December 16, 2013

Bonjour.

This email comes to you from a creepy internet cafe, equiped with a broken mouse (fun), sitting next to my new, British comp. 

This week was crazy (shocker). After sending off my companions, I was given a replacement comp, who was also training. We spent the remainder of the day running around trying to get everything done. Since I knew my new bleu would be crazy tired and jetlagged, I changed the day for when we wrapped presents, and took Soeur Eshbach with me instead. The closer and closer it gets to the holidays, the busier and busier the wrapping gets. We spent almost 2 hours on transport, there and back, and then to a members, and it was COLD. But the night ended with meeting up with all the trainers for the trainer dinner. This time, we skipped on MacDo, and upgraded to a nice pizza joint. It was so fun! Mostly because I got to see tons of missionaries that I love! Soeur Kupfer, Elder Taylor, and Elder Andersen were all there from the MTC. Spent some time with good ole' Mama Hulme, and even Soeur Smith, from Grenoble. We took back 6 missionaries to my tiny apartment so we could all crash (and by we, I mean them, cause I literally "slept" on the floor).

The next day we got a frantic call from the STLs to get the random 2nd transfer missionaries who were staying with us to a metro stop all the way across town, so there we were, dragging a million suitcases around town with us. But we got there, headed to the office to meet all the other missionaries, and be trained for training.We spent the rest of the day at the chapel getting out bleus. Pretty sure only like 2 sisters were American, and my new comp is Soeur Francis. She's English, originally from South Africa, and cooler than me in almost every other way. She's studying art, OBVIOUSLY has a beautiful accent, goes running with me, and is FUNNY. Guys. Like, British, dry, funny. Heaven. She thinks it's disgusting that American's eat applesauce, and I'm inadvertently copying her accent. Compunity.

I thought bringing a bleu into exploding Ecully would be cake. We've never had a hard time finding people to teach, especially since we met with out amis so much. Not really the case. Missionary work always goes in waves, where at one pont you're super successful with tons of people to teach, etc....and then suddenly, it's no more, and you're back to finding. We're at the finding part. Her first day consisted of lots of contacting, and a crazy and depressing lesson with Zamir and Zamira. So we taught them, with Soeur Anderson, and we (aka-she, props to her on her wierd mom senses) knew that something was wrong, and Zamira just starts crying. Uh oh. Zamir finally explained that his parents (who come from a Muslim culture), had told them they cannot meet with us, only to learn French. Nothing religious. This isn't as earth shattering as it seems, but our hearts were broken as we saw how sad they were, especially Zamira, because they were told they could not be baptized. Right when they want to. GOOD ONE, ADVERSARY. Seriously, it was the worst. We all (minus my poor bleu) spent the lesson crying. I don't know what this means for them. I know they'll get baptized. But I, and they, have no idea when that will be. Please pray for them.

The rest of the week was a crazy haze. Trying to set things up and getting tombez over and over. But things will pick up. Also, Joy is really progressing! She wants to be baptized in January, and came to church, and stayed for the baptism that was after, and loved it! Also, Zamir and Zamira came to sacrament meeting out of the blue, and I about cried. And Zamira is the cutest thing ever, and was in a skirt! Progress!

Maya, thank you so much for the package. I haven't really opened the present, I just hung up the decorations and got really competitive with Soeur Francis with the Christmas trivia.

I have no idea when we'll Skype yet, since they're still trying to get it sorted out where we will be going for that.

JE VOUS AIME.

Soeur Luthi

*Sorry, this creepy computer won't let me load pictures.*