It's Bretagne!

As a member in Sene was driving us back pass the harbor, his wife asked us,"Do you want any pictures?" yes.

My exchange with Soeur Romero. Just kidding. But there is a crazy over population of cats here

A returned missionary member came with us this week to go out contacting people and the first thing she says is that her boyfriend is no longer her boyfriend. I was tricked until she pulled out her ring and said, "He's my fiancée!" And then Soeur Waite asked,"How long has it been?" And she added,"A month....(grins even bigger and adds) and A WEEK!"

no comment. haha. we all saw that one coming. so I made her hold up the ring for a picture!

This next picture has a story. A member was showing me through a memory book and came upon this advertisement for a church sponsored musical group that came around her hometown when she was a recent convert in the late 70's. Which happens to be the same time my Dad was serving a mission in Belgium/France....

Yep. So my heart about stopped when she flipped to the next page and there at the very bottom, I found a hand-written, yet very familiar signature belonging to an Elder Vincent Hopkins. Tag. I found you, Dad! I had to stop to take it in because my whole mission, I've been looking for some sort of trace of my Dad during his own mission in 1977 to 1979 to show him. And apparently it was important enough to this sister that she kept it! And scrapbooked it! And 35 years later, I get to see it!

Hey Dad, does this look familiar?

This week I got sick and all the members were trying to blame it on
the weather changing/etc. and I'm just thinking, "It's Bretagne!
Anything is possible here and anything, including a weather change,
can happen in just two minutes." I promise it's true.
I am so grateful for my companion. How grateful? So grateful.
I came down hard with a cold, I was useless and
part zombie. So while I sat in a corner during church, Soeur
Waite gave my talk for me. But because the branch president and his
counsellors were also gone, she had to play the piano, participate
unexpectedly in a musical number and translate in my place. So as soon
as she finished translating, she passed the mic to me and got up to
give her talk in French. The part that made it even more ridiculous
was that almost all of the branch was missing and the majority of
everyone spoke English.

Yep, I'm grateful for my companion.

This week there were so many miracles and unexpected surprises!
We went to district meeting in Rennes and then right as soon
as we got back, we met up with the sisters from Nantes and split up to
do exchanges in Vannes. I always love when we do exchanges because we
always see so many miracles and find people to teach.
Soeur Romero and I had some of our plans fall through so we decided to
go work in area where we'd met another one of our investigators. As
soon as we got into the building, we knocked on the first door and
they weren't interested. So when we moved on to the next door, their
door cracked open again. A little boy walked out, followed by his
other siblings. But as soon as he reached the staircase, he tripped
and fell straight onto face. Without even a moment to react, his mom
emerged from the apartment and seeing that he'd fallen started yelling
at us. She seemed that she was already stressed out of her mind and so
she just unleashed all of her anger as she picked up her son and left
the building leaving us no time to explain what had happened or even
to help her.

I was a little shook up, so we mounted the staircase all the way to
the top of the building just to take a breather and so I could pull
myself together. But then we kept going, and the second level down is
when we met our friend Corinne.

She let us in for a minute and we got to know her better. Corinne is
from la reunion and has lived in France for a long time now. She has
always believed in God, but had a period of her life when she really
began to doubt. She had so much going for her in life until a serious
mental illness caused her to loose everything. It was such a powerful
experience as we conversed at her table and she shared a drink with
us. At one point, she asked us to read a chapter from "our book." And
so we read to her from 3 Nephi 11 about Christ appearing to the people
in the Americas after they experienced so much destruction. We read
through to a certain point and turned to her to ask her what she felt.
She said,"More joy than any other prayer book she's ever read." That's
the spirit right there testifying of it's truthfulness.

Oh, so good! We're gonna see her this week again. Yay! Found a new
ami! Anything is possible in Bretagne!

There are so many more experiences I would love to share, but you're
just going to have to look at the pictures and ask me any questions. I
love you all! Going strong and taking advantage of my time to testify!

With Love,

Soeur Bronte Hopkins