Memorial Day Email

 Joyeux Fêtes des Mères! 

I forgot to say Happy Mother's Day to Mom when we Skyped and again last week during my email. Since yesterday was Mother's Day in France I was reminded to do it again.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOMMY!!!!!!

 

At church the children had a whole Mother's Day program that took up 3/4 of Sacrament meeting. It was cute as you might expect. And the fact that it was in French made it even cuter! I don't remember kids doing programs like that at home. They'll sing a couple songs, but that's it normally all. Is this a new thing? Sr. Covington says they do it in her home ward.

And Happy Birthday Dad! I miss you and I love you!

Sweet! They've knocked down that blight on the face of Huntsville, Blackwater Hattie's. (A former Burger King turned into a bar close to our neighborhood). Most excellent. I hope they put something nice there...or nothing at all.

Haha! I laughed so hard when I saw that birthday card Dad. Laura found the perfect one!

It's been raining a ton here for the past two weeks. That plus me being sick (read more on that later) made things a little depressing around here. But today it is SUNNY!!!!! Sr. Covington and I keep quoting “Finding Nemo” and saying, "Good morning everyone. It's a beautiful day! The sun is shinning, the tank is clean. THE TANK IS CLEAN?! CURSE YOU AQUASCUM!" All the boys and girls from my generation will get it.

So another fact about France is that no one, and I mean no one, drinks tap water here. They all buy these huge bottles to drink from. It's pretty much unheard of to have a refrigerator that dispenses water here. In most places in France, it's just silly that they do that because I read an article that says most tap water in France is purer that bottled water. EXCEPT, in Arras. It's the one place I've started using bottled water because it's a known fact that the water was extremely poisoned here due to WWI and the battle of Arras. People also have worse teeth and a higher rate of cancer because of it. Hopefully being here 4 1/2 months won't kill me!

On Tuesday I started getting a cough and on Wednesday I had a fever with aches and chills too. We went out for a bit, but my whole body hurt so we home and I slept all day. On Thursday I felt perfect so we had a normal day and ate with members that night. But later that night I became very congested and the next morning I couldn't breath, my cough was worse and my ear ached. Luckily I had that Sudafed that you sent me mom and it worked well, but I still just felt crummy all day. Friday was planning day so it wasn't too strenuous and I took another nap. Then we went to church for a blessing that night.

Saturday I still wasn't feeling great, but I was sick of sleeping and wanted to do something. So we worked and we managed to set up a few appointments for this week. However, people convinced me that if I didn't make sure to REALLY get the rest I needed I would never get fully healed. So even though I did want to I stayed home after church yesterday and just slept again. In the mission you either don't sleep at all or you sleep too much...and then feel guilty about it. However, the Lord made up for the fact that we couldn't work the way we wanted to and our numbers were actually better than they were the two weeks before! I guess that means he knew that I was really sick and not just faking. (FYI: Mom, I need more decongestant!)

We taught the woman that we met while contacting last Sunday. Her name is Corinne and she's a violin teacher. She believes in God, but not that we need Him. We taught about prayer and feeling the Holy Ghost. She's of the opinion that the Holy Ghost is unnecessary since we have God and Jesus. I haven't really gotten that question before. She was open though and I appreciated how she listened to us and asked legitimate questions. We set up another appointment for this Tuesday.

 

Last Sunday, we got a call from the Elders in Tour asking if we knew Maxime. He had dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks so we were glad to know that he had been out of town, but still took the time to look up the Elders for a lesson. He came to church yesterday and we introduced him to the Elders. He told us that he decided not to drink at all while he was gone, even when his friends made fun of him. He said he didn't enjoy being mocked, but he still did it! For Soeur Covington and my "last lecture (testimony)", we testified about how we knew he would receive blessings for his obedience. Now he's the Elder's ami! He's in good hands.

We also taught Elodie and asked her if she wanted to be baptized by correct authority. She said yes, we engaged her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. This is really where we are going to see if she's truly sincere. It's possible that she's just not ready yet.

Remember how I said a few weeks ago that we were now going to have sisters training leaders? Kind of like Zone leaders but for Sisters. Well, one thing they do is go on Exchanges with us, but instead of one of us going there and one of them coming here they BOTH are coming. We're not really sure how that'll work, especially since we don't have beds for them. We've fixed several Rendezvous during Tuesday and Wednesday so we can split up and teach multiple lessons at once. I’ll tell you how it goes next week!

Bethany

Pictures: 1. view from the Gare (train station) 2. Neptune 3. A monk

Another Day in France

Dear Everyone, Congratulations to Josh on his mission call! I was reading that part of your letter while standing next to a family in the Ward whose son is serving in Spokane. They asked for Josh's name so they could tell their son, Elder Fewou. Elder Fewou is currently serving in Coeur d’Alene, a town in Idaho. Josh will get there probably during his last transfer. And it would be cool if Josh was in Aunt Mickey's Ward! Thanks for the pictures of the Hunt family. That little girl is so cute! I thought they were leaving Huntsville in December? Did they decide to stay? Don't feel bad about the Downton Abbey thing Dad. I'll survive. Plus, like I said before, I did that enough to you guys when I was a kid. I'm just getting what I deserved. Tee Hee! (Larry unintentionally spilled the beans about the surprise ending of the series. He thought she had already seen it on the internet before leaving last year. She will be catching up with it when she gets home.)(Partially spilled the beans…I didn’t say who died.) Yuck! I'm so glad I don't really have to worry about pollen here. I think that is a phenomenon you only see in a few places. I am sad that the Kennemers are leaving the neighborhood, but if I can I still want to visit them at their new place. And with Burnsides moving too I feel like my childhood is slowly fading away. But its good thing I guess because that means you're moving on to better things and meeting people just as great as the ones you were with before. Most people in the mission are incredibly sad to leave their area, but while it is a hard for me to say goodbye, I'm always excited about the new people I'm going to meet in my new area. Plus, with modern technology is so much easier to stay in contact with people. Haha! I hope Laura sticks to her job at the MTC, at least for the summer. It's hard, but it'll be good experience for her. Plus, it's good motivation to study hard and a get a good job where you don't have to scrape people's food off their plates. I've already done that for two summers, I'm hoping to avoid it in the future. Well, we have Elders in Arras now. One is Elder Nielson from Philadelphia. He knows Laura's roommate Ally, BTW. He was my Zone Leader when I was in Quimper and he's very cool. We have fun being some of the few missionaries not from Utah. The other is a bleu from Sandy, UT. Elder Cramer is pretty funny and he always has a lot of questions about how things work in class. He points out a lot of things that I didn't even notice before. If I have the chance, I'll try to attach a picture of them. One of the members said they look like Batman and Robin. Elder Nielson, who wants to be a pilot, said they were actually Maverick and Goose. There's a reference for you Dad! Well, Soeur Covington and I had to come to a hard realization this week. It was that most of our investigators were not progressing and instead of putting all of our energy into them we needed to find new ones. That means A LOT of porting and contacting. As if we don't already do enough of that in this mission. That meant it was a slow week for us, especially since the Elders found three people to teach in their first three days here! But we knew if they could do it we could to. Yesterday, Sunday, was cloudy and cold and all we wanted to do was stay inside. But I knew that the best way to feel better was to serve. We visited a widow in the ward and she was so sweet that she lifted up our spirits. Her hot chocolate is good. Then Elodie called crying and said she left Dominique and was stranded at the train station several towns away. We told her to find a way back to Arras and we'd walk with her to a women's shelter. When we got to the station she was all happy and said Dominique was coming. It was frustrating, but we set an appointment with her so we can explain what our purpose is as missionaries and find out if she's really interested in progressing. While walking to the station we contacted a woman and set up an appointment for Tuesday. Yay! That's what we were looking for! Somebody to spread the gospel to. She says she's already had the lessons so we'll see what her situation is. We also have several dinner appointments with members who are planning on bringing their friends who might be interested! After a slow week the Lord rewarded our efforts. Onward ever onward! Before I go, I have to tell you a funny story. First I should explain that, as you can imagine, wearing skirts that come to the knee is not very popular in France, no matter the season, but especially when it gets warmer. It doesn't matter how “in fashion”  the rest of the outfit it, if the skirt hits your knees, you're super weird. That plus the nametags mean we often get a lot of strange looks from people. After 10 months of all of this I've learned to accept it though. That being said, we were doing porting a few days ago and we passed a man who stopped and asked “Why do you dress like that? You're such cute girls, but you dress terrible”.  I just laughed and explained who we were and why we dress that way. Plus, I explained that in the U.S it's a little more accepted (but just a little!).I thought it was so funny, but Sr. Covington was pretty offended. She thought her clothes were pretty good. And honestly, they are. Compared to a lot of Sisters in the mission, she dresses very well. But I explained that for the French, if it's not a mini skirt, it's ugly. Also, I think if we could wear high heels that would help. Plus, I pointed out that we should be thankful that he said we were cute....except for the fact that he kept winking at us and tried to get us to go into a café/bar with him. We gave him the Elders number and sent him on is way. That's all for this week! I love this gospel so much. I love the happiness that I and others have found through it. I know this is the Lord's true church. Bethany