Office Responsibilities and Kidney Stones

Life here in France has definitely gotten more interesting since I've been called to serve in the mission office. I'm learning a whole lot of new things about computers, printers, legality, and train tickets than I ever thought I was going to on a mission.  The church is implementing a new system for keeping track of all the cars for the mission, and I'm in charge of cars, so all of sudden I have a whole ton of stuff to do trying to register all the cars we already have into the system and all the legal drivers and such, so it's been a fun few days. Hunting down the last invoice records and maintenance forms for the cars, as well as updating all the new forms in the computer and getting them sent out to all the drivers in the mission along with all the normal stuff like train tickets and helping out with conference preparation has kept me very busy this week, so that was good. I'm also learning how to manage my time more efficiently, we're still missionaries and we still have time to go proselyting, so we try to organize our days carefully so we can get the most out of the time we have for contacting and visiting members and less actives.

The Missionaries from Texas (including Sister Roney)

We actually got to go to a whole lot of members' houses this week, and had dinner in many homes, less actives as well, which was really good. One of the less actives we got to see was really really interested in family history. We shared a message about the family and we all shared some stories about our own families and testified of it, and afterwards he took a real interest in family history, the member there was a consultant, so it was a wonderful surprise for us, hopefully he comes to church tomorrow. It's such a great feeling when you can a change in someone's countenance while talking about the gospel, and when the Spirit is there is magnifies our message, and we've seen it touch people's hearts. We also had our district meeting this week here in Lyon, and it was really good. My district leader is one of the coolest elders on the mission, and he's a lot of fun. It was really good meeting as well, we talked and reviewed all over our goal setting, which is always fun, and then talked about how we can be more effective in our mission right now with all the tools we have. We talked a lot about the talk by Quentin L. Cook called Choose Wisely from last conference, emphasizing how important our choices can be, as long as doing the little things day by day that will help us achieve our highest goals, and keep us on the right path to take us to heaven. It was really interesting, and I printed off the talk, I really liked it and invite everyone else to read it as well.  I'm really enjoying being here in Lyon, and liking the office a whole lot.

On Sunday my companion Elder Pedersen confirmed that the back pain he'd been having over the week was kidney stones, and so we went to the hospital to make sure he didn't have a blood infection or anything like that. He was in a lot of pain, so it was kind of rough, though he's doing ok now a week later. We had to make a couple of hospital trips this week, which took some time, but everything is ok now, he's alright, all the stones are gone. Tuesday we had a fun service project, where we went out and helped a member family mow their lawn. Because it was so overgrown and tall, we couldn't do it with normal lawn mowers, so did the entire thing with edger type things, which was interesting, but surprisingly fun. Though I guess most things can be fun with fur other missionaries around. The coolest part of the week though was yesterday (Friday) evening. The night before while planning we decided the biggest goal we wanted to get for the next day was to find a new ami.

Fun with the Office Elders

Because we're in the office, we don't have nearly as much time to find or teach people, so we really wanted to find someone in the two or three hours we would have the next day.  We went searching fairly fair in our sector the next evening to track down a referral one of the other equips in Lyon had given us, and we couldn't find them, even though we got into their apartment building. So we decided to just start going door to door in the building, and the second door we knocked on was this nice guy who let us in. After talking for a little while, we got onto a really good lesson with him, and were able to fix a follow up rendez vous with him for the upcoming week! We were so happy to have our prayers answered, he's a nice guy who's open, and we're excited to start teaching him. For the spiritual thought of the week, I read a poem this morning in personal study that I really liked, and made me think really hard about what I do on a day to day basis. It made me think of the Primary song If the Savior Stood Beside Me, and I really liked it. Here is a poem about it.


If Jesus came to your house
To spend some time with you,
If He came unexpected,
I wonder what you’d do.

Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room
To such an honored guest
And all the food you’d give to Him
Would be the very best.

And you would keep assuring Him
You’re glad to have Him there–
That serving Him in your home
Is joy beyond compare.

But when you saw Him coming,
Would you meet Him at the door
With arms outstretched in welcome
To your heavenly visitor?

Or would you have to change your clothes
Before you let Him in
Or hide some magazines
And put the Bible where they’d been

Would you hide your worldly music
and put some hymn books out?
Could you let Jesus walk right
in, or would you rush about?

And I wonder – if the Saviour
spent a day or two with you,
Would you go right on doing, the
things you always do?

Would you go right on saying, the
things you always say?
Or would life for you continue
as it does from day to day?

Would you take Jesus with you
everywhere you go?
Or would you maybe change your
plans for just a day or so?

Would you be glad to have Him
meet your closest friends?
Or would you hope they stay away,
until His visit ends?

Would you be glad to have Him
stay forever on and on?
Or would you sigh with great
relief when He at last was gone?

It might be interesting to know,
the things that you would do,
If Jesus came in person, to spend
some time with you.