June 12, 2012 - MTC

Bonjour, ma famille!!

     Comment çava? How is everyone? Angie must have had her baby by now. I have no idea when Ant wrote me the DearElder saying that Angie was in the hospital waiting to go into labor. We don't get DearElders on Saturdays or Sundays. Lame. Soo...she must have had her baby sometime between Friday and Monday. That's all I know. And I havent seen any pictures..nothing. Just saying. That's kind of lame.

     Mom, I haven't heard from you in 6 days?..

     This reminds me of something. My friend, Elder Kunzler, who I knew before the mission, hasn't gotten a letter from his family since he's been here! What?!!! I thought that was super sad, so I made him this little note thing on the other side of this treasure chest with gold and diamonds and stuff that I had made for an object lesson earlier that day. It's not too big, but yeah, so I wrote on it and was just was like, "Hey, Elder Kunzler! How's the MTC? I hope you like this treasure! A pirate gave it to me..*blahblahblah* -Sis Gardner"  You get the jist. Anyway. I gave it to his district leader after I made a fake stamp and "addressed" it to him so he'd be getting something during mail time at the end of the day. He really liked it; I saw him earlier today and he said thanks. :) Nice elder. I don't know why he wouldn't be getting letters. So sad. Quoi d'autre? Hmm...so we got our travel plans on Friday and contrary to popular belief, I am super sad. I'm happy to be leaving the MTC but so sad to leave my friends and teachers who basically are my older friends. lol. Today we went to the temple for the LAST TIME until I come home from my mission. WHAT?! I may or may not have had a cry time after the session. sadsadsad. Man, it made me really glad that I've been going every week (minus the week I came in to the MTC) since I've been endowed. It's so incredible going to the temple I LOVE IT and now I'm soo sad I'm not allowed to go cause there's no temple in my mission. There's a temple in Bern, Switzerland, but that's the Alpine-German Speaking Mission. Lame. Anyway! LYON! I got my new mission home and office address!! I don't really know where you're suppose to send the mail..so I'll just give you both so you can figure that one out.

Mission home address:

8 Impasse des Hautes Bruyeres

61930 Ecully

France

Mission Office address:

59 Rue de l'Abondance

69003 Lyon

France

     I am completely freaked about going to France and trying to speak/understand the language. Like you don't even know. I know that I've learned sooo much more than I have ever known about French and am alright with reading it and asking basic questions and making basic sentences, but really? I'm being thrown into a modern war with a bow and arrow (not an intended racist joke. lol). I know I can do it, I also know that I will struggle. So any letters of encouragement would make me very, very happy. more happy than you could ever imagine. Oh man. So! Flight plans! Here we goooooooooo!!! (nsync?) (and yes, Court, references to movies is great! Don't feel bad. I don't. lol)

      Flight plan(shelby): British Airways (all flights are British Airways for me) 

#1- Leave- SLC, 11:05am June 18

     Land - Chicago, 3:05pm

#2- Leave- Chicago, 5:15pm

     Land - London,  6:55am June 19

#3- Leave- London, 8:40am

     Land - Lyon, 11:15am

     So that's my flight plan. I hope that you all are ready for me to call y'all during the breaks. Who should I call? Like which number? Telling me would be great, so I'm not calling everyone and no one is answering, which would be really sad. So Elder Call, Elder Gruber, and Sis Harris are the only ones from my district that we're flying with! Elder Hilburn and Elder Smith are also going the Lyon Mission, but they're being sent to Switzerland! ?!?! Weird. And they're not leaving until Tuesday. :((((( So we're definitely sad about that. And the Parisians are leaving on Monday also but not until 4pm. My heart hurts. But it's fine; this is what I came for, to go out into the field and serve. I was lucky to meet so many great Elders and Sisters. I'll definitely be seeing them again; we're already planning on it. All the missionaries in my district are from the west coast, so that makes things easy! What doesn't make things easy is Sis Grewar and Sis Hurrell being from Australia. What the what?? But hey, I've always wanted to go down under! haha. But really. Anyway. We'll talk about that in 18 months, dad. ;-) So basically I've just been trying to study and pack stuff..it's weird. What am I saying? I haven't packed anything yet. haha. But I will be starting today! Not that I have that much. I'm sending some things home, also! Expect a package in a week or two.

     On Sunday, Sis Harris, Elder Kunzler, and his companion Elder Wilson sang "A Child's Prayer" en francais, which is "La Prier de l'Enfant". Je pense. Anywho, it went really well and It was cool to sing en francais and know what we were singing. I cried like 3 times on Sunday. It was ridiculous. I think it started with us singing because it was super cool and spiritual. And Sis Grewar is a convert and gave her conversion story in Relief Society, and the speaker spoke about "whom the Lord calls, He has chosen" and about our missions waiting for us and "your calling is to bless lives" and it was crazy. Then! For the fireside Bro Stephen B. Allen spoke to us about being nice to our companions and that they're children of God, then was talking about our parents and how our moms are "having terrible emotional problems!!!" with us gone and our dads are just happy we're gone, which made me tear up because I know that dad isn't happy I'm gone at all! Except for the fact that he's saving money. haha. So that made me tear up a lot. Then we watched "The Testaments", and I always cry at the end when Jesus Christ touches the father's hands and the father begins crying and he's healed and it's awesome. Oh dang.

     So all of this was so great for me, because on Sunday I called out a few districts in the branch presidency meeting. Yeah. Not the best way to make friends.

     I didn't specifically say any district, so I technically didn't call them out, I just told the Branch presidency (when they asked me) that the Sisters were really bothered with some districts breaking the rules and giving letters out before 9:25pm and getting on the internet when it's not preparation day or on their emails during TALL time. It was kind of intense afterward, because there were specific Elders who weren't following the rules and it wasn't cool that they were doing that as Elders who are given the responsibility to be leaders. I said this. So then after we had our temple walk, this one Elder had some lame comment to hurt my feelings that he didn't directly say to me but for me to hear and I just ignored it, but Elder Asay (pronounced Ay-see and he's from Dallas!) was like, "Cut it out, Elder. That's enough" and the stupid Elder (not stupid, he's just super immature) was like, "What? I was joking! Je blague!!" and everyone ignored him. It was nice. I thanked Elder Asay later, then yesterday I was in the same line as one of the elders that was doing wrong that's a DL, and I put my hand out to him and was like, "I'm sorry if I offended you" and he was like, "What are you talking about?" Me: "You know what I'm talking about. I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said. I hope we're good," and he was like, "Yeah-yeah. We're good." "Good." The end.

     So the sisters were really nice about all of it and were supporting me the whole time, which was really nice. And my district! Oh I love them. They're such sweethearts.

     So dad, I went the doctor again because they wanted to check my foot one more time before I leave and I had the doctor write down what is wrong with it. Him: "Developed dependent edema. Has some recurrence of soft tissue swelling with dependency". I don't even know what that means, but I hope you do. haha. Write me and let me know what that means..because he doesn't explain things on my level. Also, please put some mula into my account. I need $200 for traveling, and euros are more than a dollar for 1. I..need my new card. My card expires THIS MONTH. So..I need the new one asap. Please send me the new one or let me know that I need to take out a lot of cash. I leave Monday morning, so you'll have to make it overnight or something.

     Mom, why you no write? I havent heard from you since the 6th when you were insinuating that you were sending me a package that I haven't recieved. ?

     Court- I loved your letterssssss. I'm writing you today!!!

     Ant & Angie- YOU'VE HAD A  BABY!! CONGRATS!!!!

     Ben-thanks for the quick email and the postcard!! I LOVE the postcard!!!! Have you seen the animated movie? It's beautiful. Such amazing illustration.

     Shelb- lets here about EFY, foo'!

     Alrighty, I am sooo over the limit. I'm sending you some photos that Frere LePretre sent us that we took yesterday. So funny. Frere Wilcox is the blonde on the left side of the photo for the most part, and Frere LePretre is wearing the suit.

     The church is true!!!!!!! I am seriously so glad I have a strong testimony because I would neverrrrrrrrr do this if I didn't. I'm going to be taking it one day at a time. Frere LePretre said take it 24 hours, l don't think about the rest of the time, just finish the day.

     I love you all, and I would love to hear from you!!

Love always,

devano (soeur Gardner)