Week 29: Castles and Portuguese

Hey everybody, how is your summer vacation going? 

Mine isn't a vacation and its really just hot..... BUT we found a fan tucked away in a closet in our apartment so at least we aren't dying anymore at night!

So this week we explored castles, Had a ton of rendez vous, and met soooo many Portuguese!

Last pday we went up to Chauvingy which is like an old French village where there are six castles just all right next to eachother so we explored them and then tried to go see a bird show but when it was time for it to start the manager came out and said the show was cancelled because it was really hot and there were only 15 people so
it wasn't worth it to get the birds out:p sorry we weren't important enough....super lame But it was okay we were allowed to see all the birds anyways and got a full refund. 

Afterwards since it was hot and we had to wait until the only bus came to come pick us up (the catch with these far away villes, is there is only one bus that goes and leaves that ville each day!) so we got on this little tour bus car 
thing and just rode in it for two hours driving circles and talking about the gospel and cheesecake with the driver. It was pretty fun:)

The rest of the week we were running from rendez vous to rendez vous with amis and less actives and members. Its so bad because the buses are running on summer hours so we have to time them just right and sometimes there is only one certain bus once or twice an hour and if we miss it, all of our rendez vous get off track, but we managed to stay on top of it this week and it flew by:) It was great to have so much to do and then on the buses we did lots of contacting and ended up contacting into a Portuguese person like every day, so we dubbed it the week of the Portuguese, it was crazy! 

This week also instead of having district meeting we did a mission wide summer cleaning of the apartments but we didnt have much to do since we clean every week so we made a cheesecake like we were planning to make for district meeting and ate that while we waited for cookies to bake for one of our less actives:)

Life is flying by and this is the last week of the transfer!! It is crazy but it is good. We work a lot and are almost always tired but its a good tired because we know we worked hard. Enjoy your summers because its not like that all the time where you can just play and play;p 

Love you all:)

Soeur Beatty

Week 28: More Water Balloons

This week flew by and this next week will fly by even faster! We had zone conference, a miraculous exchange, and found some new amis!

Mission life flies by the smoothest when you have amis and rendez vous and things to do! (You know I can't remember what a rendez vous is for normal English speaking missionaries anymore....they don't call them meetings but I was trying to translate that the other day and gave up...loosing my english!) But anyways it is seriously the best when the work starts picking up:) 

We have finally found a new ami and we were able to get in touch with an old ami AND we found two less
actives! Who went less active where they lived before so we don't have their records but through miracles we have rendez vous fixed with them and it is wonderful:) And one is a part member family, the only curveball is it is Summer so everyone is traveling and so I really hope that we can keep in touch with them to make it through the
Summer, it is one of the biggest reasons we loose contact with our amis, we are still here working on helping them find happiness and salvation but they have their normal lives and its the season where everyone just disappears and you don't know when exactly they will come back! But fingers crossed:)

At zone conference we talked a lot about our feux de joies (joyfires!) and spiritual experiences and helping our members recognize them. The thing about this is it isn't another program the mission has created to try to get the members to do more, it is a program that the area presidency created for the members that coincides already with their normal lives, and our job is to help them realize all the spiritual experiences they already have and show them how they can turn them into missionary opportunities. It isn't our goal to have them do more but to see already that the spirit is working everyday in their lives, and they know it but sometimes we forget that that coincidence from early in the day when you just called up someone to talk and it just happened that they needed help isn't just a coincidence. 

Or when you have been able to find ancestors or achieve something you weren't able to before, the spirit is always there helping us and we need to see it! :) And each Sunday we take an hour to work on this plan for ourselves to understand exactly how to help the members, even something as small as writing in a journal to preserve your thoughts is an experience with genealogy that can help your future family understand your thoughts and feelings when you were such an age and that is a spiritual experience you can share because the spirit of Elijah is real and will spread like wildfire if you recognize it and share it! (See what I did there;) That's the idea! And I have no sense
of humor its sad;p )

But at zone training we played again with water balloons but this time it was a little different and they just were throwing the balloons at us from all sides and we had to try and catch them, it was crazy, a few of the elders and sisters got SOOOO wet! Like balloon popped on them wet, it was so funny x) It is also perfect because it is hot here in France!

After zone training we had an exchange with the STLs which was wonderful:) And one of the best parts of it was we were contacting in the park and we turned down this little path and at the end of it was a bench with this scaryish looking man but we started walking down the path and he looked up and lifted up his sunglasses and said "Bonjour les filles! Comment ca va chez les mormons?" With a giant kind smile! Literally, "Hey sisters, how are you doing at the Mormon church!"  It was insane, we then had a lesson with him where he talked with us about how he has met with lots of missionaries on the street before and how he loves how we always brighten up his day, he had even seen us the night before when we started our exchange but was across the street so he didn't say anything but we found him the next day and it was great! Up until my companion started coughing really bad and so he was like I KNOW WHERE THERE IS WATER! And he ran to this water spout and started turning it for her to get a drink and afterwards she was good but it was so funny I had to take a picture, he offered me a
drink too but I was good x) It was an amazing lesson on the plan of salvation and I hope he starts taking the lessons:)

This upcoming week we have a lot of rendez vous but it is great! We are busy every night this week and on Thursday we have district meeting in Limoges:) So that will be fun! I hope you all have a tremendous week:)

Love you,

Sister Beatty:)

Mikayla and Soeur Grant

Week 27: Ping Pong

Hey everybody:)

So just to explain that title, I have played a whole lot of ping pong this week and it has quickly become something I love to play x) Not always with rules but like just for fun:) There are ping pong tables in every church and institute and even our mission home here in France.

So this week there was the Eurocup finals! District meeting, a service project/finding day, and lots of trains because of all that.

In four days we took six trains that were all at least an hour long,sometimes longer. It was nuts and tiring and I am glad we are good on trains, at least until Tuesday night!

On Monday we had our zone pday all together to celebrate the fourth of July and Tuesday there was a zone pday and we went with the sisters to do a service project for the friend of a member who is packing her house up to go to Africa! It was super fun and funny because I guess the Dad is anglophone but he is already in Africa waiting for his family to come, but she asked us to speak to her children in English because she understands but doesn't speak it and the children can't lose the English they know because they are going to an English speaking country in Africa.

We worked in our sector all day Wednesday then that night took another train back to Bordeaux to be closer to where our district meeting would be on Thursday. And really early that morning we were off to Perigeux where we played lots of ping pong waiting for everyone to come and also afterwards when lunch was cooking. 

We got to the point where we could play with two balls at one time! That was sweet, but the district meeting was great, we talked about how to light up our little bonfires in our different areas and what we could do because
everyone in our district are in tiny branches so its harder to have the unity that comes from a ward but it was an amazing meeting :)

That day we came home with just enough time to eat dinner and then we worked all weekend, which was broken up by euro cup parties. We live off of the main town center right next to a giant park where they broadcasted the Eurocup semi-finals and finals and we didn't even need a tv to know what was going on, our windows were open because it's super hot where we live and i'ts France - so no AC - but we could tell by the screaming what was going on, Friday night we managed to fall asleep but were woken up by the most insane screaming when France won and it was sooooo loud and intense. 

They were so happy and everyone at church was excited for the finals Sunday night- which we were able to
sleep through the whole night so when we woke up this morning we figured it didn't end well for france because there was no insane roar that woke us up haha:)

This week is their independance day so we will see how that goes, we will be on an exchange in bordeaux which will be fun, its the day after our zone conference which I'm super excited about:) It will be great!

I hope you all are enjoying your summers! Love you:)

Sister Beatty

Mikayla's African dress. She had to have it hemmed. 

We sent Mikayla cream soda for the 4th of July.