The Eating Week

September 27, 2010
Dear family,
I had the absolute WORST dream ever this week. I dreamt that I was home but I still thought I was a missionary and we were at stake conference. I was trying to get people to talk to my less actives and amis but everyone was asking me about France. I was like "everyone, I don't have time for this, we need to help these people feel welcome!" Then someone was like "but Camille, you're not in France anymore, we want to hear about France." I started crying in my dream about how much I missed France. Pretty much the worst feeling EVER.

5. We had 4 mangez-vous this week. We ate with the bishop's wife and she made this incredible pizza, so good. Then we ate lunch with Chantel after cleaning and we had a quiche, salad, a cheese course and melon. Then we ate with the 2nd counselor in the bishopric's family and had random stuff and ratatouille. THEN we ate with some less-actives who don't realize they are less-active and had Frenchified Mexican food because she is from Mexico. Soeur Kohler and I are thinking about how we can help them this week...

4. Chantel. She is doing pretty good. We went over to her place to help her clean on Thursday. It was pretty immaculate already so we dusted a couple things and ate lunch with her. She still has a lot of grief and asked us what we believe about suicide and depression. We told her that we believe suicide is an illness and that it is a burden for those who have it and that we can't judge someone who has committed suicide because we don't know their situation. I think she was pleased to hear that we don't think she's damned. When we taught the plan of salvation and talked about the spirit world, she said that she is sure her daughter accepted the gospel. We couldn't see her on Friday because one of her friends took her out the cemetery and she didn't come to church on Sunday because it was raining heavy and she and Hugo come on bikes. She said she has been reading the book of Mormon and finds it interesting. We have another rendezvous on Tuesday and I'm really excited.

3. Ji [pronounced chi]. We found her last Saturday and had a rendezvous with her on Tuesday and Thursday. She is 34 and is from china and has a husband from Algeria and the 2 cutest kids ever. She said she is looking for the truth and has come to Christian churches before and didn't really like them, but was willing to meet with us. The first rendezvous we talked about God, Jesus Christ, and prayer and realized how difficult it might be to teach someone with ABSOLUTELY no Christian background whatsoever. We called the Chinese elders in Paris and talked to them and they told us to take it REALLY slow and to really make sure she is getting it. On Thursday we talked about God and used scriptures to teach about Him as our Heavenly Father. She had looked about the website and had written down four questions that all had to do with the plan on salvation, which we are teaching next time. We figured she needed to understand God before the plan and she left the rendezvous saying that she understood God better. She is going to be praying and reading a bit out of the book of Mormon, but I have a feeling she is going to read a lot more than we gave her.

2. Charmel. He is 23 and got baptized while he was in Bordeaux on an internship. He was actually taught and baptized by an elder I knew in the mtc, Elder Law. Allison and Justin met him at the sacred grove. I think that is a fun little circle :) anyway, it is just like having another Xavier. They are almost exactly the same and I can't wait for them to meet at general conference this next week. He is really cool and solid and this week we are going to teach him a bit about the temple because there is a temple trip in October and we want him to go :)

1. Alexander and Francoise. They are doing well, but are getting hit with opposition. We had to move the baptism to the 16th due to work, but now he is no longer a firefighter. However, he said the way they fired him was illegal and so he is looking into that...not sure what that means. Last Monday night we had fhe with them. The bishop and his wife came the lesson was on the priesthood. During the lesson Francoise asked if she could have a blessing of comfort and the bishop gave her one and it was REALLY good. On Thursday we talked about general conference and watched a part of the Thomas S. Monson movie so they could get to know the prophet. I really love having that movie come general conference time to help people get to know the prophet. We watched the last chapter when he gets called as the prophet. We left it with them and they really liked it and now whenever Alexander has time he watches old sessions of general conference...I love when Amis get to this stage where the only thing in their life is the gospel and that is all they want to do. Pray for them though, the opposition is really coming and neither of them is completely done smoking yet. They are both down to less than five cigarettes a day and Francoise is always a happy little social butterfly when she comes to church :)

Transfer news came out on Saturday and Soeur Kohler and I are staying together another transfer! So good! We are pretty happy to stay together. We did well on journaling this transfer, I wrote in my journal everyday :) so good! Transfers 4-6....I'm working on getting that caught up...eek

I read Jacob 5 this week in French and every time I read it, I am amazed at the love of the lord in the vineyard. The one tree that doesn't appear to be doing so good. He tries everything to help it reach its full potential and I really feel that with us. We get so many chances to try and be better people, even if sometimes we don't deserve it. I read this talk called three choices by elder Worthlin on self-improvement and the first one is to realize and accept that you can never go back and change things, only move forward and fix them :) I really like that and that is probably one of the greatest lessons I have learned on my mission, just how much potential each one of us has.

Love you all! Have a good week!
camille