For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also...

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Sorry this week isn't super detailed, it went by really fast and I was very busy. We started by having a super fun soirée famille with the young adults and played games, and they wanted us to do it in English, anyway we had a super fun time, and our amie who is a young adult came and she had a blast. So we now have them scheduled for every Monday! Then Tuesday was zone conference and we went to Paris. It was a really good conference, but we were a little late with trains so that's why I was in the back in the photos I'm sure you've already looked at from Facebook lol. I had the best interview ever with Soeur babin, I LOVE HER, she really is like another mom to the missionaries. We just talked about my testimony, and the change that happens to us. Then I talked with President and mostly just about going home, he told me what to start doing, and I'll send another email with more detail, I think you have to call SLC. Missionary department travel. Anyway, after a long day of us being one of the last for interviews, we finally made it to the gare, and voila our train left, so we all had to take the train to Orleans, and then it's like a fork that splits to Bourges and Blois, but when we got to Orleans the train only kept going to Bourges, so we took the Blois elders and walked across town to the big gare, where they found the next train didn't leave for a good 1.5 hours. None of us had had dinner or water since lunch in conference and it was 9 at night, so we told them if they chilled in our parking lot we would give them some water. So we all kinda sat there in our parking lot waiting for their train lol they didn't get home until 11. Yikes! But he was the DL, so I don't think that was a worry. Then Wednesday and Thursday we went to NOGENT for exchanges. It was super cool to see the ville again, and I got to see the bishop, and some members I worked with that we're like, "Soeur Stevens! We thought you would be home by now! How long has it been?" Hahaha thanks guys, I love them. Oh and a member I knew from Rennes got his mission call to Indiana Indianapolis mission, and was visa waiting in NOGENT so I got to see him too! Then on the RER ride we were sitting next to this guy who was Asian and speaking some other language, I was like eh, maybe mandarin? Nope. It was Cambodian lol (sorry Andrew). But I asked him, something about RER and he saw my plaque so he started asking questions, he speaks English more than French, and I asked him if he knew the Elder missionaries. From what he said it sounded like he had known them, but he said no he'd never met them, just seen them every week since he'd moved to France. He said, "I see them all the time always laughing and smiling, but it's not just that, they have a genuine happiness, I can't find that here in France." It was awesome! So we gave him our number and I hope it goes well! He was super curious about us though, all from just seeing the missionaries always with a smile on their face. He taught me a lesson that day, sometimes missionary work really is just a smile to a stranger. Then Friday we saw more miracles, a guy stopped us while he was on his bike and asked if he could take our lessons and learn more about us.. Ok.🏼🏼 im feeling on top of the world haha. Saturday came and went just as fast, and Sunday we got to meet some non practicing members thanks to an elderly couple, and a missed appointment lol. Lots of stuff happened, and once again full of miracles, and learning opportunities. I still find there are so many life lessons I need to learn, and so many ways to learn them here. I just feel like sometimes 18 months there is no way I can learn everything I need, but hopefully I'm getting something. 

One big lesson this week: 

"Oublie toi, et va travailler" forget yourself and go to work. I realized at the beginning of the week, I was kinda thinking about home, and reading through emails of all the fun things my friends were doing back home, and I think a little piece of my heart was there, because that was where I had placed my treasure. 

3 nephi 13:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

At first I thought maybe it's just going to bit a bit of a rough week, but after a couple days, I realized there was something different. It was me who was making myself suffer. It was because I was focusing more on myself, than I was on others. One thing Soeur Erickson taught me was, you can be the best missionary on the planet and find x number of investigators in a week, and have x number of lessons, but the real questions is "how much time out of everyday, when it's just you, do you think about your amies, and your members?" That is the real test, and I don't think anyone is a perfect missionary, but I do believe what we choose to spend our time on says a lot about our character, and if we begin to choose to think of others instead of ourselves, it can lead to a whole lot happier life. I had started to think more about home, than the blessings I had in front of me. When we put our treasure(time) on others, there will our hearts(happiness) be also. Anyway, that is my rant, thinking about others leads to actions to help others, which leads to changing lives, "The only limit you have is the one you set yourself, we'll never know our full potential unless we push our selves to find it"  -Travis Rice

Love you tons,

Soeur Stevens