Fifty-four

This week was an awesome week! We had district meeting in Perigeux, an
exchange in Brive, and we moved apartments, sort of :) The new
apartment is awesome! It is about 3-4 times bigger then our old
apartment and it is high up so you can see the city of Angouleme.
This is the last week of the transfer! It is nuts!
I have already been here in Angouleme for 3 months. Elder Curtis
and I came in and I am older then he is in the mission so
anything could happen. I don't have a lot of time to write but I love
you all and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Duffy

Fifty-three

We had Zone Conference this week in Bordeaux and it went well! We talked about wearing the whole armor of God. Since President Brown is an archer he brought his bow, and he let 2 missionaries shoot it, symbolizing the fiery darts of Satan. Sadly I was one of the two, but it was legendary quand même. The Spirit was strongly present at the conference and it was a very spiritually uplifting experience.

We found a new apartment! It was awesome! It is in a really nice part of the city and is probably 2 to 3 times bigger then our current apartment.

The dawn has broken! We were blessed to start teaching five new people this week. 

The last three weeks has been what we call in this mission "the grind". But now, the future is looking bright! I think this next week there could possibly be 3-5 new people with baptismal dates.

There are two things I have been thinking about this week. 

First: What is truth?

President Uchdorf addressed this topic in 2013 as a devotional talk.  

Here is a part of the talk I really enjoyed.

The Blind Men and the Elephant 

Over one hundred years ago, an American poet put to rhyme an ancient parable. The first verse of the poem speaks about:

Six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

 Might satisfy his mind.

In the poem each of the six travelers takes hold of a different part of the elephant and then describes to the others what he has discovered. One of the men finds the elephant’s leg and describes it as being round and rough like a tree. Another feels the tusk and describes the elephant as a spear. A third grabs the tail and insists that an elephant is like a rope. A fourth discovers the trunk and insists that the elephant is like a large snake.

Each is describing truth.

Because his truth comes from personal experience, each insists that he knows what he knows.

The poem concludes:

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

We look at this story from a distance and smile. After all, we know what an elephant looks like. We have read about them and watched them on film, and many of us have even seen one with our own eyes. We believe we know the truth of what an elephant is. That someone could make a judgment based on one aspect of truth and apply it to the whole seems absurd or even unbelievable. On the other hand, can’t we recognize ourselves in these six blind men? Have we ever been guilty of the same pattern of thought?

I know for myself I am like these men of Indostan, I look at most situations/problems with a very limited, biased view and I believe most of us do. If we can master our mind, everything follows. That is what the Book of Mormon says in Alma 60:23.

23 Do ye suppose that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay. Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also.

The second thing that I have been thinking of this week is we need to understand history of other religions to better understand our own and where others are coming from. This has been on my mind because of an experience Elder Curtis and I had yesterday. We were going to pass by a less active’s house and I saw this guy on the side of a street with a nice beard, so I said to him I really like your beard, not trying to start a conversation because we had something to do but just compliment him. He said thank you and invited us over. This man is Muslim and he told us he had talked to other Mormon missionaries.  He knew quite a lot about our religion and what I know of his is very biased and influenced from many factors that I have heard. He told us that we should not change our religions views but that we should know about others as well and I totally agree with him. I feel sometime I was scared to learn about other religions because it would weaken my faith. But actually, I have learn it reinforces my testimony about things I hold dear.

I am so glad that I can see the whole “elephant”.

I love you all, but I am especially appreciative to my earthly parents who had the faith, hope, and charity to have taught me this principles in my youth.

Sincerely,

Elder Duffy

Fifty-two

Bonjour a toute le monde 

So this week was packed full of a lot of things we had to do. 

-we found a new apartment

-helped the Poiter sisters move

-District meeting in Limoges

-Exchange in Brive la Gaillarde

So we were practically everywhere except Angouleme but it was still a good week :)

Wednesday: I was with Elder Bentley and he is a new missionary so it was a good time. It was basically a day full of contacting and we had 17 contacts and 3-4 of them were practically lessons. In order to be a lesson you have to pray with someone and praying in the road is a little weird in France :) But we met a Spaniard, a guy from Jerusalem and many different other types of cultured people. We ate at a Chinese Buffet and it was literally the best thing ever! 16 euros from everything you would like! It was a dream :)

Thursday: We had district meetings in Limoges. It was good and the main theme was about loyalty.  It was a really good meeting and Elder Brill, my last collegue is at Perigeux now so it was good to catch up with him. We took a TER train from Limoges to Angouleme and it took two hours! It was crazy so we got home around 19h30.

Friday: We helped the sister missionaries move apartments in Poiter. It is a really cool city and it really reminds me of Dijon. The mission rented out a camion and we just went to work. It took us to 19h30 at night and then we had to take the last train to Angouleme. When we got back we saw the really cool rainbow.

Saturday: We had some lessons and weekly planning. We passed by some potentials as well and it was a really good day.

Sunday: We had church and then more passing points. A family from Limoges came and they are really cool. His wife taught me to play a bit of piano.

So that was this week. We have zone conference at Bordeaux tomorrow and should be a good boost to get more energized.

I love you all and thank you for everything you all do. May we all continue on with an eye single to the glory of God and keep on walking with hope, faith, and a twinkle in our eyes.

Elder Duffy

Fifty-one

Hello everyone! Sorry for not writing yesterday. We got permission

from our Zone leaders to switch P-Days this week because literally on

Monday everything in Angouleme is closed so we changed it to today.

This week there is not a lot to report on. All our Amis are still on

vacation and Angouleme seems a little empty because everyone seems to

be anywhere else. I will send you a photo of what Elder Curtis and I

have been working on this week. We have been putting all the addresses

in our areabook on this app on our IPads so we can pass people in a

certain area when we are there. As well we have been cleaning and

preparing to change apartments.

This afternoon we have 2 appointments to look at new apartments so it

should be fun. One said it has an Italian shower so I am pretty

excited for whatever that is.

This week I have been thinking on really how lucky we are to have the

gospel and to have a latter-day prophet. It is truly a

magnificent blessing that we have that I can't even describe in words

how lucky we are. May we continue to walk in faith with a hope

singular to the glory of God.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the

children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with

Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also

glorified together. (Romans 8:16)

39 For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the

immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

As we taken up our daily cross and do the things that would make God proud

of us, even if it is found strange in our modern society. May we see

others not as they are right now but as they can become. May we focus

on the most important things in life and not the minuscule. May we all

do some self reflection, a self interview, and look on how we can put

off the natural man and become saints through Christ and be joint

heirs with him and an earthly savior for others.

I love you all and may God bless us all with more humility and joy in

the journey.

With love,

Elder Duffy

Fifty

Simple meals I can fix!

This week as the title has been one of much finding! A lot of our solid

amis are either out of town or have stopped answering calls :( mais

C'est la vie. At the beginning of my mission we would have been just

doing a lot of contacting and trying to go "ham" but Elder Curtis and

I are trying another technique. In our area book there are a lot of

potentials that only have addresses and no numbers. So we have been

putting their addresses and passing them and it has actually been

going quite well. We have this new friend Kevin and his family. He has a

very unique story on how he started following God, and I

would like to share it with you. Back in the year 2000 Kevin was

camping with two of his friends near to a cliff. It was night and they

were talking around a campfire, when suddenly, one of Kevin friends disappears. Kevin and his other friend start searching for their friend frantically and the next thing Kevin knows he is in the hospital. What happened was Kevin's friend had

fallen of his chair backwards and skidded down this steep slope and

off of the cliff. It was about 25 meters on the downward slope and

25-35 meters of this cliff. When Kevin and his other friend found he was missing Kevin had blindingly went through the same fate and fell off this cliff. Miracously, Kevin and his friend both survived but they both came out of this experience different. Kevin changed the course of his life traumatically and started living the principles that he had learned since his youth. It is such a amazing story of

survival and preserving. He didn't come out of this accident without

scars. He is missing some muscles in his back and he has some

gashes on his  head. But one thing that I omitted to say about Kevin is he

is probably the most fit person I have ever met.  His house is

filled with trophies of running and karate events. I actually think his

fitness level helped him to survive. He also showed us some moves with

his nunchucks.  

Our Branch President, his wife, and two grandchildren were in

an autoroute accident two days ago so if you could keep them in your

prayers. I think Soeur Savreux got injured pretty bad.

Love you all family and friends and have a great week! As well if you

have not started doing genealogy, you need to start. I have

started looking at my family tree 3 weeks ago and it is really a

wonderful thing to see.

Love you all!

Enthusiastically and Sincerely,

Elder Duffy

Forty-nine

I hope everyone of you had a great week! Sorry that this letter is

going to be short and don't have a lot of time :(

So I would just like to focus on Christ Kevine's baptism. It was

really great! There were about 20-25 people there, about 10-15 members

and 6 other people that are Christ Kevine's friends. It lasted 3 1/2 hours because 

we had a barbecue afterward.

I won't send you the all the details of the service but I

will share some funny moments. At the beginning of the service

Christ’s friends just began to go up to people and take photos and

videos of people singing, it was the first time I saw something like

that :) After the first song the Branch President, President Savreaux,

told them in a really polite way that they can't do it. But besides

that Christ was really happy before and especially after his baptism and confirmation.  

It was a great experience for everyone involved. Really the Spirit of God is manifested 

very powerfully during sacred ordannces and we need to

remember and hold tight to those moments when we can't deny when we

felt the Holy Ghost. That's why the scriptures keep saying remember

for that exact reason. I love you all and I will write a more next week.  

Elder Curtis and I will be staying another transfer here in Angouleme.

Have a great week!

Avec amour,

Elder Duffy

Forty-eight

Hello everyone!

Let me just say that this week was hot! It reached 40 degrees Celsius
a couple times which I think is just lower or higher then 100 degrees
Fahrenheit, so it was hot :)

Tuesday: We went to the hospital at around 11 am to get the stitches out of
Elder Curtis belly. We were there for about an hour with Frere Banks.
A great man from the south of London and he is super funny!
After that he took us out to McDonald's and dropped us back at our
place. We had service actually planned at his place but his wife and
him had to cancel because something came up.

Wednesday: It was a pretty packed day. We had three lessons with
friends.This week we saw Chris Kevin just to make sure that he
is going to be ready for his baptism this Saturday. Everything has
been planned and he is so ready! He has such a desire to do missionary
work as well it is super cool! I will send you a photo of the baptism
next week and all the details of what happened. He even asked me if I
could be the person that baptized him! I am pretty nervous because
I have never baptized someone all by self before.
I helped in a baptism in Montpellier with Frantz but all I did was make
sure that he all the way under the water. So it
will be a super cool experience and I am excited :)

Thursday: We had our studies and then cleaned for 3 1/2 hours in a mission wide
cleaning day. It was fun and we threw away about 9 full bags of trash.
It was a good time :) Then we headed to Brive because I had to do
my legality in Brive and we also had an exchange. It was really fun
and everything worked for my legality so it is a good de stressor.

Friday: We finished the exchange in Brive and we did a lot of contacting and
found a couple of interested people. We left Brive around 5 and it
took the rest of the night for us to get back to Angouleme.

Saturday: We had some rdvs  in the morning and weekly planning at the night. It
was a really good day but the coolest thing that happened is we
contacted a man from Ireland and we started talking to him a little
bit. When he looked at my tag he started going off about the Duffy
clan and he showed me on a map where the Duffy's live in Ireland. It
was super cool. We are from central Ireland in between the two big lakes.
 I guess there is a big valley and that is where the Duffy clan
is from. He said my name used to be O Duffigh and
then with time and changes it came to Duffy. It was super cool! We are
going to talk to him the first week in August because he just left on
vacation. It got me super hyped for genealogy. I am totally
going on a European tour/backpacking trip post mission and going back
to the homeland (Ireland) :)

Sunday: We had church and have just been coordinating the
baptism with all the leaders here. It has been two years since a baptism
in Angouleme so people are pretty excited. After
church we went to the Banks and had lunch with Chris.
He is getting incorporated into the Branch just
fine. After that the Banks dropped Elder Curtis and I back chez nous
and then the Mazalyrats, the only active family in the branch picked
us up and we went to a hospital to see Soeur Mazalyrat's motherer and we gave
her a blessing. It was really fun. Missionary work is a lot more
enjoyable when you work with the members.

So that was this week! This Friday is when
we will get our transfer calls, and on Saturday Chris Kevin's baptism!

I love you all and thank you for all the support and
prayers! It is such a blessing being a missionary and I know this is
the greatest and most important work that is our blessing to do.

En avant

With love,

Elder Duffy
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