Fun pic

we found a dwarf sheep herd in the middle of nowhere on our way to do service :) SO CUTE

Decisions about life

Hey mom, so news. I wrote a letter that explains more, and I am sending a package tomorrow, so hope it gets to you soon! But I have decided to stay and serve all 18 months, which sounds sad to think that I was thinking of leaving earlier, but I just have been praying and I really felt like that was what I was supposed to do. So i figured out i will get home Jan.6th 2016. then in sacrament I had an over whelming feeling like I need to go to Utah State, so thats what I decided and today I just checked the dates and Utah State Starts Jan.11th!!!! BYU both start earlier, its all fitting perfectly. Its going to be hard, I wont be home for a long time, but hey at least this time I will have a phone! And maybe you can come and stay with me for a bit getting everything ready. Idk just ideas, but I love you, and this week was amazing, so much growth and S.Hansen is doing AMAZING! were going to nantes tomorrow after district meeting. I love you all. Excited for the package! I kinda want american food, like those fruit leathers were SOOOOOOOOOO good, :) miss them! I miss the american things this summer. I cant believe it is almost june! My how time flies, but now 7 months :) Im so happy to be here and serve the Lord. 

I love you ,
Love Soeur STevens

Quote from the President this week...

"When we do not retaliate - when we turn the other cheek and resist feelings of anger - we too stand with the Savior. We show forth His love, which is the only power that can subdue the adversary and answer our accusers without accusing them in return. That is not weakness. That is Christian courage.

Robert D. Hales

Rennes missionary conference pic taken from Facebook

Pres quote from email by Emily Freeman‏...

Some of our greatest learning moments may come as we go about our ordinary daily tasks. We must learn to watch for these moments, for these ‘pearls in the field’ of our everyday lives. Then we become true treasure seekers, daily discovering God’s gold.

Upcoming baptisms!

Sorry this email is a bit short, I got a lot of emails from friends this week. but life is good, Im doing awesome, love everything. Missionary work is the best thing on this planet I am so proud of all the work you are doing there I know HF loves you all and your help to hasten the work. We set 2 baptismal dates for the 6 of juin and are hoping for 1 more, so stoked! I love you all have an awesome week!

Soeur Stevens

Picture of apartments...

These are the normal apartments we go and work in we call them "bats" in french apartments is buildings so "batiments"  so we just call them "bats".

Random pics….

                                         So this is just about the best thing I've ever eaten!

Quote..

Pres Babin loves tennis haha this quote is for dad.

Comme vous le savez peut être j'aime jouer au tennis et un grand joueur de tennis que vous êtes trop jeune pour connaître Arthur Ashe a dit : "One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.”

Quick note from her since we had already spoken for Mother's Day!

Hey mom glad you had such a good week, and that you got to talk to all of us! And that you had such a good Mothers Day that is awesome!!!!!!!!!

I am so glad you are loving the missionaries so much, I feel like I should send them a thank you email for all they have done for my family. They are an answer to my prayers too. what was their challenge for you?

I hope you are still finding times to go to the temple. It is one of the first things I want to do when I get back is just go straight to the temple. Man i miss it SO much. 

I love you and all you do!

Missionary life pics...

So this was my planning, I was sitting there and all of a sudden I looked up and saw this... both of my companions falling asleep,,, I love how there is nutella on the floor lol

 So I found this car,,, not even sure if I should call it a car lol,.. that is me... it shows you how truly tiny it really is lol.

A note before mother's day- and a report that she is getting an IPAD...

This week was HARD. lots of rejection. lots of depression. phone calls to President. Thinking about a companion going home. still wondering if it'll happen. 

MIRACLES: taught one good lesson, the others were one of my comps breaking down and crying, I'm thinking about passing some of our amies to the elders so that they get taken care of while I've got to get this drama undercontrol.

Thanks for the package I love it! Really helped me! I really do love these sisters and Soeur Walton is AMAZING I could not do this without her, she is just a ball of laughter, and combined we are really trying to bring life to this equipe. It is pretty hard, but I prayed for mountains, So... yep gotem! 

So happy the ward is doing awesome, and I will get to skype you this week, we are going to one of my favorite families here the Chevé family. They are awesome. I will tell you more on skype, also I dont think we are really aloud a time limit because we dont have ipads, or something, idk we got this new rule book, and everything seems to have changed, we get ipads on the 21st of May. STOKED! so yep.... thats my life. LOVING IT

This was an answer to a question I asked Ashley about her experience developing Christlike attributes from Preach my Gospel #6

Well, recently in the last couple transfers I have really felt myself changing, and  some of it started with the "obedience section in chapter 6. My FAVORITE quote is "obedience is an act of faith" I have learned in this mission more and more that when you are exatly obedient, you faith grows, so how do we grow our faith? By being obedient to all of God's commandments. 

Another is Charity and with that prayer... 

A little while ago I started a prayer list, of everyone I wanted to pray for and the specific needs they had. I listened to a testimony of an elder before he left the mission we call them "dying testimonies" (they are my favorite, I learn so much from them) and an elder told us.

"You know in France everyone has balconies, the french use them to smoke, missionaries use them for prayers, "comme vous voulez" "as you wish" haha. But It was a ways into my mission that I had a serious wake up with prayer. At night when it was time to curl up in bed and say your prayers you huddle up in ball and wrap your blanket around you and you semi look like a turtle, but your warm, and you are tired and you finally start your prayers... then some how 5 minutes later you wake up a little big again and bam, you just slept through half your prayer! haha you know what I am talking about I've seen you all do it! But in reality, I want to sum up my mission in one word. Adversity. and how to over come it. It is when I realized those precious moments of nightly prayers to be so useful. My mission started to get pretty hard pretty fast, as you all know, I found myslef quickly being overwhelmed with the trials I faced everyday. I realized I needed to fall down on my knees and pray. I started using that balcony, I would go and shut the door, at it was just me and God, I started to just pray to God, Let these burdens be lifted from my back, please father I cant do this anymore, and slowly day after day, you dont have the burdens lifted, but God strengthens you to be able to carry them yourself, and then you see the difference, you have more faith, you see your growth, and you become strong enough to then carry others burdens and you start praying for your amies, your families, and in the end your companion. You pray to God, that if you could, just take their burdens off it would all be worth it, and slowly ever so slowly, that is how a missionary has a true testimony of Christ, because we start praying for the same team, we start to understand His love, we as Elder Holland says, "spend atleast a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries andmission leaders have to  take at least a step or twotoward the summit of Calvary." 

Prayer and charity, S.Back has a quote that says "It all comes back to Charity" so true. Everyday I learn that. Service, and charity that is why we are here.