July 9, 2012 - Pau, France

This week I haven't had time to edit the email for punctuation and spelling. This is almost completely in its raw form.


family,


bonjour!! this week went a lot better then last. is the language still ridiculous to my ears? yes. Am I understanding more? yes! not keeping up with every conversation, but I catch words and sometimes understand what is being said. So thats definitely an improvement. 

So we found a new place to contact! its in the pretty part of pau, downtown. we went there randomly, just walking around to contact, and it was so pretty  and just enough people to contact and it not be super weird, cause we went in the evening (we went during the day saturday. bad idea; waaaay too many people shopping and everywhere and it was chaotic trying to find people in a crowd of people. super weird and sounds like an oxymoron, but thats how it was!) and got peoples info! funny story: we were walking past this bar and a guy was sitting on a stool and yelled, pointing at me(like 6 yards away) "C'est pocahontas!! Elle est très belle!!" and i hadnt even understood him, and was like, huh? and soeur bertolio pushed me forward in a disgusted way, then i asked her what he said and she told me. I was like, wow, thats pretty good for a drunk french guy recognizing a native american in france! lol. 

we have a family that has us over for dinner every week, the Leang family. The parents are chinese but grew up in Cambodia and Singapore I think? But they got married and moved to France so their children speak french. They are soooo nice and Soeur Leang has these crazy high cheekbones like mom and it made me a little homesick. So I told her that and showed her photos of the fam and she seemed to really enjoy it. But yeah, the family is really nice and they make us chinese food! its soooo good and you have to really watch how much you eat because she will bring out plates of egg roll things and lettuce and spicy sauce and mint leaves and its just soo good! so we watch each other on how much we eat because its easy to eat waay too much. haha. 

this week we also had this family, the Bournels invite us over for some cake and to share a message. We were planning on asking for names of their friends who might be interested so we were going out to visit them and they live like 2 long bus rides away, like out in another part of the area. So! we went and I was getting annoyed because we had to go all the way out and catch a bus going back to town and it was the last bus and we could be doing other things and blahblahblah. So we make it there, we cant find the street  and we are both getting annoyed then the husband calls us and finds us. So I am trying to pull myself together and forget about all of it, then we get to their house and its this humble little home without a walk way to the door and a little boy is looking through the curtains of the window and the father just looked so happy to have us and I very quickly felt like a huge jerk. my conscience slapped me. real hard. ha. so we go in and are greeted by the mother who looks like a tired audrey hepburn and her two little kids, lea and luc. yes, they referenced star wars, which i think is pretty cool. but theyre super cute and shy. then they had us sit down and just sat waiting for us to teach. it was crazy how bad I felt for being annoyed at this hard working family who were so eager to hear what we had to say! so we watched a how to be a missionary video with them and talked to them and come to find out they have been members of the church for only two years and they were going to be sealed in the temple at the end of this month!! It was crazy. I felt terrible. Then they brought out these cute little cupcakes that had apple in it and poured us some orange juice and they were just so happy! then we had to leave and they gave us the rest of the cupcake things and sent us on our way. That really taught me a lesson. aw man. 

So we went to the family with 7 childrens house and met the mom! at first she was sort of rude but then asked if we were jehovah witnesses and we were like, no! and she warmed up a LOT. so we talked about family and gave her a brochure of the proclamation to the family and a pass along card, and we will be going back next week to see if she read it because we forgot to ask if we could meet with her since we were so nervous!!!! yeah, dumb, but we can fix it. hopefully. Theres another family that soeur bertolio met doing porte à porte and the son answered and said his family might be interested and to come back. so two weeks ago we went back, met the father and the father said we had to talk to his wife who was in charge (haha), so saturday we went in the morning (moved our schedules around a bit to see the mom since she would only be there before noon) and we finally met her and she said we could come back this week sometime after 4 cause that is when she gets off! yeah!!! she was reallly nice. so there ya go. families are great!!!!!!

I have decided that the weird throatel r that is in french sounds like a cat purr when some people speak. its really weird but cool. just a random thought. And the Tour de France comes through Pau! Next Monday!! We are going to go see it and our district is coming also! funnnnn! I love my district; theyre all really cool elders and couple.

Soeur Bertolios birthday is thursday so we are  celebrating today kind of. exchanges this week and zone conference!
How was everyones 4th of july?? we made mashed potatoes and chicken and I played all the america music i had. church music.

Well, thats all I wrote down in my planner to write about! I love you all and I know the church is true! I am so grateful to have this opportunity to serve the Lord for 15 more months, and am so happy to be here in France (although its definitely not America). I love you and I am so grateful to be recieving your letters and keeping me updated!  I promise that everyone who wrote me will be recieving their letters in the mail shortly. :)

love always,
devano