Monday, January 20, 2014

Bike accident...or not...

Bonjour ma famille!!

comment allez-vous? Things are going alright down here in Guyane Française!  Well I should probably start off explaining the pictures.  I assume I almost gave you a heart attack, Mom.  So first off we were on an exchange, I went with Elder Pratt on the bikes and we visited the Bady family as the last thing of the night except for our studies . We locked up our bikes and went up the stairs of the complex.  When we came down, the tires and seats were gone with no trace of them.  So we had to carry the bikes back home.  Our shirts were already pretty muddy because it had rained all that day as we were biking (hence the purchase of raincoats) and we said it looked like we got mugged or something, so naturally we couldn't just leave it there...  So when we got home we messed up our shirts and rubbed chain grease on our faces, it still wasn't enough.  So we rolled around in the dirt and put some rasberry jam on our faces to make it more realistic looking.  When Elder Fraley and Miyasaki got home we told them that we chased down the guys that stole our tires and beat them up.  We had them going for a little while, until Doctor Fraley started his medical diagnosing haha.

Also this week we had the first baptism in Guyane since maybe last year in March!!  And the first one I've seen on my mission!  We were all going crazy with excitement, Elder Fraley especially.  I'm so happy for him, he's been working really hard and deserves the success.

We had a cool experience this week!   The sisters gave us a referral a little while back and we kinda forgot to call him for some time.  We called him one morning but he didn't answer.  A little while later we went to pull out some money from the bank and a car honked at us and pulled a demi-tour u-turn and parked right by us.  The guy called out to us and said that he got our message this morning but he didn't think to much about it and deleted the message.  He told us that nothing happens by chance and that when we called him and then he saw us he knew he needed to talk with us.  We set up a rendez-vous for this week I believe!

Ailene is still heading towards baptism but we've had to move it back because she couldn't come to church or have the lessons because her daughter has been having some problems.

I don't think that we will need to pay for the stolen bikes, they have the bike fund that every missionary contributes to when they arrive, which we already paid for.  And to be honest the bikes are pretty well used. We have a lot of spare parts that we have been able to draw from up to now.

The President is coming next week on Monday.  He'll have a fireside and work with us, then we are going over to Suriname together for zone conference.  I can get pictures this time because I'll have a camera!

We teach English at the church every Thursday, switching off which companionship teaches each week. Sometimes there is a good amount of people that come but sometimes nobody comes and we just do studies as we wait.

I'm glad you saw my story in the WIM newsletter.  She failed to mention that the Chinese restaurant sold Dim Sum, which I felt was a very important factor, but oh well :)  The others have been teaching him and he's scheduled to get baptized the same day as Aline, but things can always change.

Oh, I got a boatload of mail this week and most of it was from Ellen Millburn, but two were from Sadie.   Tell her thank you!  We fixed the address on our mailbox and I guess that was the problem because all of the sudden we're getting letters. I even had a letter sent to the other Elder's apartment.  That was weird, don't know how it ended up there!

Well I hope you enjoy you trip! I wish I could could go now that I can speak French with the Tahitians!
You pronounce hello like 'your-ona' in Tahitian if you wanted to know.

I love all of you so much!  I hope you have a good week!!  à bientot!

avec amour,
Elder Call



The infamous raspberry jam and bike grease hoax.  The joke was on the mom I guess!










 Elder Pratt rolling in the dirt






Our new raincoats.  I've decided we're wizards and if I wear this tie with it I'm from Hufflepuff








Playing soccer in the parking lot








The most amazing part of the past 6 months!




The French Guiana Missionaries