My first snowy white and UK Christmas

December 27, 2010
Dear everyone!

This last week has been a crazy one! Lots to tell you that I don't think was covered in the phone call...

Last p-day was boring on account of all the snow. There were no buses and it took us the whole day to walk like pioneers to the email place and the grocery store. So that is what we did.

On Tuesday we went and saw a member, Natalie. She is incredible and is going through a terrible divorce. Her husband is trying to take the kids to get back at her and is telling the courts that she is part of a cult and that she doesn't feed the kids....just terrible things. It is so hard to watch people go through trials like this when they are so good and amazing, but I know that she will come out a better stronger person. We ate raclette and it was delicious :)

Wednesday was the big day. I woke up and got ready and went to the mission home to pick up my new companion. I thought back to when I was picked up and it was crazy to think that I am in Soeur Roberts position. We had to wait about an hour and a half for our talk with president. He talked about how in his whole mission, he only remembers one zone leader, but everyone remembers their trainers and about how our good and bad habits will influence them. He told us all a tiny bit about our new companions because he hadn't had the time to interview them yet. My companion is Soeur Turney from Sandy, UT and is an animation major at BYU. There are 5 kids in her family and she is the first missionary. She is pretty quiet at first. we came back to Evry to discover that Soeur Mcclaine hadn't been picked up yet, so we all had lunch together before heading to a rendez-vous with Yue.
With Yue we talked about faith and it was really good. She is just awesome. When we left Yue's we received a call from the Paris sisters that the elders who transport our bags had left Soeur Turney's backpack in Paris, we went into Paris to get her backpack and came back home to find that Soeur McClaine STILL had not been picked up! The elders were running super behind that day and so she didn't get picked up until 9:30! Normally we get picked up early in the morning, but it was a bit different this transfer.

Thursday was good, we ran a lot of errands, getting Soeur Turney settled and had a rendez-vous with Nathaly. We talked about diligently searching and answered her questions from the Book of Mormon readings which was just clarifying who she was reading about.. We also made our giant reese's peanut butter cup for the elder who wouldn't be receiving a Christmas package this year.

Christmas eve we were in Paris for our meeting about the new Paris visitor's center. Good news for the mission and I am very excited about it and it looks great. Very professionally done and I can't wait to take members and amis there! After we got hot chocolate with a couple sisters and some elders before heading home so that Soeur Turney could have her jet-lag nap :) we spent Christmas eve with a French family named the Plugg's, they all speak perfect english so it was great for Soeur Turney and the other elder in our district who is getting trained. It was great for me! We ate smoked salmon and scallops, green beans, potatoes and some giant bird, cheese and salad course, and the Christmas log and some prune cake. It was all wonderful.

Christmas day we spent it with the Camille family from England. As I told you all, I schooled everyone on "just dance 2" and set 4 high scores. It was so fun! The meal was incredible, turkey, pork, parsnips, brussel sprouts, Yorkshire puddings, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and of course, amazing wonderful Christmas cakes :) They got us home right in time for the phone call :)

Church was good. The bishop's wife invited 2 of her friends to church and asked us to sit by them during sacrament. Soeur Turney was a bit embarrassed that she fell asleep in church, but I told her it happens to all of us in the beginning. After sacrament meeting I tried to exchange numbers and fix a rendez-vous with them, but they started talking to the bishop's wife about the choir....so I just gave them our number before they left and they said they would come back. We did our weekly planning yesterday and talked about all the different things like the area book and progress records and all sorts of things. We fixed a lot of rendez-vous, we have a rendez-vous with that woman from Tibet this Wednesday! So excited! I'll try to fix some more tonight during the FHE in Paris, we're going with Nathaly.

Well, that is my week. It has been long and tiring and full of randomness, but that will all change soon!

I hope you all have fun recovering from the holidays and I love you!

camille