"Is it one of those parties whre you baptize dead people"

November 1, 2010

Dear family,

This week our heat went out. Our neighbor came over to look at it before we called the building manager and we took the opportunity to invite him to the ward FHE tonight. He then asked "is it one of those parties where you baptize dead people?" I kind of chuckled and we told him what it was. People know the weirdest things about us...

This week we were FINALLY able to see Ji, although it was pretty rough, we met in the park with the kids. They kept running up and she was getting frustrated. Soeur Kohler and I took turns trying to distract the kids. We talked about life on earth, why things are hard, why things are good, why Jesus Christ is important. She said that is one thing that she never understood, is why people think you need Jesus to be happy. We told her that it's not like you are sad if Jesus isn't in your life, it is just that He sacrificed so much for us and explained his role in the plan of salvation. She is just awesome, always willing to act.

Francoise and Alexandre are doing well. We saw Francoise 3 times this week and are a bit puzzled. so the first time we saw her she was really stressed out. Alexandre had lost his firefighter job and doesn't work that much at his other job. She told us that she had one cigarette left and that she wouldn't be able to buy cigarettes anymore with the money becoming tight. We thought "hmmm, blessing in disguise" talked about opposition coming in when you are making right choices. We have seen her twice since then and the house has smelled like fresh cigarettes every rendezvous since then....a bit confused. This week we are going to talk about that and hope to resolve the smoking with the baptism coming up.

We have a new ami, kind of an interesting one. His name is David and he got our number from the bishop in another city because his uncle is a very depressed, very less active member. We cannot as missionaries help with things like depression. We contacted the bishop who immediately went over to help and explained that he was the one that needed to be called for help with the uncle. David is not a member and is interested in being baptized and "becoming a deacon or a priest." We taught him the first lesson and during the lesson it was just a very interesting feeling. Terrible because the uncle is now smoking a ton and is just withering away. It is hard to tell David we can not help him as missionaries. David was really interested and had already started reading the Book of Mormon. Just very odd situation and we hope that we can see David at the church from now on because we do not have the best feelings in the house.

On Saturday we went down to Versailles with the bishop for the baptism that we helped with the music with. We did 5 numbers, I don't think I have played piano that much in a really really really long time...it was good to be back in Versailles. It was cool because there was a baptism of an 8 year old who's mom had gotten baptized a couple weeks before I got to Versailles and so I was able to see some of the members again. I am starting to feel really old in the mission....transfer 10 is right around the corner....yikes....after the baptism there was the BEST after baptism buffet EVER with professional pastries! I didn't even put my no bake cookies out, we gave them to the Versailles elders.

Hope this week finds everyone well! I love you all!

Camille