October 2012 - Miracles follow..

2 October 2012

This week was jam packed.

Interviews, which was awesome. Soo inspirational we could say. President pretty much repeated everything he told us during Zone Council, then his wife spoke well then we had some time where we pretty much summed up everything President said to make sure that everyone understands and applicates it. Good lunch (which we provided) and then the Assistants.

I really like our Mission President.  I want my life to be like his.

So even though a lot has happened, we have been working really hard in our area. Like I said, we have had these masive conferences and everyone is pumped to do and see miracles being performed, but I think the Lord is wanting us to polish ourselves up before we start seeing miracles explode.

I feel like this week was a week of refinement for us, as practically nobody listened to us.  Our message was treated with indifference.  We have been talking with sooo very many people, searching the elect. It's kinda draining.  Having said that, Saturday night we had a cool miracle meeting a girl from Spain, she was carrying heavy bags and we offered to help. We did, turns out one of her besties in Spain is Mormon. Cool little "coincidence" right?? We were able to give her a Book of Mormon last night and tonight shes coming to the YSA FHE here in Lyon :)

We have another 'ami', Rocky, who will be there and hopefully a new 'ami' as well.

Anyways, so lots and lots of finding, the fruits are only starting to blossom.

 

I love my comp, he works harder than me. He is a good example to me, he is a goof.

  

 

This photo in black and white is in our comp study. comp study with 4 in the appartment is a laugh. its not as spiritual but a laugh. when sharing what we learnt during personal study, one missionary took the skipping rope and used it as a mic, next thing its a radio broadcast as we take turns sharing, next thing we all moved to the kitchen and well the photo is the result.

 

This week I also went to St Etienne on exchange. The same day one of the members who I absolutely love, got his mission call.  He saw me in the arvo and showed me the envelope. Later that night he opened it with his family, going to Benen. He called me up. Cool little moment.

Elder J Bennallack

 

 

8 October 2012

It was a fun little week we had.

 

We were able to have two exchanges, and then this week coming we will have one with the Assistants, and also we will be taking a zone training meeting; which actually will replace a district meeting. So the zone will come down and we will teach them from 10 till 12pm, the space of a normal district meeting, eat, then theyll get back to their villas.

Should be fun :)

So as indicated, our area is starting to see some miracles.  The cool things that we had this week were the following:

 

 

We taught a man who is a friend of an investigator of the sister missionaries.  His nephew is a mormon missionary from Africa somewhere.  So that's cool.  He's really open and we talked frankly. Great lessons.

 

 

 

Mario is solid, solid.   He came to Saturday conference, then priesthood which for us is Sunday morning, time difference :) and then stayed to watch conference.  This morning he helped someone move house with us, but we didn't even know he'd be there.   He is just a part of the ward, active.  It's great.

 

 

 

Carolina our less active, had some massive, massive dramas.  It was a really cool experience to be there with her, to be someone that she could trust.  She opened up completely to us one day, and it was just one of those times that makes me thankful for who I am, and the good family I am from.  Carolina came to conference with her cousin.  She absolutely loved it.

 

Our 'ami' Rocky, was at conference on Saturday, liked it, came back and stayed two sessions on Sunday.  He is getting to know lots of members and is becoming socially integrated.

 

It's something that I am coming to understand more and more, spiritual and social conversion.  They are both important :)

These are all great things, but the really big miracles aren't hapening to us, but to others in the zone.



Things like white French families rocking up to church, the missionaries just happening to have swung by the church at the same time, seeing them and having the family ask them if there are ever services? :)  That happened yesterday with the other Elders in our apartment.

There is a french girl who's sister got baptised in New York.  When she went to go visit her, her sister took her to insti and she loved the sister missionaries etc. She just loved the culture.  The missionaries told her that when she got back to France she had to look up the missionaries. She said "ok", but in her head she was hesitant thinking that it would be a bit hard.

 

On the plane ride over to France she was in the same plane as a missionary coming into the mission! She's now enrolled at insti here in Lyon and was at conference yesterday.

 

All these little coincidences, the same type of coincidences that President Monson talked about on Sunday morning.

 

We are doing exchanges with a lot of younger missionaries.  I'm convinced that the Lord is placing the best of the best here in Lyon, France. 100 percent obedient, confident, willing to learn, hitting the ground running, great great missionaries. Better than my generation. I think it's going a lot with the Mission President's vision to multiply the baptisms by 5 in the three years that he is here. So it's just our job to help them be awesome. It's France's time :)
 

I'm loving Lyon, I'm soo glad our zone doesn't have problesms like Elder TB's with disobedience or unmotivation. Everyone is soooo, sooo awesome, so we are focusing on things like praying harder and having more faith.

It's a good time to be a missionary here in France.

 

Elder Bennallack

16 October 2012
 

Last night we had a a Mission President fireside, kinda like the ones that we have in Adelaide but in Lyon.  It was nice, there were about 90 people there, and like the ones we have back home, there were a lot of YSA's who stayed and mingled afterwards.

As Elder Frazier is our District Leader right now, we did an exchange with him.  I actually stayed in the office and did office work for a few hours on Friday morning.  It was fun.  I was sending our references to missionaries which was quite exciting.  Also in that exchange I was able to do a baptism interview for one of their investigators who was baptised Saturday night.
 

 

Thursday, we had a zone meeting training, which was just like a zone conference but only we spoke. We taught for about 2 hours and it went really well.  Elder Pilling and I teach well together. There are lots of things that missionaries have to do and remember and one problem is, that once we are taught a new thing, we have the tendency to let a lot of the older things slide, or we forget to do things. Essentially we need to learn how to keep more than one juggling ball in the air.  Teaching this principle, we mainly revised a lot of little things that we should be doing and the things that President has stressed as of late.

 

 

 

Afterwards we had a little meeting with all of the District Leaders. There were just 7 missionaries there, as President nor the Assistants were there.  It's was really, really powerful as we were able to discusss the zone, different districts, some of their concerns and talk about indivitual missionaries. I felt like a Jedi.

 

 As for our sector, we are still on the hunt.  Lyon is a big city so we just have to sift out the elect.

During the week we were able to eat with Carolina, her cousin and her best friend.  There, we were able to fix a return appointment to teach her cousin and her best friend. It was great. As the cousin speaks good French and the bestie good English, and Carolina good English and all of them good Spanish, there was a little bit of translating going on!  It was neat to see Carolina teach them and just be filled with the spirit whilst doing it.  They ate up the Book of Mormon and were super happy to each recieve one in Spanish :)

 

 

 



Elder Bennallack, Elder Sopi &
 Elder Pilling, at the apartment.



Well, that's my week.  Transfer calls this week, it will be interesting as Elder Pilling and I are both the exact same age. I have a few guesses as what President will do with me. There are a lot of villes opening up, one of them is the Island of Corsica, but 2 frenchies will probs go there, but there are some cool things happening.

Personally, I hope to stay, but time will tell.  Fun times in France, miracles everywhere.
 

Elder J Bennallack

24 October 2012 - Last Transfer

New companions: Elder Wulfenstein & Elder Bennallack



The news of the week is I will die in Lyon. I also was expecting to leave, but I am happy to stay.  I don't feel like I have accomplished what I'm supposed to do here yet.

As Elder Pilling and I would have finished at the same time, it's not suprising that one of us got transferred.  He got sent to Neuchatel in Swizerland with a native Frenchy. Lucky kid. I was a little jealou,s but I'm pretty happy because I recieved one of my favourite missionaries in the mission. He is a bit of a youngan, in his 7th transfer. In his 5th, he was junior in Besancon, then last transfer he was DL and trained in Besancon, and now he is with me. I'm pretty pumped. I see sooo, sooo much potential in him, and he is already the man. So im pretty happy.  My comps name is Elder Wulfenstein (wolf-'n'-steen).



..at the train station.

 

Here is a photo of him and me, also him at the train station with me. It was crazy. 51 missionaries passed through Lyon today, and we had to keep track of them.  Well Elder Frazier in the office kept track, I was on the floor helping them swap trains with all their luggage etc.  It's always a blast, tiring though. Especially today, probs half the trains were late, Frances problem, not ours, but it made things a little more intense :)



President threw the mission on its head again. There is even a Zone Leader who is in his 3rd transfer. The way I see it is, the more missionaries are out of their comfort zone, the more they rely on the Lord, and the more the Lord's work can progress.

 

This past week was also nice, we also had stake conference here.  It was cool because I got to see members from St Etienne who remembered me, and of course people from Villerubanne and Gerland.





"...me and some missionaries that finished up today, who were with me for 3 weeks in the MTC.  Elder Garland (the other redhead) is from England, he told me we should go to the Temple, could be a goer...."

 



 

 

This week we had Zone Council, which is always amazing.  This one, President talked less and there was a lot more ideas thrown around and discussed.  I really liked it.  It was fun to agree or disagree with different points of view and then in the end, having President make a decision, sometimes making me shut up :) I really enjoyed it.

 

This week on Friday, we tried something new.  Just going around speedily seperating people searching for the elect.  President asked us to go around and just ask people in a sense of urgency if they were interested in learning more about Jesus Christ.   So we did.   It was really weird at first, like being on a metro and then asking someone.  When they said no, I wished them a great evening, turned my back and talked to the person behind me, and so on and so forth.  It was something new for me, pushing me out of my boundries.  But out of it, we were able to find a French family that we should be able to teach this week :) A mum and 4 kids between 7 and 18.

Well it should be a solid transfer..

In the apartment there is me, from Australia, my comp is from St George in Utah, there is Elder Sopi, who is French and an Italian. kinda cool.

Elder Bennallack

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