So the most important thing of the week was definitely the two baptisms we had on Martinique this Saturday! The first one was Sonia, she had been an investigator for quite some time, Elder Miyasaki met her with Elder Andros some ten months ago. The baptism was at the beach, we had the talks and everything at the church and then we went to the beach for the ordinance. Ricardo our ami came and even brought his friend! I was really excited that he came! The next one was at Trinité with Catherine. I met her when I went on an exchange over there. She has an amazing testimony and had been waiting for the chance to have her family come see her baptism, otherwise she would have been baptized a long time ago. Her boyfriend Marklin was baptized a little while before I got here and he was the one that baptized her. He has a crippled hand so he couldn't do the whole thing by himself and had to have Fr. Lagrand put her under the water while he said the words. I think that it was really cool for both of them and quite a spiritual experience for everyone!
So this transfer Elder Johnston and I have been doing "English fasts" to help us with the language. The first week we didn't speak any English on Sunday, then the next week we did two days in a row and so on, and so forth. Therefore, this week we started our fast from English Thursday night and finished last night. I know I've said it a lot but, I love French! Its tough still trying to go without speaking English because sometimes I forget but I've been doing pretty good! I also started writing a little bit in French to learn vocab as well as to learn how to write. I decided to translate that book I was working on writing before I left. Its been fun!
I had to give a talk yesterday in church. I was told about it Saturday night before I went to sleep. It got me thinking, its tough being a missionary, you are the back up speaker for the back up speaker and so if there is no one to speak they tell you on the spot to give a talk. Once I received a text message in the middle of sacrament meeting asking if I could give a ten minute talk after the one we were listening to because someone else forgot theirs. So that's something fun us missionaries do. I've learned to like giving talks, I'm still not too good at it and it still makes me nervous, but I've been getting better. Yesterday I talked about following the prophet and I shared the story about the flight I took with Jordan when he had to know what to do during an engine failure. The instructor was like the living prophet, his study books were like the words of prophets in the scriptures, and his flight class is like going to church and getting instruction there. Since he did all of that he knew what to do when trouble came, whereas I did not, and I was pretty scared. It went really well and a lot of people wanted to know a lot more about my pilot brother haha! Thanks Joe!
President Mehr is coming to Martinique tomorrow so we're busy trying to get ready for him. He will have interviews with us and then hold a fireside at the church. We still have zone conference next week so we'll all be flying to Guadeloupe. I also noticed on my pocket calendar the other day that there is on 3 more weeks until Mother's Day!
You asked about cooking, and I am getting pretty good. I made some delicious home made fried chicken the other day, you'd be so proud. :) Actually, I've never made fried chicken in my life, so I am impressed!
I love all of you so much!
avec amour,
Elder Call
Here are some pictures from the baptisms this week. One was held in the ocean by Madiana beach, and the other was in a river by a bunch of cool ruins in the Trinité area.
