Boat Tour on The Seine

Eiffel Tower

Caught In the Rain

It rained on my Bastille Day

July 19, 2010
Dear Family,
This week was Bastille Day, the independence day of France. We went to a parade that morning and it was POURING RAIN. Of course none of us thought to bring an umbrella and we were DRENCHED. We came home, got dry and ate pancakes. It was a good day for all :)

5. Translating sacrament meeting. If you ever think you have a grasp on a language, try doing translation. Most American tourists go to the other Paris ward because it is easier to find, but on Sunday we had an American couple and I undertook the task of translating...everyone in our ward is african and have really THICK african accents, totally different than the quick talkers of the north. However, in the end I think I did an ok job of it.

4. "No child left behind." Soeur England and I were looking through the ward list last week and noticed there are probably about 20 kids ages 8-27 not baptized. Our goal for this week is to visit each family and kinda figure out what's going on.

3. We went and visited Marie-Madeleine, our ami in the hospital. She is doing well and is so sweet. It feels like she is starting to connect to what we say. It is what she's learned her whole life. We hope to have a baptismal date with her before she leaves the hospital and heads out to cholet [way far away]. She is the sweetest lady I have ever met.

2. There is this little tiny visitor center in Paris called the exposition. We man it for 2 hours with another team of missionaries. One set stays in and the other goes out to find people. We hung out in there and a BUNCH of people just randomly came in. When I say a bunch I mean 4. That is a record. It was an eventful Thursday evening :)

1. P-day last week we went on a boat tour of the Seine and hung out with the sisters in Nogent and Versailles. It was great to see Soeur Gifford who is still in Versailles and shoot the breeze about the area. It was nice to be back and have a Paris p-day.

camille

OH! France no longer forwards mail for free. My direct address is:
Soeur Camille Pobst
Les Missionnaires
52 Rue du Faubourg St.Antoine
75012 Paris
FRANCE

The Lille District

Saying Good Bye to Lille

Beloved Paris

July 12, 2010

Dear everyone,

I have left the great north to come down here to Paris. It was SO HARD to leave up there, harder than I expected. I finished my packing and I figure the next time I move I am going to ditch a lot of stuff...I never realized how many books I have! It was so hard to say goodbye to Havier. Soeur Curran and I did not go to the weekly missionary ward meeting and showed up after to say goodbye to him and a couple other people. One of the elders said he has never seen Xavier look so sad. However, I know he will do many great things with his life and in the church.

I took the train down here to Paris and spent most of Wednesday in the moving van with the office elders. It was a pretty interesting car ride just talking. They dropped me off at my apartment and I got to say goodbye to Soeur Fischer-Laudenbach. I almost cried when she hugged me and said she was glad that I was here to take over her area. I don't think she realizes how much stress that had caused me that last couple of days.

I unpacked and we went and taught English class. I saw one of Allie's friends there, that was exciting. I also saw this woman named Krystina that Soeur Roberts and I would tutor in Versailles.

Since then we have taught a bunch of lessons and done a lot of pass bys. We were teaching Aurelie, the most progressing ami who will most likely get baptized this transfer, and her niece was watching VERONICA MARS! I couldn't believe it! She told me it was her favorite show, but she also told me she was watching the first season, when it was clearly the third. Apparently there are some things from that "other life" I haven't forgotten.

We are also teaching a woman named Altima from Haiti and while we were teaching her in a park, a friend of Soeur England's (my new companion) walked by and was completely shocked to see her because he thought she was in Belgium. Pretty funny.

Another ami is Marie Madeleine who is in the hospital recovering from knee surgery. We have other amis that I haven't met yet. It is nice to have so many investigators.

Everyone down here speaks English. On the metros, in the buses, it is English. One day we were on the metro and I turned to these two women speaking English and I asked where they were from. The woman said, “California”. She asked me, I said, “Arizona”. She asked what I was doing here and I said I was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. and she said "oh, you're Mormon. You are the ones who tried to stop us from getting married." I

n that moment I wanted to die. I just looked at her and she said, "so what do you think about the two of us? Do you think we should break up because we're both women and have been together for 13 years and are happy?" I just stood there stunned for a bit and she was like "I feel I have a right to ask you this since you are propagating your beliefs."

I just looked at her and said "yes, it is true. We believe marriage is between a man and a woman." She said again "so you think we should break up?" I just said, "I am not taking a stand on your relationship, but we believe marriage is between a man and a woman.” I guess my answer sufficed because she stopped asking me about it and asked why I was in France and not the states. We talked about that and she left and said "just think about." It ended on a nice note.

Love you all! Hope to hear from you all next week!

camille

Soeur Curran, Natache and Noemi

Ben Faour Family and Bishop

Missionaires celebratin 4th of July

Chosen to go..Paris

July 5, 2010

Dear Family,

Remember when I went on exchanges with Soeur Fischer-Laudenbach a couple transfers ago? She had a special mission and spent her whole mission in Paris Lilas. She is going home on Wednesday and all the sisters have been wondering who the "lucky" sister would be that got to go and fill her shoes. I am here to tell you, that it is me. I am going to go to Paris Lilas to replace Soeur Fischer-Laudenbach. I am a bit sad to be leaving Lille, but I am way excited to be going to Paris Lilas [that is part of Paris, the north and east side. My new companion is Soeur England. I knew her in the MTC, she came in before I left and I am really excited to serve with her.

5. Do you all remember Jeanine from forever ago? She was progressing so well and then suddenly dropped off the planet? Well, she is back. I called her and fixed a rendez-vous for Thursday night...right after I leave. I am glad to leave the new companionship with a rendez-vous it will all be good. We always say, "Leave an area better than you find it." I hope Soeur Nielsen enjoys my precious Lille.

4. There are these patches that you can collect for cities in France and when I left Versailles Soeur Bellini and I spent like 3 days looking for one. I found out there is a store at this castle called Mons St. Michel that carries all of the patches. At zone conference weeks ago, I asked these 2 elders if they happened to be there if they could get me one and last week I got a call from an elder telling me that they had gone and he had picked one up for me. That elder is also in my district this next transfer! So excited to get my patch!

3. Soeur Kohler had to come to Lille to get her French legality and she ended up spending the night. It was really good to see her and remember how awesome she is. I have been really fortunate with companions, I always get the great ones. They are all so different, yet awesome.

2. There was a baptism and of course the sisters did a special musical number. I played "come thou fount" and the other sisters sang "O My Father in French of course. It sounded really good and everyone loved it.

1.5. So I forgot about 4th of JULY! All the missionaries went out to the Ahret’s place in Belgium for a barbeque. It was a great time and a good end to 3 transfers.

1. When we taught Xavier we always taught him with Natacha and Noemi, who are sisters. They left on Friday to go to their home for vacation and we all went to their place for a mangez-vous [dinner appointment]. I am really glad I was able to be there with all these people that I love so much, who have definitely touched my life forever.

I can feel a lot of miracles coming this next
love you lots!
camille

Soeur Pobst and Soeur Curran

Soeur Pobst

Sister Missionaries

sprained ankle

Who knew I loved Cherries

June 28, 2010

Famille,

So a bit ago someone brought a bunch of cherries to FHE and I ate them. I loved them. First time in my life I've eaten cherries.

Another fun fact, after 12 weeks together it has been discovered that Soeur Curran read those star wars books that I read. We are so alike it is getting a bit ridiculous.

Now for the countdown.

5. We went to Dunkerque this week, a small town on the coast, which means there is a beach there. First we contacted and attempted to do a pass by, but we got really lost because we had a terrible map and no idea about the city. The best part was going to the beach. No, I didn't go in the water. Yes, I walked in the sand and loved every minute of it.

4. Samedi sports. I played SO good this week, I was unstoppable...until I tripped on the ball and rolled my ankle. I was stealing it from an elder and I rolled my ankle on it. We immediately went home and started icing it with frozen spinach and have been taking it easier since. We don't do a ton of extra walking, which I felt terrible about When I went on a split with Hannah, {Birdie's friend} I had to drag her back to the metro station to sit because I'm not supposed to do extra walking and our rendez-vous was cancelled. The swelling has gone down a bit and it doesn't hurt as bad to walk. My calf is insanely tight though.

3. The Greve. Normally I don't like them because that means limited public transit. However, this time we got lucky. We went to see if the tram was working and all the sudden this guy started talking to us and said that he loves to talk with people about religion. We have a rendez-vous this Wednesday :)

2. LDS-Fest. Even though that acronym means nothing to French people, they still decided to use it as the title for this music festival/stake activity. Our ami Lokonda who came to church a couple weeks ago was supposed to come and didn't. However, Ibtissem, who we contacted at the plan of salvation a couple weeks ago came and enjoyed a lovely church tour given by myself, Soeur Curran, and Xavier. After the church tour, Ibtissem and Xavier talked in the hall for like an hour and then came in to enjoy the music. Xavier just talked to her about how great the gospel is and taught her the law of chastity. She told us that she could come to church yesterday, but then she didn't...we're hoping she comes to FHE tonight!

1. Xavier, always the number one in our lives. This week he led the DMP meeting and was a champ. He also gave a talk yesterday at church that was so good. It was about making choices and he was like "we're all baptized and we promised to keep the commandments, so let's keep them." He also quoted scriptures from his brand new triple combination that he LOVES. He even marked it a bit :)
The world cup; this last week Algeria played America and we received a call from the office that we were to not tell anyone that we were American that night and avoid Algerian areas. Porting during a game is either a terrible idea or a brilliant idea. We went during the Portugal/Brasil game and everyone told us they couldn't talk to us and to come back later. Hopefully at that later time they will want to hear the gospel :)

love you all!

camille

p.s. Jolisa, if you read this, write me a letter!