June 23, 2014

Hello again,

Another week has flown by. I feel like time speeds up the closer you get to the end of your mission. Any way things are still going well here in brive. It gets hotter everyday. I forgot how fun it was walking around in missionary clothes all day in the summer time. Other fun summertime things include waking up each morning with new mosquito bites, seeing tons of tourists, and having a higher frequency of loud drunk people on the street outside our appartment as they visit bars and clubs at 2:00 in the morning. This past week with the world cup going on as well a fair and a music festival has brought about a bit of a drought of interested people when we go contacting. The good news is that inspite of all of the beginning of summer craziness things have been going well.

The other day we had an empty schedule and I really felt like we needed to go to another ville in our sector called Tulle. When we have gone there in the past there have always been a ton of cool people to talk with. So we buy train tickets and head over and when we get there it is litterally like a ghost town. We've never seen the place so empty. so we started walking around trying to find people to talk to. After a while I began to wonder why I had felt so strongly like we needed to come here. Just then we stopped this lady and tried to start conversation. She quickly said that she didn't speak french very well and said something in portuguese. Well Elder Martinez could speak with her so he talked with her for a minute and was able to set up a rdv with her. It has been one of Elder Martinezs goals to find a spanish or portuguese ami and here we finally found one in the empty streets of tulle. I know that the Lord inspires and leads us in this work.

We have been seeing alot of cool miracles all throughout the mission and President Roney mentioned in the newsletter this week that we have been seeing a high boost in success these past few weeks. I am sure that this has to do with Elder Andersens visit to the mission as well as some lofty goals we have set as a mission. When Elder Andersen spoke he talked alot about faith. He mentioned how faith is believing in the impossible. When our faith is strong we see miracles. We see the Lord accomplish impossible things. As we set goals and strive to do things that are possible with faith and impossible without God and as we move forward with diligence and patience we will have our faith rewarded.

I can testify that I have seen miracles on my mission. I have seen faith trump logic. I have seen success when everything seemed to be going against us. I know that we can truly do all things in the Lords strength, even the impossible. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to learn principles like this on a daily basis as a missionary. 

Love ya,

Elder Swenson