Monday, December 30, 2013

Happy New Year!

Bonjour Ma famille!!

Wow I can't believe I just talked to you last week!  That may have been the shortest two hours I have ever seen!  Oh well, still got Mother's day in 5 months, which if you think about it is just as long as I've been in Guyane, so it'll just take another one of those before I see you again!  And to be honest the time here is flying by!  I can't believe I'm going to be 1/4 of the way done soon, craziness.  It was really weird right before I talked to you, I was so excited and I was thinking, Whoa, this is probably what Jordan was going through right before he talked to us on Skype.  Except I don't think he had to wait for other people to finish though because they had more than one computer . It was different being the one getting all the questions and not being the one trying to think of all the questions haha!  It was really good though I loved seeing all you!!

Man!! Look at all that snow at Island Park!! Max is just as poofy as I remember! haha  I always loved going to Island Park!  It was probably on of my favorite things we would do with everybody, did you play any of Jeff's favorite card games? haha  I'm so glad to hear that Dallin was OK after that mishap, those fields are really fun to go zipping along, I always wondered if there was actually barbed wire there.  How were the snow shoes?

So after we talked Elder Miyasaki got on with his family and the others came back to church and we watched Monsters University because we were allowed to watch a G rated movie for Christmas.  Well, we were supposed to watch it Christmas Eve but nobody told us that so when we found out from the assistants they said we could watch it Christmas because we didn't know about it before.  Monsters University was the only G rated movie that we could find, and it was in French but it was good haha. I understood quite a bit, it did help that I had seen it before though.

So as far as transfers go...Elder Miyasaki and the others got a call from the president to let them know that Elder Santos is shipping out to Guadeloupe and Elder Miyasaki is going to be the new Zone leader here. Elder Pratt is coming to be Elder Fraley's new companion, and we are also going to get two sister missionaries to come down!  They are going to have to stay in Elder Santos and Fraley's old apartment until Elder Miyasaki and I can find a new one for them. Which means we'll have four Elders in an apartment which should be fun!

The investigators have been doing good this week.  We have this one family, The Florentin's I don't know if I've told you about them, but we are teaching the mom and one of her daughters.  We have been teaching them and just gave them un Livre de Mormon and the said they would read it and are praying to know if they need to be baptized.  The daughter said she was going to read 3 chapters a night!  Sadly the parents are flying to Haiti for 3 weeks so we can't see them until they get back... Everyone keeps leaving!!!  Our two investigators with baptism dates are getting back this week so it'll be good to see them again

We met a lot of potential investigators this week, but the best one isn't even in our area.  So Elder Miyasaki and I were walking in the city and I saw a Chinese restaurant with a sign saying it sold Dim Sum, you know I love Dim Sum, so I naturally took notice of it. Then I noticed that there was an apartment above it and that the door to the stairwell was open which doesn't happen often in the city . I had a good feeling that we should go contact those apartments.  As we were climbing the stairs a Brazilian guy ran in calling after us. He asked if we were the Elders.  He told us that he visited his family in Brazil and was taking the lessons from sister missionaries there and that he wanted to be baptized!  He left before he had enough lessons though and when he got here he couldn't find the church.  He also said he had a cousin who was on a mission!!  We got his name and address, he's in the other's area sadly...., but he came to church the next day!  I'm super excited to see how he goes!!

Frère Magny who is a counselor in the branch presidency picked up Elder Fraley's and my packages.  He gave them to us on Saturday when we went to clean the church.  I'm not sure why or how he was contacted, but we got them. Sorry for the scare!!  I sent an email to Grandma letting her know.

On Christmas Eve we ate Pepper Pot and Ginger Beer (not really beer) with the Narine's and Baksh's.  Pepper Pot is a popular dish here that is served on special occasions like Christmas.  It's stewed meat with cinnamon and hot peppers.

 Tell Joe good luck in flight school and Brianna, good luck with tennis!!  And Everybody else good luck with everything else I guess haha!  I love you all so much have a great week!

Je vous aime!
Avec amour,
Elder Call




Christmas Eve at the Baksh's






Christmas Eve at our apartment


Christmas Eve PJ's!



Eating the Pepper Pot soup on Christmas Eve at the Narine's






Biking in the downpour to the church to Skype with you guys!



Sitting in the church, soaking wet, waiting for my turn to Skype



Giant Christmas tree in Cayenne