You know popcorn, you look like popcorn

August 2, 2010

Dear Family,

The elders of Paris have an ami who is a...fan of the sister missionaries. He just loves us all. At FHE, I was hobbling over to a couch when he stopped me. He looked at me with a smile and said "you know popcorn?" I replied yes, thinking that he would mention the brand popz, which is what French people think my name is. He replied, with a giant smile "you look like popcorn." I don't really know what he was trying to imply, but I know he meant it as a compliment.

On Thursday we saw Marie Madeleine in the hospital and explained to her the importance of the Book of Mormon. It is hard for her to read because she has physical therapy 1-2 times a day and is always really tired. I hope that she can start reading it, or get better so she won't be so tired.

We also saw a member who had been seen by the sisters every week for over a year and a half. The week I was hurt we didn't leave the apartment unless it was English class or expo or church, and on this past Wednesday we got a call from her asking why we don't care anymore. We went and saw her on Thursday and taught her about the missionary objective and the member objective, that she has visiting teachers and that she is a visiting teacher and it is the member's responsibility to support each other, not the missionaries. We told her we would still see her, but only 2 times a month as opposed to every week. I was told that this ward had just started visiting and home teaching in February...I almost want to volunteer to do a relief society lesson on the importance of visiting teaching after vacation when everyone is back.

On Friday it was interviews, which were refreshing as always. Good to have some one on one time with President and Soeur Staheli. after, we went on a petite exchange because there was a sister who had oral surgery the day before and her companion is kinda high strung and was like "we're not working, we're bad missionaries!" That is probably the most interesting thing I have found about the merge; I've heard/seen. a lot of the missionaries that were trained by someone who has the mentality that if you stop working for a second before 9:30, you are a bad missionary. Lunch, dinner, sick, no exceptions. President Staheli always encourages us as missionaries if we are ill, stay in and to take our hour for lunch a dinner. Anyways, we went on an exchange so this sister could work and leave her companion alone to rest and heal and I stayed with her. It was fun to stay with her, we had known each other in the MTC and never thought we'd see each other as missionaries again. I returned to Paris on Saturday night.

hope you are all well,
camille