02/02/09 Best P-Day Ever!

Sorry I am late today!

We had a lot of stuff going on, and we got back about 3 hours later than we had planned, so I have to get this off a lot later than I had hoped. I hope I didn't scare anyone! lol.

So today was a pretty sweet day. Our Catholic Monk ami took us out to his monastery, where he lived for 4 years to meet all of his other monk friends. I thought that there were only going to be a few, but there turned out to be over 100 of them! It was really cool, and one of the best preparation days of my mission. But I will get to all that later, I will tell you about my week for the time being.

So, last Monday we had an RDV with a man named Prince. He is from some small African country that I have never heard of. We contacted him a while ago, and he said that he was living in Lyon, and that he wouldn't mind meeting with the missionaries there. He seemed really cool, and interested, so I was kinda bummed to have to pass him on, but oh well. When the elders in Lyon called him, he said that he had just decided to move to St Etienne permanently, and that he wouldn't mind meeting with the missionaries here (us). We didn't have a lot of time for the RDV, because we had to get back to the church for soiree familiale, but the RDV we were able to have, was SWEET! We explained about the great apostasy and about the restoration a bit, and he asked some really REALLY good questions. He wanted to know what was the difference between our church, and his. So he can be aware of all that before he starts coming to our church regularly. It was a really good RDV, but he hasn't had time to see us since then. We were supposed to see him on Saturday, but he didn't have the time, so we should be seeing him on Wednesday. Hopefully, I will be able to give you some more positive news!

On Tuesday we had a meeting in Lyon with our whole zone about the lessons that we are trying to have with our members, to build their faith. It is SUCH a hard and overwhelming task. I have honestly been stressing out about it, and trying to figure out how it is going to work. The GREAT news is that we had a sweet meeting with the Bishop and our DMP on Wednesday morning, and he is WAY excited about missionary work this year.

We had an idea to do a puzzle thing with the ward for our ward mission plan, where members of the ward have to complete small goals in order to put pieces of the puzzle together. The Bishop wanted to take it one step farther, and have each family have their own personal little puzzle, that they fix goals for and put together as they accomplish, and then the one at the ward house gets put together as the families complete their own puzzles. I don't know that I am explaining this very well. The only problem was that he wanted to start this right now, which wouldn't work with the 5 lessons that we've been asked to have with each member, to strengthen their faith. So, what we decided is that we, the missionaries, will have 5 months to visit all 5 active families and individuals, and meet with them 5 times. Then at the last RDV we will give them their puzzle, and set goals with them. Then, once the entire ward has their puzzle, we are going to get it moving at a ward level. I was thinking about it earlier today, and I think that we may give them the puzzle in the first RDV, and then they get to check it off as they complete the different engagements that we will be giving them over the next little while. I don't know exactly how it will work out.

Our DMP seemed less than excited during this RDV and seemed to disagree with a lot of the ideas that we were sharing. The good news is that on Thursday night we were able to go over to his house and figure out what was up. I guess that he has been getting really depressed lately as we weren't able to meet the goals that the ward set for last year, and he was getting down on himself because he felt like they had really tried and they had set a goal of 6 baptisms, but they only had 3 here. We were able to talk to him for a while and then he REALLY opened up to us, We were able to solve a lot of his concerns, I think, and we have seen him twice since then and it's almost like a complete 180 degree turn around (for instance, during DMP meeting on Sunday, the Bishop was there, and our DMP was suggesting that we go and pick up some of the people that haven't been to church in a long time to see if we can give them that desire to come again). It was REALLY good.

We also had a RDV on Friday night with one of our amis, Florent, who is from Cambodia, and it went really well. We read 2 Nephi 31 in English, then French, then Cambodian to help him understand. We tried to figure out why he hadn't been able to come to church yet, and it's because he works some really odd hours, and he thought church was at 9 pm instead of 9 am. Hopefully he will be able to come on Sunday, as he doesn't work. He is SO SWEET, and I think that he has a lot of potential to be baptized this quarter.

A quick update on the mission, while I am thinking about it, we have already had 10 baptisms this year, which is GREAT! That's a lot better than any of the first months of the quarters last year, so 2009 is off to a great start!

On Saturday morning, Jean Marie (the monk) came to church to teach us some Tai-Chi. It was really fun. We had a couple of members here with us, and we learned how to get ourselves all relaxed, and do a couple of simple moves. It was really relaxing, and got me into a nice mindset, but I would never EVER do it in front of anyone. Awkward! He then showed us some practices that he does using a wooden katana sword. This guy is so cool, I can hardly believe it! It was a lot of fun, and it was great to have an ami to come to Samedi sportif, especially, when it was him who taught it!

Sunday was actually a good day at church, as it was fast and testimony meeting. All three members of the bishopric bore their testimonies about missionary work, and I think that this ward is starting to get itself ready to get some stuff going! The only sad thing is that we will be instituting the big plan right before I leave, so I won't be able to see it all in action. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is that things here change for the better, and that stuff starts moving in the right direction!

So that brings us to today. Jean Marie came and picked us up at the church a little after 8:30 and we drove out to the monastery. It is about a 40 minute drive from here. He took us around and showed us what was going on there, all the chapels and everything. There were monks and nuns running around everywhere, and it was really cool. I felt like I was in the Sound of Music! We were there with the zone leaders, who came in last night, and it was sooo much fun! We saw where they study, where they eat, etc. They are at this place for about 4 years, and they learn philosophy and theology, and then they leave to go to another place for a year to learn something else, and then they start going on 3 year missions for the rest of their lives. It is a lifetime commitment, unless you ask to leave, or they ask you to leave.

Today was the day that they celebrated the presentation of Jesus at the temple, when Simeon and Anne both saw him and rejoiced. We had a candle lighting ceremony, and then we went into the chapel and they had some other ceremony followed by a mass. It was my first full on Catholic mass, and I must admit that it was a bit weird. It was cool though, and I liked it.

After that we went and had lunch with the monks. Normally they don't talk when they eat, so the room was just clinking silverware through the salad. Then, one of the head people got up and said that because it was a feast day, they would be aloud to speak. Everyone cheered, and then all the monks started asking us questions. They were from all over the world, including at least four Americans! It was SOOOO cool! Some African monks played some drums and stuff while we ate. It wasn't until after the meal that I realized that we were the only non-monks in the room! Apparently it is a real honor to be invited to eat with them! They all chatted with us about what we believe, and two elders taught them a first lesson. They were SOO respectful though! Man it was cool.

After the meal, some of the monks wanted to drink some coffee with us, but we told them we don't drink it. Then they wanted to drink tea, we don't drink it. They were like, “What do these Mormons drink”! They're lives are harder than ours! They found some orange juice, and we went into some other room and chatted with about 4 of them for a good hour and a half. It was soooo much fun, and they were so nice. We took a TON of pictures; it was such a great day!

After we left, we went and Jean Marie took us and showed us some pretty sights including a castle that is in the middle of a river. It was sweet, and we got a lot of sweet pictures with that too. Basically, today was an AMAZING preparation day, and the work is going really well, and the ward is preparing to do missionary work, and Elder Schmidt is really loving his life! YAY!

I bought a sweet little bead things that the monks use. They have little beads and a cross, just for a souvenir it was sweet. So needless to say, you can only serve your mission once, so I might as well see how they do it here. I could never be a monk, its too intense and involves never being able to be married~ what a bummer, I could never do that. But they where all really nice to us and I had the opportunity to teach four monks by myself about the book of Mormon. When we where eating lunch together it was sweet and I got to talk to an American monk, he was Chinese, it was sweet he asked us soo many questions; it was so cool. At the beginning we weren’t able to speak to anyone, but then they rang this bell and all the monks started chatting with us. What a sweet day, the young guys are just like us, we passed some time together and we where joking and playing around. All in all it was the best p day ever!

I love you all, and I hope that you have an awesome week! Talk to you again soon!

Love, Elder Schmidt