Bonjour!

Bonjour Ma Famille!

We had a whole lot of contacting again this week.  We weren't able to see Dana, or Claudia, or just about any of our regular amis.  But on Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder Pape, (that's a funny story I'll tell later) who is new this transfer with Elder Bodily, and we tried to see Pamela who had been on vacation for the last 3 weeks.  We thought we would go see if she got home yet.  She wasn't there.  So we were sitting right in front of her house in the car trying to think of where we could go for the end of the day, when she pulled in.  It was a miracle to me.  We were able to get in contact with her again after all this time, we didn't get to teach a lesson but we invited her to church, and she came!

Today we drove around to Les Anse D'Arlets just me and Elder Glover, we stopped at all the beaches and took photos and tried to just relax for the day.  Then we went home and ate and cleaned the car.  Now we are here talking to you!

The next transfer will be Sept. 10 and I have been here about  4 1/2 transfers which means about 6.5-7 months, half a transfer more than I was in Guyane.

Sorry I didn't have time to tell you about the pottery shop last week.  I'll send some pics today.  I bought some things that I want to send home to you guys sometime but I'm not sure when.  No pottery though, I didn't want it to break.  If you think I can chance it let me know and I could swing by another time to get you some!

 Heres a fun créole phrase for ya! buf devan bwé dlo frai (the cow in front drinks fresh water,) its the equivilant of "first come first served".

This week I listened to all of the President Monson talks from BYU.  Elder Glover and I loved the talk about principles for prophets.  He talks about what he knew and learned from all the prophets he has known throughout his life, many of them he served with in the Quorum of the 12.  Pres. Monson is just a very happy, funny guy and I love listening to him. 

I hope you know that I am praying for you and I love you.  This week I had the chance to start reading back through my journals and I read during my first transfer, I read a promise that I made to myself, that I wanted to be one of those missionaries that everyone remembers for being obedient and hard working even if things were hard.  I had forgotten that and I am very glad that I wrote that down.  I do still want to be that person and it helped me refocus myself a little. 

I know that this work is true and I know that my Redeemer lives.  I know that I am where I need to be and that these trials that I have in my life are for my own good and benefit.  I know that God loves me and is watching over me and that through prayer I can talk to him and receive his comfort and council, because I have done it and he has shown me.  I love you all so very much.  I know that the Lord will answer our prayers, and that is enough for me.

je vous aime,
avec amour,
Elder Call

This was the potter and his shop.  He taught us all about making it

We had a picnic after

And we got to skip rocks

We wore our suits to church this week because we told Fr. Renard (which means fox in French, so his name is Brother Fox) that if he came to church in his nice suit we would wear ours.  Sadly he didn't make it, all the members were impressed that we wore suits though haha, they all had a comment about it!  Sr. Doumbia said she was impressed that we could still fit into our suits after a year haha! Some missionaries can't!

Today's island tour of the south-west point.  We stopped at all the beaches and cool spots.

Diamond Rock

Les Anse D'Arlets‏

Elder Glover, my long lost cousin!

Salut!

So that's weird about Elder Glover and I being related!  I did know that he was related to a Call, naturally I just assumed that it was through Anson, I mean who isn't?  But being related on the Holt side as well... I didn't know.  Wow!  I just talked to Elder Glover, we agreed that we will never look at each other the same again... That life sketch looks really interesting and I took pictures with my camera and I'll look at it later.
Elder Glover's mom called me this week.  She had been doing some genealogy and discovered that Braden and Elder Glover are related in two different family lines!  They share the same 4th great-grandfather on the Call line as well as the Holt line.  There must be some heavenly help in getting these two boys working together down here!

So these last couple weeks have been a little slow still.  Elder Glover got a really bad allergic reaction of some kind Monday night that covered him.  We called the mission Doc and he prescribed Benadril, which basically knocked him out for the entire next day.  I, while he was snoozing, had an whole day of studying. Normally that would be lame, but it was actually really good.  I loved it!  I have been studying Christ-like attributes and I have taken a paperback copy of the BOM to mark specifically for that.  I learned a ton of stuff like connections between all the different attributes.  The whole day actually went by really fast even though that's all I did.  Luckily, the rash went a way after Tuesday.

I loved the package that you sent me! It was une surpris extraordinaire!  I think Elder Glover and I are going to enjoy the Ping-Pong thing! haha!

We had a really rough day on Friday, and as usual at the end we were blessed.  At the very end we saw Clavel, the family from Cuba, and we talked about Joseph Smith and the BOM.  She had received the lessons a couple of times already so it wasn't really new.  But this time she accepted to  be baptized and we are planning for the end of the month, the problem is, she's going to Cuba for 3 weeks   But we have been in the process of contacting the Havana Branch to let them know that she wants to come, and to find a way for her to get to church on Sundays.  Apparently they are in the Miami Florida South Stake, so we had to call Miami, who told us that they didn't have the number for Havana but that we had to call Puerto Rico.  It was all very confusing and we still haven't gotten a hold of Puerto Rico yet.  But we did find directions on LDS.org to get her from where she will be staying to the branch in Havana.

I listened to a lot of talks by Henry B. Eyring this week, and I have to say that I loved "Gifts of Love" and I want you to listen to it.  I love your letters and they are a great help and a blessing to me.  And when you hear the story of the man that was in the Vietnam war, I agree with him.

I love you all so much, I am praying for you.

avec amour,
Elder Call

Not so serious Tropical Storm Bertha

Bonjour ma famille!

This week was actually rather long, I would love to say otherwise, but, I learned a lot about myself and my testimony,  and that Johanna showed up.  After we tried to knock on her door and she wasn't there, she pulled up in her car and agreed to a 5 minute lesson even when she didn't have time.  We watched a video and then and ended with a prayer setting an appointment for Wednesday.  After that we wandered back towards our house, with no idea what to do, my only thought was a contact that lived close to us.  She wasn't home. But, as we were leaving, an hour of time to fill, and nothing but contacting on our planner, I remembered having set up a lesson with Claudia for precisely that time, and precisely that place, I was looking right at her door, basically, when it hit me.  We went in and her friend was there, and the Spirit, and they agreed to a baptismal date for the 30th, and understood everything.  It was incredible.  I would love to complain, but I just don't know how.  I know that this week was a test of my testimony, but I'm not too sure how I did though.

As for Tropical Storm Bertha, oh man I was so excited for the storm!  But we got absolutely nothing in the south.  We had Coordination that day, early to beat the storm, and there was some pretty incredible lighting and thunder when we left.  The rain was coming down in buckets as Elder Glover and I drove back to our area.  But as soon as we crossed the boundaries everything just turned off.  The south didn't even get wind. The rest of the day we had our weekly planning session, so we were home the whole time.  But they city turned off the power and water just in case for the storm, but nothing came.  So we planned in the dark using our homemade yogurt cup candles to see!

There are some pretty good talks I've read recently.  Ones by Tad R. Callister, they aren't really the "Feel Good" talks, more of the "Blow your mind with Doctrine" kind haha!  I REALLY love the Holland talks, like "For Times of Trouble", but also especially,  "However Long and Hard the Road".  Last week I just got a bunch of conference talks in French to help with my language studies.

Last week was the Yole Festival, (that of course you knew about mom!)  I'll send some pictures of the boats.  They went right past our house but to be honest, it wasn't too exciting.  They don't go that fast, but the people went crazy for them haha!

I love all of you so very much and I love hearing from you!  My prayers are with you and I feel the ones coming from your end!  The Lord loves us, that's why he trusts us with hard times.  I know that they are meant to help us and let us grow.

I love you!
avec amour,
Elder Call

Arik's birthday.  I made the carrot cake for him

These pictures are in Marin

Ste. Marie

Elder Glover...The "New" Mexican!

The Yoles

The men seriously have to hang off the sides on those poles to steer and balance it

Meeting to prepare for the not so serious Tropical Storm Bertha

Eating and studying by candlelight during the power outage

My homemade yogurt cup candle

Spiritual week

Bonjour ma famille!

I would love to write a really long letter to you again this week but there wasn't too much that happened, since the last time I wrote was on Wednesday half a week ago.  And this week was pretty rough.  We didn't get a chance to teach any of our strong investigators.  We saw Dana a couple times but we were never able to get an actual lesson with her.

But!  It's was Arik Martial's birthday on Thursday, and I baked the carrot cake and took it over to him. Sadly, today has been really stressful and my SD card reader ended up getting left at home (I STILL have my camera, I just haven't been able to send pictures, there will be lots next week!)  Arik just turned 12 so he's going to be receiving the priesthood this week.  It'll be great to have another deacon and priesthood holder in the branch!

This week although it felt really long, was a very spiritual week.  When Elder Glover got home from the airport we talked about all the things we wanted to change, what we were going to work on, anything we could do to finally find some success.  Then we took an hour and drove up to Desmarinières overlooking the south arm of the island to a cool little spot that was secluded from everything else and prayed and talked with the Lord.  It was by far one of the most spiritual experiences that I've ever had.  But that really set the mood for the rest of the week and I can tell that my prayers have gotten a lot better and more earnest.  Not too much has come from it yet but it was a good start.  And I feel that I really am being tested as to how badly I really want success.

The other day Elder Glover and I talked for a long time about baseball.  He was trying as hard as he could to convince me about baseball but I wasn't buying it.  Naturally, being missionaries, we started throwing in scripture references to back our point of view, it was really funny.

I do want to thank you for the year mark box, especially the camel.  I love it, a lot.  Haha I took it to Guadeloupe with me!  I also really love the cook book, Elder Dayton was very jealous of it.  We've been making a lot of good food recently!

Well its not as long as usual sorry again,
Next week should have a lot of pictures!  I promise

avec amour,
Elder Call

Here are some pictures that Sister Turner took at Zone Conference and one of Elder Glover and Braden making cheesecake.

Hump Day!

Bonjour!

I'm sure that you weren't expecting to get an email today!  Well, here it is!  At least its better than not getting an email this week right?  This week was exciting though.  As far as missionary vacations can go.  We went up to Guadeloupe again!  But before that we did do some missionary work. Don't worry.

This week we finally got a hold of Edwin's mom.  We thought her name was Clavel Manuel, but we found out that since she is Cuban she has 2 last names Clavel-Manuel.  We talked to a lot about Edwin wanting to be baptized and she said she was all for it.  She had known the missionaries for a long time in France when she was there. I don't know why she was never baptized but she just keeps falling away from the missionaries some way or another.  But we were talking to her for a while and she told us that she wanted Edwin to get baptized, that it would be really good for him.  Then I told her about the temple, and how if they all go there they could be sealed as a family for time and eternity, never to be separated.  She was really amazed about that and said she wanted to go there.  So I explained that in order to go to the temple she had to be prepared, baptized, and in order to be baptized she has to take and understand 5 lessons given by the missionaries and to come to church.  She thought about it and finally she said. "OK, I'll do it.  I will do what it takes to give you the time to help me go to the temple with my family"  (I just completely forgot how to spell family, is it one l or two? family? familly?)  SO hopefully we can keep in touch with her and her family for these next couple weeks.  She's given consent for Edwin to be baptized, which I am sure he will be.  But I want them to be together as a family, because that's what this is all about.

That was probably the most important part of the week.  We saw Dana again this week, she still hasn't talked with her boyfriend but she gave us his address in Lamentin, so Elder Lewis and Bodily are going to try to get a hold of him.  We also went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she is mostly ready. She has a couple things that she needs to take care of but she just doesn't feel ready yet.

Also, Fr. Coïné came back form France a while back and he came and cut our grass for us again like he usually does, we helped him and asked him if he wanted to come work with us, he said he was free the entire day.  It was the BEST!  He hopped in our car and went to all our appointments for the entire day.  Not a single one fell through.  We saw 5 people with him.  In the car we were singing some hymns and he kept trying to sing along in French but the words were in English, it was really funny.  I was just hit with an incredible realization of how much I love these people.  I really do love them and I would do anything for them.  I'm so glad to be here.

Then we had zone conference, hopefully my mission president won't be too disappointed if my letter to him consists of just a couple lines because I don't have too much time left.  Anyways, we left early Monday morning and got to Guadeloupe. There we played some basketball with everybody.  Even President Mehr! It was awesome!  I even got to see Elder Miyasaki, it was so great to see him and catch up after 6 months. Turns out that his photos of our time together in Guyane got accidentally erased as well.  So basically the ones I sent you is all I got, so take good care of those please!  After that there wasn't enough cars to take all the missionaries out to work so most of Martinique got stuck in the Morne-à-l'eau house and we played Risk for most of the night.  There was some pretty heated playing haha, but in the end I won, naturally!

Zone conference was really great.  Pres. and Sis. Mehr talked about Christ-like attributes and the assistants talked about the Book of Mormon and how we need to stress a lot more the Book of Mormon, like it says in ch. 5 of PMG (which you should be reading this week) It is the most powerful tool that we have unto conversion. So Elder Glover and I are going to be focusing a lot on that.

I didn't see any celebrations for Bastille Day because it was on Monday and we were travelling all that day. I just know that it was hard to find food that day!

Sorry no pictures this week, I can't get my card to work in this computer.

I love all of you so much!
avec amour,
Elder Call

Happy 4th of July!

Bonjour ma famille!

Sorry I've been letting you down on the letter writing, Mom, but I really am trying me best.  Sometimes the days just seem so similar its had to tell them apart.  I have been trying to write down the most important stuff, I'm sure that you don't want to hear all about my time knocking on doors every week.

This week we had a big stress on the fast.  We were encouraged to go and talk to every member about the fast and to have them fast with us. We have fixed a mission goal to have 600 baptisms by the end of the year and we are a lttle behind. So we fasted to help our cause. In order to make it to the goal, we need 3 baptisms every zone, every month, including Martinique. So we are doing our best and I think that we really can do it, it will just take a whole lot of faith.  Anyways, it wasn't that hard to see all our members in the area, having only Sr. Telcide, the Martial's, and Joani. (The Coïne's moved up to St. Joseph) and we talked to them all about the fast and asked them to invite people to come to church.  We planned on getting 100 people to come to church, the district requirement to have a better building.  Everyone was very excited about it.  Especially Sr. Martial who loves talking to people.

We had everything very well planned out and everybody was going to come and it was going to be the greatest day ever, but.... then a lot of things happened.  First off, the Coïné's moved out of the area so we no longer have rides for people to go to church, not even the Martial family, who now has to hitch hike to church, and Fr. Lagin who lives in Rivière pilot got Chikengunya so HE couldnt take people either, Dana went to St. Lucia to go to a funeral.  Yeah, it was kind of a bummer.  But Sunday morning we got a call from Vivian, a really nice lady that we had met out in the woods who wanted to come to church and needed better directions.  I think that she had a really good time at church and she talked the most out of anybody in gospel principles class.  SO miracles are there, even if Satan tries his best to get you not to see them.

We saw Dana this week as well, she is doing well.  We explained baptism to her again, about how its not the end of the road, but the beginning.  She doesn't have to be perfect to be baptized, she has to be prepared, but not perfect.  Baptism is the first step to become perfect and puts us on the right path but it is not perfection.  She understood it a lot better and I think she has a lot of her worries calmed about it.  Also her boyfriend is in the process of contacting the missionaries in Lamentin, which could be just what she needs to help her.

Zone conference will be Monday next week, so I don't know what is going on with emails, so don't freak out if its not regular schedule-like.  We'll be flying to Guadeloupe for that.

Thanks for the letters!   I got yours but I haven't seen Brianna's yet though! Thanks a bunch!

I don't really expect to do much for my Hump Day.   Probably bake a cake, I might do more stuff to celebrate when we are in Guadeloupe.

I love all of you so much!!  Have a great week!  The Lord loves us and knows us and wants us to be happy. And he knows we will be so much happier if its us that choose to be happy and not him forcing it upon us. Which was the reason why we chose the plan of happiness.  Agency is one of the greatest gifts our Father gave us.  I know this church is true.

avec amour,
Elder Call

McDonalds...even in the islands!

Map of our area in the south of Martinique

Just a little something I cooked up...

Picture from the branch dinner

Happy Summer!

Bonjour Ma famille!


Good news!  We had Claudia come to church yesterday!  As well as Edwin again.  Claudia is doing amazingly.  She reads the Book of Mormon and recites from memory everything that she read every appointment.  We just barely started talking about the Plan of Salvation with her. OH OH OH!!! I forgot that we did that Soiré au Parc this last Monday.  It went great!  I hope that Sr. Turner sent you pictures. Dana was there and a couple other friends of Sr. Martial.  Even Dana's twelve year old daughter came and we were able to teach her again after that on Saturday.  She is really nice and I hope she will come to church sometime to give Joani a friend.  Dana has been talking with her boyfriend about the church a little as well! He even said he was going to take them to church but it didn't end up happening.  They would be a great family and I pray and pray that we can help them.

We played a lot of soccer this morning. In the rain. I got soaked.

So Its been a good week, no complaints, other than the fact that the Coïné family might be moving to St. Joseph (out of our area) which would cut our members that can drive people to church in half.  Our investigators are going well, we had a baptism Saturday, so it can't be too bad.

I want to thank you for talking about the week!  I feel like I know whats going on over there now! Sometimes I finish emails and everyone asks how the family and I realize that I don't know anything that's going on, but that was great!  Thanks!

I also want to thank you for the talks that you sent me, they were good. I got the one about the missionaries and C.S. Lewis. I have really started to like listening to talks, and I recommend that you go onto BYU.edu and listen to the speeches on there.  They are really great.  They are basically general conference talks that are twice as long and they don't hold anything back. We download 4 or 5 of them every Monday and listen to them in the car throughout the week.  I suggest you listen to Pres. Eying's talk "Waiting on the Lord"  its from a long time ago so he doesn't sound at all the same.  Then Oak's "Sins and Mistakes"  Then you have to listen to ALL the one's from Elder Holland, because they are amazing.  Especially, "Remember Lot's Wife" and "However Long and Hard the Road" Enjoy!

As for things I need, I need a watch, a little cook book would be cool, another USB card would be nice if I could get one, you could even send that old one I had if you could find it. Maybe some photos of us as a family, I have those ones but I would like to show some others to people if I can.

I am going to be starting ch.3 lesson 5 this week in PMG if your still keeping up with me.

I love all of you so much!
avec amour,
Elder Call

Soccer in the rain today

Making jus pays with Sr. Martial‏

President Occulier's wife with their son Nathaniel at Freddy's baptism

Me with Sr. Yva Jean-de-Dieu