I hugged an apostles wife!

September 13, 2010
Dear family,

5. P-day in Brussels was fun. We went to the Atonium (The Atomium is a monument built for Expo '58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by André Waterkeyn, it is 102-metres (335 ft) tall, with nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times) and chilled in a grand place. It was really cool to go back and not be so rushed. We met the most awkward American member. I think she was jet lagged. she looked at my name and was like "Pobst, that's French right?" Sorry, it's not even close.

4. ELDER BALLARD! it was so cool hearing from Elder Ballard, Elder Rasband, and Elder Caussé. Elder Caussé talked about the work in Europe moving forward and it was really cool. I felt so proud of being here in this time. Great things are happening. Elder Rasband talked about working with the ward council and working with less actives and Elder Ballard talked about always teaching. That when we aren't teaching amis we should teach less actives, when we aren't teaching less actives to teach actives. It was a very neat experience and there were not a lot of people there, maybe 40. We got to put the corsages on the wives! When the Caussés are in France they are in Versailles and they were there at Christmas, but I was a dork and never talked to them. When we were putting the corsages on them she looked at me and was like "weren't you in Versailles at Christmas?" OH MAN I felt so cool....but like a dork at the same time. I was so afraid of speaking French to them! At the end we got to go up and shake people's hands and Soeur Kohler and I hugged Sister Ballard. so yeah, I hugged an apostle’s wife!

3. Sylvain’s baptismal interview was yesterday. He is getting baptized on Saturday. I haven't talked much about him...he used to be T.J. but met a member in Peru somehow and they started dating and she said she wanted to get married in the temple so he started meeting with the missionaries. However, now it is more than that, I can tell that he is doing this for himself.

2. Stake conference was yesterday and oh man, it was awesome. Alexandre went and Xavier sat by him. So good. We got to sustain Kai and Xavier to get the melchizedek priesthood. as both of them stood up, my little missionary heart swelled with joy! It was so good. the speakers were great too, at the end alexandre turned around and said that he heard exactly what he needed to. it was awesome.

1. Alexandre’s progress has been A LOT this last week. We saw them on Thursday and he had read a TON in the book of Mormon. We taught the law of chastity and he didn't have any worries about it and when fixing the rendez-vous for next week he said that he could see us twice! big step! Soeur Kohler is amazed she said he used to always be to busy to see us and to read, but now it is not that way! His baptismal calendar was on the fridge! His progress with not smoking is getting better; he didn't smoke at all on Saturday and only smoked 2 cigarettes on Sunday. he told us that he normally smokes 30 cigarettes a day!

This week we are going to try our hardest to have 20 lessons! pray for us!
love you lots!
camille