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
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