Week 25: My Timing Sucks haha

Eight Minutes to write this email and I got this... Maybe haha ah this week

WE HAD A BAPTISM! And it was pretty good:) And we got a new Ami:) Had stake conference and french burger king!

Let me start off with the least important of that all the burger king haha:) It was GIANT! The sandwiches here are massive and I don't understand why but like they are still good so not complaining:) But we went to burger king kind of last minute to meet up with an old ami who had been at Paris and came back to Poitiers for a few days. It was great! We then saw him the next day for a rendezvous and are going to start helping find his testimony by just reading the book of mormon with him. 

He has basically had all the lessons multiple times so that is where we are at. He wants it to be true, he just needs to figure out the importance of it all in his life because for him right now, he thinks it is not as important as it really is... Its your salvation! But we will get him there:)

Next we had piano class like always and that was great! We had six people come so we split them up into two groups to teach separately because there were 3 returning students and 3 new students so yeah different levels but it went pretty well and they all want to come back again this week!:)

We road tripped down to Bordeaux with some members for Stake conference and that was amazing, they had a seventy who grew up in the Bordeaux Stake and his talk was amazing. He talked about how we learn that with the gospel you can make ordinary men, extraordinary! And how missionaries can work with the wards through the interregional plan but inviting friends to church:) It was wonderful! 

And that night President took us all out to eat at HFC, which is like KFC but with an H. Super funny and really good:) The next day was Sunday and we finished up stake conference in a gorgeous giant conference center and
then we went to the church for our baptism! We had some members from other wards come and another investigator which was great:) Our ami Beatrix has been investigating the church since January and she had
been waiting to be baptized for a while now because of a mixup with her legality, turns out she was able to get baptized and after lots of looking and planning with our branch counsel we fixed this day after the stake conference and everything just fell into place and it was amazing:) 

Beatrix fasted the day of her baptism and has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen. She was so happy afterwards she was just crying. It was beautiful and I am so happy for her:) She finally has found her place she said. And the best part is even if she leaves France she will always have the church, no matter where she is!

This week was crazy but it was great and next week Beatrix will be confirmed and it is just all wonderful:) I hope you all are having a great start to your summers! Love you!

Sister Beatty:)

burger king

Staying in Poitiers

S Takotua and Beatty

Stake Conference

Beatrix's Baptism

Week 24: Six Months Down Already

So for the first time I get to stay in the same ville with the same companion and it is really weird. Neither of us had to pack up our bags or go to the gare. It was sad that we didn't get to say goodbye to the elders and sisters leaving from our zone but we did get to take our pday today:)

This week went by pretty fast but it also seems like last Monday was actually a month ago. My concept of time is super skewed but it's all good:) 

On Wednesday we got up and during equipe study we made a quiche because we went to eat lunch with a less active at her house and it was pretty good if I do say so myself! We have a little tiny microwave oven so I had to do only a 1/3 of the recipe because it was a recipe for a big oven but it worked out and was super yummy:) And my mille feux was not too bad this time around, the little ones were to test our oven to see if we could even cook it period but again totally not biased when I say my mille feux was pretty good too:) The less active liked it too, even though she always says no she smiled when I asked her if she liked it! She is stubborn but that's okay because I am stubborn too;p

On Thursday we did Tim Tam slams and had Dr. Pepper floats which was really fun, and ended up being dinner... Haha ah we ate too much sugar that night but it was okay because we only do it once a transfer;p I don't think I have explained tim tam slams before so I'm going to just in case, and if I already have, sorry:) But tim tam slams are when you take hot milk and a tim tam, which is like two little cookie bars filled with a chocolatey fudge filling, covered in chocolate, and you take that and you bite off one corner and then the opposite corner and you put one corner you bit off in the milk and you suck through the other corner you bit off like a straw until you taste milk and then you shove it in your mouth!!! 

Sorry that was a bad explanation but it is soooo good, the chocolate melts inside and the cookies do too which
is why if you don't put it in your mouth real quick it will fall apart into the milk! Its super not good for you though which is why you really should only do it once a transfer, we have enough patisseries every other day of the transfer that its okay!

Friday we had our calls and then that night we had branch counsel which was super awkward at the beginning but ended up being great at the end. We weren't able to find a place and a good time for our ami to be baptized this past week but at branch counsel after a LOT of talking we were able to get this Saturday for her baptism after stake conference and it will be amazing:) Everything has fallen into place and knock on wood it all works out! She is so ready and we are so proud of her:)

Then the best part of this week was we got to celebrate Fete de la musique with the branch and we did like a musical jeopardy. It wasn't quite jeopardy but what they did was they broke up the last big musical years and they were the categories, and then a team would pick a category and have 4 minutes to identify the 20 songs from those years. It was crazy! They were mainly french songs which I was useless for that but the second round was international songs and my team won that round haha because there is not a lot of youth in the branch;p It
was so weird though because I heard songs I knew I used to know but I could not remember the composer or the name of the songs! That was super frustrating and I know it'll only be worse when I get home...agh... Haha 

But that's not for another year so I won't worry about that right now, but then the last round was childhood TV theme songs and that was really fun, there was scooby-doo, pink panther or as the french say panther rose, full house, addams family, and lots others, they even had the nanny and that was really funny to listen to!

That was a great way to finish the week and I am excited for this next week of this transfer:)

Have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister Beatty

Homemade mille feux

homemade quiche

dr pepper floats

Rain and rainbows

Week 23: This week is already weird

Bonjour à tous,

So this week flew by, we did so much:) we passed less actives,gardened, i got an early birthday present, and i managed to get over the language barrier and teach a brand new piano concept! (It's not new, but it was new to everyone in the class.)

We have been working a lot which is good, we have continued passing less actives and have found out that half of our members on the less active list don't actually still live here, it's just their last known address and they can't go anywhere else because there is nowhere to send them since no one knows where they went...which explains the
abandoned buildings, houses that don't exist and unregistered numbers we have for them;p but now we know to focus on the other half that still live here and hopefully we'll find some new amis:)

On Wednesday we got a text from one of our members who asked if we could do some service for her and we were like 'bien sûr!' Which means 'of course' but also in the moment probably more like 'heck yeah' because we don't get many service opportunities like ever really because people think we are too busy or that we have better things to do but really one of our purposes is to help people, but you can't help people who don't ask or let you help them. 

So if you have a need ask the missionaries! Cleaning, painting, moving stuff, gardening, etc. it's a wonderful change of pace:) also if you have nonmember friends who have something going on the missionaries are perfect to have help... Haha Anywho so she texted us and we said yes and so the next day we went and gardened in her garden -- turned out it was like a mini farm(!). We worked for about four hours, weeded around the strawberries
and cassis (no idea what it is in English, it's like a red, acidic blueberry -- but Dad you would've been so proud of me pulling up weeds just like we used to do in the backyard! Then we pruned her vineyard and it was fun because we were together but really hot and sweaty and I got a wonderful farmer's tan from it! 

I also felt really bad for God when we were pruning the grapevine because I understand so much better how annoying it is to be pruning and to see this long branch that has spent all this time growing and you have spent all this time taking care of it but with no fruit! Like it's useless haha ah... So you cut it off, until you get to the fruit bearing part or there are only a few leaves left, so that its still there and it can regrow and try again to have fruit but man, it's annoying when that happens over and over and then I got to thinking about how God does that with us and how we should be useful and do good things and bear fruit but we don't always and he has to prune us and help us and try and make it so we are useful. 

I think it would be a perfect activity for youth or the single adults to really understand and appreciate how much God and his son do for us, 24/7 and happily! Because they still love us even when we are useless:) haha which I don't mean like that because we all have something to contribute but sometimes we can get a little lost or turned around.

That same night we then had piano class where we moved on to learning the notes and how many counts to each note and forming rhythms and that was seriously the hardest thing i've ever had to do because I didn't know any of the French names so we just stuck with numbers but then I couldn't explain it properly and it was difficult but we
succeeded after a whole lot of charades and just pointing and listening and trying to figure out but by the end they could write a rhythm and clap it out together! It was great! 

Almost missed our bus because we were so focused but it was all good:)

This week we had a rendezvous with a less active and she made us a yummy apple tart and gave me the recipe and it was so good, but she also gave sister takotua a late birthday present and me a really early birthday present! Because she doesn't think i'll still be here in October, but its a super cute owl that i need to take a picture of so
i will do that this week:) and I also succeeded in making homemade mille feux!! So that will definitely be a recipe i bring home:)

Yesterday was the sister's conference which was just amazing:) It was super fittingly, all about shoes:) Our amazing STLs taught us different concepts that we remember with our shoes and it was great! We talked about how we need to walk in our companions shoes and try and understand hows she's feeling, we need to remember that even when we feel like a destroyed pair of loafers God always sees us as beautiful heels, that every sole has worth in the sight of God;) 

That our missions are lived one step at a time and that over time as our shoes are molded to be comfortable and just what we need, God will mold us into what he needs:) And then one phrase I loved but wasn't about shoes haha was " What the Lord lays his hands on he heals". I had never heard that before but its such beautiful imagery but also true. Literally when he is there he heals us as if it never happened. 

It was a beautiful conference which we finished with decorating flip-flops (left mine in Bordeaux though!) and manis and pedis because it had been a very long teary conference with just the sisters there x) We also had three gorgeous musical numbers and they were so powerful:) I also may have seen my trainer for the last time while we
both still wear plaques and that was a really quick but hard goodbye because they were like pulling all the Bordeaux sisters out first to go catch our plane! I love her so much, she is the perfect example of what I want to be at the end of my mission:) <3

And then after a very silly not even an hour long plane ride we got to Bordeaux and then this morning we made it home to Poitiers and I finally get to email!:) I say silly because you spend 25 minutes getting up to maximum height and then you start descending, it is the shortest plane ride in the world or I have lost all sense of time, but
it is way better than 11 hours on a train so I am not complaining:)

Love you all,
Sister Beatty

Headed to Conference in Lyon

Sisters Conference

Soeur Robb

Soeur Robb and Soeur Long

Headed home

Week 22: Five months today!

I have been out for five months... That is insane to think about haha ah...

This week we had our interviews with president, all of our wonderful classes, and have started passing less actives:)

Seeing president was great! We had skype interviews because he wasn't able to make it out to Bordeaux for in person interviews but skype is still better than nothing!

We were the very last interviews of the day so we waited like all day to talk with him but it was great to see him and his wife:) She always calls us first to make sure we are ready and to let us know that he is going to be calling soon. We just got to chat really and it was wonderful:)

In a week we will be having a sisters conference if everything goes well and we will get to see him
and his wife in person and that will be great:)

We taught all of our classes this week which was fun. English, French, and Piano keeps us busy but its good to be busy and we have had amis at all of them which is great!

We have started to pass all the less actives on our list and its been kind of funny because some of the addresses have been abandoned buildings or non-existent but we did manage to meet a few less actives who sadly were really mean... I understand, but like at the same time we are people and just because you don't like what we represent doesn't mean you need to be mean to the messengers.

And because they were in English, which I don't know why, but when someone rejects us in English it hurts so much more than French. haha It's probably because I actually understand every word they are saying to me....  x)

Speaking of French, my French is getting sooo much better, we only really speak in French and I am starting to think in French. It's great, but I still miss English. It is still a different kind of relationship when I can only speak French but hopefully by the end of my mission it'll be good and I can have a real friendship with someone just in French:) One of the goals....we'll see.

Thats about it for this week, didn't have anything big or exciting, sadly didn't have too many lessons but as we learned at our district meeting you gotta grind to find... And we have been doing a lot of
that so hopefully we will find some new amis soon:)

Love you all,

Soeur Beatty

We sent Mikayla a package. She was good to show me she had gotten it. 

Mikayla and Soeur Takotua

Sisters with Sister C.

Haha. Another fancy toilet. 

Mikayla has been cooking. Curry.

Mille Feux Mikayla made herself. 

Mikayla is teaching these girls English and she loves them!