These are my written
talks/notes. I usually write everything
I imagine myself saying, so it’s very thorough.
But I don’t always end up sharing everything in the same way I wrote
it. I personally think that is
unfortunate because I rather like the way it comes out on paper, where nerves
don’t interrupt. The two talks are very
similar, but I decided to use different experiences to share the same lessons
the second time I spoke.
Talk #1 Singles’ Ward 13 May 2012
I have a lot of mixed feelings,
mixed thoughts and mixed words.
I know some of you, but I’ve been
away from this ward long enough that there are a lot of you I don’t know.
I served my mission in Geneva, Switzerland,
but my mission was later consolidated with the Toulouse
mission into the Lyon, France
mission in 2011.
I could tell you a lot of things I
learned, including how to make crepes, but it was difficult to decide what to
talk about. So I chose to share some
lessons that I learned and some experiences that taught me those lessons.
While I was in Geneva, we had a conference with Elder Causée,
a French member of the area presidency.
He is now in the Presiding Bishopric.
He shared with us a story about a Pearl.
A renowned jeweler obtains a
gorgeous, valuable pearl and decides that such a magnificent pearl needs a
magnificent box to show it off. He
needed a box worthy of holding such a valuable jewel.
He has a gorgeous wooden box made
with small, intricate carvings and he displays the pearl in the window.
As he stepped back and watches people
react to the pearl throughout the day he was pleased to see many smiles and
wide eyes. But he realized, and was
devastated to see that the people had lost interest in the pearl because they
focused only on the beautifully crafted box.
When we focus on the boxes in our
lives, we lose sight of the valuable pearls.
We learned many lessons during
that conference from this story of the pearl and the box and I started noticing
the pearls and boxes of missionary work.
Now I notice them in my life.
True joy comes when you find and treasure the pearls. For me, most of my pearls in my mission were
people.
I seized any opportunity I was given to serve
and uplift these people, and that gave me so much joy. After my trainer was moved to another area, I
had another opportunity to see her. She
said to me that she got to Dijon
and was sad because she wasn’t close to her companions and none of them would
feed her like I did.
She told me, “then I thought how
much I love Sœur Read because she always fed me. So I started feeding my companions. And it worked! They loved me!”
So she learned my secret. Charity is serving with and because of
love. It is what I sought for every day. What Sr. Smith didn’t say, but she knew, is
that when you serve others (or feed them) your love for them grows.
One of my most memorable
experiences was from Geneva. One day we had a couple messages on our
phone. My companion listened to the
first message while we ate our dinner.
Soon her eyes were so wide they were going to pop. She put the phone on speaker and said, you
have to listen to this!
The woman leaving the message said
she was calling to arrange meetings with the missionaries because she wanted to
be baptized. We listened to it multiple
times before finally calling her back.
It took us that long to get over the shock. News flash, that never happens.
So in a course of a few weeks, we
were able to help Rachel get baptized.
It was slightly hectic to prepare for and organize, but all of the
stress that I experienced was swept away when, on my last day in Geneva,
Rachel’s sister, who was one of the first members I met in Geneva, hugged me,
with tears spilling from her eyes. I
treasure this experience because Rachel is a pearl, and her sister is a
pearl. The greatest pearl of a mission
is helping a family come 1 step closer to being eternal.
“How great shall be your joy with
them in the kingdom of my father.” D&C 18:15
Everyday we should collect our
eternal treasures. Helaman 5:8
“lay up for yourselves a treasure
in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away.”
What are the treasures that God
gives us?
There is only one physical
treasure that we can take to heaven, our bodies.
I learned exactly how precious our
bodies are while I was on my mission.
You can’t work without it. I felt
so old near the end of my mission because my bones almost creaked every
morning, and when my six-foot companion stood on my back, every vertebra popped
like fireworks.
As a missionary, I had to learn
how to stay in good health so that I would be able to accomplish my work.
Our life is work, and we get tired
physically as well as spiritually. I
find it significant that God advises us how to stay healthy in everyway.
In Geneva I had the pleasure of teaching a man
named Patrick. He was the most humble
soul I’ve ever met. By the time I met
him, he was preparing to be baptized and he had just given up smoking.
The events of his life had brought
him so low that he sought help, first from public institutions, and then God
put wonderful missionaries in his path so he could find full healing. He will continue to have struggles, but he
was ready to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.
By following the commandments of
God, he found a better spiritual and physical life. Patrick is a miracle, and I was truly honored
to know him. He was one powerful
testimony of how much God loves His children.
Loving people the way God loves
them is a celestial experience. When a
missionary is fully in tune with the spirit, they will see people the way God
sees them, and an indescribable love fills their soul.
On my last day of my mission, as
we were headed home after a wonderful Sunday dinner, I learned one of the
biggest, most humbling lessons of my whole mission. I saw a man approaching us and he looked a
little ragged, dirty, and he was holding a cigarette in one hand with an open
beer can in the other. My first thought
was, “I really am not in the mood for a weird or inappropriate conversation. It is my last night and I just want to get
home to pack.” I regret these
thoughts. I regretted them very
quickly. My companions and I were
speaking in English, which always draws attention, especially from drunk men.
So I quickly elbowed my companion and said, don’t speak in English. She was already following my line of thought.
Instead of us stopping this
stranger, as we do all day long, we walked by.
But this man did something different.
He stopped in front of us and said, “can I tell you something?”
“Oh boy,” I thought “here we go.”
“I just want to say one thing.”
“Ok, what is it?” I asked.
He proceeded to make a rude
political comment which I didn’t follow or remember, except that it was about
the President. This happened to be the
day that France
elected a new President.
This man turned out to be a big
surprise. I get too excited about
details, so I will avoid them and simply say that we spoke quite a while with
this man and ended up getting his number, giving him a book of Mormon with
personal testimonies from all of us that we wrote on the spot, and setting up
an appointment with him the next day. Oh, what a pearl he was.
I will tell you why I will never forget this
experience. In the very beginning of the
conversation with this man, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of love
for this man. I had no idea who he was,
and there wasn’t much reason to like him on first sight, but God decided I
needed to take a look through His eyes.
It was so brief, but so powerful.
His love for His son filled MY soul.
And through OUR message, and OUR spirit, he was able to listen to a
message from his Heavenly Father.
I have tried to be brief, but it
is hard to share so much in so little time.
I want to close with one last story.
I left a dear friend in Lyon, my last
area. What I need to say about my dear Catherine is that God loves her so much,
and my companions and I quickly tuned in to that love. Our message only reached
her because of the love we felt for her.
When I met her she was a lonely, depressed woman. When I left her, she would laugh herself to
tears with us, she had friends in church, and she knows that God has a plan for
her and her family to be eternal. I am so grateful for the opportunity to teach
the Plan of Salvation, which gives us hope for eternal life. I knew the principles before my mission, but
now I really understand why it is so important and so special. I wish I could share many more experiences
with you, and I hope someday I will.
Following tradition I’d like to
bear you my testimony in French.
Je sais que ces choses don’t j’ai parlé sont vraies, que nous sommes dans
le service de notre Dieu alors que nous servions nos semblables. Je sais que nous avons beaucoup de boites qui
sont moins important. Je témoigne que
Dieu vit, qu’il nous aime, et qu’il veille à chaque instant. J’aime nom Sauveur de tout mon cœur. Son expiation est le sacrifice infini qui
nous rend auprès de notre Père Céleste.
Finalement je sais que l’église de Jésus-Christ est rétablie aujourd’hui
à laquelle nous nous appartenons. Je
remercie Dieu pour ma mission et je dis ces choses au nom de Jésus-Christ,
Amen.
Talk
#2
La Mesa
2nd Ward Father’s Day June
This is kinda surreal to be
speaking to you all- it has been a very long time. I know most of you, but for those of you who
don’t know me, I am Leanna Read, the middle of the Read children. I served my
mission in Geneva, Switzerland, French speaking. In 2011 our mission grew, absorbing the Toulouse mission and became the France, Lyon
mission.
Missions change people- we learn
lessons.
I am still trying to wrap my mind
around everything that I have learned- and I’m still trying, even struggling to
apply these things permanently in my life.
But one lesson still stands out.
We had a conference with Elder
Causée, from the area Presidency, and he shared a story which was discussed so
many times for the rest of my mission.
Its ironic that now I will be repeating it again. He told us the story of a pearl.
A renowned jeweler obtains a
gorgeous, valuable pearl and decides that such a magnificent pearl needs a
magnificent box to show it off. He
needed a box worthy of holding such a valuable jewel.
He has a gorgeous wooden box made
with small, intricate carvings and he displays the pearl in the window.
As he stepped back and watches
people react to the pearl throughout the day he was pleased to see many smiles
and wide eyes. But he realized, and was
devastated to see that the people had lost interest in the pearl because they
focused only on the beautifully crafted box.
President Monson talked during the
last conference about what is important, and what is trivial. He taught me that trivial things are not
worthless or bad, they are simply things that are not urgent, or are not the
bigger picture.
When we focus on the trivial boxes
in our lives, we lose sight of the valuable pearls.
The biggest Pearl/Box comparison
in missionary work is a principle from the manual Preach My Gospel. Teach People not lessons.
The growth of missionary work is
about learning to teach people for their own needs and to view them the way God
does. Every missionary gets nervous
about a lesson and wants to be so prepared that they don’t always focus on who
they are teaching. We’re all growing-
and even at the end of my mission I wasn’t perfect. But the lesson is a box- the person we teach
is a pearl and the message they need is a pearl.
I remember a woman from my first
city- I was still a very new missionary when I met her.
My companion and I were knocking
on doors one night and the second door we tried was a very dark apartment. It wasn’t very late, but it seemed like no
one was home, or they would likely be sleeping.
So we were surprised when someone answered. It was so dark inside, and she only opened
the door a couple inches, so I couldn’t even see who we were talking to. She was on the phone with her sister in the
States, and it was simply because we were Americans that she let us in, not
knowing who we were or what we wanted.
She just handed the phone to my companion and said, “talk.”
I was still such a new missionary
that I didn’t speak French very well, and it was really hard for me to follow
conversations. But every time we taught
her I felt so calm and never nervous about what to say. But more importantly, I loved
Anne-Therese. I knew that she was a most
precious pearl- but she had no idea. One
of the most stunning turn arounds of my mission was seeing the light fill her
life in a manner of weeks.
I experienced a very similar
situation with a woman named Catherine in my last area.
Both of these women are pearls
that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
My experiences with these women
showed me the value of knowing that we are children of God.
Before my mission I didn’t have a
strong or well-founded testimony of the Plan of Salvation. I knew that it teaches us about those huge
life questions, where did we come from, why are we here, and where do we go
after we die?
My biggest joy was sharing the
message that God loves all of us and he is working every minute to help us all
return to Him.
I wish I could remember every little
miracle that I experienced on the mission.
Last week in Stake Conference a speaker mentioned that missionaries are
so receptive that they see miracles everywhere. It is true- and it taught me
that we are not alone- God is always watching over us.
In Lyon,
my companion and I were trying to find some new people to teach. My companion was looking through the ward
list when she came across an unfamiliar name and she made a goal to call this
sister Barney (pronounced Bar-nay). For
the next couple weeks she always said that she would take some time to make
phone calls. This woman’s name always
remained on her mind. One day the elders
called to give us the number of a woman that spotted them and stopped
them. They told us that she was inactive
and wanted to come back to church. When
we asked for her name they said ‘its something like Barney (bar-nee).’ My eyes shot up to my companion’s; I couldn’t
believe it, but I already knew that it was the same woman. My companion didn’t make the connection.
“What?” She asked, confused.
“Barney.” And it hit her. We both almost broke into tears at the
magnitude of this miracle.
My beautiful companion privately
blamed herself (though I never did) for never calling her before, but we were
humbly blessed by her being brought by other means to us.
Her story over the next few weeks
includes many more miracles, but in short, the quality of this woman’s life
soared higher than she thought possible through the service and the inspiration
that she received from coming back to church.
This story would have meant very little to me if we had not seen so many
miracles along the way.
When we open our eyes and pay
attention, even to the smallest miracles we will find pearls. The scripture tells us to lay up for
ourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not
away.
To close I want to share a lesson
I learned on the last night of my mission, before reporting to the mission
home. Part of my growth was learning to
view people the way God views them.
In the Missionary Training
Center my district did an
activity where we shared which Christ-like values each of us had. My district all mostly said that I had
charity. This is not one that I expected
to hear at the time. It really made me
ponder about the meaning of charity, and I often did so throughout my
mission. I found it non-coincidental
that I finally learned it, at the end.
On my last day of my mission, as
we were headed home after a wonderful Sunday dinner, I saw a man approaching us
and he looked a little ragged, dirty, and he was holding a cigarette in one
hand with an open beer can in the other.
My first thought was, “I really am not in the mood for a weird or
inappropriate conversation. It is my
last night and I just want to get home to pack.” I regret these thoughts. I regretted them very quickly. My companions and I were speaking in English,
which always draws attention, especially from drunk men. So I quickly elbowed
my companion and said, don’t speak in English.
She was already following my line of thought.
Instead of us stopping this
stranger, as we do all day long, we walked by.
But this man did something different.
He stopped in front of us and said, “can I tell you something?”
“Oh boy,” I thought “here we go.”
“I just want to say one thing.”
“Ok, what is it?” I asked.
He proceeded to make a rude
political comment which I didn’t follow or remember, except that it was about
the President. This happened to be the
day that France
elected a new President.
This man turned out to be a big
surprise. I get too excited about
details, so I will avoid them and simply say that we spoke quite a while with
this man and ended up getting his number, giving him a book of Mormon with
personal testimonies from all of us that we wrote on the spot, and setting up
an appointment with him the next day. Oh, what a pearl he was.
I will tell you why I will never forget this
experience. In the very beginning of the
conversation with this man, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of love
for this man. I had no idea who he was,
and there wasn’t much reason to like him on first sight, but God decided I
needed to take a look through His eyes.
It was so brief, but so powerful.
His love for His son filled MY soul.
(ok- honestly, I don’t remember how I
introduced these following scriptures, but these are what I shared last- at
least part of them, but these are the scriptures I had in my notes) Alma
26:28-29,30,37
Following tradition I will bear my
testimony in French for you. (no need to copy and paste from the first talk,
just scroll up.)
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
In all the filler time I have been more spontaneous than ever before. We went to see Elise's choir performance (which was was greatly looking forward to because my MTC teacher, Brother Vincent, is in the Singers with her so I got to see him and HUG him for the first time!) 
Then we went out to dinner at a great restaurant called The Awful Waffle and 6th street Pizzeria. They had SPECULOOS gelato!!! Their pizza was delicious too. 
Then Josh and I went to pop in on another mission friend; and on the way home to Elise's complex, he said that Soeur Smith's sister lived in the same complex. Soeur Smith was my trainer, btw. So he gave me her number and I sent her the most random text ever. It was something like, "hey, I'm your sister's companion and our friend josh gave me your number because he said you live in the same complex as my cousin, where I'm staying. So if you want, I'd love to meet you. -Leanna Read"
I left and walked home before the end of Josh's event, but he made 5th place in the finals for his dance. Go Josh!
Actually, that's wrong- that wasn't the plan, but since the views were irresistable and all our stuff was in our car, we just changed into cute clothes (luckily no one was around- Karen ripped her pants, but still wore them for the pictures). I have got to say, I am a pretty talented photographer with no tripod and a 10-sec timer. Plus, I was frequently having to run 10 or more meters of wild, rocky terrain in heals- all within 10 seconds to get to my position. Quite a scary workout. I seriously almost fell into really cold water once. Karen and I laughed a lot that morning. Often, I wouldn't get there in time and we just got me in funny poses with awkward expressions. But I am also a master at photoshop, so as long as we get good poses in some of the pictures, anything is possible. One of these pictures is actually totally fake and I am sure you can spot it if you know what to look for. 
We were very pleased with the photos. 
Then, during some down-time I straightened my hair and finally got to relax. But then Karen, Elise, Mike and I drove to a little river in Provo where we found some great places to take some photos. This was something Elise has asked that I do for her sometime during this trip. I never turn down an opportunity to take a great photo- so thats what we did! I think it is kinda funny now that Elise has red hair- the three of us are so mixed now. And if my hair wasn't straight, we'd all have out Read curls.
When we were done, it was time to go back to the apartment because I arranged my ride up to Salt Lake with Josh and my MTC teacher. Our mission reunion started at 6:30 and we left at about 5:15.
There were so many people there that I hadn't seen yet since being home. Many of them were a surprise to see. The best surprise was Mattie-June Smith, my trainer. She lives up in Rexburg and I had NO idea she was planning on coming down. I almost cried when I saw her, and the hugs we gave eachother throughout the night cannot be counted on all four of our hands. 4 of my companions were there. 
One of the highlights of my night was something I was looking forward to since I knew I was going to the reunion. I was pretty sure that the Thomases would be there. 
They are the missionary couple from the Lyon institute. So in anticipation, I brought a plastic Kinder egg on the trip with me. As I sat in the meeting I wrote a note to them and put it in the egg. I found a sneaky excuse later to slip it into Brother Thomas' jacket pocket. He never found it himself. So when I sat down to talk with him I stole his phone out of that very pocket and proceeded to enter in my number.
Though the plan was to end at 8, we definitely didn't. Karen picked me up close to 10 oclock with Kristen Nicholes. 
Saturday morning, we ended up not going to Conference and instead watched it at the Nicholes and the afternoon at Spencer and Joanel's. I got to meet the first great grandbaby on the Read side. His name is Rhythm and he has the cutest head of hair, as you can see. What an adorable baby!
