Testimony Changes Attitudes

WHAZZUP!!! I say only because this week was pretty dang epic! To all my friends in the MTC who I've neglected to put into my emails, i apologize. a quick recap of the last couple weeks goes in the following manner. I received my trainer and learned that we were opening a new area. I then learned that it was my trainer's last transfer and that he had been an epic missionary (former zone leader, former assistant to the president, no big deal). The first couple weeks we got here were pretty rough, nobody wanted to listen to us and all that good stuff. Anyways, he got over it and started having a good time and then this week came around.

Tuesday

We had district meeting and we taught a single lesson. That's what the numbers say, but I feel much more like numbers don't tell the success we're having here. During district meeting we learned a ton, we practice taught a ton and we started coming up with better ways of finding people (because what we're doing now isn't working). I had ratatouille for the first time (it's okay, but not as amazing as the movie makes it out to be). I also ate heaven on a slice of bread. they have a strange peanut buttery like substance here that's called speculoose. It literally is the most delicious thing in the entire world. It's a lot like delta flight cookies in a creamy form. Anyways, our lesson that night was with Ian, our investigator sent from heaven. He basically walked into church and knew that everything was true. we taught with a super helpful member and got through the first half of the plan of salvation. It was a very very good day!

 

Wednesday

Wednesday was a lot of fun, but I cannot for the life of me remember why. A lot of people cancelled on us and it was so cold I thought i was going to die (for anybody that's just gotten added onto the list, I'm in Normandy which is the north western part of France and it rains incredibly cold rain everyday for around 16 hours a day). That was Wednesday though!

 

Thursday

Thursday we finally celebrated Elder Hall's birthday by going to a slightly disgusting Chinese buffet. I really don't like buffets for anyone that doesn't know that already. After that we went on exchanges with the only other companionship in our district. It was pretty fun, I went with Elder Garner and we taught two lessons and contacted some people. The first lesson was pretty much me not understanding anything, but I'll talk about the other lesson a little later. Oh yeah, we got a senior couple too, they're pretty cool. Their name is Piepgrass and they're Cannuks (Canadians) The sister is Belgian, but she's lived in Canada for like 40 years so they're Canadian :)

 

Friday

Friday was a day full of contacting, porting, and getting rejected. Same old same old. After me and Elder Hall got off exchanged though I learned that Ian had told them that he wanted to be baptized (exciting!) But he had to talk to his super Roman catholic wife (Scary!)

 

Saturday

Epic Saturday in which we got our first opportunity to do service, but it ended up taking all day (which was not what we had planned). It was a lot of fun though! We scraped the wallpaper off of a member's kitchen and they were super grateful (I actually think that was why he agreed to come to our lesson with Ian, it was a righteous exchange). Not much other than that though.

 

Sunday!

I don't remember when we taught Fahed, but we taught this Muslim kid who is super cool and open. I'm not sure if he wants to learn the truth or convert us to Islam, but so far he's keeping his commitments and he told us that if he thought our church was true he would join. The members are super awesome to us now, even though we keep trying to set up appointments with them so we can pray with them and then go port in their neighborhood. They're starting to give us the opportunity, we have our first trial run on Tuesday. 

 

ANYWAYS, we didn't get to do a lot of work on Sunday because we had church and two hours of companionship study and all that, so I thought this week was going to end with a pretty lame sauce porting session, but once again the Lord decided to prove me wrong. We found a really awesome lady who we have a return appointment with on Friday. It's funny how you only find people after you're ready to go home, but you decide to try just a couple more doors.

 

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

I'm going to have to say the theme for this week is don't give up! When I went on exchanges with Elder Garner we went to teach a lesson with someone and it turned out that he wasn't home. His wife answered the door and almost sent us on our way before Elder Garner decided not to give up. He taught he the restoration and then the lady started talking and saying how she didn't think our church was any different than any other. I bore my testimony. It's funny because I only had a small understanding of what she was saying, up until this point I hadn't said anything in 30 minutes, and it seemed like the lady just wasn't interested. At this point in my life I can honestly say that there is nothing I have in this world that is more important or powerful than my testimony. This woman changed her attitude completely, Elder Garner succeeded in getting her to a family home evening and I think she's coming to church next week. It just showed me that perseverance is amazing and that this gospel touches peoples hearts. I didn't bear my testimony with perfect French and it was pretty simple, but I know that by small and simple things great things can come to pass. regardless of who you are or what challenges you're having right now, Don't give up. Sometimes overall goals aren't achieved by perseverance and we fail, sometimes we feel that despite our perseverance nothing will change. I don't think it matters, and I know that sometimes we don't change the world or even another person, but I know that trying over and over and over (and over) again without giving up changes us, it makes us better and that is what life is all about.

 

Have an awesome week everybody, if you made it this far into my rambling letter thanks! Remember not to give up!

 

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Hard Work in La Harve

MMMkay!

Tuesday

Tuesday was actually a lot of fun, we had district meeting and the AP's were there. I really love the AP's and it was a lot of fun meeting everyone in our zone. It kind of felt like a day off too, which was fun except for the fact that I don't think I understand anything that they taught (French is killing me!). I'll get it though, I at least can answer people when they ask me questions now!

Wednesday

Wednesday started out pretty bad, it rained all day (and then it rained all day the next day, and the next, all the way until Sunday where we had a nice day, but we were inside for most of it). All that happened was that we got rejected pretty badly. After a little while I just stopped talking and I let my companion do the talking. He stopped in the Gare for a couple minutes, turned to me and asked me what he could do because something was obviously wrong. I just talked about how it was kind of tough. It makes it harder because my companion had a trainer who told him exactly what to do and he hated it. He promised himself that he wouldn't ever be like his trainer, so now he just kind of leaves it up to the people he trains to figure it out. I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where you just had to figure it out, but trust me when I say it's really scary. I just told him that I'm a little new here and I'll try my best if he gives me a little guidance now and then. From this point on we started doing A LOT better. Since we decided we were going to talk to everyone we saw, we walk down the street side by side and whichever side a person is walking down determines which person gets to talk to them. It makes it a lot easier than trying to decide who contacts who, but it's kind of scary because it turns the 1/10 people that I used to contact to 1/2. It's fun though and on Tuesday we met two or three people. We accomplished the great feat of getting two phone numbers! It was awesome.

Thursday

THURSDAY WE TAUGHT 3 LESSONS! They were the first three lessons of my entire mission and I don't remember much of them other than the people didn't seem to be very interested after we taught them with the exception of a teenage Muslim boy (we didn't know he was Muslim when we contacted him otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed to contact him) who agreed to read the Book of Mormon and keep meeting with us if we would read parts of the Qumran he printed out in English. It was interesting to say the least and pretty confusing, but we figure if he's going to keep his part we need to keep ours as well.

Friday/Saturday

Not going to lie when I say that Friday and Saturday just seemed like a blur of people being kind of rude and saying no, it was a lot more fun to go out contacting though and despite getting rejected a hundred million times, and a lot of tombe-vous, it actually seems like we set up a solid week next week. We got our first referral from the office and we're going to see her tomorrow and there's a couple people who responded to us when we called REALLY OLD investigators (I'm talking like 5 or 6 years old). I'm pretty excited about next week though! We have interviews with President, Exchanges with zone leaders, and a very busy week ahead of us!

Sunday

Even Sunday was a lot better, I tried to be more friendly to the members and we asked a couple if we could visit them this week. A random guy showed up to church and we fixed a rendezvous on Wednesday. It was crazy because he just showed up and before he left he told us how much sense we made as a church. Oh yeah, me and Elder Hall taught the lesson too this week for investigators class(Gospel principles is what we call it back home i think) and we rocked it! An old lady invited us over to eat on Saturday too, so I'm pretty excited.

OTHER STUFF!!

So, what do I want to talk about this week? I guess just talking it out. This week whenever I got frustrated or upset about something I would just let people know. I know a lot of times people can get annoyed of you complaining or think that you're sharing too much information, but I think that's worth getting whatever beef you have off your chest. Letting something fester just leaves feelings of resentment and anger and if you don't talk to people about the problems you have with them with the willingness to compromise on those issues, you're going to blow up eventually. I feel stressed out all the time here and it's cold and wet and nobody will talk to us, but this week has been a thousand times better just because I've spoken my mind. So, my message for this week is don't bury your problems, just fix them. I know it's not easy, but it's better to pay the price to fix things when they break then it is to try to go through life broken.

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEK EVERYBODY, help out your missionaries (Trust me when I say that they need it)

Love, 

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

First Week in France

Tuesday

So, tuesday started out pretty crazy. We basically were on the plane until 9 am. The plane ride was rough though, we went through a lot of turbulence and I really thought I was going to throw up everywhere. there was a really awesome spanish lady who sat next to me though and she tried to help me out as much as she could. By the end of the flight I had her and her long time boyfriend talking about what they believed in. First Book of Mormon handed out in France. We met President Poznaski and his wife and all the AP's who are pretty awesome, Other than that we just kind of looked around with really big eyes

Wendsday

Wendsday was awesome! it started out really awesome where we got up (we were sleeping at a hotel) and ate a pretty awesome breakfast (the food here is much different than the MTC). Me and Elder Oviatt talked to a guy from Congo on the Metro with the presidents daughter (I joked that she was a member present) and we gave him a book of mormon. Second Book of Mormon handed out in France. We had an interview with president Poznaski and then we had a slide show interview that showed who are trainers were and where we were going. Right now I'm in Le Harve (which means the Harbor in French) and it's in Normandy and i'm being trained by someone on his second to last transfer (which means I'm going to kill him). It's kind of a weird story. Elder Hall has basically done it all. He was DL, ZL, and AP and then he started training someone. The weird thing is that you usually train someone for two transfers. After Elder Halls first transfer with this super buff, 24 year old Hawian world champion swimmer he got switched. He's training me in something even more difficult than a whitewash. We're Opening. That means that we literally have nothing to work on. We're coming into Le Harve to help another companionship, but we essentially are starting completely from scratch. Anyways, after a very long train ride in which I slept most of the time and at the end we talked to a guy that apparently gotten into doing LSD (Which was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had in my life) we arrived in the very hostile city of Le Harve

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

I'm going to be honest when I say that these three days are just a blur. I have to say that I don't think I understand anything that people are saying. All I understand is that they don't seem very interested. So far we've had one lesson taught after which a man said he wasn't interested, five tombé-vous (which we call a rendez-vous that fell through) and I don't even know how many people who are just not very interested. Before I left the MTC they said not to worry, French people aren't as mean as everyone says they are. Don't believe people when they say that!!!! French people can be pretty mean. Anyways, thursday friday and saturday are just a blur of cold, windy, rainy (did I mention that that's basically all the weather in Normandy ever is). And getting really good at saying Merci, Au revoir

Sunday

Sunday was a lot better, we went to church and even though I didn't understand anything that people were saying, they were all really nice. We still didn't have any success trying to contact people, but a lot of people talked to us and we got some rendez-vous set up for later this week, so fingers crossed.

Other stuff!

I have to say, despite being rejected a hundred thousand times, I don't feel too discouraged. There were times this week when I just felt like crying because it was so bad, but I'm starting to feel better about it. There's someone out there who's waiting for us and we're going to find them, We're working hard and doing what we're supposed to and I know that the Lord is out there preparing people for us. This week I think Elder Hall reported the worst numbers he's had his entire mission. I don't know if it's because of me or not, but we almost got a 0 for every category you report for and he said he had never gotten 0 for everything. The lesson we taught was nice and we're doing okay contacting, but I know I can do better. In my interview with President Poznaski he asked "are you a bold missionary?". I said Yes! I'm not a liar and I know I can be bolder and be better in this next week, so boldness! I guess my message for this week is be bold. There's no reason to be scared in life, we just need to bold in everything we do. Be bold, regardless of how you feel or what's wrong, Be Bold!

Au Revoir!

P.S.

I ate a kebab today and it was delicious

Arrival in Paris

To the Family of Elder Bruno 

Sister Poznanski and I were delighted to welcome your son , Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno , into the France Paris Mission on 29 Oct 2013. He and his MTC companions were enthusiastic and all arrived in good health.  He spent his first day eating some good food, visiting with me, contacting non-members in the heart of Paris, and sharing testimonies.  We enjoyed his spirit.

The next morning, after a mission orientation, Elder Bruno left for his first assignment to work in the Le Harve 2 Area with Elder Hall, who will be his trainer.  Their apartment address is:

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Any packages or letters you would like to send will reach your missionary at this address.

We feel very privileged to work with your him.  We also realize the responsibility we share with you to help him continue to grow spiritually as he faithfully performs his duties.  May the Lord inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging and exciting assignment.  We hope you will join Sister Poznanski and me in praying each day for your son , his companion, investigators, and all of us serving in the France Paris Mission.

A positive, supportive letter from home every week does wonders to sustain a missionary’s morale.  Proverbs 25:25 states:  As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. If you have any questions, or if we can assist you in any way, please contact us at our office (001-331-3480-0483) or home (001-331-3976-8402).

Sincerely,

Franck Poznanski

President, France Paris Mission

Dear Families of our Missionaries,

I am pleased to be able to send you this little E-mail to announce to you the creation of the Facebook of the Paris France Mission.

We hope to be able to place photos of the events that take place here in the mission every 15 days so that we might share with you the Spirit that animates our mission.  Your comments our welcome, but we hope you understand we will not be able to respond to each one individually because of time.

We are very grateful for the support that you give through your prayers and the E-mails for your children. It is very precious.

Some amazing things are happening in this mission thanks to the faith, the perseverance and the desire of our missionaries to better fulfill the reason why they are here on mission. They are continually putting amazing efforts into raising the bar and to see the fruits of their labors.

We are very grateful for these chosen youth who have been place in our care and we assure you that we are doing all that we can to make sure they are taken care of. We love and care for them dearly.

We invite you to join our group, so that you might be able to participate in the great moments unfolding in each photo. Here is the name : “France Paris Mission Poznanski”

Sincerely,

Sister Poznanski

Till We Meet Again

Sorry everybody, this week is going to be a short email! I leave for the airport in about two hours and so I just thought I send everybody just an itty bitty email for this week. When you spend every waking hour with five other Elders and two Sisters you start developing really strong bonds of friendship. Today Elder Pedersen, Elder Ghirelli, and Sœur Grünke left. I woke up early to say goodbye to the Elders. Before Elder Ghirelli left I gave him a hug and I told him, "even if we don't see each other again, we're always going to remember you. The Lord needs you now, Do work". It's strange to think that there are people that you can come so close to in your life, who you feel like have helped you so much and been such an impact, and then you never see them again. We talk about visiting each other, but it's unlikely that we ever will. We say goodbye, we serve our two years, and then we go back to our respective countries. And yet, I don't think I'll ever forget those three people. We talk about the missionary purpose of bringing others closer to Christ and we always think in the term of investigators. Last night at the departure devotional they asked a couple converts to stand and shout out their missionaries. I thought a lot about how each person was brought to Christ from these two people. I love these three missionaries from the bottom of my heart and through the progress that they've helped me with towards coming closer to Christ I know that Elder Roberto Ghirelli, Elder Mark Pedersen, and Sœur Vanessa Grünke will always be part of a very exclusive group of missionaries in my heart. They will always be my missionaries (However cheesy that may sound ). Have a great week everybody, treasure the time you have with others because it goes fast!

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Week 5 of the MTC! The week of plodding onwards

Bonjour ma famille et mes amies,

Have you ever gotten into a time when you're just tired? kind of tired of going to school or work or whatever else and you just want to take a day off? That's what my email is about! well, a little bit since it really wasn't that bad, I just needed an awesome title for my email! Anyways, Here's how my week went

Tuesday

Tuesday will also include my Monday experience with a substitute teacher we had named sœur Boswell. She was possibly one of the coolest people i've ever met in my entire life. She talked about the Holy Ghost's role in conversion and she was just so loud and outgoing it was amazing. Everyone in class fell in love with her in two seconds and her out there attitude (that I think she picked up from the Tahitian mission she served) made her one of the friendliess people i've ever met in my entire life. I feel like if i could get to know people as fast as she does and if people liked me that much after two hours, I'd be an incredibly successful missionary. At the end of class she paired us up into groups and had us pretend to be an investigator. I pretended to be Jeremiah Bohon (I have absolutely no idea if anybody knows who that is, but I love that kid). I got paired up with Sœur Grunke. She was an investigator that was atheist, she grew up with her and she was one of her best friends. I'll explain the rest of the situation in my spiritual section! Tuesday was good as well. Elder Rodriguez (a hilarious Elder who doesn't speak a lot of English, but who has a spicy Spanish attitude) was sick and he didn't get to go to the devotional or do anything all day. The zone felt a little lonlier without him there. We started playing four square in Gym almost every day and it's A LOT of fun. Other than that there was the devotional, which will be in my spiritual section, and an incident with Halloween decorations. We put up Halloween decorations in our classroom on sunday and on Tuesday the French coordinator talked to us telling us that it wasn't appropriate for missionaries. I was a little sad at first, but I totally understood and so we took all the decorations down.

Wednesday

Wendsday was a pretty good day right up until the end. Elder Baldwin's girlfriends brother came by the class, but we weren't there so he came back later in the week to talk to him (and the funniest thing happened, but that's for later). I lost my green magnet, so I picked a new one up from the front desk, and we taught Sœur Pace and Sœur Judas. I did amazing with the lesson for Marion (sœur Judas), but my lesson with Ester was not good at all. I felt like I should have been better since I had learned how to relate better to investigators, but it seems like I just have to try harder with roleplaying! We taught Frére Mayne in English, which made it a lot easier, but I really have a hard time with teaching :/ At the end of the day the new Elder and Sisters that came into our zone had orientation. We went over to their class and showed them around, but it turned out that one of them was sick and so she went to the clinic. When we got back to the residence we found out that she had gone to the ER and so as zone leaders we had to go to the front desk and call President Merrill. It was pretty scary and when we got back to the dorms Elder Baldwin wanted to have a zone prayer and that's why I had a bad night. Zone prayers aren't allowed, President Merrill specifically told me and Elder Baldwin that they weren't, but I don't think Elder Baldwin remembered. I had to tell him that we couldn't do it since they were against the rules. I went to the rooms he had already told and told them to pray as a district and not as a zone. Then I met Elder Baldwin in the our room. We fought about it for a little while and I simply said No. Elder Jansen and Elder Pederson knew the new sister from before the MTC because they're all scananavian and so they were a little upset about it too. I knew it was against the rules, but it was just hard for me to do because I hate telling people they can't do something, especially when it's something that seems like a good thing. It was just a prayer that they wanted to have and I had to put my foot down and say no. I know I've written a lot about it and that it seems like such a simple and small thing to get upset about and nobody but me really feels this strongly about it, but it was a really hard thing for me to do. I just felt bad for Elder Pederson and Elder Jansen that they couldn't pray for one of their really good friends from back home with the entire zone and I felt bad about having to belittle Elder Baldwin or make him feel bad. I always felt like I was the leadership type in high school since I ran for all these different offices and a lot of people liked me, but something as simple as saying no to a zone prayer really made me think that maybe I'm not cut out for leadership... It's not a big deal, it's just that I'm starting to think that being likable and being a leader are two really different things and as hard as I try, I don't know if I'll ever be the latter.

Thursday

And the plodding begins. We had TRC, which was exciting, we taught really well, but other than that nothing happened all day. It was so slow of a day I thought I was going to die. Other than TRC the only thing that happened was that I found out that i gained 17 pounds so far. That's right, 17. We decided that we would wake up early the next morning and go running. We did get our travel plans, which was incredibly exciting, but it just made me think that we have to go a whole other week before we're out of here.

Friday

Soooo, the internationals went to Salt Lake and had a lot of fun and we had another day of monotony. We didn't go running because Elder Baldwin hit his foot against a chair getting up, so we decided we would wait until Monday. We taught a lot of lessons and even though I feel like we're doing better, we're just not getting to the level I wanted to be at when I left the MTC. It's kind of discouraging. The days melt together and it just feels like I've been here forever, but I'm trying to stay strong and not die! I started feeling a little sad that soon me and Elder Baldwin won't be companions anymore since he's awesome. The guy literally wakes up every day exactly on time, he remembers everything, and everything I'm awful at he's amazing at. Like I said though, One more week feels short when I think about it as my whole mission, but if I think about it like the days i've been having it feels like forever and a day. Funny Story, Elder Baldwins girfriends brother teaches at the MTC so he dropped by and talked to Elder Baldwin out in the hall. When Sœur Judas saw him she hid behind the door. After he left she told us that they had gone on a blind date and he had been awful during it. A few weeks after their date she saw him holding hands with one of the Sisters that she had served with in her mission. It's crazy how different people know each other here! Small world I guess

Saturday

And more monotony. The MTC is almost the same thing every day but sunday, for 5 weeks (the last week is a little bit different). Essentially I've done this same thing for 30 something days. It gets a little bit monotonious. I love it here and I try to learn as much as I can, but sometimes I just have to keep plodding :). The only thing that happened different on saturday was that we did service (which was vaccuming) and we worked out in the morning. I'm essentially on a diet now because I don't want to be a whale, but other than an unusal amount of lettuce and a little extra excersize, same old thing.

Sunday

SUNDAYS ARE ALWAYS AMAAZING! This can count as part of my spiritual stuff, becuase it's SUNDAY! We had sacrament meeting on baptism and I thought all day, how does this apply to me at all? but eventually I really thought of the sacrament and the covenants that we make with the Lord and realized that even having been baptized for as long as I have, baptism is a covenant that I promised the Lord to do something, and as imperfect of a person as I am, I always try to keep my promises. Our District wore different color ties to form a rainbow, we learned that sometimes even if we're right it's better to take the high road to help out our companion, and that really applies to everyone. Whenever something bad happens to me I'm starting to try to take the high road now. We do a lot of pranks to each other just because we love having fun and laughing, but I've realized that when something goes wrong, we need to forgive others. In TRC we taught forgiveness and so i've been making it a personal goal to try to try to forgive others rather than seeking for revenge. Revenge leads to unkind feelings and so i'm trying to let everything go. Sunday night I was kind of feeling like i needed to work a little bit so I brought my bible with me to the devotional so I could memorize a scripture. I started to memorize Isiah 1:18 and then the speaker talked. And of course he talked about repentance and enduring to the end. It never ceases to amaze me that every time I think of a new goal there happens to be a sign in my life that says GOOD Idea! The speaker talked about working and being here was the right thing, but the talk really made me think about the bad things I've done in my life. I've had questions of whether this was the right place for me or not and I've prayed a lot about it and every time i've recieved the answer that I am where I'm supposed to be. Despite these answers though, I still have had doubts in myself. Last night I stopped doubting. This is where I am supposed to be, the Lord has forgiven me of my sins just as he can forgive others of theirs and just as we must forgive others when they commit sins against us. After the devotional we watched a video by Elder Bednar titled "becoming a missionary". It's an amazing video, but the biggest thing that I took out of it was that every mission is good for a missionary, but not every missionary is good for a mission. I do not want to be someone who doubts their ability to the point where they are no longer good for their mission, I do not want to be a person who doubts their ability at all. I am a missionary and my work is his work. I do not doubt the Lord and therefore I cannot doubt myself 

Spiritual STUFF!

So, with Sœur Grunke I learned that to teach in a roleplaying situation, don't think about how you would think about that person is, think about them like the person who actually taught them was. It's a little hard to explain, but essentially all the investigators we teach are real people that our teachers all taught on their missions. When I taught Sœur Grunke and I realized what this friend meant to her I tried to teach her like Sœur Grunke would want her friend taught. Everybody that is imaginary is loved by the person we're actually teaching and I realized that in order to be a teacher I need to love them as well. It's a tough principle to master, but I know that these people are important and so I'm trying as hard as I can!

The next spiritual experience I had was the Tuesday Night devotional. We sang Praise to The Man and had Dallin H. Oaks speak. I loved singing praise to the man, it made me really empathize with the prophet Joseph Smith and realize how amazing of a person her was. Unfortunately I didn't feel incredible when I heard Elder Oaks talk. It really worried me that I had heard an apostle of God speak and his message didn't penetrate me to the core. It was at this moment that I realized that I'm not going to have a spiritual experience that brings me to tears every time I teach an investigator or I hear someone talk. I feel like I'm so constantly filled with the spirit that sometimes it's hard to realize that he's always there. Just like the law of opposites, because I feel him so often it's hard to know of a time that I didn't feel the spirit. Learning and plodding onwards are sometimes all we can do and it was this experience that helped me through this week. Sometimes we just have to buckle down and work even though it feels like we're just plodding. Races are finished one step at a time and we can't expect every day to be the most amazing one we've ever had. Keeping a good attitude and hoping for the best, that's how you get through long hard treks. For everyone back home, Try hard, work hard, and anytime you feel like taking a day off because you don't feel motivated enough to do it remember that there's no such thing as a day off for a missionary and every member is a missionary :)!

Sorry about the long letter, Our laundry took a little bit longer than normal and so I just kept going! I report to the travel office at 11:30 on Monday the 28th so I'll probably have enough time to read your emails if you send them and if you're going to send letters make sure to send them to my Paris Address.

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

A Week of Weakness

Bonjour ma famille et mes amis

All is good in the hood. This week has been a little tougher than the last couple, but that's alright. Not every day of life is our best. My week went as follows

Tuesday

Tuesday was alright, the West Indies district left and they all signed my journals. The zone leaders handed down the zone leader ties, one to the tall zone leader and one to the short zone leader. It has like 30 names on it, so it's pretty sweet. We also received the robe of righteousness, which is basically just a bed sheet. They were really awesome and I'm definitely missing them, but it was time for them to get out and go preach in their very sweaty corner of the vineyard. We had a devotional by Elder Matsen (a retired 70), but I sadly didn't pay a ton of attention to it.

Wednesday

Wednesday was possibly the worst day I've had so far. It started out early and I just felt so tired and miserable I thought i was going to die. I tried to keep a good attitude and stay awake, but I just kept dozing off in class. I really want to kick the bad habit of complaining all the time, but Wednesday I definitely failed at that. To top it off I just felt really sick (the sickness of which a lingering runny nose and nasty cough is still persisting). I didn't really get too much out of our first classroom instruction, but the second one we learned about gospel principles. I love gospel principles, but I just couldn't concentrate. Before the class started a teacher named sœur Pace came in and told me I was going to teach an "investigator" named Ester (which really just meant we were going to role play). We had a substitute named frére Myers for that class and sœur pace came in to help us before we went "tracting" (which was basically just knocking on a door and trying to get frére Myers to let us in). I was talking to my companion and we disagreed about the baptismal invitation. Sœur Pace came over and told me I was wrong and I just felt so upset. We went tracting and I didn't do amazing, we used the baptismal invitation and it went over fine, but I just felt a little upset. Before I went to bed I wrote in my journal "I guess I'm going to have a long prayer tonight. I guess I just need to work a little bit harder and maybe it'll go better" and trust me when I say that it was a very LONG prayer.

Thursday

Thursday I had my lesson with Ester, and it went AMAZING! I understood everything she said and at the end I gave her the baptismal invitation. She said no because she was already baptized. I was pretty confused about it, but I asked her to go to church on Sunday (It's funny because we have to ask them after Sunday if they went to church) and I asked if we could meet again. We scheduled for Saturday. As soon as I walked out of that class I learned how to teach. It was the first time aside from French lessons that I really felt like I learned how to preach the gospel.  I found out that to explain to someone that had already been baptized you should teach the restoration. Everything just seemed to click into place. We also had TRC which I also did amazing! It really was a day of confidence boosting and I just felt really happy.

Friday

Friday was pretty routine, We worked on keeping lessons simple, which actually really helped me. The weird thing about Friday was that I actually started paying attention to how to teach. Before I would kind of zone out and mostly concentrate on learning French, but I'm starting to realize that I NEED to learn how to teach! Other than that though, it was a blah day.

Saturday

Saturday we did service and i had to clean bathrooms. Don't get me wrong, I've cleaned plenty of bathrooms and I was happy I got to move around and work rather than sitting in a classroom (farmwork messes up your brain I guess), but I really hate bathrooms. I just had to focus on doing work for the lord rather than cleaning nasty bathrooms. I taught Ester on the restoration, and it was amazing. Up until this point I had felt so discouraged about learning French. It's been pretty tough for me especially since everyone else in the intermediate class is so good at it. I really saw how much hard work pays off in this lesson though. Ester understood most of what I said and afterwards sœur pace complimented me on how well I taught (which is saying something because sœur Pace is kind of mean). It's weird, I'm really starting to like sœur Pace because of how rapidly my teaching is improving when just three days before I really did not like the lady at all. I have another lesson today so let's see how it goes!

Sunday

Sunday was another day of parting. The Montreal missionaries left for their mission and the only person that had ties to South Carolina went too. It was just some kid who had gone to the college of Charleston for a year named Elder Flitton. I don't know why, but I just felt like he was one of my last ties home. I'm not homesick or anything, but it's just a little bit sad when Elders part ways on a mission. Elder Fierro, and Elder Bybee were awesome too and it just feels kind of strange to know that some of these people you became best friends with in 3 weeks you might never see again. Other than that my obedience paid off. The whole day I had just been talking about pie. It's crazy how you can miss something soooo simple, but I just talked about pie all day. Finally, at the end of the day, I planned hard for my lesson today and when I walked out of the classroom to go to the residence at 9:30, The lord poured down blessings in the form of delicious apple pie. Sœur Dick (the old sister training leader who was leaving tomorrow) had been sent pie for her last day in the MTC. HAHAH, as childish and as silly as it sounds, I don't think I've ever had a spiritual experience where the Lord testified to me so clearly that I was doing the right thing. It really made me love being here. We had a devotional by the MTC administrative director that was really awesome and afterwards we watched "only a stone cutter" and in those short fifteen minutes I realized what my spiritual stuff for this week was going to be.

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

So, what did I think of my whole 24 hours of trials? Now that I think back I think how silly I was to get so upset about such simple things, but yesterday I also wrote this. My whole life I've been cruising on good luck, and natural intelligence. I do better spontaneously than a lot of people do by planning and working hard. I've always thought, play to your strengths and you'll do fine. It's funny, because when brother Miner (the second councilor in my bishopric) asked me what my favorite scripture so he could put it on my plaque was I did what I do best. I didn't answer him until the last minute. Finally he found me in the church hallway the Sunday before I left and asked again. All I could think was that I had been flipping through Ether with the missionaries a couple days ago when I had driven them to a lesson. I flipped through a couple pages in Ether and found a scripture. Like I said before, I play to my strengths because that's what I'm good at, that how I've done things my whole life. I gave brother Miner a scripture that I literally had never read in my entire life. Ether 12:27. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their 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 learned this week that missionary work cannot and will not ever be what we want it to be. Missionary work is not spontaneous or impulsive, Missionary work is careful planning, missionary work is prayer and faithful study, missionary work is everything I've been weak at my entire life. And yet I am a missionary. I will change, I will work, and I will make what was once weak strong. Have a great week everybody

With Love from your missionary,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno