Carcassonne: Une compte de fée

This week was literally UNREAL. I can't even begin to describe all of the miracles we saw. It's been really hard not having Soeur Richardson here, we definitely miss everything she brings and its been amazing to see how much all of our amis and our ward love her. All of the prayers I've heard for her have touched my heart. She really left a mark on Carcassonne, that's for sure. (Also Soeur Richardson - Nice was SUPER excited you Facebook messaged her!! And you should've heard them pray for you...might have shed a tear...)



Soeurs Caldwell, Everett et Mann

Can I just start by saying we had 23 LESSONS THIS WEEK!!!! I could barely believe everything we got done this week and how amidst helping all of our old amis we were STILL able to find new people to teach!! It's been incredible to see the hand of God in our lives.



Thanksgiving!

Let me start with the most miraculous day of my entire mission so far. Everyone take note - Wednesday, November 27th. We woke up in the morning and neither of our phones worked. We had been 100% cut off from everyone. We couldn't confirm appointments, we couldn't set up anything, RIEN!! So we went to the church to use the landline so that we would be able to accept a super important call. But the person hadn't been informed that our phones weren't working so naturally he called us on our cell phones. And somehow... WE GOT THE CALL. And right after we hung up... THE PHONES STOPPED WORKING. And they didn't work for THREE DAYS after that. Miracle????? Yes. (Also our phones not working for 3 days was highly annoying, but we still had 23 lessons, so I guess it worked out fine haha.) Then as we were walking on our way to a rendezvous Soeur Caldwell was like "hey is that Nicolas?" and so I yell "NICOLAS" (thinking back on that I should probably calm down a little when I run into people haha). He told us he had just tried calling us but obviously our phones weren't working. So because we say him we were able to set up a rendezvous for that night! When we showed up to our rendezvous we got to meet our amis sister! She happened to be SUPER interested and said that she wanted to get baptized! (She doesn't live in our secteur normally..but still!!!) But wait, there's more. Rewind to Tuesday night when we are having our "5 month on a mission" party and I go to take a picture and realize THERE IS NO MEMORY CARD. I left it in the internet café... and you know people in France - not the most honest people. We went back to the internet café, we walk in and immediately the man who works there (we're good friends but I don't know his name...maybe I should ask!!) he said "attends" and he goes to look for something and COMES BACK WITH MY SD CARD. I literally almost cried. Then later that night we had an amazing rendezvous with Nicolas (grown men cry when they feel the spirit, its true). At the end of the rendezvous we realized it was 9:26 and we had 4 minutes to get all the way back to our apartment...its' NOT close. So of course we ran. And guess what time it was when we unlocked the front door? 9:30. On the dot.



Nicolas

WOW, that was a really big paragraph, but that day we were just SO grateful to God for everything He had done for us. It was just amazing.

Nadia

Something you'll find amusing: At FHE on Monday we had dinner afterwards cooked by Soeur Martin (as usual). She gave us this SUPER good soup. She told us all to guess what was in it. It was green so obviously we guessed normal things. She and the bishop just kind of looked at each other and kept laughing. Finally they told us what the main ingredient was. None of us knew the word and then their son translated it into English... POISON IVY. I ATE POISON IVY SOUP. Apparently its really good for you? Hahaha....

Wow I wish I had SO much more time to write. We had the most incredible week but I have no time to tell you everything that happened!! Things are just going so well! I couldn't ask for better amis or a better ward. Everyone and everything is just amazing. (Except for our crazy neighbor who yells at us for walking too loudly.. we saw her in the street one day and literally ran to avoid talking to her haha. Maybe we'll make her cookies this week :)

Well family I LOVE YOU!! I pray for you all the time. Thank you for all of your prayers, I can feel them and definitely saw many answered prayers this week. :)

Je vous aime!!!
Soeur Everett

3 Nephi 19:9

BONJOUR!!

I have so much to talk about so I'll just get going!!

On Tuesday our ami Romain invited us over to dinner with him and his friends. Since I had never had rabbit before he promised me that he would make it for me for my first time and that he would have all of the missionaries over - he kept his promise!! We had so much fun!! Romain is really cool but he isn't progressing towards baptism at all.. So for now we'll just wait until he shows a little more interest in the gospel rather than just our friendship before meeting with him again! But hey!! He made us a delicious meal!! (Thank goodness he didn't show us the head of the rabbit before we ate it... I don't know if I could have stomached that!)



Romain and his friends

The only thing left was the rabbit head...

Christian update!!!! We had a really really good rendez-vous this week where we just talked about everything that hadn't been communicated well. He told us that he knows that the church is true--if he didn't he wouldn't be coming to church still. He just feels like everyone is putting too much pressure on him to get baptized and he doesn't want to get baptized just so we can have another baptism for our numbers. Thank GOODNESS he brought that up because Soeur Richardson and I could care less how many baptisms we have, we just care about Christian!! We told him that we respected the timing that he wants and that we would let him tell US when he wants to get baptized. The spirit was strong and our friendship is renewed!!! So I'm happy. :) OH and he came to church. :)

Yes, the French celebrate Halloween

Ok time for a little ode to Soeur Caldwell. Even though we are the exact same age in the mission, I don't think I've ever talked to her for longer than 5 minutes. She is SO COOL. She is a design major at BYU and she's 21 so she is practically finished with her undergraduate and she's already accepted to the masters program. She has really high ambitions!! She is so relaxed about everything - I love this about her because I tend to stress out over things, so its really nice to have someone there who just takes things slowly! She is just hilarious - we all DIE laughing when we're with her. I'm so excited to have her here in Carcassonne and get to know her better!!!

Soeur Caldwell

Super huge miracle from this week!!! So about 4 weeks ago I contacted this woman on the street named Mireille. We contact a lot of people who give us their number and then we never hear from them again so I kind of forgot about her since she wouldn't answer our calls! Well one day we decided to call again and she ANSWERED. She gave us her address and we ended up having a rendezvous with her and her kids!! They are practicing Catholic, but are very open to meeting with us and finding out for themselves if what we are sharing is true!! I'm super pumped about them!!

Ok one last thing I guess...there's just so much!! So 2 days ago Soeur Richardson and I were out contacting!! We were passing a bus stop and usually I don't contact people who are sitting there but somehow I ended up contacting this man who was sitting waiting for his bus. I don't even remember deciding to contact him. Anyway we ended up talking to him for about 30 minutes and he missed his bus TWICE to keep talking to us. He told me I had a lot of "heart" :) It was SUCH  good conversation completely led by the spirit!! He really opened up to us and now we will be meeting with him on Wednesday!!! :)


I love you all, thanks for all your support, love, and prayers! I can feel it. :)

Soeur Everett

P.S. Look up Luke 6:2-5 and then go to the Bible Dictionary under "shewbread" - REALLY great studies this morning; hope you like this as much as I do!!

NO LONGER A BLUE

First of all, can I just say how excited Soeur Richardson and I were when we saw the picture of our moms together??? We might have screamed in an internet café... (sorry everyone.) But hey, first things first. IM STAYING IN CARCASSONNE!!!! WITH SOEUR RICHARDSON!!!! We are sooo pumped to keep going. We absolutely love being companions - she is literally the most easy person to get along with in the entire world. She basically has no faults. I just absolutely adore her!! We're going to kill it this transfer, just wait and see!!




(Clockwise) Soeurs Everett, Beeny, Richardson, Mann

I am so sad that Soeur Beeny left us, but I know there are so many people waiting for her in Chambery. Soeur Beeny is just amazing. I can't even begin to describe how much I love her!! We're certain that someday on our missions we will be companions... but until then I'm going to miss her so much!!!!  Soeur Caldwell is Soeur Mann's new companion.  She came into the mission with me.  SHE'S AMAZING!!

Narbonne

This week was FILLED with miracles!!!!! I'll admit last week wasn't the best week in the world, but this week MORE than made up for it!!! I felt like Heavenly Father was putting so many amazing people in my path, letting me know that he doesn't want me to get discouraged, but to keep working hard! And guess what? Hard work ALWAYS brings miracles!!!

I can't even count how many miracles I want to share, so I'm just going to have to write a lot really briefly!!!

First of all, today as we were walking back from the GARE after picking up Soeur Caldwell we ran into CHRISTIAN!!! This is the first time we have talked to him since he decided not to get baptized and he told us that he missed having us over and that he wants to see us this week!!! AH!!!

On Tuesday we had exchanges with the other sisters and I had a chance to work with Soeur Mann - she is just incredible. Together we contacted 226 people and holy cow did we see a ton of success. I think my favorite miracle that we contacted together is named Kilian. He reminds me SO much of Nicolas!!! Another tender mercy from Heavenly Father. He knew how sad I was that I wouldn't be able to teach Nicolas anymore, so he sent me Kilian!!! He is in the army as well and he has had a lot of hard things happen in his life and now he just isn't so sure about God. I told him that God put us in his path for a reason, and that the least he could do was give it a chance. He completely opened up after that. We gave him an overview of the Book of Mormon and he agreed to read it and meet with us!! We're meeting with him tonight, I'm so excited!!!

Next, Max!!! Soeur Richardson and I contacted max a few days ago. He is very curious about religion and told us that everything we were saying to him made sense. We tried to give him a Book of Mormon but he said he didn't feel comfortable taking it before we had met for a little bit (I don't really get that reasoning....). Anyway, so we set up a rendez-vous for a couple days later. I ended up going to this rendez-vous with Soeur Beeny actually. But we went there and waited for him and he didn't show up. After waiting a bit we decided to leave and contact. About 5 minutes into contacting.... WE SEE MAX. He apologized and said he completely forgot but that we could have the rendez-vous right then and there. SO WE DID. We had a wonderful discussion about the Book of Mormon and he told us he would take it and read it! He accepted baptism but said that he needed to read the entire book before he could be baptized. But HEY, I invited someone to baptism in the middle of the street. And he said yes!!

News about the Phelipes!!! Anderson told us that his papers are ALMOST finished!!!! Only about 2 maybe 3 weeks left and they will be able to be baptized!!! IM SO EXCITED!!!! (Soeur Caldwell asked me what the best thing that happened to me on my mission was so far, and I told her the Phelipes - they are my whole life right now, I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.)

Ok one other thing. Soeur Richardson has been SOO sick this past week - thank heavens we have angel sisters that live with us and went on exchanges all week so we could all see our amis. But if you could keep her in your prayers, that would be great!! :)

Seriously, this week has been absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see what this next transfer will bring!!!

Love you all so much!!!

Soeur Everett

P.S. John - Marcos is working on his letter to you!!! He is translating it with google translate as he goes... he has been taking english in school so he knows some. Anyway, apparently its a long process, but a return letter is coming soon!!

Carcassonne!! (Week 17)

I greatly fear that my time in Carcassonne will be over after this week... Carcassonne feels like HOME now, I don't want to be taken away!!!! But wherever the Lord wants me, I'll go! I just hope the Lord wants me in Carcassonne for awhile longer. :)

 



Lovely Soeur Mann

This has been quite an interesting week. Just about everything and anything we planned fell through. Even our ami that was supposed to get baptized on Saturday called bishop 2 days before the baptism and said he needed some space for awhile because he felt too pressured. But even though this week has been hard I've seen SO many tender mercies from the Lord. On Tuesday we had 4 member-present lessons scheduled and ALL of them fell through. BUT as we left the chapel we decided we weren't going to be discouraged and we went out and contacted like crazy!!! We did this everytime something fell through this week and because of all of the things that fell through we have been able to find SO many people who have been looking for the truth!! Moral of the story is that God knows whats best!! It's not our fault if people use their agency as long as we did our best! Plus, God knew that all of this would happen, and he knows who he wants us to teach right now and its our job to allign our will with God's! So even though it was a hard week, I still find peace and joy in knowing that I am at hand to do what God wants me to do. :)



Flowers from Nadia (a member of the ward)

Now all of the GREAT things that happened this week!!! President has been encouraging us to go to members houses and practice our missionary lessons for them and have them correct our French. This week we got to go to Dior's house (bishop's daughter) and eat lunch and visit with her and her sister Adhna (I LOVE THEM.) The Martin family is SO cool and so humble about it. Dior is a fashion designer. She used to work for Chanel, but then she decided to move to Australia where she met her husband and she now lives there with her two ADORABLE children. She is staying in Carcassonne for about another month so she is renting a home for the next month (that's where we went for lunch). Adhna is just as cool. She speaks English fluently because she decided to self-immerse herself in English by going to LDSBC right out of high school. Now she speaks without a French accent and sometimes I think she speaks English better than me haha. Anyway, it was SO fun to have lunch over there and teaching them a lesson was SO helpful for our French - we'll definitely be doing that more often!!


Soeurs Mann, Everett et Beeny

I think I've told you in past letters that we teach the Andersons French every week (a less-active family in our ward). This week especially I have seen how much they've progressed since we've started teaching them!! The 16 year old daughter has never learned a word of French before in her life and at our last rendezvous she gave the closing prayer IN FRENCH. I was so proud of her. :))


Jean François, the ami of Soeur Mann and Soeur Beeny

Anyway, things are going really well!!! I know tons fell through this week, but I really am so happy!! There are so many people in Carcassonne just waiting for us to find them and bring them the truth and I feel blessed that I am one of the people that gets to do it!! I can't wait to e-mail you next week about all of the new people that we are going to teach this week!!!

I love you all so much!!! I miss you and pray for you!!

Soeur Everett

P.S. Mosiah 4:9 - so much better in French, but English is good too. :)

Another wonderful week in Carcassonne :)

What a week!!! SO much travelling this week, but it was so much fun!!! First of all I want to reiterate a little bit what I was saying last week, but I absolutely love the sisters in my apartment, they are some of the biggest blessings of my mission right now, they are incredible!

Sensei is the Best DMP (Ward Mission Leader) in the Church

Sensei in his younger days (yes he is a karate teacher)

We got to go to Aix for Zone Conference and it was AMAZING. And.... I got personally invited by President to sit by him during lunch (that makes 3 conferences IN A ROW - yesss). It's always fun to catch up with missionaries that you haven't seen in a while!! Conferences are just the best, so uplifting. The other place we went to this week was Bordeaux!!! We got to see do exchanges with our amazinggg sister training leaders. They are the absolute greatest, I love them!! Exchanges are always so much fun. It's just fun to do something a little out of routine sometimes. :)

Soeur Mann et Soeur Everett

Soeur Everett et Richardson

Ok right now I am in a "hat phase" so if in ever picture I am wearing a hat, don't be too surprised. Also, if anyone wants to send me a hat in the mail, feel free to do so. :)

 

So this week we went over to the Anderson's house (the less-active family from New Zealand who speaks English). We go over once a week to help them learn French and it is seriously so much fun every time!! I absolutely love this family - mostly because they remind me so much of you all. While we were there Sister Anderson invited us to go to a rugby game with them sometime (because Brother Anderson plays for the Carcassonne rugby team) - we asked President for approval and......HE SAID YES!!!!! I'll let you know how fun it was!!!!!

Soeurs Everett et Beeny ("The Look")

Ok now for the MIRACLE!!!!!! About a week ago we contacted this man on the street named Nicolas. He immediately told us he was sorry but he was atheist. BUT I persevered (thank goodness) and I told him that our message was for everyone regardless of their previous religious beliefs. We started teaching him a little bit about the restoration and the plan of salvation (he had a lot of questions) and told us that he would love to meet with us and talk more because he was really curious. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him he could start to read it. On Wednesday we had a rendezvous with him (which HE called to confirm) and he started off by saying "its been way too long!! sorry I've been super busy." We asked him if he had read any of the Book of Mormon and he said "Yeah but not very much, only to about the end of Nephi." He read 60 PAGES!!! And he came with questions!!!!! We extended a soft baptismal invitation (an invitation without a date) and he agreed!! I'll let you know how things go with him, but he is super great!!

One last thing. I am getting really comfortable with conversational contacting. I can strike up conversations with people at bus stops, on trains, on buses, and its fun!! The other day I asked a girl what the French word was for phone case (by pointing at it and asking "qu'est-ce que c'est?") and from there we had a wonderful conversation about the Book of Mormon!! Being a missionary is one of the most fun things ever, I am absolutely in LOVE with missionary work - it really is fun when you make it fun!!)

Well that's about all the time I have for today to write to you, so I'm going to end it here. I love you and pray for you every day!! Keep sharing the gospel, its your most important job!!

Love,
Soeur Everett

I LOVE MY MISSION!!!

First of all, THANK YOU FOR THE LETTERS EVERYONE. Getting letters as a missionary is SUCH a wonderful feeling, so feel free to keep writing to me!!! :) Also dad, the sheet music??? I almost cried from happiness. And of course right away we had a jam session and sang "Minuit Chretiens" (O Holy Night).  Thank goodness for a companion who plays the piano amazingly, am I right??? But seriously, thanks everyone!!!

This week was AMAZING!!! (As usual.) And of course General Conference made it all the more amazing!! I want to hear all about everyone's favorite talks!! My favorite talk by far was by Elder Richard G. Scott in the Sunday morning session. I felt like it was just for me. :) I can't wait for the Liahona so I can read everything all over again!!!! (Also, I haven't watched Sunday afternoon session yet... maybe there will be something I like more in that one... who knows!)

Sunset from our apartment in Carcassonne

Now for some MIRACLES!!!!! Ok brace yourself for the best miracle ever. So last Wednesday we go over to give Frère Pondela (an inactive member in our ward) a lesson. When we got there he invited his 18 year old daughter to join us. A lesson that we originally planned for Frère Pondela turned into the first lesson for Deborah!!! Everything we said about the church made sense to her. When we talked about modern-day prophets she said "of course that's true." It came to a point in the lesson when I knew we needed to invite her to baptism. I whispered to Soeur Richardson in English that we needed to do it and she told me I could go ahead and do it. All of a sudden the words that we recite every morning were completely erased from my memory so I told Soeur Richardson she had to do it. She invited her to be baptized on November 10th and SHE ACCEPTED. Absolute miracle.

This week is going to be soo much fun. We have a Zone conference in Aix-en-Provence so we will be staying in Montpellier tonight and tomorrow night and spending the day tomorrow out in Aix!!! I'm SO EXCITED!!!! Also we have exchanges with the sister training leaders from Friday to Saturday so we won't be here all that much this week. But I can assure you, miracles are still coming!!!

I just want to dedicate a section of this letter to the amazing sisters I serve with here in Carcassonne. I feel like I don't talk about them nearly enough, so it's about time I express my love!!!

First of all, Soeur Beeny. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. We have been together for about 9 weeks and I've grown really close to her!! She speaks French REALLY well and she is just so enthusiastic about everything! She is really inspiring to me because it seems like she is never down and never out of energy! She is also soo willing to serve us - she always cooks for us and is doing dishes and vacuuming and whatnot all the time. There are so many things I have learned from her and soo many more things I can learn from her as well. She is AMAZING.

Second, Soeur Mann. :)) We haven't spend a whole ton of time together but she has one of the sweetest and most sincere hearts of anyone I have met!! Actually, she reminds me a whole lot of Anna!! She is so incredibly loving and Christlike!!! Whenever anyone needs to talk in the apartment about anything, she is always there to listen and comfort. She definitely has the gift of being able to love people as Christ does.

And of course.... SOEUR RICHARDSON. She is literally an angel sent to me from heaven. I can't even begin to explain how much she means to me and how much I love her!!! She is always looking for ways to make me feel incredibly good about myself. I don't think my self-esteem has ever been higher than it is in this time that I've been with her!! She is so sincere and SO loving. She loves being a missionary and her love of the gospel radiates when she teaches people and invites them to come unto Christ.

Sticky Notes of Encouragement

I AM SO BLESSED to be with these wonderful sisters!!! I'm so glad that I still have these next 3 weeks to live with them and I KNOW that after our missions we will be friends for the rest of our lives. :) Anyway, I know this letter was a little different than usual, but I really wanted to tell you about the wonderful sisters I live with!!

I love you all SO MUCH and I miss you!! Please keep writing me, its soo good to hear from you!!

Love,

Soeur Everett

P.S. Mosiah 2:5-6, 9 I LOVE CONFERENCE.

Soeur Richardson always makes creative titles, but I don't know what to say!!!!!

Wowwww what an amazing week!!!! We have had just so many miraculous things happen that I don't know where to begin!!! (I feel like I say this every week, but that's a good thing, right??)

Soeurs Richardson et Everett

First of all... On Thursday when we were on the train on our way to Montpellier, Soeur Richardson turned to me and said, "Soeur Everett. I woke up in the middle of the night and you were talking in your sleep about I don't even know what. Mostly because it was in French." YES.

Angel Feet

 

I think one of our biggest miracles was Saturday. We made a goal that we were going to contact 150 people that day and when we woke up the next morning we realized that it was pouring rain and that hardly anyone would be out to contact. But of course, we contacted anyway!!!! I was completely shocked at how many people were actually in Centre-Ville to contact, but we talked to so many really cool, really elect people. And so many people were interested to listen to us!! When we had contacted around 145 people we were extremely exhausted (something about contacting for a couple hours straight does that to you...), but of course we had to make it to 150 before coming in. The 147th person we contacted was this lady named Elizabeth. She works for UNICEF here in Carcassonne! As we were talking she mentioned that they were actually looking for volunteers to come and that she would love for us to help!!! I LOVE when we are blessed with service opportunities!! And after she told us about that we asked if maybe we could meet with her and tell her more about the gospel and she said "You know, normally I would say no, but today I'm going to say yes. Why not!" Such a blessing!! It's amazing what Heavenly Father does when we try our hardest to reach our goals.




Are there Hobbits in Carcassonne?

Miracle #2: This week we focused on 3 less actives in our ward: the Anderson family, Claude, and Nadia. While I was leading the opening hymn in Sacrament meeting (my ward chorister talent lives on!!!!!!!) I saw the Anderson family walk in, then Claude, THEN NADIA. I practically started crying in front of everyone. So we had all of our baptismal engagés at church AND all of the less actives we worked with that week!!

Ok now for the spiritual bit. :) I was reading in the Book of Mormon a few days ago and came across a passage of scripture that just hit me so hard. I have read the story of the brother of Jared crossing the sea countless times but I have never seen these scriptures so metaphorically before. (Ether 6:5-10). I just think about how this is like us in life. We have the fullness of the gospel in our lives and we are safely secure in our "barge" that is "tight like unto a dish." When trials come we can know that they will never be too much for us to handle - as verse 7 says, as "they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters." Verse 8 is my favorite verse of this passage. It says that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land. I LOVE THIS. We all have trials in our lives, and sometimes our trials are really really hard. But we can take comfort in knowing that God has a PERFECT plan for us and that the trials or the "winds" will always blow us towards the "promised land" or the Celestial Kingdom. :) I hope I explained this analogy well, but when I read it I just fell in love with it.

I hope you have a wonderful week family!! Keep praying for me and my amis!!

Love you!
Soeur Everett