Sunday 30 May 2010

a kabob with French/Arab twist

another dive in the ami pool..

May 24, 2010

Dear family,

I remember when Kai got baptized, I thought, "well, our schedule has opened up a lot." Then, we found Xavier and now he is BAPTIZED and I am starting the think the same thing. Don’t think we aren't teaching other people; we are, just not anyone that is superly progressing or saying anything worth reporting.

Xavier’s baptism went greaaat. Everything was so good and everyone remarked how strong the Spirit was. He bought a new suit and tie and was looking sharp. On Sunday after his confirmation and received the priesthood, I asked him if he could feel the power. He looked at me and really sincerely said yes. It was soooo good! We also got word that both Soeur Curran and I are staying in
Lille. On 19 June there is a young adult temple trip to London and Xavier will go and we will be here for it! soooooo EXCITED!

On Friday I didn't go to
Brussels, Soeur Carson who is in my apartment and has Belgium legality got an appointment to go and renew it at the last minute and took my spot. Oh well.

We taught one of the senior couple's amis while they were out of town and she was awesome. It is amazing how much she has changed with the gospel in her life.

Kai and Belinda left this week for
Tonga :( she said she'd write soon to tell me how her trip went. It took them like 2 days to get there! They are such good people and I am glad that I have had this time to get to know them.

A friend of Birdie’s is living here this summer. We were going to take a picture at the baptism, but we forgot.

Know that I love you all sooo sooo soooo much! 9 months this week! HOLY COW where does it go! That number just sounds big because when I think of Soeur Roberts, Soeur Bellini, Soeur Kohler and transfer 1 with Soeur Curran, I remember where the time went.

Keep being great family!

camille

Sunday 23 May 2010

screaming africans

May 17,2010


On Monday mornings I always try to think of something catchy to call my emails. Right now I am in the ghetto internet shop and there are a bunch of Africans in the phone booths yelling at people. I really will miss Africans. One of them will go from yelling to telling the person "God is great." I think she just said "nacho face." back to yelling...

Xavier is still going strong. We had him read the baptismal questions and he said he was ok with everything. We have taught him every commandment, just have lesson five left. We are re-going over the restoration on Monday night. We ask him every rendez-vous how the law of chastity is going. Sometimes he tries to be sassy and says silly things like "how do you think it is going" and then he answers us correctly. His way of avoiding temptation at the beginning of the week was to stay out of his apartment until he was tired. Now he just reads like half of the book of Mormon. He had told us a while ago that he could never see us on Fridays, but I figured now that he is a commandment abiding citizen, we called him on Thursday morning and told him there was a young adult activity on Friday night and asked him if he would come. He said yes. So then we called Natacha who is in our ward and is in charge of the young adults and asked her to send out a text saying that there was a movie night at the church. She did and told everyone to bring crepes. 11 people showed up, 3 were amis, 4 less actives, and 4 active people.

Something kinda funny. I think it was Wednesday that we were on a metro and this guy got out a bible and tried to talk to us in slovique. I don't know what that language that is in English, it is what they speak in the country that broke off from Czech. Anyway, he was trying to get to a parish or something like that. We ended up spending an hour trying to find this place and decided to just take him to a red cross that we knew of. We got there and he wanted us to go in and translate for him but we never had any idea what he was saying. Luckily there were some kids who knew a little bit and were able to help him. On the same metro was the Russian lady we met forever ago and she told us she had given us the wrong number and would like to see us in a week. Pretty fantastic.

Read President Uchtdorf's priesthood session talk. Pretty fantastic. A little harder to put it into practice, but I am trying.

Oh, something weird. In the MTC, Soeur Gifford and I would teach someone named Frere Emery. He is now in my ward. It was weird seeing him on Sunday.

Story of Elder Dohrman and no bake cookies He gave me a jar of peanut butter and asked me to make him no bake cookies and so I did. I still had half a jar and he told me to make some for the baptism. So I did, thinking he meant for other people so I put them out on the buffet table. He walked up to me and was like "I didn't mean for other people at the baptism, I meant for you to give them to me at the baptism!" the rest of the night he would be like "oh, I see Noemi really likes those no bakes." which, was true. The French people do love no bake cookies.

Headed to Brussels for Soeur Curran’s legality on Friday. We get to chill there for like an hour and half. Pretty exciting.

Have a good week everyone! Pictures next time!

camille

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Pictures

The zoo on P-Day











May 3, 2010

Dear Family
Mom, you wanted to know transfer dates. May 26 is the next transfer AND MY NINE MONTH MARK!!!!! What kind of craziness is this!?!?
This week was good. There was a lot of frudging and finding, but there were a couple milestone things.

So Xavier came to FHE on Monday night and he enjoyed it. mM favorite was when they started talking about the word of wisdom and he had this look on his face like "yeah, that makes sense to not drink or smoke." On Thursday he came to institute and was sitting by elder Perez [Soeur Curran was by Jeannine and her sister and I was teaching English class] and there was a scripture and they briefly mentioned the law of chastity. He turned to Elder Perez and asked him what that was. Elder Perez briefly explained and Xavier was like "well, I'm out, I've already broken that!" Elder Perez told him he could repent and be baptized still and he was like "oh, that sounds good." after institute there was talk of a baptism because this guy was getting baptized and he asked Soeur Curran if he could see the font, so we showed it to him. We had to leave after that to make it home on time, but Xavier stayed and told Elder Perez that he needs to get baptized. We have such a good lesson planned! He was supposed to come to the baptism on Saturday, but his random aunt came into France on the one day that public transit doesn't work and she got stranded on the border of Belgium, Xavier had to find someway to go get her :( hopefully some way good news next week! No, there will be way good news next week!

I can't remember if I told you that we thought Jeannine had a word of wisdom problem, turns out she drinks like 7 cups of coffee a day and possibly smokes. But, she is so excited about the church that I know it will all work out. She was committed to start living the word of wisdom by Soeur Curran and Soeur Carson [I was on an exchange with Soeur Christensen] and I hear it was a really really good lesson. I'm pretty sure she's coming to FHE tonight with her cousin or neighbor or someone. Not quite sure. But she is coming and hopefully we will be able to see her soon!

My hair is getting long and up here in the north it gets kinda curly, more so lately.

Kai and Belinda are still going strong. We are going to work on the sacrament prayer with Kai in French. I can't wait for them to go to Tonga and church there so they won't have missionaries translating for them.

Highlight of the week: letters from the Ritz kids.
Cheese of the week: double crème.

Love and miss you all!
camille, the happy missionary in France.

April 26, 2010 oh yes oh yes

Dear family,

As we all know, MY FIRST BAPTISM WAS ON SATURDAY AND IT WAS FANTASTIC! Kai was so happy and so good. Belinda gave such a good talk and the girls behaved themselves. We had the best refreshments of the baptisms here. I made lemon bars, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. Keep in mind, brownies were from scratch, boxed cake mixes don't exist in France. Soeur Kohler came back and I know that meant a lot to Belinda and Kai since Siva and Talei didn't come. I'll probably send a baptismal program home, we took like ten each. On Sunday he was confirmed and received the priesthood. Belinda asked me when he could bless the sacrament. I told her probably next week. After sacrament meeting the elders asked Kai to go on a split with them, which he was really excited for and enjoyed it a lot. He will probably go teaching with them a lot.

Zone conference was this week. Elder Teixeira from the seventies was here and he was really good. His wife asked for a companionship to come up and contact her and her husband. I looked down and thought "I wonder who is dumb enough to fall for that one." I then looked over and Soeur Curran’s hand was up. It took a minute for my heart to stop beating a million miles a minute. We contacted and sat down. Everyone was giving positive feedback and she told them to start saying things for us to work on. The responses were limited and were things that we normally do in a contact.

About a week ago the assistants called us and asked us to get corsages for Soeur Staheli and Soeur Teixeira. We also were to wait at the door and greet them and pin the corsages on them. Just remember what I said last week, that being with Soeur Curran is a lot like of fun. There was a lot of giggling and we felt kind of silly with this task, as honored as we were. Also, French corsages are not nearly as good as American ones.

Jeanine is progressing well. She comes to every activity we invite her. Sadly, she lives with her boyfriend and we think there may be a word of wisdom issue, but other than that she definitely has the desire. She wore a skirt to institute. We think it's because everyone was wearing them on Sunday. Well, not everyone, pants to church in France isn't unseen; it's almost more popular than skirts.

We also found a guy named Xavier that is a funny story. We were on the metro and he was doing the tag stare. We started talking and he asked us to tell him the story of Jesus. We told him and fixed a rendez-vous for a couple days later. He didn't show up, but later that night called and said that something had come up and that he would like to see us again, so we saw him on Sunday. It was a really good rendez-vous. In preach my gospel it says that as we teach we will be answering questions that people didn't even know they had and it really felt that way with Xavier. We are thinking baptismal date this week. I know, you think crazy, but the elders fixed on with someone and he didn't even have a book of Mormon yet! Just craziness. Yet, awesomeness.

Last p-day we went to the zoo. I took my typical wayfarer peace sign picture and then Elder Dalton wanted to take one. It was fun. Today we are going to the kilo shop, a store where nothing has prices, just by the kilo in hopes of finding a Lille soccer jersey.

Peace and love family, keep being great!

Camille

April 12,2010

Dear Family

Soeur Kohler and I finished our week together strong. Last Monday we went to a museum and on Tuesday we spent most of the day with Kai and Belinda. She was a good comp, I'm glad we got to serve together.

I now have Soeur Curran from Florida. She is crazy; we have pretty much the same diet except that she likes tuna. We laugh all the time, except during serious missionary moments. Her train was 2 hours late getting here because she ran over some cows, only in France.

On Thursday we did a lot of finding and getting things organized and Friday was dynamite. We taught Marie, a woman from Nigeria who is very evangelical although she doesn't realize it. We also got in contact with a recent convert who was so M.I.A. Her own sister couldn't get a hold of her. And she was at church on Sunday.

On Saturday we went to district finding and found this way great guy, but he doesn't live in our area, so we had to pass his info. We also were walking and speaking English and talking about something funny and this guy turned his head and laughed, so we invited him to English class. I really hope he comes.

Before I talk about Sunday, I need to preface it with a miracle that occurred on Friday. We were walking to Marie’s and we stopped this woman and talked. She sounded way cool and agreed to come to church. Mind you, tons of people agree to come to church and never do. However, on Saturday night she called to confirm! And on Sunday, she showed up! And she loved church! And she wants to bring a friend next week! We are thinking baptismal date this week!

The other awesomeness is that Kai had his baptismal interview and it is definitely happening this Saturday! I am so excited! Belinda is giving a talk and it is just going to be such a great day. I remember when Siva and Talei dropped us and I had thought that they would be my first baptism and I was crushed. Soeur Kohler said "but you still have Kai.” I hope Soeur Kohler is able to come back for the baptism.

Well, that's all folks.

Love you lots.
camille