Satan = Loser, Righteous = Winner

Life is good. This past week and a half were great. Last week we spent most of the time in our area and it was great. We met some oppostion, but what it is new? Satan hates what we do. We were teaching one of our amis about baptism and confirmation during Sunday school. We had invited 3 recent converts to come and participate in our lesson. We talked briefly about faith and repentance and then we had a good discussion about baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Everyone remarked that the Doctrine of Christ was very clear and simple. Then almost all at once, each of the recent converts took the time to testify that the gospel was plain and simple, but before each of their baptisms they met opposition from friends and family. They each testified that it was worth the opposition in order to have the blessings of baptism and confirmation. It was a very powerful moment and our amie could feel the support of the other members, understanding that if she met opposition, there would be people around her to support her. We finished the lesson and as we opened the door of the classroom, the mother of our amie was standing there and wanted to speak to us immediately. We then stepped right back into the classroom and the mother told us that she was frustrated and that she was opposed to the baptism of her daughter. Our amie was very sad and she realized that what she had just learned was very real; she realized that the powers of Satan were very real and that Satan did not want her to be baptized. We spoke with her and her mother and then said a prayer together that the opposition of Satan would not keep our amie from being able to follow Jesus Christ. This experience was a testimony to us that we are truly at war with Satan, he controls the powers of evil and we, as servants of the Lord, hold the powers of heaven. I know that we are called to rebuke the power of Satan and pull down the power of the Spirit from Heaven. Satan will lose, and the righteous will win because we stand with the Lord. We as missionaries are all called of the Lord and we must do all we can to overcome the opposition of Satan. We spent Monday and Tuesday back in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille for P-Day / an exchange. It was great!!!! We got to see the Kool Family with Greg and Jolaine, with Elder Baret, Elder Claflin and myself. I love them so much, I am sure you will love them when you come to Aix. We also got to see Robine, which was so good, she is doing well and it was great to see her again and remember how much we experience together. We spent Wednesday and Today with Elder Heywood and Elder Allen, in Lyon on an exchange / a training for all the new missionaries from last transfer. It was great, I spent the day working with Elder Heywood and was with Elder Allen in the apartment and out an about for the training, I love them both. It is cool to see all of my mission brothers again and so often because we can see how much all of us have learned, and experienced. I love you all and I am sorry that I couldn't write before today! LOVE Elder Smith

Miracles

Bonjour;

Wednesday - We taught Anai the plan of salvation, she had lots of great questions and it went really well, she is excited for her baptism. We taught a new family, the mother Victoria is not ready for the gospel but her daught Jessica was really cool, I hope that we will be able to teach her in the future enough if her mom isn't ready. We also went and ate with the Serrano family, the family that Elder Bollero and I helped come back. The mom and dad and 2 daughters are back and active and the one son, yoan, who is so cool is almost back. He is going to EFY this year in Provo!!! SOOO COOL!!! I have already set up the dates and I am going to go see him in the middle of July in Provo. We also stopped by a partial member family for the birthday of one of the daughters and had cake.

Thursday - It was pouring rain, but when we left if was just a little gray. So we got pretty wet until we found our way into an apartment building where we knocked some doors. We taught a less active sister, Aurore and it went really well. She is stopping smoking, she has a real desire and we had a powerful lesson about obedience and faith with her. We then went and knocked some doors with the rule of 10s (the rule of 10s is Presidents counsil to us knock at least 10 doors around every person that we visit) we have met a good amount of people just by that simple finding idea. We got let in some doors and taught, I will let you know if they progress

Friday - We had interviews with Presdent in our Zone. We went and taught Celia the plan of salvation, she is excited for her baptism but there is some oppostion that has popped up for her date, her mom (she lives with her step mom) is open to the baptism but whats her to be with her during that, so we might have to move her baptismal date. There was also a partial member family, the frossard family that called us because their non member kids had questions about the church and they wanted to have priesthood blessings. That was a way cool experience, even though they don't know the gospel they literally called upon the elders of the church for a blessing. It went really well and we had a very powerful moment with them. There was a moment during the blessing that I felt to talk about Chasity ( I was giving a blessing to a fairly cute 19 year old girl) .......awkward...... so i hesitated and I lost all flow of words, I realized that I needed to talk about it and as soon as I did the words came back and the spirit came and she began to cry during the blessing. It was a lesson learned for me to never doubt the inspiration of the spirit.

Saturday - We taught a less active family that is coming back with their home teachers and we also taught Anai about the restoration again because she had a question about Joseph Smith, she told us that she told her mother about her baptism and that her mother supported her, her mother is coming up to France from Spain for her baptism but in order to be there we will have to move her baptismal date, that is ok though because it is going to be really cool for her mom to come.

Sunday - We had church and during church. We taught some people in the afternoon and on the way to an appointment we were headed to an appointment and I saw a young mother but I didn't contact her because we were in a hurry. During the whole lesson I couldn't stop thinking about her. After the lesson I told my companion that we had to go knock on the building that I had seen her by in hopes that we would find her, she lived in the second to last door in the building and her name is Gracy. We taught her and have an appointment to come back this week and teach her with her family.

I love preaching the gospel and this week was one of the best weeks of my mission, I know that this doesn't mean anything to you because you are not on a mission, but we met EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR GOALS this week. We were very blessed, never once have I had every goal, I have had great weeks where we had really great opportunities to teach and find peope but this week we reached the standards of excellence in each level and we had many opportunities where we were led by the spirit in finding and in teaching! I love this work and I know that if we did not have the spirit to lead us and to guide us and to teach us that we would never be able to accomplish anything, life is beautiful and being a missionary is great :)

Love you all!
Elder Smith

PS This thursday it is the birthday of one of my best mission buddies, Elder Pittson. He served in Aix in the other companionship while I was there and he has been in the office with me for the last three transfers. He is gone today for some apartment stuff so for a good portion of my P Day I made a homemade mustache pinata for him with hangers, tape, card board and paper.