Carc-carc-​carcassonn​e

Today I realized that I've seriously been here for so long..... it hit me that its been about 5 months since I arrived. CRAZY. But I just love this place so much. I can't wait for you all to come and visit. :) Oh in regards to the Skype call! It was SO good to talk to all of you, I feel like we never have enough time to talk during emails, so it was nice to catch up a little. :) But be assured I'm not homesick!! Don't take it the wrong way... but I've never been homesick on my mission really. Of course there are moments when I wish I could see you all, but I don't have time to think about home, wayyy too much work to do!

Marcos

WOW this has just about been the weirdest week ever...but there have also been soo many miracles! We're just extremely blessed. I'm mostly just grateful for this time to be companions with Soeur Reichelt. She is absolutely incredible. I have learned SO much from being with her just for these few weeks! She is so willing to do everything, and her french is getting better SO quickly. Its the best thing to see her street contacting. She literally has NO fear. She will contact anyone, no problem! You should have seen her last night running after people and following them if they wouldn't respond - and she never lost any energy or motivation. I can learn so much from her.

Contents of Christmas package from the fam

So speaking of last night... we have made it a tradition to go contacting Sunday night all 4 of us, and its been incredible the amount of miracles we've seen!! There is serious power when the 4 of us are out working together.  Last night (to summarize briefly): we found a woman (Anne) who I had contacted with Soeur Vidal way back when, who said that she was open now to take our lessons; we ended up praying with her in the street and the spirit was so strong. She will be baptized I know it. Later we contacted a man with a huge backpack - he told us that he had taken missionary lessons before in Spain and that he had stopped, but we asked him if he wanted to start again and he said that he wanted to!! Miracle is this: he was in Carcassonne for a total of 30 minutes that night because his train had a short lay-over here, he decided to take a short walk around by the gare and it just so happened that we ran into him during that short time. We passed his number to Spain! Okay lastly (there were way more but these are just a few) - so normally we don't contact people who are working just because its impolite to distract people from their work.. but we were feeling really bold. Soeur Buonanotte said to me "Soeur Everett you should really contact the Dominos guy"; I didn't even hesitate - when else would I get to say that I contacted someone in the middle of delivering pizza to someone else? So voila, I did it. And he wants to learn more. Woohoo!!

Ooh La La

Ahhh there were so many miracles this week!! I guess I'll go to the biggest one of all next... I think it was Saturday when we get a text from the other sisters that said "You'll never believe what just happened" "President was right" - I was scared to know what happened actually; then I got another text that said "Yeller lady wants to be friends" WHAT. This is the lady who yells at us every other night for "sounding like an army of children marching around the apartment" every other day (even though we don't wear shoes in the apartment) among many other false accusations and police involvements (don't get me started). Anyway so while we were at zone conference we showed President the letter we got in the mail saying that we were facing serious problems if the amount of noise we were making continued and he basically just laughed and said to make her cookies. Thanks for the help President...haha. But there we were Christmas Eve after having visited lots of less actives and amis bringing cookies and caroling when I had a thought to leave yeller lady some cookies on her doorstep with a note that said "Joyeux Noel! Que dieu vous bénisse <3" This was a bold move (its hard to fully convey our situation in words haha). Well anyway apparently the soeurs saw yeller lady a couple days later and instead of her usual temper tantrum she throws everytime she sees us, she was kind and said that she really loved the cookies and she SMILED. Wow.

Family I can't believe how fast time is flying. It's weird to see so many good mission friends die all the time!! Soeur Vidal dies in TWO TRANSFERS (after this one) - I don't know what I'm going to do without her.... But thats the funny thing (like you were saying on Skype Mom) - the work always keeps going forward, it doesn't stop! I know when I leave Carcassonne that I will leave my amis and my ward in good hands and that I don't need to worry. It will be one of the hardest things I have to do to leave Carcassonne, but I'm just glad I've had so much time to grow so close to it!! (I'm writing like I'm about to leave...haha). Nah I'm just rambling. I guess that's about all I have to say about this week! Miracles are happening here (as always) - keep praying for us and the other sisters!

Beaucoup d'amour!!!!

Soeur Everett

I was reading this morning in the last conference ensign (since we still haven't gotten the new ones...) from the talk "Followers of Christ" - there was a quote that really stuck out to me: "Following Christ is not a casual or occasional practice but a continuous commitment and way of life that applies at all times and in all places."

Simple as that. Following Christ is a way of life. You can't really be "Catholique non-practicante" like most French people claim they are; following Christ requires us to devote our lives completely to him and change our lives to be more in harmony with his teachings. Its not casual and its not occasional. I love my Savior - that's why I'm here.

Don't forget to share the gospel! Oh and teach with the missionaries. :)