, and that's exactly what i'm going to do! ;). haha, I have no idea how anybody but a missionary could possibly apply this to their life, but that's my spiritual thought for the week (hey, it's my job to give it, not to apply it).

HAVE AN AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, STUPENDOUS, MOMENTOUS week everybody

Stay classy

Love the missionaries

because we love you

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Un Petite Response

I'm pretty sure this was the laziest week that I've had (or will have) on my mission.

Essentially the first four days consisted of 

P-day

Pretty unsuccessful work until 5 and then dinner with our DMB (Branch mission leader)

A complete day off where we played ping pong

Traveling to Paris to do all my legality paperwork.

After that we had exchanges with the District leader and I went into the other equipe(companionships) portion of Le Havre. It's pretty funny because Mitt Romney served in the first Le Havre equipe forever ago, and so technically I served in the same area as Mitt Romney (even if it was only for a day). The only other time we had was Sunday, which every week is mostly taken by church and companionship study (every bleu(green) missionary in the world is on a 12 week program with 2 hours of companionship study every day). It was pretty amazing though,

I confirmed my epic ami named Yann (Ian in english, French people spell everything different) which was amazing, then we taught a lesson at 6:00 and decided to go knocking on doors, and so we knocked, and knocked, and knocked some door, and when it finally came to 9:00 where we have to either get a lesson or go home, we found someone. He's pretty legit (I've heard a lot of people say elect, but in this one respect I think I'm going to keep the word from my previous life). His name is Cedric and he's had some pretty bad things happen to him, but he's willing to try, and honestly any French person who's willing to try is legit in my book. I know there's a million missionary stories about perseverance but I decided to give you all just one more to put in your book.

Sorry about the jumbled mess this email is, i'm pretty tired and my thoughts get all jumbled together when i'm tired!!!!! All is good in France though, My quick spiritual thought this week is simply love everyone, even when you honestly feel like hating the world, love the heck out of everyone you meet and good things happen. It sounds simple and short, because it is! Have an awesome week (and year) everyone.

I love the heck out of all of you,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno