Tuesday 25 September 2018

Excerpts

Some excerpts from Jill's last letter:

About her amazing mission president and his wife:

One of The things I really like about Soeur Sorenson is how she shows love and care for people without being mushy or coddling people. She is very thoughtful. She gave us a muffin recipe, maybe next week I'll share it with you 😁 
About her birthday:

For my birthday, we We're supposed to go around the table and have everyone say something nice about me. Idk if I wrote to you about this but we had a lesson that we forgot about in the chaos of moving and getting locked out, so I had to miss the party and no one got to say nice things about me. I wasn't that sad because like, I can survive without that, but everyone was making a big deal about how I didn't get that and how it was sad so I felt obligated but then I wanted to go to the lesson and I felt horrible for forgetting it.. (I made this a run on sentence for effect, so that you could see how overwhelmed I felt. Not because I think that's an acceptable way to write.)
Anyways. We had a dinner for one of the couple's who left last week and they took a minute to let everyone say their nice things... And elder woods said he has noticed that I am very on time! That was like the most meaningful compliment for me!
It was a fun night because they caterer got mixed up and didn't show up so we went to a restaurant instead! A steak house! And They had unlimited sides! I had ratatouille! And ribs! 

About the great blessings of serving a mission:

...compare the eternal consequences of what I am doing for the people here! Like you should see, the family that we are teaching with the 9 year old son who got baptized in august, their family has CHANGED already. The things we are teaching them are true and are changing their life! They are becoming happier and there is more love in their home. You can really feel the spirit when we are there. (Which is really saying something because the first time we went over they asked us to pray over their house to cast out the bad spirits. Nice, right?) And that's just to mention the blessing that we are immediately seeing in this life, not to mention in the life to come! We went to the temple this week for p day, and the feeling there is hard to describe! I think if I were to put it into one word, I would say it's REAL!

She is developing a strong testimony of the temple grounds:

...We've had some investigators walk into the temple grounds and say "Wow, what is this?" Because they can feel the difference on the dedicated grounds. Other people literally start crying when they go through the gate! It's been so cool to see some of these people to be feeling the spirit for the first time. 

About still talking in her sleep:

I love this talk so much from president Uchtdorf.  I love it so much that I talked about Elder Uchtdorf in my sleep, and woke up Soeur Marteeny. I had said "President Uchtdorf is my FAVOURITE" and so she wanted to joke with me and said " Are you sure it's not elder Holland?" I remember after she said that, I got so worked up that I was pretty much awake and said "NO. I could give you a LIST of why he's my favourite." Nights get pretty wild at our apartment. Usually just because of me.) It talks about how much our church members do and sacrifice. And then how we do it happily! And we look for more to do! I think the concept of sacrifice can be really hard for people. 


About how being a missionary is becoming really internalized:

Sometimes I wonder how I will come home and have to have normal conversations with people where I can't casually share scriptures with them. I guess I could still do it, but it wouldn't be very casual lol. 

On unique things about France:

When you talked about baptizing someone in a pool, I thought wow, that's definitely a California mission thing. There's a lot of things here that make us say, only in the France Paris Mission. Like when you tell people your dinner appointments are only supposed to be an hour, and they laugh or get mad because that's just ridiculous. Any good dinner should take you until 9:30. Or buying five kinds of cheese but "Only getting the staples." Or people being so confused that they need to be baptized again. that's a big one. There's probably some more but I can't really think of them and the clock is ticking! 

On being obedient::

I probably have more questions for you but It's hard with our new "Only reading emails on p days thing." Next week will be better. 
On the flowers I sent her and the package:

They did arrive! They were so beautiful! I forgot to take a picture but the note they attached to it was addressed to Mr jilian Ackroyd. So that was nice. And it was funny to have the elders give me a huge bouquet of flowers.. (the elders in my ward are the assistants so they were at the bureau)
Thank you so much! I have felt so spoiled. I ate my last granola bar today and all the other soeurs were jealous. 


I've been practicing French while Jill has been on her mission. I'm almost at a 70 day streak! This week she sent me her talk in French. Time to do some more French work!
 

Sunday 23 September 2018

Jordan's Home!

It has been a fun week. My nephew, Jordan, came home from his mission to Guatemala this week!




Today Peirce and I drove to Sparwood for his homecoming. The drive out there is so beautiful!



I woke Peirce up at 6:30. He went to the dance last night so he was pretty tired. When I was ready to go at 7:00 I went to his room and he was still asleep!! I was tempted to just leave him - but I woke him up again. He said he just needed 15 minutes. I gave him 9. LOL He made it!


It is always so amazing to see the before and after of a mission. I have a friend who thinks missions are too much to ask. She doesn't like that they don't call often and can't come home for Christmas. If only she could see how much an impact the whole experience has.












Jordan's talk was great. The guy has really grown up. He was a great speaker and shared a few stories. He talked about the plan of salvation and said that when we lived with Heavenly Father we had to leave to progress. Some would think it would be crazy to leave living with Heavenly Father! It's Heavenly Father after all! He compared that to a mission. I thought it was a good comparison.


Jordan was funny. He talked about how his mom got prettier. Taylor got married. Sydney can drive now...and man, did his dad get old. :)

Three of his friends joined the church while he was gone! ...all girls. Two joined the church earlier in this mission. One just got baptized last Friday and he got to baptize her. He had them bear their testimonies. It was pretty neat.

It was great to see everyone.









Tuesday 18 September 2018

Soeur Ackroyd

I am not sure Jill sent a group email this week. These are excerpts from her letters to us:
 
Hi Mom!
 
I did have a great week! Thanks for emailing me! Sorry my P days keep changing... makes things confusing! ...This week is zone conference on Tuesday. After that it will be normal!

It was so fun to meet Tina Shaws family. I was so shocked! I love them! You're right. Lots of people come here that I know! This week I meet someone who taught with grandpa named Rusty or something like that.... he's from Magrath. 

Soeur Marteenys uncle's came in this week! They're not active as they're married.. So it was good for her to be able to talk to them about the temple. I didn't get to though because we were on exchanges. The STL I was with is studying elementary ed at BYU Hawaii!

The temple has such a cool effect on the people that come here. Like this one lady, I was just talking  to her in the gardens and she just stared crying! I hadn't really said anything special either!

I feel like I'm super spoiled when it comes to packages so far... idk if you need to send another one? But I did get my whole district excited about all dressed chips so that would be good. 

The Lawrence's just barely caught me! They came when I wasn't on shift but then we came back from a lesson and miraculously bumped into them in the parking lot. They seem like they have a super cool story as a family. 

The blouse is great! Thank you so much! I'll send you a picture of me in it. Also The Rusty guy took a picture with me in it.

I haven't tried the bars yet, but they look AMAZING. Nuts are super expensive here. Maybe that would be a fun one to send. We got trail mix for 16 euros. That was a bad one. 

And as for masculine and feminine.... there's no trick, no rhyme or reason. It's anarchy and probably the worst part of French. Even verbs are better than in English. It's kind of like as you get speaking and reading and practicing, you get a feel for it. But that's the only way. The good thing is that most people correct you. Are you sure you don't want to learn Russian instead? LOL
What's your favorite Women and the Pulpit chapter? I haven't gotten very far into them. The is so much to study and read. I'm going to make a classic returned missionary resolution to study more when I get home!! ...Also, I'm supposed to prepare a talk for zone conference tomorrow about diligence!  What's your favourite diligence story? Of your own, or fiction, or history? 

I'm looking forward to hearing back from you! Love you!
 

 

Tuesday 11 September 2018

La rentrée (The Start of the School Year)

I don't know why Jill's P-Day gets changed to Tuesday so often. I will have to ask her that! On Mondays I refresh and check email about 80 times an hour until about 11 am when I despair over realizing it's too late in France and she won't be writing that day.

Glad to have received an email today!

Bonjour à tous et à toutes!  (Hello to all!)

I know you must all be SO concerned because I haven't emailed yet this week, but my preparation day got changed to Tuesday! So there's no more need to worry 😉

Miracle of the week: We have an awesome family in our ward who told us their daughter wants to be taught! The mom wasn't a member until a few years ago, so when their children were young they agreed to let them decide on their own religion. So now, their daughter has come to the decision that she wants to be baptized! She's 22 and she's about to start working at the lush right by the temple. Basically, she's every sister missionary's dream! To help her prepare for her baptism, we made a calendar with the lessons she'll need to learn, when her interview and baptism will be. etc. When we handed it to her, she said, "I didn't tell you my birthday, did I?" and we were like... "no..." but we had just happened to pick her birthday for her baptism! Her parents both started to cry and everyone didn't want to speak. Even though it seems like a small thing, it was just what Christelle needed to see how God loves her and cares about all the aspects of her life.

We're so excited to teach her, and all the awesome new people we're meeting and finding. We even have a new Ami who was referred to us from Mormon.org, which is super cool because one of the things we do at the temple is send Mormon.Org referrals to missionaries all over the world! If someone requests a free Bible or Book of Mormon we send the missionaries to drop it off, so it was cool to receive one and have her be so interested in learning more!

Our cheese of the week was Bethamale and I do NOT recommend it.

Another fun thing we did this week was go to the birthday party for the younger brother of two little girls that we're teaching! It was so fun! We sang happy birthday in French, English and Portuguese!

And a fun new French expression for you -« faire la crêpe » means to flip over while you're tanning, or literally, to make like a crêpe. 

That's all for now, hope you're having a great week and enjoying back to school time as much as I am! 

Bisous, 
Soeur Ackroyd


I wonder if there are enough museums that they could visit a museum every P-day. This P-Day's photos are from Musée D'Orsay. 

 (I did a little googling on this museum and I think I've found some info on the works she has pictures of....or I could be totally wrong. Who knows!)
 Selfie statues....aka ladies way ahead of their time

 Deux Fillettes (Vincent Van Gogh)



 Portrait of Vincent Van Gogh

Hercules the Archer Killing the Stymphalian Birds



Les dindons (Monet)

Friday 7 September 2018

Found Pictures


I am becoming more familiar with other moms of missionaries in the Paris, France mission. Some of them have blogs and now and then I find pictures of Jill!






Tuesday 4 September 2018

Tour of the Visitor's Center

Jill sent us a video this week with a tour of the visitor's center in France!

Click on this link to see the video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/AzYh7mG9uLzdJDGHA

Saturday 1 September 2018

100 km/month

I was back to school on Aug 21. I thought I would try getting up at the time I'd need to get up for seminary and still get in 5 km. Didn't work. Mornings are hard after my lazy summer! Most days, I only got in 2 km once school started. Just made it over the 100 km mark. Phew!

My goal this school year is to consistently do 100 km/month.

 

Bonfire Fridays




We like traditions in our house. Allen thought it would be fun to have a tradition of having a bonfire with a bunch of friends so Peirce rounded up a crew and they hung out in Confed Park. It was a lot of fun - but apparently, some of the people in the community don't agree and call the fire department.

They're good at making lemonade out of lemons though!