Sept 23 2013 email Cou Cou

Cou cou!                                                                                                23 Sept 2013

I'm going to answer your questions about the mission publicly Mom because there might be some people out there who would want to know these things too.

I might have already said this, but the best color for skirts turned out to be gray. It goes with both dark and light colors so it's good for all seasons. I would even suggest getting two. Of course, black skirts are nice too. Make sure you have a few pencil skirts. The flowy ones are pretty, but sometimes you want to look professional. However, that might not matter as much outside of cities/cultures like Paris.

Yes, the Sketchers should make it to the end of my mission, or darn close to the end. They are excellent shoes. Soeur Gordon had some really good sketchers that looked like they would last forever, but were pretty stylish too. Ask her mom where they found them. I suggest black and brown shoes and buy lots of footie socks. The flesh colored ones are best.

I wouldn't get the safe-pac bag. I didn't feel like I needed the security that much. What I liked most about it, was the size, not too big or small, and the pockets. However, I saw other missionary bags that were similar in size and pockets without being so expensive. I would wait until I get home until she tries to buy one. I know what kind works best and can help her pick it out.

Sure, she can have my blanket. The mission provided blankets in each apartment, but it was nice to have to keep me warm for studying, etc.

Yes, I've seen that luggage you're talking about. The problem is that they ask that you only have two luggage pieces and then a carrying bag. The fact that one fits into the other is nice, but it means that one has to be smaller than the other, which is less space. That's not too much of a problem because there is a third one that's even smaller....but you're not supposed to have that third one. However, I will say that most sisters don't seem to care about that suggestion and I haven't heard President or others complain too much about them.

Be careful about deciding to get the ones with the wheels that roll in all different directions. That means they're weaker and break easier. I've seen it happen a lot in the mission and it makes things so much more physically harder and/or expensive. However, it might be worse here because we have to deal with the cobblestones.

So, Mom, one of your comments reminded me of some comments members from Torcy made when I saw them at the conference. They kept saying "Oh, now, you look so pretty". (She had her hair highlighted, etc) Hahaha! I guess I wasn't so pretty a year ago. I understood that they meant it as a compliment so I decided to take it as such.

Dad, I literally moaned "nooooo" when you gave me the news about BYU. All of the missionaries who use this same internet café looked at me weird and asked if everything was ok. I was just like "Oh, it’s just that BYU lost to Utah for the fourth year in a row". Stink!

Also, Sr. Gordon had just come here a year ago with her family so she didn't feel like doing all of the tourist stuff. Luckily, Sr .MacKay had never been here before so I get to do everything again! We're going to the Eiffel tower today. Sadly, I can no longer get into museums for free because my visa has expired. I'm going to try to use it anyway and see if they notice.

 

St.Ouen is different from Torcy in that it is either really, really high class apartments or it's the worst ghetto in France. Also, we don't get to see the countryside at all. Torcy was not too fancy or ghetto and half of it was in the countryside.

So, after a stressful week of trying to coordinate everything for Laurinda, she was finally baptized!! It was hard because we could never talk to her directly and she could never go with us to a Portuguese speaking member's home because she was always working. We would just have to use either her husband who speaks a little French or pass the phone back and forth with a Portuguese speaking member until she got everything sorted out. It happened though! And most of the Ward attended and brought food. She really felt loved. She was crying most of the time and she didn't know why. People kept telling her, "it's the spirit!”

Running out of time!!!

Love you all,

Bethany