"Mangez-vous are like boyfriends. Sometimes you get them and then realize you never wanted them." -Sr. Bagley (Week 37)

(Note: "Mangez-vous" means dinner appointments.)

Good news is that by the end of the week I was feeling MUCH better and we ended up being able to see tons of people this weekend!!

Also side note: I just adore Soeur Bagley.... She is an absolute angel and I have so much fun with her! I'm so so so so glad we're together for another transfer. :)

artsy :) finally didn't have to wear tights this week!! whoohoo!

We had some super great moments this week. On Thursday we finally got to go over to the Hennebique's to eat!! (Sr. Hennebique is an AMAZING cook..ooh myy gooodnesss). We were dying of happiness the entire time. She made us this SUPER good quiche - couldn't even tell you what was in it, and then homemade bolognaise spaghetti - oh my heck so good. Then they just gave us chocolate and more chocolate (and extra chocolate to bring home with us haha). We got to see Frère Hennebique's hundreds of birds and then Soeur Hennebique's 30+ dogs... its a mad house over there. But they love it. :)

Frère Hennebique raises birds! this one is my favorite :)

We also got to go to lunch with Aline this week!! It was so fun for us to be in a 50's diner feel place! Felt like we were home in America. :) Afterwards we go to pay and Aline pays for ALL OF IT. We were shocked... we know what its like to be in college!! Poverty!!! Soeur Bagley even hid money in her car because she felt so bad (haha I love her). But Sunday we found the money in my purse - Aline is so sneaky.. hahaha.

aline took us to lunch!!! might have been my favorite moment of the week :)

We finally got to see Vako again this week!! He is doing super well!! We had a Word of Wisdom lesson with him because we saw on his fiche that he has had problems with it in the past. He was super super willing to give it a try. He realizes that he needs to stop smoking and drinking coffee, and he knows that its worth it so that he can be baptized! He's so awesome! Hopefully we can help him keep it up!

Soeur Sa Oliviera! She is so awesome - we love her!

We went and visited Soeur Sa Oliviera this week too! I think we came at the right time because she told us how lonely she had been and how she wished that she got more visitors. She made us the best chocolate cake I've ever had in my entire life (tasted almost like a brownie). Sooooo good. We might have to request it again haha. She is just so strong and a joy to be around. She has only been a member for a few years, none of her family are members, and she's been having a super hard time with personal and health problems lately, but she keeps going! We love her!

they fooled me... i thought i found mountain dew in france

Saturday was basically the best day ever. We had so many rdv's and so much success! (And I made it through the entire day without feeling exhausted!!!!) We had lunch with Aline this day (eee!) and afterwards we had a rdv with Angela (Julienne's friend). It was SO GOOD. Julienne is incredible. She shared her entire conversion story (I'll have to tell you about it later, its really really cool.) And she related exactly to Angela! Angela is about 60 and she is really serious about being in line with God's will. She doesn't want to go joining a random church, she wants to make sure it is what God really wants her to do (which is exactly how Julienne was too). I love how passionate she is when she testifies - the spirit just burns in the room. (No wonder she is a ward missionary, seriously. She is such a blessing.)

seriously... the visconti's are so funny. love them!

After Angela we went and visited Paqueline and then realized we still had about 30 minutes until our rdv at Sr. Alibert just down the street. We both felt that we should stop by Sr. Biamont, so we did! When we got up in her apartment we realized that she had her parents visiting from out of town - at first we felt bad because we thought we were intruding.. but Sr. Biamont was beaming to have us there with them! Probably because they aren't members and they have their skepticisms about the church. We shared the story of Alma and Alma the Younger when Alma's prayer to help his son was answered. (Mosiah 27:14). It really touched them and it was super good for them to see what we can learn from the Book of Mormon! Successful prompting followed :)

Ah Sunday was so fun. It was mission-wide "E-day" (Endear day - when we endear the members!) We KILLED it. We memorized every members name (even the kids haha) and we made 100 chocolate chip cookies - the elders made treats too, just not nearly as good.. ;) The ward was SO happy - they were in love with us! They kept saying "Vous nous gatez!" Man, our ward is the best seriously.

Haha this email was all over the place, sorry about that! Hopefully you still get the gist of what happened this week! Things are going well! We're hoping that we can get Michael and Ephrem's baptisms figured out for this transfer! Probably won't happen this week though. Soon!! Keep praying for our amis! Prayer works!

Well family, I love you so much! I think about you all the time and talk about you all the time too. :) You're the best!!

xoxoxo Soeur Everett

"Sister, I gotta humility you this transfer!" - Sr. Bagley

Wow. So much to talk about from this week! Things are on fire over here in Pau 3. GOOD THING WE'RE STAYING TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER TRANSFER!!! WHOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

Dramatization of the transfer call

We saw so so so many fruits of our labors from this week. Where to start???

Our amis are doing so well!!! We had Ephrem, Angela, Michael, and Paqueline at church this Sunday! Plus like every single less active that we worked with! Relief Society was PACKED full of people!! Me and Soeur Bagley were dying of happiness.

Good 'ole Leangs

So let me talk about Soeur Mwmamba for a little bit... she is incredible!! We had not one...but THREE mangez-vous with her this week. WHAT. I think she's just wanting to have the missionaries close right now because this is the time of year her husband passed away 3 years ago. She is just amazing - so strong and so loving.

Another creepy candid shot...

Miracle! So this week we were planning on passing Berlang (the Cambodian that has 2 kids). We hadn't gotten a Cambodian Book of Mormon yet to bring to her and she doesn't speak French well, so she didn't understand hardly anything we said to her. BUT out of nowhere we thought to text the Tarbes sisters and see if they had anything in Cambodian. Turns out.... THEY DID. We had literally searched for WEEKS. And they have a Cambodian member who apparently wrote a super awesome testimony in Cambodian in the front :) So we went to pass her and THEY HAD FRIENDS OVER. CAMBODIAN FRIENDS. Turns out that Berlang can't read Cambodian, BUT now we have TWO Cambodian families to teach. :) Later that week we saw Kim (second Cambodian mom) on a bus and she said she had talked to her husband about meeting us and and he was super excited because he thought mormons were so nice!! :)

Companion study time

Michael!!! Super big news this week!!! He texted us during the week and told us he had decided to be baptized!!!! (Thanks for writing him that letter, dad...you're the best.) He said that he only wants to do it if its going to mean something to him. Which makes total sense! We'll talk to him more about it, but I think that mostly means he just needs more prayers to feel spiritually confirmed about it. He chose March 11th for himself. :)

Flowers from a street contact

"Thank you for the compliment about the scarf" - text from a street contact

Angela is doing well!! We went over and taught her this week - she is incredible. She absolutely loves God and she was so happy to have us there with her teaching the word of God to her. She said that she loved coming to church and she definitely wants to keep coming! (She will be baptized I know it.)

Jean Marc's baptism

Our district

Paqueline!!! We went over this week to teach her and her mother in law was there. She has soooo much family here its crazy (we got to get them all to come to church!!) We showed the Joseph Smith video and I think they really liked it! The mom had a lot of questions (too bad she lives in Paris - we'll have to pass that coordonnée.) BUT Paqueline ended up coming to church with her baby!! She couldn't bring her other 2 daughters and sister because they weren't ready in time (thats what happens with 930 church haha). But next week she said that all of them (including her husband) can come!! Super excited about her!

Ephrem is golden as usual. We only got to meet with him once this week but he came to church so thats good! Hopefully we can meet with him more this week because once a week isn't enough! Especially if he's going to be baptized in a week and half! He knows the church is true already... we seriously couldn't ask for someone more golden to teach! (We also passed coordonnées of his family in the congo AND in France - his whole family is going to be taught the gospel - how cool is that!)

Resolving to eat healthier

This week with members we've been sharing Mosiah 24:10-22. I really love this story because it shows how people can be supported in their afflictions and still be grateful for everything God has done for them! We invited the members to say a prayer of gratitude every day this week to thank him for all of the many things he has done for us! I invite you all to do the same. :)

JE VOUS AIME! I hope you have a wonderful week! :)

Soeur Everett

What. a. week. (Week 35)

I don't even know where to start with this week. Seriously sometimes I think about everything that has happened the past two weeks and I start to doubt that all of it really happened. Here we go.

Our daily selfie

First of all a huge miracle not having to do with missionary work. On my way home from my exchange in Toulouse (SOOO fun by the way!!!) I accidently left my overnight bag on the bus between Tarbes and Pau. (SERIOUSLY!? I was so mad at myself.) I noticed right as we were walking away from the bus, but by the time we turned around the bus was gone and we couldn't figure out where it had gone.... we searched for like 2 hours trying to find where they went or someone who could call the bus station or SOMETHING and everyone was super rude to us and no one would help.. so eventually we gave up. I was completely devastated. I don't know if many other things have ever been more devestating than losing that bag - it had my French and English scriptures, my Preach My Gospel I've used my whole mission, and my study journal. I tried my best to kind of just let it go and rationalize that I would be able to replace everything I lost (again...) So on our way into ville later that day we contacted this man on the bus who had just lost his phone earlier that day. He was SO nice and offered to help us!! He went to a restaurant where all his friends were and all of them started calling people left and right - doing I don't even know what. Eventually they told us "ok we gave them your number so if they find anything they will call you." WHAT - no one would help us all day and then all of a sudden everything was figured out for us! Well... no one called. I went to bed so heartbroken. The next day I felt better about the whole thing. But in the middle of district meeting I get a call from a random number - THEY FOUND MY BAG!!!! We literally ran out of district meeting right then and went into town before the bus left (sorry Elder Erikson...haha). AH it was such a huge miracle... and such an answer to prayers.

One of my lost bags returned!

Exchanges in Toulouse

 I don't even know where to start with missionary work.... spoiler alert - we now have 3 engagés. WHAT!!!

So this week we get a call from a man named Ephrem (has to be golden with a name like that...) When we were on exchange a couple weeks ago with the STL's Soeur Bagley and Soeur Hulme talked to this man briefly before they had a train (they ended up missing the train by a couple minutes because they talked to him). So they gave him a card and he said he would call. (Seriously though, when people say "I'll call you" they never do.) BUT HE CALLED. We had a RDV with him and I was seriously in shock the entire time. He said "After you gave me that card I couldn't get the thought out of my head that I needed to call. Finally I did and I immediately knew it was a good decision." During the lesson he was completely enthralled. He loved everything we said. At the end he said, "So when can I get baptized?" WHAT. We set a date right then and there.  HE IS SO GOLDEN. At church on Sunday he told us "I really feel like the BOM is the word of God and that this is really the path for me." AH! And he's like immediately integrated because we have lots of members from the Congo and they all speak the same language. (They invited him over this week and didn't invite us....) YAY SO EXCITED!!!

District trip to Lourdes

With Soeur Bagley in Lourdes

Vako!!! The Russian who came to church last Sunday. Direct quote from him "I respect every religion, but I really like yours the best." We asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said - "yes I feel like that is the good path for me." :)

Notre Dame de Lourdes

Me in Lourdes

We had a super awesome miracle coordonnée this week too!! From our ward missionary Julienne (she is so amazing.) Her name is Anglea. She is from the Congo and her son is friends with Julienne's son. Anyway!! Somehow they got in contact with eachother over the phone and Julienne invited her to church!!! We are going over this week to see her with Julienne! Eee!

My boots are now repaired!

THE SPECTACLE!!! It went SO WELL. We had lots of non-members there and lots of less actives and it was just super fun and everyone loved it! We had these three professional opera singers come and sing as well (I was dying it was so amazing - I attached one of the videos on dropbox!) Afterwards I think maybe 4 or 5 old French ladies grabbed me out of my conversations I was in and bised me telling me how great I did. Hahahaha so funny. (side note not to put on the blog: the man who i attached a video of on dropbox afterwards he told me "c'était étonnant - vous avez une TRES jolie voix" AHHHH best compliment I've ever received.)

Spectacular Spectacular!

One last super cool miracle! So last week when we were going through ancient amis we found the Mwmambas (I wrote Lulumbas last week haha). We ended up passing them again this week and we went with Julienne because we were going to do some other passes as well. When we got there shes like "These are my friends!!!!!!!" Me and Soeur Bagley were like "What???" Then when we got in we realized that they had been at the spectacle on friday and that they are actually RELATED to members in our ward!!!!! They were so happy to see us! Yesterday when we were at Soeur Mwmamba's house she told us that next week she wanted to host an FHE and invite them over! Whoohoo!!

Well seriously the work here is going so well. I'm beyond happy about everything - I'm super anxious to see what happens with transfers!! I change my mind about what is going to happen about every 30 minutes.

Here's an AWESOME talk for you all to read: http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2014/01/what-is-the-blueprint-of-christs-church?lang=eng&query=blueprint+mccalister

Je vous aime avec tout mon coeur!!!

Soeur Everett

TROP bénie

Wow... I'm going to have to type fast this week. I have a lot of miracles to write about!!!

Our favorite baguettes

Actually using chopsticks!

Let's start off with the beginning of the week!! So we called just about every ancient ami we have in our area book (that's the most ancient ami fiches I've seen in my whole mission....) So we just set rdv after rdv and found SO many people that kind of fell beneath the cracks somewhere along the way. I have a few stories about this for this week. :)

We wanted to porte this one so bad!  Not sure if it's a house though.

Getting artsy with our pictures

Thanks for the cool pic Soeur Bagley

We set a rdv with a woman named Paqueline - she had just had a baby about 3 weeks before and i think she had stopped rdvs because she was nearing the end of her pregnancy. anyway, found her in the middle of all the fiches. She was SO happy to hear from us! She invited us right over. Then we find out she has 3 beautiful daughters and her husband who is interested as well!! A FAMILY!!! We picked up right where I'm sure the last sisters left off. She said she'd been reading the BOM and that she found that it really contained God's plan for us within it. She's studying with the témoins as well, which is always a good sign. I think it means people are really searching diligently to find the truth! She agreed that she would be baptized when she found the truth!! (She couldn't come to church this week because her poor 3 week old baby is sick..... everyone pray for her!!)

Replacement glasses arrived!

Sound check for this weekend's spectacular spectacular

A couple more ancient ami stories.. :) So a few days after we made all the calls, we get a call back from a man named Vako. He's an immigrant from Russia. He took the missionary lessons for a few years and knows the church and the ward very well. It was super unclear on his fiche why the lessons stopped (seriously that's my biggest pet peeve), but I think he might have just been having a hard time and needed a break for a bit. So anyway, he called and told us that he'd love to meet with us again! We set up a rdv for that saturday. He arrived right on time but our member tombez-vous-ed us (haha it's okay she forgot), and it was pouring rain so we couldn't have the lesson outside.. he assured us he would be at church the next day and that we could just meet next week! HE CAME TO CHURCH!! And we had to do literally NOTHING to get him integrated. He went straight into priesthood and started chatting with a bunch of people. He will be baptized.

Train ride to Oloron

The Pyrenees

We went to pass an ancient ami family - the Lumwmba(?)'s (I usually write and say Lulumba because I don't know how to pronounce it or spell it haha). So we passed and they were so excited to see us!! We couldn't go in because the wife wasn't home, but they told us that we could pass whenever we wanted to! Afterwards we decided to porte a bit on that street. Within 20 minutes we found THREE OTHER HOUSES who were interested in learning more!! Can you believe that? Maybe that doesn't sound as awesome as it was, but we are stoked. We'll be going back next week with a member and teaching all 4 families. :)

Mirror selfie

Church in Pau

Michael update: He texted us this week telling us that he wanted to stop lessons and coming to church. Didn't phase me whatsoever. Basically texted back and told him that we weren't giving up on him and that he needed to have patience with himself and God to be able to receive his answer - we reminded him that "ce qui cherche trouve." (seek and ye shall find) Later that night he responded with this Benjamin Franklin quote: "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. The morning daylight appears plainer when you put out your candle." And he came to church.

I love Oloron!!!

Construction in Oloron is still beautiful

Oloron

Oloron reminds me of home (Carcassonne)

Soeur Bagley

Just an explanation of all of the gorgeous pictures - we went to Oloron this week to visit a family in the ward and a less active (and to do some other work because missionaries hardly ever go there). I cannot WAIT to bring you guys there! It is breath-taking and they have a Lindt chocolate factory there.. it smells like chocolate when you walk around. Seriously its a fairy tale there. Reminded me so much of Carcassonne. :)

While we were porting last night

Let me tell you a little bit about last night. So we had people we wanted to pass and I thought for SURE i knew how to get to certain road without looking at a map (seriously always a bad idea). We started walking and we got sooo lost. We were wayy off from where we needed to be. I stopped and asked a couple if they could tell us the name of the road. They were so willing to help. They told us - "oh just come with us!! we'll go look it up on the computer!!" We followed them to their house but by then we had talked out where the road was. So the wife offered to take us to the road! Seriously, who does that! So nice! She told us that her daughter had just returned from backpacking Costa Rica and thought that she would have wanted someone to help her if she had been lost, so it was the least she could do. They were seriously the nicest people. They thought it was wonderful what we did. We didn't really have much time to talk but we left her with our card! Hopefully we run into her again!

Hey Soeur Richardson, I found cheap sticky notes in France!

Are you proud? Look how much water I drank this week!!!

So after that we porte-ed a bit because we couldn't find the ancient amis house and then we started trying to find a bus to take home. Sunday schedule is the weirdest and there are practically NO buses. We started walking and by then it was dark and we were having such a hard time finding somewhere. We ended up walking in back roads and I started to have the weirdest feeling. Never felt anything like it before. Then I heard a voice speaking to me "Don't get on the bus. Call a member." We checked the bus times and it came in about 30 minutes, I just knew we couldn't be outside, or get on the bus. And there was no way I was ignoring a prompting that strong. My companion at first thought I was just a little bit crazy because I'm always anxious when we're out when its dark. But of course she agreed we should listen to the prompting. We camped out in US Pizza (to avoid being in the streets...) and started calling everyone we could. Seriously no one could come and get us. Finally (bless her heart) Aline (Leang) came to the rescue AGAIN - she always helps us, I seriously love her. Still don't know what would have happened had we been on the bus or outside but as soon as we were in the car with Aline, the horrible feeling went away instantly.

My beautiful companion

Me!!

We wrote her a poem to thank her for everything she does for us that I just have to send home.

Aline, Aline you are so great.

You've picked us up when it was late.

You speak English like a boss.

You probably even know the word "dross" (don't know if that's really a word, but it rhymes...)

When we need google, you're always there.

No one could replace you and they wouldn't dare.

Maintenant on écrit en français,

parce qu'on a pensé que c'était une bonne idée.

On sait que l'église est vrai,

et l'évanglie apporte la paix.

C'est un poème de nos coeurs.

On vous aime sans fin

     -les Soeurs

She responded with this. :)

Chères amies, je vous aime

Tout comme les nems...! :-D

Je ne said pas faire de bon rimes

Mais au moins, ce n'est pas un crime...

I'm glad you called me

So you can go home safely!

Ahhhh we died. I love Aline. I love our ward. I love Pau. I love my life. I love the gospel. And I love being a missionary.

Have a great week family!!!

Je vous aime!!

View from Centre Ville

Soeur Everett

3 Nephi 11:14-15

Carcassonne news: the family Pondela are now ENGAGES (committed) for baptism!!! WHAT!!! I about cried when I saw them on the engagé list this week!!!!