Rewards of service in the Mission Field

"Through service to others, we develop a Christlike love and we experience joy. Service teaches patience and long-suffering as well as gentleness, goodness, and faith."

--Merrill J. Bateman,, "Living a Christ-Centered Life", Liahona, Dec 1999, 13

Here's Elder Lyman's email dated Aug. 31, 2009:

Ok well it's Monday again. Ok to start off Kristi's translation was very close and I'm quite impressed. The exactest translation would be:God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. Dieu-God est-is notre-our Pere-Father Celeste-Heavenly/Celestial et-and il-he nous-us aime-loves. So very close, just really missing "our".

Next one; "Il fallait q'une expiation soit faite afin que nous puissions arriver au Royaume Cèleste et vivre avec notre famille en la prescence de notre Pere Cèleste a jamais". I did that one kind of fast and left out some accents and stuff but I think it is mostly good.

I actually find it funny that mom brought up burritos in a letter as a recipe I could try because there something we do very often in the mission called a burrito fete (fete means party) which is just a mission recipe for burritos inherited from the Bordeaux Mission, though I've never really thought of them as especially healthy. Along with that, a question; do white beans exist in the states? Because that is what we use is white beans, which just seem to be normal like pinto, and the ones we use are in tomato sauce. So I am planning on doing to recipe often after the mission and I am just wondering how similar it will be to here.

We did service for a couple of less actives and their non member family members the other day and it was really cool. They were very very appreciative and, as where some of the family had been a little against missionaries and stuff before I think, they all ended up coming to the church that night for an activity (which was a burrito fete). Then yesterday the less active lady came to church for the first time in a really long time and then we ate with them last night at their house and shared a spiritual thought and sang and stuff and they seem to like us now. So that was cool. Also we had an investigator show up to church yesterday unexpectedly and he seemed to be happy and was asking about baptism and stuff so we are planning on committing him this week. So that's basically what happened this week.

Also, I had thought that we could only go into Paris on Paris P-Day, other than expo and stuff, but we asked president and he said it's close enough that we can go on P-Day. So after I wrap this up me and Elder Smiley are going to the Louvre and doing some stuff in Paris. So I was very pleased to learn I can do that on P-Day, which makes sense since it takes us less time to get to downtown Paris than it does to get to our church here. So that is what we'll be doing today and I'll probably be going in every once in a while on P-Days now that I know I can.