Wherein Julia hits the road, hits the tracks, and hits the Book of Mormon

(Mother's Note: Julia's letter's appear on the new webside.: Maternal Alchemy. Please update your links!
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Whoa!! What a week!! We were only been in Nîmes 3 days, and 3 days in other villes! On the 3 days that we were here, we had soo many RVs and were running around like mad missionaries.

One of our new amis, Corrine, who is an old ami and had a baptismal date, is great! Hehe said she no longer smokes pot, but does currently smoke cigarettes, ALOT! Her apartment is so disgusting! Soeur Kim and I have been having this ongoing conversation lately, about how people AREN’T embarrassed by their dirty homes that stink. I don’t know if I can explain this into words, but here is her apartment, kitchen: dishes and pans that are full of water (to soak I guess?) and molding because they have been there so long. A pile of clothes that is about 6 feet long, and as tall as I am...just clothes, probably never are worn or washed, but she did tell us with a slight laugh in her voice, that it used to be taller. There was a THICK layer of dirt on her floor, obviously hasn’t been swept in ages, and of course, to top it off she has 2 cats! It was absolutely disgusting in there!! And the smell is beyond describable! I hope that Corrine is still an ami or baptized by the time we come back so Mom, you can experience this with me! It is great! I do love Corrine, she had concerns about The Book of Revelations, we explained it, she accepted it quite well, and made the connection herself that Joseph Smith didn’t write the BOM! So cool! Hopefully we will be recommitting her to baptism soon!

Friday was Zone Conference, soo amazing!! All about the Atonement! It was so spiritual!! My soul was fed, and now I am spiritually FAT!! Haha So good! President just kind of wrapped everything together for me, questions that I had...Elder Rudd is going home, and mentioned how a mission is a marathon. But I was thinking about it, and it isn’t like you are running really fast in the beginning and in the end you are tired, but through the mission you get tried and need a push, and then at other times you are just going strong and smooth cruising! Like in the Ensign article “Refined by our trials” By James E. Faust, the story of the Pioneer that said he could only make it to the sand and then he would quit, because that was as far as he could go, but once he got to the sand, the wagon started pushing him. Sometimes in our life, or missions, the marathon, the Lord is pushing us. It is so true, until we can go ourselves, and then we can start running ourselves.

Then I read a couple pdays ago, Mosiah 2:20-22 (I know I already shared this...) but we need to serve him who created us, render thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, and all he requires of you is to keep his commandments and he has promised that he will bless and prosper you! What a blessing!! So keep his commandments; get your contacts, teach with members, be obedient to the rules, and he will prosper you in the land; you will have amis to teach, you will see miracles! So in this marathon, the Lord is our coach, and sometimes he is running right beside you, or right behind you pushing you along the way! So cooool how the Atonement works in our daily lives! Not just when we have sinned or done something bad, but all the time!!

So we are on our way home from Zone Conference, remind you that it is a 3 hour train ride, and I don’t love the train after not eating...well we are sitting next to this lady and her daughter, we talked to them, got her number and she is interested but lives in another ville, so we gave her number to the Elders, and her daughter asked us if we wanted to play a game! WHY NOT? We aren’t going anywhere! So with the 11 year old Cindy, we played “Guess the animal!” Yeah! That really helped our French, and gave the little girl an advantage to win because we had to look up every descriptive word or animal up in the dictionary! But it was really fun!! Come to find out the word for paw is patte, the same word as noodles...so I was so confused at what they were really saying, and then it turned into a joke, and the girl kept guessing noodle dishes, “Spaghetti!” and then she would laugh really loud and our neighbors weren’t to happy, but we had a lot of fun, and her Mom really liked us! Hehe I hate it when you have what animal it is and you have to search for it in the dictionary...and someone else guesses it, AND IT IS THE SAME WORD in French! Ahh hehe but it was ALOT of fun!

So they leave and we are just riding on the train, chitchatting, lounging because of motion sickness, and BOOM!! The train nearly derails! So scary! I saw my life flash before my eyes, and our side of the train sliding against the gravel! Really scary! You can imagine the gasps coming out of my mouth! So the train comes to complete stop, very quickly! We wait, and wait, for 45 minutes (and all the other missionaries have left but us because we are the farthest, but the Elders are in first class because they forgot to buy their tickets...) and we are messaging the Elders back and forth, challenging them to memorize a scripture before the train starts moving, just having fun....then the announcer lady comes up, “Désole, mais nous avon eu un accident de personne.” Excuse me? An accident of a person, not sure what that means...the Elders message us, and they are right by the controllers, and they hear them discussing that they hit a child! And we have a minimum wait of 2 hours!

So we grab our stuff, and remind you we were at the front of the train (where the child was hit) and the Elders are at the back, quite a long walk! It took us a good 15 minutes to walk back there, shuffling through all the people, we couldn’t exit the train obviously, but all the doors were open for people to smoke! So we get to the Elders, they are in first class, and my goodness those chairs are NICE! So it is 10pm, and we just chitchatted for 2 hours and 45 minutes, we didn’t get home until 1:30am!!! We were between Montpellier and Nîmes, and once we started going, it was a 10 minute ride to the Nîmes gare! Not far at all!!!

But so sad!! Sooo sad for this family! We have no information on what happened or why this child was on the tracks, but so sad! We want to find them and teach them about the Plan of Salvation!!! We were really tired!!

We did this cool activity with Soeur Fayl and Uyanga, where Nephi gets tied up by his brothers, and we tied them up and they had to figure out how to tie up themselves! Not as hard as we think it is! Same with our prayers, we think the answers are a lot bigger, but sometimes we have to search for them...It was fun watching them try to untie themselves, up and over, around, and really you just have to loop something and you are out!
Soeur Fayl told us later that that lesson really answered some of her questions!! So cool! I really hope Uyanga had that also! And of course Inkoni doesn’t wear a diaper, and peed ALL over the floor, so gross!! Hehe but not a normal RV unless Inkoni pees!!

General Conference! LOVE IT! Since we are 8 hours ahead of time, we only see Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning (but we watch this one at the same time you do! You at 10, us at 6!) And since we stayed late we slept over at the Soeurs!

I LOVED David A. Bednar's talk! I just love how slow and clear he speaks! So full of the spirit!!! I LOVE him! How he explains this is soo good! Sorry I don’t have my notes here, but I really liked it!!! Hehe and how enthusiastic Russell M. Nelson is, he is just soo great! Anyway, I am really excited to get the Ensign and read all the rest!! I love conference!!

I am currently in Mosiah 27 in the Book of Mormon in French! Love it!!! Oh my gosh, reading it in a different language is a completely different experience!! Hate to admit it, but I am understanding more and getting more of the story and who is who, because in French I have to really pay attention!! Soeur Kim and I were talking this morning in comp study, how never before have I appreciated the BOM like I do as a missionary. So sad!! Why didn’t I before? Why didn’t I read it every day in high school and understand the stories? Not only are they teaching, but soo fascinating and gripping!! It is becoming as entertaining as TV!! I can’t get enough!!

I just passed the part where Alma and his people are taken as ‘slaves’ by Amulon and told they cant pray...haha yeah right! They pray anyway, and in short, their fardeaux, not sure what the word is in English, but they are strengthened and then delivered out the of the hands of Amulon because they fell ASLEEP! And then they go to Zarahemla with Limhi and baptizes Limhi and his people!! So cool!!! Hehe maybe this is just random, but I am just loving this!! And I realized during conference, this book is soo powerful! Because it wasn’t written for entertainment, that is just an added bonus! But this book really affects everyone who reads it! I know we know that President Hinckley reads it every day, but it just hit me that it speaks to him, just like it does to me, not in the same way, but the Spirit speaks through the Book is such an amazing way! I cant explain what I want to, but it is just so cool!!!

Soo...I don’t know if I told you about the new family, from the Montpellier Soeurs, We have yet to meet them, but the RV is Saturday! So excited, they will be baptized, they are amazing!! Quick overview, they are from Algeria, persecuted for being Christian, so they moved her and discovered that the Christian world isn’t just ONE church!!! But many! And they happened to fall into the True one!!! Watch out!!!! More details next week!!!!

I love you!!!

Soeur Julia Morrow

Julia took a picture of these Native Americans.. lip-syncing to Native American music.
Julia looking like Monica from Friends (see episode from Season 3: The one with the chick and the duck)