Le Miracle 7.6

February 24, 2014

Aight! Week 6!!! Predictions? Will the WWII équip stay together?? Or is it the end? We'll find out friday!! 

Ok so this week..couple cool things. Though i feel like my memory is getting worse. i only remember the end of the week. sorry. the rest is in my journal.....i am quite amazed that I have written in it everyday. before the mission i never wrote in my journal and now i do it every night. 

so thursday we had district meeting in bordeaux and after the meeting i made some phone calls we needed to make. one of them was to the office. Frère Murer asked me if i could/would call the bureau to ask if he could use the mission credit card to buy stuff so i could fix my bike. (remember how it broke last week?) well the office elders said nope. He told me to just go to a sports store called Décathlon and buy brand new bikes....i was kinda surprised. So I was on exchange with Elder Powell again...so we bought brand new bikes..the thing is..there are no shocks, speeds/gears, etc. and they even have a girls frame.....thank goodness it is black. but i was talking to the office about it the whole time and Elder Asay (from Dallas TX!!!!) was telling me everything we should buy. He told me that I was going to be an experiment for the rest of the mission. If these bikes worked out well then the rest of the missionaries in small villes like mine would receive brand new bikes. So far they are pretty good. They ride really well. they look horrible but they ride well. and goodness i am sorry to tell you but i have a very sore body. ha they ride rough without shocks but the rear end will get used to that soon. 

Ha the next day elder powell and i had fun getting back to bordeaux to switch back...our train got cancelled so we ended  having to take a bus to bordeaux that took 3 hours then i had to take a train back to agen 2 hours after arriving in bdx and the train took 1.5hrs. sooooo 6.5 hours in bus, train, gare... that stunk. but after that we decided with sam to push his date for baptism to the 15 of march so he could prepare a little more. 

saturday we had our baptismal partners (rule that they have to teach our ami before we can baptize) from bergerac come down. I was with Elder Sanchez. He and I had a packed day in Agen... we had 4 lessons! seriously had to run from rdv to rdv. it was tight. but it was awesome. funniest part of the day was when elder sanchez ate dirt on the bike. i was riding and i mounted the curb...he saw it last second and fell into the fence (if it wasnt there he would have fallen into the train tracks. haha) i heard a loud metal crash and so i stopped and turned to see him smashed into the fence. i asked if he was alright and he said "yeah...that hurt.." and continued to ride. best part is that he caught all that on video!!!! so funny! i was laughing sooooo hard! 

Had some fun this morning. We went shopping with Elder Murer and then went a little sightseeing... it was fun.

Bonne semaine!

Elder Alec Dover

Pictures

BEAUTIFUL AUDI we saw in Auch this week.. RS6 (very rare)

Elder Powell and I with new bikes

Tranfer Week!

February 24, 2014

Magandang hapon po! This morning we hiked a small mountain and unfortunately I didnt get the best pics but it was so beautiful! IT was also our Zone leaders last day of the mission so we had fun celebrating his last day on the mountain! The only scary thing is that there were these huge ants falling from the tree and kept biting us and reminding me of Indiana Jones! AH! 

But other than that theres Good news and Bad News! Good news.. We have a baptism on Saturday! Bad news: Its transfer week!!! And transfer day is on Friday!:/ Bittersweet... I really hope I dont transfer! And after this I will only have 5 more transfers!!! 

But if I do I will let you know next monday! I hope not I love Carmen! But We had a good week and we have a baptism this week for Sister Virginia! Even though shes almost 70 years old she passes her baptismal interview and she is ready and cant stop smiling about her baptism! She even brought her nebulizer to church for her asthma so she wouldnt have to leave early. Shes definitely ready for saturday and even had many fellowshippers at church. 

But the other 3 that went to church are part of the Toquero family. We have started to teach her family. Her dad is reading the book of mormon and is interested but isnt sure and the wife just really doesnt like even though her best friend is a member. But their daughter Joy has been to church over 6 times and we will work on teaching her family and getting her married. 

Our other IBD, Melvic couldnt go to church this week because his boss who is a member made him work from 3am to 9pm on sunday and we could see that he really had a desire to go to church. But he cant with his boss being an active member and telling him to work on sundays. The problem is that they actually let him stay and sleep at the work so I guess thats why we dont feel right telling him to quit and find another job. We told the ward mission leader and he told us that Bishop will have the home teachers teach about keeping the sabbath day holy to them. We hope that will work. Because Melvic is ready and he even stopped smoking and told us he cant wait to be baptized. 

I also had a really great exchange with a sister in our zone who actually studied at BYU-Hawaii and the work was so much fun! We go home together in September and both have some of the same memories and favorite same places in Hawaii even though we never met there! It was a great experience. 

Even though its transfer week and there are only two new elders coming into our mission this week, theres a lot of rumor about our area becoming Elders area for Zone leaders because it was in the past. But even if so and Im transfered and I will miss I know that if I lose myself in the work so that I find myself too and help people along the way! Thats for all of you too on mission or in the mission of real life! Love you all Thanks for your support! Wish me luck too! I give my first workshop for our district on wednesday! AH! Kaya ko! *The pic is of me and a carabou- a water bufalo in the Philippines! He got me wet lol..

Love, 

Sister Jenessa Dover 

Le Miracle 7.5

February 17, 2014

http://www.mormonchannel.org/bible-videos?v=2859421267001#.UwI1S1an02s.email 

I shared this little video with Sam and Luka this week. I love it. As I watched it I feel like I am in the blind man's shoes getting my eyes opened. It is a very powerful and well done video. If you have some time watch it. I am sure the spirit will touch you and teach you something as I was taught. 

This week was pretty cool! Biggest Miracle: 46 people at church yesterday! 46!! We didnt have room for everyone! Ha...it was Branch Conference. So we had the Stake Pres, his counselors, patriarch, and other stake leaders and their families....BUT...28 of the people there were Agenais. That my friends is a new record!! Meaning if we didnt have stake authorities there we would have been 28 people at church. That is a pretty cool miracle. Sandie and Marlene came again to church and loved it! We had a branch meal afterwards with everyone and Sandie and Marlene even brought something to share! That was so cool! En plus, EVERYONE that was there went and talked to them. that was so cool. Also a less active family came too! 2 sisters, their friend (not a member) and 5 kids! It was soooooo coool! Kinda weird to have a lot of people at church though. We seriously did not fit in the house/chapel thing.  

Numbers seriously dont matter but it was kinda funny when the Stake President came up to Elder Peters and I and said that we have the best numbers from all of the missionaries in the stake...that was kinda funny. I know I've been pushing the throttle a little harder and trying to work more and harder this transfer than the other 2 that I have spent here and I can see the difference. Our amis are all progressing much better and faster. Many of them are reading and praying about the Book of Mormon without our help and some come to church without us needing to remind them each week! 

Valentines day was this week! Guess what we did? NOTHING. haha just kidding. Elder Peters actually got dear johned soooooooo i made him a super french dinner and we ripped a picture or two.. haha i tried so hard not to laugh. I saw that coming. (Sadly i predicted it our 1st transfer together).

I hope all yall had a wonderful week like I did. I am tired. But keep working! Gotta work! This week we are going to go with Elder Murer and port little villages around Agen. We figure they have never had contact from the missionaries and since he has a car, we can go do that together! On y va! 

I love yall! Bonne semaine!  

Elder Alec Stephen Dover

Pictures:

I cooked some breakfast burritos for Sam and Luka this week..yep i have a french beret on my head. French people love my breakfast burritos. (and schatz does too)

Valentines day dinner!

Valentine's Day

Last night we celebrated Valentine's Day by attending our first Dallas Symphony Orchestra performance since moving back to Texas. When we lived here before, it was our pleasure to come almost monthly as Howard would procure free tickets as a UTD graduate student. We don't get the luxury of free tickets now, but Howard surprised me with tickets in a Valentine's card I discovered on my mirror at 5:00 am when I got up for seminary.  

This was Howard's post last night when we got home. I thought it was so sweet. 

Howard Dover Howard Dover updated his status: "Our valentines date. 24 years ago I met the love of my life."

Week 5! Feb 16, 2014

Magandang Umaga po Mga Kapatid at Kaibigan! 

This week was a very successful week, a better one than we've had in a long time! We have 3 IBDs and they are solid and want to be baptized and understand what they are doing, entering into a covenant with Heavenly Father and entering the gate to eternal life. Virginia, the 60 plus year old we re teaching, will be baptized on March 1. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her and we were really amazed at her testimony and faith and we know she truly is converted. The only problem is that this Sunday she didnt go to church and last night we checked on her to find out why and its because she was left with someone else's children while they went to Baguio and she was stuck watching the kids. We found out that its her job and she was really sad she couldnt go to church and said she will for sure be there next sunday. We thought maybe she just didnt go because she was busy but were happy to know that she had an emergency and she has been going to church for the past few months. We're excited for her baptism! 

We are so so happy about one of our IBD's, Melvic! He went to church for the first time in about 4 months and he is the one who has to work at the members bakery on Sunday. He came right after he had delivered bread to the bakery and he was so shy to walk in because of his boss and we saw that it was a bit akward. But the interesting thing is that Melvics boss, Brother June was speaking and talked about Temples and being worthy and later yesterday he told us he learned a lot about Temples from his boss and was excited after his baptism to go to the Temple and is excited about the Urdaneta Temple! He stayed for gospel essentials because his boss invtied him to stay instead of going back to work. 

That really is the problem, that Melvic has to work on Sunday and his boss is an active member, but yesterday Bishop asked Sister Sites, a missionary in our ward, to give a 5 minute talk and she had started talking about Temples and changed to keeping the Sabbath day holy and how we need to live it to be worthy too and that was a miracle! Even our ward mission leader told us that is why they allowed bro Melvic to stay at church instead of going back to work. In our lesson later that night, Melvic told us that his boss talked to him earlier and gave him Sundays off and that he can go to church now. He also told us he cant wait to go to church again and even wants to say the closing prayer in gospel essentials and ask questions next time! And last week he was smoking 7 cigarettes a day and 4 days ago 2 and, and 2 days ago 1. We challenged him to smoke no more and he accepted the challenge and said he wont because he wants to be clean! He is really elect! We are so happy for him! His baptism is March 15. 

We have another IBD for April 12, and thats because Ramil is gay. He is a new investigator who takes care of an old member in our ward named Rico, who is actually a World War 2 Veteran from Hawaii. We taught Ramil the first time last week and he reads our assignments and prays to know and believes in Joseph Smith and wants to be baptized and said he feels peace about learning more and that he feels its true. The only problem is he is gay.. He is really nice and etc.. But theres no mistake about the lipstick and makeup and little bit feminine voice and gestures. We are going to teach law of chastity, he doesnt have a boyfriend that we know of but he's 36. We'll pray about what to do to help him! I just learned when theres success theres always a thorny path in the way but we can get there!!! :) 

We also preached by the way into a lady who owns one of the nicest homes in our area and is one of the only people we know here with a car. She opened up to us by praising her home and her- shes maganda and she let us in! She actually works in London and she only visits once a year to the Philippines and we were there at the right time and right place to plant a seed! She fed us Pancit and gave us British chocolate and took lots of pics with us and even got our email and said she'll stay in touch. We visited again and I left her with a Book of Mormon and wrote my testimony and she said she'll read and visit me in Texas one day haha! But I know that even though sometimes people arent ready planting seeds is enough. There are the planters and the harveters  in this work. I just heard 5 of my investigators in my last area were baptized! Even is we dont see the baptisms we planted the seed, which started it all- one team! :) Keep up the missionary work even when its hard! 

I am so excited about our progressing investigators and how they are entering in to the gate to eternal life and one step closer to returning to Heavenly Father. We really hope none of us will be transferred! Our area is doing a lot better and I love the area and people. 

Valentines day with my companion and first companion! 

Mommy I love you!!!! The lady we met from London

February 10, 2014 in Rosales

Dear Family and Friends! 

Happy Valentines Day! Love yall! We just heard our mission President is healthy enough from his surgery and came back to the Philippines today! We are so happy! We also had many miracles and a good 20 lessons. We had a good couple of days that we were punted many times, but we found 9 new investigators and a few of them have a potential but others are a little hard so we will return next time with a member. But we had 4 investigators at church and Marjorie, the one with a baby who is 18 and not married was there again. We taught her parents this week and the problem is the father has work on Sunday and cant go to church and the wife just really doesnt like the church. But her best friend is a member and the member is visiting her and we plan to teach her this week with the member friend. We hope it goes well! Melvic our IBD didnt get to come to church again because of his job but told us later last night that he cant wait to be baptized and will do everything that he can to go this next sunday. Herbert didnt go either and we dont know why but we are teaching him tomorrow and hope we will give up alcohol and cigarettes so he can be baptized, we'll keep trying! 

We also had a big success this week! Sister Virginia was at church for the second time! She is 60 plus years old and has been and investigator since september and has been going to church in a different ward in Rosales but the past two weeks after teaching her she has come two weeks to our ward! We are so happy and we know that this was an answer to our prayers and fasting. her baptism will be March 1st. 

I also had exchanges with a new missionary. american from Colorado and we even met some Filipinos who really live in California and they were waving at us across the street and asked if they could talk to us we went since there was a friendly woman with the men and they told us they were home for theis mothers funeral and know they have Elders in their area in California and said that missionaries could come and visit them! Its a miracle! And they seem really open! We know those Elders will be really happy. 

Overall its been a good week and we are enjoying the mission and excited to see what waits this week and the miracles Heavenly Father has waiting for us as we are exactly obedient and dilligent! 

Love you all thanks for everything! 

Mahal Kita, 

Sister Jenessa Dover 

Le Miracle 7.4

"Remember that without ^afaith you can do nothing; thereforeask in faith. Trifle not with these things; do not ^bask for that which you ought not." 

~Doctrine and Covenants 8:10

That is a lesson I got to learn this week. Don't worry. I will share with you how:

So last monday how i told y'all about our experience in Lidl...i'll let you know what happened this week with Marlene and Sandie. We taught them twice this week. We gave them a Book of Mormon wednesday and by saturday they had read the introduction, testimonies, along with 1 Nephi 1-2...While chez eux.. Marlene told us that she had a vision. Ha I thought, "oh great.." but then as she told us what the vision was I was sorry for thinking lightly. She said she had prayed for help and in the vision a woman in the supermarket came to her speaking english and invited her to church...Well we arent women (Luka was there and got a good laugh from that part) but other than that that is exactly what happened except she approached us as we were trying to decide which ice cream flavor to get....we got vanilla. Well we invited them on saturday to come to church.

Then we went to go look for a refferral that i had recieved. The senior couple drove us to a little village in the middle of nowhere but we found the house and nobody was home. on the way home there was a sign that said "Paradis" (paradise in english) and Elder Murer said to Soeur Murer "stop the car i wanna see if this is actually paradise" and he and i ported the door. It was so funny because Elder Murer said as soon as the guy answered the door! "Bonjour Monsieur! Nous sommes les serviteurs de Dieu et il nous a envoyé ici pour demander si c'est vraiment le paradis ici?" ...reponse..."uuuuhhh desolée. je suis anglais. je ne parle pas français." hahaha i was not expecting that at all.... but i talked to the guy and found out after 7-10minutes that he wasnt interested but that was definitely fun! 

Biggest and coolest day of the week was Sunday. Saturday we decided to fast for one of our amis to accept our baptism invitation...we were really nervous. But we fasted and prayed all day for him. The Lord sure does have a way  for blessing us for exercising a little bit of faith. First of all. We got to church and we only had 6 people. Elder Peters, Elder Murer, Soeur Murer, Frère Cazeaux and Phillippe. Towards the end of the first hour we had more....Our ami Pédro randomly showed up and told us he wants to be baptized soon and that he is legal in france! He also wants us to help his family eventually! Then Soeur Murer tapped my shoulder and said that there were 2 sisters there that she didnt know. So I went to the front door and saw Marlene, Sandie and Sandie's daughter!!! Oh that was sooo cool! 2 awesome miracles then just before sacrament meeting, Sam showed up and he brought a less active with him!!! ...that shockingly is not all. apart from having 11 of the 20 people at church be people that missionaries brought is pretty amazing...but after church we went with the Murers to go visit a less active sister that lives far away. we were getting nervous because it was an hour to get there then an hour to get home. meaning that we would be late to our rdv with our ami. we went anyways and gave the sacrament to the sister because she is too sick to come to church. ...i also played with her adorable white labs. they were so fun! then we went home we went to our rdv. We got there and met up with the branch president and went to sam and luka's! We taught the gospel of jesus christ but took a different approach than normal.. instead of just talking about faith repentance baptism gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end, we took the approach that faith is a principle of action. we need to act on the things we believe in. For example if we believe that Christ died for us we need to repent and act on the fact that we can be forgiven of our sins. Well all in all we finished the rdv and sam had accepted to be baptized on the 1st of March!!!! Yes! 

Really the Lord does bless us a ton we just have to show him that we want it and ask for something specific every now and then (the more often the better... :P) Well i can honestly say to you that that was an amazing week but I am exhausted. Pday is truly inspired...all we did today was go for a walk with Frère Murer in the rain and fix my bike. We are so tired. But it is all worth it! I love all yall! Bonne semaine!

Elder Alec Stephen Dover

Pictures:

 walk this morning!

...may or may not have seen the confederate flag...

ha it is always kinda funny when he talks about hitler...

ugliest car in europe... Fiat Multipla 

one of my favorite cars in europe... Audi A6 Allroad!

February 2, 2014 in Rosales

Maganandang Umaga po Family and Friends! 

Such a great week! This Sunday we had 5 investigators at church and 13 less actives! Marjorie, the 18 year old stayed through the whole meeting and came by herself! I think she really likes the spirit. Virginia, the one we told you about when you came, the one who goes to the wrong ward. She came! She only stayed for Sacrament meeting because she had to nebulize too, but its a miracle for sure that she came! Then Herbert, the husband of a recent convert and our IBD. he first listened to the missionaries in 2011, and was supposed to be baptized with his wife in November but struggles with word of wisdom. I was on exchanges and we were supposed to teach him but before we got to his house we saw him at a tindahan and he ws drinking alcohol and smoking :( We went to his wife and told her and she was so sad. We came back the next day and he was there and I think he was getting over a hangover and was actually really upset and told us only to come back on Sundays.But he went to church yesterday surprisingly and we are going tonight to have an FHE and he said yes and he looked happier last night and was excited to have FHE, we'll see! 

Then we have another investigator named Kim and she is a referal and she went to church with her best friend who is a less active and the only concern she has is that she wants to become a member but she is afraid her family will be upset and not approve, so we plan to visit the family this week! We also saw JM, a caretaker of a less active who is a World War 2 veteran for the US and is Filipino and served in Hawaii! But about JM he actually just has to go to church because of his work and is clear about it and doesnt want to be baptized but said we can come back. Maybe hes not ready but we'll see! 

But other than that we have another IBD named Melvic and he is 21 and knows the church is true. He was first taught in 2011 too and has a strong testimony but works a lot and on Sundays. His work is the company of a member who is our landlord. We gave him and IBD day for March 15th and he says he knows its the right day for him and he didnt go to church yesterday. We were so sad, but when we came home from church, we saw him a our landlords house ( next door) and he looked so sad and told us that our landlord asked him to work that morning and he couldnt go. We taught him later last night and he told us he really wants to be baptized and go to church but doesnt know how. His boss is an active member and requires his employees to work during Sunday and church hours because they own a bakery and its open on Sundays. We are trying to help him cause he told us he cant wait to be baptized and always bears is testimonies in our lessons! He has such a light and we feel he is ready :)

We also taught a full family by preaching by the way and they just let us in and teach and its a family of 7 people! And when we asked them to be baptized if they know its true they said yes! We are so happy but we will return with a fellowshipping family since they knw many members in the area! We are so excited to teach again! 

I love my mission companion the people and the members so much! I love the Philippines and I know that the Lords work is hastening and its such a beautiful work! I just heard my old investigators in my last area, the Edades family we baptized and I absolutely cried with joy when I heard! D&C 18!!!! :D Hoe great is my JOY!!!!! :D :D 

Love yall thanks for everything you do! Youre in my prayers! 

Love Sister Jenessa Dover 

The photo is from a recent zone conference here in Rosales.

Le Miracle 7.3

Wow. it is already February?! That is impossible! It feels like January just started! Good news! Agen is back to the cold rainy place it was when I first got here... haha it has rained at least once every day for the last 3 weeks. 

We had some really good rdvs this week though i do not specifically remember everything that happened. I am just going to give some highlights this week.. 

So wednesday night we had to take a train to bordeax for zone training that startedthursday morning! Elder Gee and Elder Leduc talked about obedience for the most part. How we need to continue to repent and be obedient to the commandments of God. I agree that is very critical in this work. They told us to pick a rule that we dont obey and that doesnt really make sense why we have that rule and to obey it and (most importantly) LOOK for the blessings that come from obedience. 

After the meeting, we went on exchange!! I stayed in Bordeaux with Elder Powell and Elders Ardeche and Peters went to Agen. While with elder powell, we went to town! We had a cool experience with their ami that came to the church to tell us he didnt have time that day..but we convinced him to listen to a scripture. We shared the scripture and he opened up and said that he wants to come to church every sunday and also he quit playing soccer so he could be more available for that. It was pretty cool to see how just a little scripture opened up the door. We also had a moment where another ami cancelled on us so instead of cancelling with the member that was going to help us out, I thought it would be a good idea to just have a message with the member because he is going on a mission soon so might as well help him understand what we can do when tombez-vous happen. haha it was a wonderful experience!

Then one day the murer couple took us out to eat at a pretty good restaurant! Yum. I got a real nice ham plate while Elder Peters ate a hamburger...

Then today while we were doing groceries we were looking at milk and trying to decide which one to get and then a black woman came to us and said "You speak english? Oh Lord it's been a while!" she later asked for our number and said she wants to come to our church. she comes from guyane and her daughter called us 2 hours later and fixed a rdv for wednesday! i like it when people come to us!

that was a pretty good week! hope yall had a good one! 

Elder Alec Stephen Dover

p.s. yesterday was apparently crêpe day! we profited! did you?