Monday, August 19, 2013

Last week in the MTC and travel plans!!

Bonjour ma famille!

Comment allez-vous? J'espaire vous étés bien! There wasn't too much that happened over the week other than our travel plans getting here.  We will be leaving next Monday at 6:20 a.m.  We will be leaving the MTC at 2:30 a.m.  We have a layover in Houston, before flying into Port-of Spain, Trinidad.  We arrive there at 8:04 p.m.  I'm so excited I can't stand it!

We did have Richard G. Scott come on Tuesday to the devotional in the Marriott Center which was way cool. He talked about prayer and ways we can receive revelation through prayer.  We listen to a lot of talks and watch a lot of videos of talks, but as a missionary I get so much more out of the talks, it's super cool.  Since we sing in the choir we get to go early to the Marriott Center and we always are trying to guess who's going to speak.  When we got to the door there was a security check, which we never needed before, they also didn't show who was speaking on the T.V.s, which they usually do.  So we were all going crazy,  "It's gotta be a general authority!"  Well when I say we, I mean me. The other Elders didn't think it was as cool because they said they've been to General Conference a lot but I don't think I ever have, so it was cool for me at least.

My favorite part of the week was actually yesterday, I told you about Brother Robinson the old mission president, he came and talked to us again and boy did he get me excited!  He asked us if we had any questions and we couldn't think of where to start, so He just started talking about the mission.  The first thing he said was to make sure we get a waterfall baptism.... AHHH!!!  He said there are ponds with big ol' waterfalls that we can go baptize people in!  Holy cow!  We saw a picture of one in the main building because he told us to go look for it, it was awesome!!  I'm so excited I may just have a heart attack before this week even finishes...  Then he went on to tell us how we are for sure going to spend the first 6 months in Guadeloupe as we apply for visas to the other islands and French Guiana.  ALSO he said that Guadeloupe is just like a miniature island version of France and that they speak perfect Parisian French and there are French patisseries on every corner where we can get pain de chocolat (chocolate bread).  We spent the rest of the day looking at the islands on Google Earth...  Have you seen the lake inside St. Martin?  There's an island inside an island!.....  This is going to be a long week...

I did see Sister Edwards for about 5 seconds, we said hi then she just kept walking, she looked pretty happy as far as I could tell.  I haven't seen Sister Peterson but I saw Elder Chapman Walk and he said that he saw her.

Elder Eshiet left this morning at 2:30 a.m.  Elder Erickson is leaving tomorrow at 3:30 a.m.  It was weird going to sleep with Elder Eshiet in the room and in the morning he was gone.  I tried to wake up in the morning to see him off, but I couldn't make it out of bed.  I remember waking up, but the next thing I knew it was 5:45 and time to get ready for the day and he was gone.  We celebrated a little last night for him, busted open some of the snacks we've been saving for special occasions and some glow sticks you sent me haha.  It wasn't sad at all because we were all jealous of him for leaving, but it's weird with him gone, it'll probably be more so tomorrow when we go to class and neither him OR Elder Erickson are there.

On Wednesday the new shipment of WI Elders get here but they'll be part of the other French branch and I'm not sure where their room will be because all the rooms are full in our residence.  All the other Elders know someone that's in this new group except for me, but it's fine.

We just found out that you can no longer wear backpacks as a missionary so I may need a shoulder bag of some kind to carry things around, but I may just get one there but I don't know.  I can't think of where I would put one in my luggage if you did send one so I think I'll just get one there. Other than that I can't think of anything I NEED but odds are I'm forgetting something

We did get to go to the Temple again today, the last time for the next two years, well 23 months now haha. I was really tired though, BUT I didn't fall asleep so that was good.

We went to In-field orientation already and were the only ones there that weren't leaving this week. We went because that's when Elder Eshiet and Erickson had to go so they just had us tag along too.  It was cool and kinda got me excited to get out there, mostly they just told us how to use members and ward mission leaders, but I don't think it'll be like that in the West Indies, but what do I know?

Man I am so excited to head out to the West Indies!  I love all of you so very much! I'll try to get some more in my hand written letter.

Tell Bri good luck with tennis, pet pepper for me haha!

Avec amour,
Elder Call


 My translation of the French hymn Souvines-Toi


The apple tree we're growing in our residence


Picture of the waterfall baptism in the West Indies