July 2, 2012 - Pau

2nd week

aw man,
     This week was...hard. Language-wise. So Friday night I got super upset with myself for not understanding and blahblahblah but then I pulled myself together and just read a bunch of scriptures to build up my confidence; Soeur Bertolio helped a lot also. She helped me recognize that this is only my second week here and that it was hard for her also. So I was just studying the scriptures before bed (thank you, Ben for the music!! that helped a lot too), and she brought a post-it to me with a scripture reference on it and said goodnight. I looked up the scripture and its a scripture i have been looking for that Frère Wilcox showed us! Doctrine and Covenants 128:22-24. Look it up. SOOO good and sooo beautiful!!!!  Oh man. So I read that and was like, that is what I need to be like. Courage!! (ha, just thought of Robin Hood when Prince John says, power! power!! So that voice saying: courage! courage!! Sorry, anyway..) So that helped me a lot. People in the ward are soo nice and willing to help me out with the language! I know that through study and lots of prayer, I will be capable of speaking and understanding French; it just takes a lot to get it! I am so grateful for this gospel and the opportunity I have to be here, preaching the gospel to everyone who will listen to my French, though it is slow! 
     So my preparation day is today, Monday, and I receive your emails and print them off to reply to them in letters and sometimes a short email back. And this is the time (or an hour before) that I check my email usually. So emailing I usually just send a long letter for everyone, but today I wrote short replies to everyone because I couldn't help myself, so this will be short also. Well, shorter than the other email from last week. 
     So could someone send me the history of Pau? Because I am thinking it has a rich history. The other day Soeur Bertolio and I went a different route home and went through this old downtown part of Pau that neither of us had ever seen!! It had all these cute cafes that probably cost an arm and a leg to eat a baguette there and expensive french clothing stores that sold designer brands and such; beautiful fountains and old detailed buildings with cute shutters and balconies and everything mainly was clean!! That's the thing with Pau, there's a lot of dirty places. SOO many apartment buildings with like 15 floors all near each other. Crazy. I can't help but feel like they're hamsters all crammed together. We have a nice apartment outside of the ghetto. I love France and the french, but after the mission, I want to live in America; like the United States. haha. Soeur Bertolio was like, we will see how you feel after the mission! And i was like, uhh yeah, I don't think that will change. lol. So many great things in France, but I love home. I don't want to go home right now (don't worry! haha), but after 16 months..yes. Anyway, sorry this is so short! But love you all and I hope to hear from you next week!!!


Love always,
devano