Now your in PAU, FRANCE! There ain't nothin you can't do! the Soeurs will inspire you! ;-)
(the end of the title created by Elder Willett, our district leader. haha)
famille and friends,
bonjour! sorry about that awkward email I sent. I was just adding it to "drafts" but accidentally clicked send. I was adding shelby's email to this. All for love! anyway. so this week! and this is going to be a little bit shorter then most, I think. Because! when the sun shines..just kidding. (name the song, court) anyway, because we have a bunch to do today and this stupid cyber cafe rakes up about 10 euros each monday from me. Stupid. so now that my bank account for the mission is low, I gotta keep it from getting a bunch lower.
Alright, so highlights of the week! We went by the Fakalelu's, a family in the ward (the husband is Tongan and on the rugby team here in Pau), to drop off some brownies just because and to just surprise them and see how they're doing. So we get to their home (which is like a 20 min bus ride) and theyre actually setting up for a party! like, they have a pierced pig that some big islanders (one of those guys being Sia Fekitoa, the other member of our ward on the team) were trying to situate over a fire pit; in the FRONT YARD. lol. It was AWESOME!! And Alexa, Frère Fakalelu (or Penni)'s wife was setting up this table and stuff. So we're like, uhh...sorry..lol. and penni was like, no! hi! how are you? and told us that theyre having a birthday party for him that evening and a bunch of the members of the team were coming, and we were like, that's awesome! happy birthday! and gave him the brownies. lol. then he invited us to his party! and we were like, nooo..we have other things going on.. and he was all, come after! and we were like, the buses..and he was like, we can give you a ride home! come! and I looked at soeur bertolio and she said, "why not?" So that evening after visiting some folks we went to a birthday party with a bunch of islander rugby players!! And they were not bad looking! lol. But we stayed to ourselves and talked to the wives and whoever else. And it was a lot of fun! AND that Fijian guy that we contacted last Saturday? He gave us the wrong number. And guess who we saw at the party. Yep. Good ol' Josefa (his name). And soeur bertolio told Sia's wife, Veronique about what happened with him and her mouth gapped open and was like, NO! and she yelled to Sia and told him what happened and Sia laughed and yelled over everyone at Josefa and was like, "oy! Josefa! why're you giving our sister missionaries the wrong number?!" and josefa just laughed and was super embarrassed and it was great. lol. And when they were all leaving he apologized to soeur bertolio and I and I was like, so do you want to give us your REAL number? and he was all, yeah! and I put it in the phone (frère lePretre!) and called him to "give him our number". lol. we called him the next evening, he didnt answer, but then he called back! which never happens!! and we set up a rendez-vous with him and he genuinely seems interested. I think it's great that he knows two guys on his team who both have great, happy families and they're active members. So yeah. :) Hahahaha, AND! we were standing there around the end of the party, and I had my face turned to the side cause I was listening to soeur bertolio talking, and all of a sudden I felt a hairy cheek against mine!!!!!!!!!!!! I realize after it has already started, that one of the big rugby players was giving me the bisous!! (kisses on the cheeks, what EVERY french person does) I was in such a state of shock that I completely blacked out; I can't remember a thing. just kidding. Quoting songs. But really, I was so shocked I just stood there and took it! and said "au revoir" back to him! lol. and I looked at soeur bertolio after and she looked like me, and took it also. after he walked away, penni laughed and thanked us for not being awkward to his friends, which i guess is a good thing. then everyone was giving us the bisous! and we couldn't stop them!!!! For one guy I stuck my hand out to keep my distance and he took it and pulled me forward and gave me the bisous!!!!!!!!!! hahaha. It was so funny. And weird!!! But yeah. awkward. then at the baptism that tarbe had on saturday, soeur bertolio was telling all the elders in our district how I was letting rugby players kiss me and they were like, wha??! and elder wilson was like, oh, BEFORE the mission! and I was like, NO!!! hahaha. it was hilarious. I told them what happened. What's funny is that it happened to Soeur Bertolio, also, but she just said it was me! lol. Terrible.
Other then that terrible time, we have FIVE baptismal dates!! Four of them are Soeur Lavie's children, who's dad finally has given them permission but they are all older so we have to teach them the lessons, and the fifth is ROGER! He agreed to be baptized on oct 13 by Frère Barbaroux!! We taught marie and roger with him and it was SO GREAT!! And frère barbaroux basically said everything we wanted to say and have been saying but they really let it sink in and it was so awesome!!! marie says that she needs to really repent before she gets baptized (the reasons WHY she was really excommunicated, we guess) and she wants to be baptized in a river. haha. Okay! But we arent sure yet when. Saturday we had the elders come to pau for a baptism (tarbe's baptism) and the girl being baptized is younger then me!! I'm OLD!!!!! anyway, she was soo nice. soeur bertolio and i were helping her after she was baptized and she told us that she had been wanting to see sister missionaries and that she was so grateful to know that we have them and that we are an example to her and it was so sweet. she brought a friend to the baptism and she was really touched by everything, and that was awesome, too. After the baptism we did street boarding with all of the elders and it was awesome!!!!! Elder Fox and his blue, Elder Heck (from Utah! hahaha) were sooooo good! they had no fear! they went up to everyone and were so eager and persistent, but not to the point of annoyance. Poor Elder heck barely knew what to say but boy did he try! once he was trying to stop a woman and he got mixed up and was like, "bonjour, monsieur!" and she looked at him all rude and he was like, "ah! no! madame! err-madamo-" and she just kept walking. lol. he was so embarrassed. lol. but he kept going! and he would stop people and we would come and save him. it worked out really well. so we got a bunch of contacts from it! one younger guy came up to me after looking at the board, and was just like, what is this? the board soeur bertolio and i have been working on all week! It's the plan of salvation, but just pictures we cut out from magazines (we only have liahonas and ensignes. we feel a little bad but we have like a MILLION and we could look up the talk online, soo..) and we have people guess what it is. It looks super cool. I'll send you a photo.
Sunday we were leaving our new converts and amis class and Frère Wageamacker came to us and told us there's a girl from America that is here and we should go talk to her! so we went to her and this girl, who looks like 16-17 was standing there and looked so sad! and we were like, hi! we're the sister missionaries! and she was like, hi! and started CRYING! we were like, ?? and she told us her name after soeur bertolio asked and we were like, are you okay? and she was just overwhelmed and glad to be at church and its been a hard week..and so! she is from nevada, a member, doing a study abroad at pau university, the only member of her 60 people group, and she is a little home sick I think. she will be here for 4 months. she was like, "yeah four months is a long time" and later soeur bertolio was like, ha, try 18 months. lol. soeur bertolio. haha. but anyway, she is 20, and her birthday is next monday! so we're doing something for her. we have already decided. and i took her to all the english speaking people after sacrament and took her to the bishop and the bishop introduced her to some people so it was good. we are getting lunch with her in an hour! she is super nice and I think misses having a lot of members around her. she is from Reno.
Ahh! so much more! but I'll just tell you the funny things Soeur bertolio said this week and call it a day.
we were sitting at a bus stop and soeur bertolio pointed out this guy and said, "Look at that guy! He has a WOMAN bag!" and I looked, and he DID! And he didnt look gay! Just an older man wearing ordinary clothes holding a black bag with red handles. lol. so random.
yesterday when we were reading alma 13 out loud for language study (soeur bertolio reads in english, me french), instead of her saying, "the holy order of God" she said, "the holy hoarder of God". hahaha. And then LATER, instead of reading, "that He may not bring down His wrath upon you", she said, "that He may not bring down His rat upon you". I laughed. so hard. she usually always reads those words correctly, it was just yesterday. And I dont feel bad about telling you all about her mistakes because she told her whole family, her boyfriend, tout le monde, about my french mistakes, which are suppppper embarrassing. I'll tell you about those..when I go home. lol.
I love you all!! I know this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ of the latter days! I know that this is the true Gospel, and that we have the fulness of the Gospel right now! Thomas S Monson is a true prophet of God! I know this because I have prayed and asked. I love the Book of Mormon with all of my heart, because they were written by Prophets of the Americas for us in these latter-days. what a blessing it is for us to have it now! I was studying Jesus the Christ this morning and just thought, if you believe in science, how can you NOT believe in God? Everything in nature has components to have life. Nothing can exist without something else helping it or creating it. Even a flower without water, sun, soil, oxygen, is without life. it would be only a lifeless seed that cant grow or flourish. It has no life. It is the same with human beings. We need something to have created us, otherwise we wouldnt even exist. There isn't a possibility of us being moving creatures with brains and living bodies without someone having created us. There just isn't that possibility. Soeur Bertolio told me this quote, roughly translated from french to english, "A little bit of science takes you away from God, but a lot of science brings you back to him"-Albert Einstein. Basically he's my favorite person to quote. he should be a Mormon. haha. :-)
I love this Gospel, and I love you all so much!!
all my love,
devano
-soeur gardner-
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