Walking in the Same Direction

Haha, So my companions face is the size of a basketball right now. He's not liking it so much, but there's not much we can do right now other than get him better. This week was really awesome in terms of having things to do, but not so awesome in terms of actually teaching people lessons. This week we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Johnson (who's only in his first transfer) and it was pretty fun. Elder Johnson didn't speak any French, but we actually did pretty well. I gave him lots of advice and told him that I understood a lot (which I do since I'm still pretty new here). Whilst on exchanges I got my Christmas package. I didn't think I was going to get it at all, but everyone laughed since it WAS 2 months late. I was super grateful for it though. Shout out to GIGI and Eric Harris et la petite bébé. After that we had a day where we got lost on the way to a service project, and when we finally got there we didn't have anything time to do anything else the rest of the day and so we just ate there and helped them paint their apparment for a couple hours. It was super awesome because we got two referrals out of it. Je suis tres reconnaissant pour ça aussi. Then Saturday nightElder Stoker felt like he was okay enough to work (he wasn't, but we still did) and so we went out for a couple hours and just talked to people. The first couple people we talked to weren't super interested, and after that nobody passed us but a lady on a cell phone. We didn't want to interrupt her so we just kept walking. After her I finally saw someone in the distance and I told Elder Stoker, I WANT TO TALK TO THAT PERSON WE NEED TO CONTACT AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE! Elder Stoker said no and turned around. He said we weren't contacting for the right reasons. He said we needed to look for someone who was ready. I didn't see anyone in front of us except the lady who was on her phone so I felt a little annoyed, but then The Lord decided to humble me. Elder Stoker talked to the lady walking the same direction as us. I know that doesn't seem like a huge deal, but if you're a missionary, it can be incredibly awkward to talk to someone going the same way as you. At first I was kind of freaked out, the lady had just gotten off the phone and we were walking the same direction as her and it was WEIRD, but as we talked to her we found out that her mom and sister had died a couple months ago and that she had felt really sad walking home. She said she thought that God had put her there for her, I told her about what had happened with Elder Stoker forcing me to turn around and I told her that God loved her. She started bawling. She made us come home with her, and say a prayer with her family. It was amazing. It also brings me to my spiritual thought, DON'T BE SCARED TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT THE GOSPEL! Everyone is walking the same direction in life and it's awkward and uncomfortable to approach them with different things. I can promise you that if you do though, they'll feel happier than they ever had before in their life. I never knew how important members were in missionary work until I became a missionary. members are key, if you're back home and you know non-members, invite them to meet the missionaries. Do it, even if it's uncomfortable because you're both headed the same direction in life and you know you're going to be seeing each other after you've talked to them. Invite, Everyone wins when you do. Have an awesome week. Love, Elder Bruno

Week of the 14 Year Old

Hey my peoples! This week was pretty good, I bought a really awesome oufit that I will definitely send pictures of next week! The highlights of the week were that our really awesome ami that we met on the metro (whose name is Emmanuel) has already been baptized by immersion and really does not see any reason why he needs to be baptized again and our indian ami (whose name is Soham and is really actually indian) now has a class at 11:30 on sunday. So, pretty much we're back to square one, but it's alright. Me and my companion have been working really hard and I know that we're going to see some really amawing things happen this week. Two really awesome miracles that did happen though are that the family that I left back in Le Havre just got baptized!! and the other miracle is that while making phone calls to invite people to a baptism that the sisters were having, me and Elder Stoker got a phone call from a random number. It turns out someone ACTUALLY called us from a card we handed out. We met  them on our way to the baptism and they were there to see it. They don't believe in God, but they loved the baptism and are really excited to learn more. The only problem is that this person is a 15 year old girl named Animatn. We had to pass her over to the sister missionaries to teach. She's super awesome, but unfortunately when dealing with single women, we have to pass them over to the sisters. The saddest part of the week though: Not a single Valentines on Valentines day :(

Anyways, I don't have a ton of time, but in regards of spiritual stuff and all that good stuff, surround yourself with the spirit! This week I learned that going to church and church related activities and all that stuff takes a ton of time, and people get annoyed by it! I feel sad for these people because there is no better place to be, especially with your family. Every second spent on the spirit is 1000 times better than anything else in this world. Always place the church and your family above everything else in this world, I don't think I've met anyone happier on my mission than people who do exactly that!

Do it

Love you

Love,

Elder Bruno

The Story of the Three Tangerines

This was a gooood week, it's been tough going two weeks in a row without really seeing anything, but things are really starting to pick up.

The first part of the week was pretty tough, mainly since it was exactly like the last two weeks the only exception to that was the story of the three tangerines. With the beginning of the year we've been trying to visit all the members and share the Ward Mission Plan with them. It's been a nice break since all we've done in the last two weeks is try to find people to teach, but the members gave us a bag full of tangerines when we left. It was REALLY nice of them to do, but we were going to be late if we stopped and talked to someone, so we decided to take the metro straight home without getting distracted. While we were taking the Metro, i got bored and I started juggling tangerines. My companion said something to me in English, and the man standing right next to me on the metro asks us where we're from. It's not an everyday occurrence for this to happen since people In France don't like to talk on the tram, but to make a long story short, we exchanged numbers, The rare event of HIM calling US happened the next day and he came to church on Sunday where afterwards we invited him to be baptized. The only problem is that he's already been baptized and he doesn't really know about the whole authority side of things. It's okay though, at least we have somewhere to start.
In reality we didn't really see a ton of success until Friday when I decided just to start calling every number that has ever been written in our area book. There are a lot... Anyways, we taught some more interesting lessons after that and we ended the week with an awesome Sunday in which our Indian Ami, who had dropped off the face of the earth, came to church and the whole tangerine story worked out.

In terms of Spiritual advice and all that good stuff, I guess I would have to recommend learning how to juggle tangerines. Just kidding (a little). UMMMM, I guess just be happy. I think I've already said that before, which means I need to take my own advice sometimes, but sometimes just letting out the kinda crazy awesome person that you have hidden deep inside is really good. It's tough and sometimes embarrassing to do crazy things, but comfort zones are Lame. The only way to grow is to leave your circle.

I hope you guys all juggle tangerines this week.

Love, Elder Bruno

God Is My Witness

This week has been pretty tough. I think every missionary week is tough when you don't see tons of success. We chipped away this week trying to get some new amis, but unfortunately we're not really seeing tons of success. Our week was a little crazy at the beginning and from there it just turned into a lot of finding. Spending every second of every day trying to find people and getting rejected is a hard way to live as a missionary. For those of you who already know, yeah, and for those of you who don't, take my word for it. There was one golden light in my week which came from an amazing Hungarian lady named Grace who talked a lot about the light of Christ, and also was coincidentally the only phone number I think we got this week. People in Paris are very reluctant to give you their phone number, and if you don't get a phone number here, seeing that person again is very unlikely. Other than that, I got sick pretty sick and spent three good hours we could have been knocking on doors in bed (which was pretty tough for me, but I don't think I could have worked if I had tried), and I met our less active recent convert. This guy is awesome, his name is Seuldieuestmontemoigne, which means only God is my witness. We call him Copain and he's got a disease that has messed up his body and makes it hard for him to hear, but he's an amazing guy. We gave him a blessing and we're going by next week to see him again. Not much other than that happened this week.

In terms of spiritual enlightenment, I don't really feel super qualified to give any this week, I think that I can really give is the small piece of advice to chip away at life. I know it doesn't really sound the happiest or the most motivating of things, but honestly, sometimes there's not much more we can do other than chip, chip, chip and hope that the stone wall of life that we're chipping at isn't too thick. We have the option of being sad about being hit against a stone wall a thousand times, or we can be happy that God's using us as his spoon. I think I'll try the second one this week.

I hope everyone else does too.

Have an awesome week mes cher amis,

Love, Elder Michael Bruno

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