Mission Update #5

Bonjour Bonjour!!!

     This week was a great one! Well of course besides all the snow.  I literally got sun burned last tuesday and it was snowing two days after that. Gotta love Utah. But anyways... I LEAVE IN 6 DAYS!!! I can hardly believe it! It is so weird because I feel like I have been here for a very long time but also no time at all.  I feel both prepared and unprepared.  I know through the Strength of the Lord I can do all things.  I am very excited and I already have an enormous amount of love for the people of France.  I know the Lord is hastening His work in France and all around the world for a reason. 

    Well I think I will start off with a funny story! So the other day my companion and I were teaching a lesson to our "investigator" Jean-Michelle.  This was our fifth lesson with him so we felt like we should talk about some of the commandments that we are required to keep to be baptized. This lesson we were teaching The Law of Chastity. Yeah I am sure a lot of you can just imagine where this is going.  So we were discussing some of the things we must do to keep this specific commandment and I said this, "Dieu exige que nous avons les relations sexuelle avant le mariage." That translates to..."God requires that we have sexual relations before marriage." To say the least we were all shocked(well i was after I found out what i had just said). haha We all had a good laugh, so did the rest of the three zones in this building.  :) Literally it was one of those "Best Two Years" moments. Lovin it.

     Last week we had Scott D. Whiting of the seventy and his wife come speak to us at the Tuesday devotional. Oh and also! The really awesome thing that everyone kept talking about was that this general conference the place they have chosen to highlight for the documentary in between conferences is the MTC! So they had a camera crew come and film us so that they could put it on the video. So in between conferences be looking for me! I might be one there! :) But besides that...Elder Whiting and his wife did an incredible job!  I really appreciated that his wife (Jerie Whiting) prepared a talk for us.  Usually all the other wives just get up and bare testimony. The thing I loved the most that she said, "Whatever you're doing, do it with ALL conviction." So in other words, don't just give half your effort, give all your effort in all things! If you are playing basketball, play basketball! If you are singing, then sing with all conviction! Practice with all conviction! If you are serving a mission, then serve a mission with all conviction! Do all you can! If you are LDS then be LDS with ALL conviction! It is not enough to only have a testimony! You must be converted unto the Lord with all conviction.  Elder whiting addressed us on the subject of the MTC. He said he woke up the other night with two words running through his head, Incubator and Comforter. I am very glad he followed the spirit and spoke on those two things.  He said the MTC is like an incubator because right now all of us are preparing to go out into the world to preach this gospel and if we go out to early we could possibly fall apart and not survive.  He said if you are here at the MTC at the right time and worthy to be here that we will be prepared and strengthened. He also said that if we are not, the incubator will not be a benefit but instead it will be as if you put bacteria in an incubator. The bacteria will rapidly grow and overtake us.  It is soo important to make sure you are 100% worthy when you come to the MTC. He also talked about when we come to the MTC we leave behind all our normal "comforters". Such as our beds, our favorite foods, friends, family, cell phones, internet, etc... He said that this was necessary so that we learn to rely on the one and only true comforter, The Holy Ghost. He said that if we learn that here at the MTC that we will be strengthened and comforted to do the things we need to in the mission field and also in our lives after the mission. Loved it! He also said this, "If you are on the errand of the Lord and worthy to be there, and if you act on ALL promptings, the the Lord will make those acts beneficial to either you or those around you. That way you'll never have to ask yourself, 'Were those my thoughts or the Holy Ghost'". DO WORK! :)

   The last thing that I would like to talk about happened with my district.  We were told to watch a video titled, "The Atonement and missionary work". SERIOUSLY the greatest! It is a video and President Eyring and Elder Holland are talking on the little video. It is about ten minutes long but SO worth it! Go to youtube and look it up and watched it! We were asked to watch it and discuss it as a district.  We watched the whole thing and when it ended none of us could speak.  I literally could feel the spirit as if it was tangible.  I have never really been in a situation where all of us were constrained from speaking by the Spirit. We all sat there for about ten minutes straight just pondering and crying.  It really is such a powerful message.  When you have time and are in the right mind set, watch it. You will learn some absolutely incredible things.

   Well this is my last pday here at the MTC! I will not have a pday for two weeks! I will let you all know how PARIS is! :) I am soo excited and so extremely grateful that I have the opporunity to serve my Master. Bon Chance mes amies avec toutes les choses dans vos vies!! :) Je vous aime! Please pray for all the missionaries. We all need your prayers. I love you all!

Love, Soeur Finneran

mission update #4

Bonjour everyone! How are all of you!? This letter will be pretty short this week! My apologies! Time really gets away from you when you are on a mission. I have been here for exactly a month and I leave in 13 DAYS to PARIS!! :)  I am beyond excited to get out into the field and to start spreading the gospel among the French people. There is no greater work than missionary work. I have literally never been happier!  On sunday we had Sister Jean stephens (i think) from the general primary presidency come and speak to us for Relief Society. Ps that is how EVERY week in relief society is. RS in the MTC rocks! She talked to us all about LOVE. Love is SOO important! If you don't love the people you are teaching than they are far less receptive to the influence of the Holy Ghost.  Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ and through LOVE that is possible. Just love everyone! And if you are struggling with loving someone, pray to God to know how He feels about them. You will love them, I promise. The work here in the MTC is great! We are all learning lots and improving little by little every day. We lost most of our zone this week but we are gaining like 40 new missionaries going to montreal tomorrow. We are excited! I love getting new missionaries in every week! It brings such an exciting spirit. The MTC just keeps getting more and more full. I can't even imagine what it will be like in here come May and June. We also were able to listen to the Director of Missionary Services for our Sunday night fireside. SO GOOD!!! He talked all about all the Rocks and stones in this gospel. He also related trials and experiences in our life to the three different ways rocks form: Igneous(very powerfully and all at once), Sedimentary (little pieces of sand that gather over time and then after pressure it is hardened and solidified), and Metamorphic (taking something old and after pressure becoming something better and new.) SO COOL!! There really is so much symbolism in everything! I love it! Everything truly does point to God. We do have a God. He is our Father. He does love us. What a GLORIOUS message! Well we should be getting our travel arrangements this week so thats exciting! We peace out on April 1! (Hopefully haha april fools- you never know). Tonight there is supposedly someone super big coming to speak to us! I am thinking Pres. Eyring but we will see! And Easter is suppose to be extremely special too. thats what they keep saying. I am hoping for Pres. Monson that day! I will keep you posted! I love you all so much and miss you but I am so grateful to be a humble servant of the Lord and a Disciple of Jesus Christ right now. Keep on keeping strong! Bonne Journee!

Love, Soeur Finneran

Mission Update #3

Bonjour Mes amies!!!

      Life here at the MTC is great! I heard before I came that the days here go by so slow but the weeks go by so fast. Its very true. We wake up everyday and literally study for a good 14 hours and have the 2 others hours of our day to eat and go to gym. It sounds like its pretty hard but I have actually been really enjoying myself! I have and INCREDIBLE comapanion and such an awesome district.  I leave in a little less than 3 weeks! Crazy right!? Time really has been flying! Even though my French isn't the best right now, I am so excited to get out there and start preaching the gospel to those who do not have it! This work truly is miraculous and is of God.

     This week was very eventful but so much has happened and I have very limited time to write so I won't be able to fit it all in. I guess I will start with some comical stories.  Ok so first, a good friend of mine from work sent me a caramel apple! My 5 others roommates and I (yes there are SIX sisters in a very small room) were so excited to eat it so we had to cut it open that night. All we had was a plastic knife.  So naturally I try to cut it and what do I do? Oh yes cut my hand open. Awesome.  Its not super bad but its a pretty decent size cut right on my left palm.  Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. Another funny story! So for daylight savings everyone loses an hour of sleep.  So the four other roommates we have told Soeur Hafen and I that because of daylight savings that lights out was at 10 pm. Naturally, we believed them haha so we were running around trying to get ready really fast and were all in bed and lights out at 10. We never even thought twice about it BUT they fabricated the whole ordeal! haha we had a good laugh about that. Ok now that I am writing that out its probably really not that funny but humor definitely changes on the mission. Last story.... So we were eating lunch as a district like we normally do and we heard some sisters (4) talk about doing the jello challenge. We watch them walk up and all of them get like 5 bowls of jello and then they sit down and without silverware or hands they just start going at the jello like beastules with their faces.  Literally 10 seconds later...guess who walks in?? Oh yes... The MTC Mission President, President Nally.  He walks over to them and pats one of them on the shoulder and they look up with horror on their faces.  He then says to them, "Now are you Sisters missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ? Let me go get my wife and lets chat."  Yeah...all I have to say is DONT DO STUPID THINGS! haha I am really glad I was not the one doing the jello challenge.

   This letter isn't as interesting as the others. Sorry. We literally just learn french and the gospel all the time and sometimes everything blends together.  But OH YES!! I forgot to mention how awesome the MTC volleyball is!!! The court that I play on is always the French districts and Tongan districts so it gets way intense but it is seriously sooo fun!  I should run or something but I figured I won't get to play volleyball everyday out in the field like I do here. Seriously I look forward to Jouer Au Volley CHAQUE JOUR! Its the best! :)

    Something in French that I think is really cool...."Investigators" in French is Les amies de L'eglise. That literally translates to Friends of the Church. I just really love that and its a really cool perspective to have when viewing investigators.  My french is coming right along.  Its difficult at times and a bit frustrating when I cant say what I want to but it forces me to humble myself and keep it simple.  Simplicity really is the best way to go and the Spirit always does the rest of the talking when I don't know what to say or even when I don't make sense. Learning a language isn't easy but it has been so humbling and I have really seen God helping me through this.  The gift of tongues is real people. Believe it.

    Last week at devotional Elder Aidukaitis from the seventy spoke to us. It was awesome! He talked about the three degrees of glory and how when we get to the kingdom we end up in, we won't be surprised.  He challenged us to choose now what kingdom we are going to. When you choose what kingdom you want to get to then all other decisions will be easier to make because you know exactly what you need to do to make it to whatever kingdom you choose.  I have chosen the Celestial kingdom and I will work towards that everyday! He also challenged us to right it in our journals in BOLD lettering so that we can remind ourselves what we have chosen.

    The last sunday/day that I will be in the MTC is Easter! Everyone keeps talking about that its going to be a very special day with a very special speaker. I hope its President Monson!!! I will keep you informed! Yeah but that very next Monday our plane leaves at 5 ish at night and we should arrive to Paris at 11 am ish the next day! And get this!! First of all they put us on a one way flight there and also there will be THIRTY missionaries going to Paris that very same day! and another twenty to Lyon that same day! This work is truly going forth and I am so grateful I get to be a part of it! And it literallly is half and half with sisters and elders now.  On sunday for RS there were over 1000 sisters in attendance.  Thats a lot of missionaries. I love it here! I love this work! I love my God! I love you all and pray for you often! Write to me if you can! I love to hear whats happening and I promise I will write back!

Beaucoup D'amour,  Soeur Finneran 

Mission Update #2

BONJOUR!!! :) This past week has absolutely flown by! I can hardly believe it is P-day again! Last week on Tuesday night Elder Ballard came and spoke to us. It was incredible! He talked alot about missionary work and being worthy for the call and also that we already know enough.  He was saying that we don't need to stress ourselves out because we aren't perfect. It was just what I needed to hear. :) 

     On Wednesday half of our district went to San Francisco to get their visas for France while the other half stayed.  It was really hard to not have them there.  They really have become family and we are so much more productive when we are all together working hard.  But on Thursday I got to go to San Francisco with the other half of my district. It was awesome! but we were all super tired! We had to wake up at 4 am and leave at 5 am. Our flight left at 7:30 ish.  The plane ride there I sat next to one of the missionaries but that was good because I got a nap in.  When we arrived in San Francisco we went straight to the consulate.  We were seriously only there for about 30 minutes and then we left. It was super easy! So we had the rest of the time to do what we pleased! We had four hours about.  We first went over to Pier 39 and went and ate at a pizza place.  It was delicous and much needed! None of us had eaten before then. and it was about 1 pm.  Then we walked around and placed a few pass along cards there.  Then we went to the Golden gate bridge but it was too foggy to see haha. but we placed more pass along cards there and talked to a few people about the gospel.  The asians are hard to get through too. They don't really believe in God or Jesus Christ.  I am glad that most of France is Christian.  Then we went to Ghiradelli square and had ice cream! Our waiter loved us so I gave him a pass along card and he said he would look into it! I hope he does! He did try to hug me though as we left and I kind of just awkwardly scooted away very fast.  haha the rest of the missionaries got a kick out of that one.  On the way home I sat next to a man who was not LDS! I was SOOO EXCITED!!!! Momentary pause... I have never been more grateful in my life than I am right now to be able to pray, testify and preach/teach in the English language.  I am really glad I had this opportunity to go to San Francisco even though it was just for a day.  Now I didn't commit him to baptism but we had a wonderful talk! At first it was a little awkward because I was alone and he was texting and emailing like crazy when we first sat down on the plane.  But then they made everyone turn everything off and we started talking! He knows a little bit about the church because he recently moved to Utah. I talked to him for a straight hour about his family, his wife,  his son and it was great! There was some time that we didn't talk so I pulled out the first vision in French and was memorizing that and he leaned over and asked me what that said so I was able to share the first vision with him! I seriously was like exploding with the spirit! I don't know if he could tell but I feel like the conversation went just as it was suppose to! we then started talking to him about what his religion believes and I picked out the good things that their church does and was able to share a few things about the LDS church and how we have similarities.  At the end of the plane ride he asked me to pray for his son and i was all YES! YES I WILL!! :) haha it was such an incredible experience! I hope that all made sense! I have to type way fast because we don't have a ton of time!

   This week we found out that our "investigator" for the past two weeks is actually our second teacher! haha that was fun! And on sunday we had the temple president of the provo temple (President Daines) come and speak to us!! seriously it was INCREDIBLE!!! When he was done speaking no one said anything, we all just looked at each other in shock because of how amazing it was! He spoke on temple covenants. I will share a few things.  He said that when we receive our own endowment "we have more power now than ever before to HEAR the word of the Lord." I loved that! He also said this, "We are entitled to revelation and blessing because of the covenants we have made in the temple." This reminds me of the mormon message from president uchtdorf about not living beneath your privileges. Go watch that its great! Also watch the mormon message of mountains to climb! I bawl every time! its so good! very upliting! Something else that I feel very impressed to include for some reason is this... he said, "You cannot become involved with pornography and be keeping your temple covenants and the Law of Chastity."  He then went on to tell us a story.  He said that he had some neighbors once who were investigating the church and they finally committed to baptism. they scheduled the baptism for 8 days later.  4 days before the baptism the missionaires who they had come over to help them teach the lessons were found in the grocery store looking at a playboy magazine. The investigators neighbors told them what they saw in the store and as a result of that they decided not to get baptized.  Our actions do not only affect us but everyone around us.  He also said this, " Clear up this problem right now! Do not wait! You can change!"  The last thing I will mention that he said is this," The WOUNDED Christ is the captain of our sould. The hard and painful times will pass!"

      I know that throught the redeeming and enabling power of Jesus Christ that we can be healed and changed! Jesus Christ lives and He will return!!! I know that this gospel is true with all my heart! I am beyond excited to share this message with all others! Jesus Christ is the head of this church. This is His work. I love you all so much! I miss you! I pray for you! Please pray for the missionaries and for those who are needing this gospel in their lives.

Love, Soeur Finneran

Mission Update

FIRST WEEK: Success! I absolutely love the MTC! My companion, Soeur Hafen, is incredible! She is 19 and from American Fork. We work so well together because we both are so dedicated to this work and so dedicated to learn the language. She pushes me to be my best and I am so grateful for her. It's so apparent how aware God is of our lives.  All of her strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa. Well what has happened this week...hmm oh i know SO MUCH!!!! We got into the MTC they show us our room, drop off our suitcases, then they take us to the classroom-immediate french immersion. We learn the missionary purpose in english and french. We go this meeting and that meeting and learn more french. Finally we get to eat and then back to class to learn more french. Bed. I LOVE bed. The first night was difficult though because I couldn't fall asleep til 1 but every other night I have slept like a baby. I am so tired all the time but I am more happy than I have ever been! The gospel is true! :) I love it! The next we woke up and learned more french and then prepared for our first lesson EN FRANCAIS!! We have been teaching Jamie and it isn't as scary as it sounds because the Gift of Tongues is so real! The spirit filled in all the voids in my language. Ummmm but other than that we basically just learn all the time everyday! Sunday's are a treat because we have a little bit of a break.  We were able to take the sacrament (all in french of course), watch music and the spoken word, relief society, choir, devotional, etc. The food isn't that bad here either. I have already lost at least 3 pounds. Luckily my comp and I encourage each other to eat well which has been awesome. She also loves to run which is great! Our goal is to get to 6 miles by the last week here. We are already at 2! :) We found out yesterday that we will be flying to San Francisco on thursday to take care of our visa stuff. We are all so excited because we might have some time to proselyte! :) We also had to go to the health clinic yesterday... that was interesting... haha we had to poop in a cup to give a stool sample.  Supposedly Belgigue needs to make sure we don't have any diseases. My district is incredible!!! We have 4 elders and 6 sisters.  Soeur Hafen and I i talked about a little alread.  Love her to death! Soeur Johns and Soeur Judd- Soeur Judd is very good at french and they both bring such a sweet spirit! Soeur Johns is from texas and Sour Judd is from utah. Elder Jensen and Elder Ireland are hilarious. Elder Jensen is from Utah and Elder Ireland is from Canada. Elder Jensen is always very good at keeping us on track. His grandpa is Jay E. Jensen in the 70. Soeur Henson and Soeur Holmes are in our room and they are the greatest! Soeur Holmes is super open and SOO funny! and Soeur Henson got here late and she's never taken french but she is picking it up sooo fast! Elder Olsen is from Kaysville too! He is really funny and light spirited and Elder Toledo is also from Utah. He thought he was going spanish speaking strictly but when he got here they told him he is going to learn french too and stay 6 weeks. He's picking it up fast also! They are all so funny though and so spiritual at the same time! I love this place! it really is like efy 24/7 times ten! times up but I love you all! Bon chance!
Love soeur Finneran.
ps. sorry if i don't get pictures on here often. mtc is crazy ALL THE TIME! and they don't really have a way to download pics!