June 30, 2014

June 30, 2014

Family!

So much. So little time. Always! I guess that is a missionary thing. I wish someone would have told me that beforehand.

Okay I am in Gatineau West!!! I am so excited! On Wednesday President had all the trainers and all the greenies gather in the mission office and one by one he announced where everyone was going. It was crazy mean. It took forever for him to get to me. So Gatineau is French speaking! I am so happy! I was going to be so disappointed if it was English speaking. Apparently President doesn't move people around hardly ever. So everybody is placing bets on me being in this same area for a year! I had never heard of mission presidents doing that before but I am so, so excited!

Alors, Gatineau is on the very western cusps of Quebec. So we are in the only French-speaking ward in the area. The rest is in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, which is English speaking. It is crazy! One minute I'll feel right at home with all these people that speak my language, and the next, they all simultaneous switch to this weird sounding- supposedly French- language! People weren't kidding about the Quebecois accent. It is thick, and sick. I am already starting to switch my pronunciation. It is awesome.

The crazy thing about being here is that everyone is from a different place. We are teaching people from Haiti, Cameroon, the woods --whatever that means--, everywhere! EVERYBODY'S French sounds so different. It is so hard. It takes me so long to try and figure out what they possibly might be saying. But it is also really cool. Sometimes I understand. And sometimes, I even understand really, really well. The Africans are the best. The have the clearest French. I can almost imagine they are speaking English. I love it! It is really cool but really hard, lots of the people are bilingual, but not all. As of this week, about 1 in every 3 lessons have been in English.

The people here are amazing. I am really not sure how to tell you about them. There are a lot of people that we teach that I still haven't met yet. It is not like what you would expect. We really don't have that much time to teach. We spend all morning studying. It seems like we usually at some kind of ward gathering/meeting/service project in the afternoons because nobody is home for us to meet with. We have an early dinner, and then we finally have a four or five hour block where we can teach. Most of the people we are teaching are less actives or new converts. We also have some investigators. The majority of our investigators have been taking the lessons for at least 5 months or so. They have already had all the lessons multiple times. So I haven't actually taught a PMG lesson yet. We usually just read a chapter from the Book of Mormon with them except for last night. Last night we taught Kadidia and Debare. They have had four or five lessons it sounds like, but it has been a week or two since we have been able to set up another appointment. We spent the lesson just trying to reestablish why we are here. They are from Africa I think. I don't actually know. They have three or four kids I think, but I am not sure because the parents sent them out of the room. I guess that is customary when guests come over. (I want to teach the whole family so hopefully we can get them to stay next time.) We taught it with a 30 year old women in our ward named Caroline. She is awesome. And it sounds like she helps us a lot. It was an awesome lesson. We talked about faith and read in Alma 32. It was way cool! I was like sharing thoughts and testimony in French! It was way cool. They could totally understand me! (I am sure my grammar was all over the place.) I hope we can get in there again soon.

Okay my trainer! Her name is Soeur Wright (It's actually Allie Wright if you want to look her up) She is from South Jordan and she has a twin! She is the best. She reminds me of Kelsey Nelson. So much fun! She is so cute and so funny, and she is so good to me!  he is willing to let me do whatever I want, but she never just throws me under the bus so I am way grateful. She actually has one or two transfers left training me and then she leaves! I am so freaked out about that! Then I'll be in charge. Everybody loved her companion before. Some of our investigators aren't even ready to meet with us yet because they are so sad that Sister Craven is gone. It's so adorable. But it makes me nervous for when she leaves!

Oh and Elder Jenkins that was in my district at the MTC. He is serving in my very same ward! Cool, right? Okay, got to jet! Love you all!