Monday, August 12, 2013

Carcassonne!! (Week 7)


Bonjour ma famille!!

Oh my goodness, life is CRAZY!! I honestly can't believe how perfect my life is. Everything about it is more than I could have ever hoped for or imagined. First of all, here's my new address!

49 Rue Marceau Perrutel
F-11000 Carcassonne
France



Alright, now to talk about my amazing life!!! I was super sad to leave North Carolina - I had the most wonderful experience there and I couldn't have been more lucky to have the companions that I had! They are just the greatest sisters and I learned so much from them! By the way, I snatched the ONLY American keyboard in this whole café - IM SO LUCKY!! This means I can write more. :)

I am incredibly blessed with the best mission president/fellow missionaries IN THE WORLD. They are absolutely incredible! The bleus are merveilleux - they are confident and are such good examples to me! I have a lot to learn from these missionaries here! My friend Elder Pettingill is literally the best at contacting. I have NO idea how he does it but somehow he gets into a friendly conversation with everyone who passes by! I've been getting better though! The other day we went street-boarding with the elders in Lyon (we had to stay in Lyon for 5 days because my companion is having knee problems and needed to see a doctor there). I never thought I would say that I love street-boarding but....I LOVE STREET-BOARDING! I think its so fun! I don't really care if people say rude things to me because honestly most of the time I have no idea what they're saying.

View of the castle from our apartment at night 
It's all worth it when there is that one person who has been searching for the truth, but didn't know where to find it, and we share it with them!! It's the most amazing thing. I've actually had quite a few one-on-one conversations with French people. Its pretty hard especially when they think I'm better at French than I am and start talking super fast, but I usually get the idea of what they're saying! On Thursday I contacted this young lady from Camaroon while we were waiting at a bus stop. She was so nice to me! She literally talked to me for like 20 minutes and she told me I had really good French! (She was probably just being nice, but hey I'll take the compliment!!) I gave her a Book of Mormon and the address of the church. Hopefully she'll go! (This was in Lyon so its not my area...super sad about that!).

Soeurs Vidal et Everett
Ok President Roney is the greatest!!! Now I know why everyone says they know him, because he is so friendly!! He is hilarious and I haven't heard one negative thing about him the whole time I've been here. Everyone thinks he is just the greatest mission president to have ever walked the earth (probably because he is!!). In our first interview he shined my shoes! And I told him all the villes that Mom served in so that he can keep those in mind. :) I heard him whisper to Soeur Vidal while we were leaving the church building after meeting our companions for the first time: "You got a good one." Ah, I just love President Roney!!!
 
 
in la cité (old walled Carcassonne)
Let me talk a little bit about Soeur Vidal!! Ok I don't know what it is about having the best life in the entire world, but the streak continues!! Soeur Vidal is INCREDIBLE! She was born in Mexico and raised in Montreal, Canada so she speaks Spanish, French, and English fluently. I am so blessed to have a native French speaker as a companion because she is literally a walking dictionary! She is hilarious too! We laugh alllll the time. I can tell we're going to have one amazing transfer! I'm a little worried though because she thinks that I will be a trainer next transfer....ah! The other two sisters in our apartment (Soeur Bayles and Soeur Beeny) here in Carcassonne are SO FUN! We seriously just love each other. Also the first night they made Soeur Vidal and I these delicious taco things rolled in a croissant - not sure if its French or not, but either way it was so good.


View from inside la cité
Oh that's something I want to talk about. FOOD. I am literally obsessed with pains aux chocolats. Obsessed. I had like 4 in one day on Friday. They are delicious! But honestly everything food-wise is better in France. The paninis here, oh myyyy...so good! But the only down-side is that everything is expensive!!! Bottled water is like 2,50 euros!! And that's not even $2.50, that's like $3 or something crazy...for water!! Its ok though, everything is worth it since I get to be in France. Honestly I wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the entire world right now than Carcassonne. Nowhere! This is better than I could've ever imagined. I can't wait to get to know our amies (the equipe before us had amies already that they left behind, since we're white-washing this area!!) but I also just want to contact some more and work on my French!

Well I love you all! Bisous!! (Oh by the way, they do 2 bisous here! I still forget that people do it, so I need to get used to that...)

Avec beaucoup d'amour,

Soeur Everett
Soeurs Beeny, Bayles, Vidal, Everett

P.S. Here's some lingo if I ever say something confusing.
amies = investigators
equipes = companionship
white-washing = both missionaries in the companionship are new to the area
bleus = same as "greenies" or new to the mission field

P.P.S. Oh another thing. They do this weird family tree thing in the mission. So right now I am a baby and I was born in Carcassonne to my mother Soeur Vidal!! Her other baby is my sister, which is Soeur Reynolds (je pense...) and Soeur Reynolds has a baby too, so my mom is now a grandma! And when people go home they say "oh yeah, sister so-and-so died last transfer". I know its super confusing, so if I ever say that someone died, they didn't actually die!!! Or if I say something about my mom or my sister or something. Kind of fun huh?


This is our "It's so hot" picture
P.P.P.S. HAHA! Of course I eat real food dad! But its hard for me to pass up pain aux chocolats... don't worry, I eat healthy. I'm going to be the ward pianist. HA! (You were right mom.) You can put that on my blog to as another "P.S."


1 comment:

  1. So, so fun! She sounds so happy and she's going to be a wonderful missionary and support to the church in France!! Love all the pictures!!

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