Going to Zone Conference

Bonjour Tout le monde!

We had another great week this week. a lot of preparing for the Suriname trip, getting visas and what not hahaha... Everything is good now and as soon as I finish this email I'll be taking the 3 hour drive to St. Laurent for the canoe ride across the river, then the 2 hour taxi ride to Paramaribo.  We talked with the dutch zone leaders and it sounds like they set us up an appointement with one of their investigators that speaks French and Creole, so its not like we're abandonning missionary work or anything haha!

I emailed David and Cindy last week and they wrote me back this week! Oh man I was so happy to hear from them again haha! They're awesome... Sounds like Elder S-J is holding up strong without me! 

This week we saw some pretty cool miracles. We have been working with Valdir since I had been here, his wife was baptised in March and went to visit Brazil the week before I got here. He speaks mostly Portugese which makes it a little rough to get the message across, but this week he finally accepted a baptismal invitation and a date to work towards. When His wife got home, she flipped! haha! THey both then came to church yesterday!

We found this cool Guy named José Gabriel when I first got here. He is awesome as well and we are pretty sure he's going to be in the Branch Presidency at some time. But he is still working towards baptism and came to church for the first time yesterday as well!

Before I forget the Address is:

Residence Pont Maggi

Bat:E Appt:2

Route de Baduel

Cayenne 97300

France

Like I said, same as last time.

And also, whats the date for the marriage? Why has nobody told me yet? 

Many prayers and wishes to y'all!

love you bunches,

avec amour,

Elder Call

Happy to be back in Guyane!

Bonjour!

Well well, I imagine your just dying to know how things are going down here!  And the answer is: AWESOME!  haha  I love being back here its so much fun!  The first couple days we went around seeing members and I got to catch up with them all!  Most of them actually remembered me!  Everyone  that remembered me said the exact same thing, "Elder Cool!"  (because they just can't figure out how to pronounce my name so I had to always introduced myself as that a year and ten months ago)  "You're back! and you've lost weight too!"  hahahaha!  Man its funny, I thought I was gaining weight on the islands, guess not!  Sr. D'Abreu took a picture and posted it on Facebook and everyone saw it and it spoiled the surprise for a lot of people, but it was still great seeing everyone!  The branch has grown incredibly since I left!  There were 27 baptisms since then and a bunch of people that came back.

My new companion is Elder Smith.  He's from South Jordan and came out one transfer after me.  As Zone Leaders, things are SUPER busy, because we aren't just Zone Leaders but we are also filling the role as the Senior Couple.  We are in the middle of switching out the cars, so we've been car shopping and picking people up from the airport and on and on.  But its been great, no time to think about how soon I'm going home, couldn't be better!  We actually just learned that we are going to have a Leadership Conference in Trinidad next week.  Better yet is that we will be going through Suriname!  One last canoe ride!  We need to get all the visa stuff figured out, which takes time, but its going to be the last time that missionaries EVER make the trip by canoe to Suriname.  Since the mission is splitting, Suriname will no longer be a part of our mission, therefore, Elder Smith and I will be the last ones to ride the Maroni River to Suriname, needless to say, I'm pumped...

The work is going great!  We're teaching a lot of Brazilians (I need to start learning Portuguese, surprisingly I can understand quite a bit already!)  My first day we met a guy who has a HUGE house that invited us in, he is so prepared, he accepted to be baptized the first lesson and has been reading the Book of Mormon almost everyday!  We just need to get him to come to church!

Well I have bunch of other things going on, but all in all, I am happy and busy and couldnt be happier!

I love you all bunches!

Have a great week!

avec amour,
Elder Call

Saying goodbye in Guadeloupe

 

Wise words from Guyane

Crazy fruit grown here called a  ronbouton.  Its delicious! Its kind of like a grape on the inside

My new apartment

Playing football

You call this a letter?

Hey sorry, you're not going to be happy but I have no time this week!!   Power outage and I have to go to a lesson. I'm here and I'm safe and I'm having a blast!   I'll talk to you more next week!! 

Je vous aime beaucoup!!

avec amour, 

Elder Call

Goodbye Gwada!

Bonjour! ma famille

What a day it has been today! Packing, saying goodbye, learning I'm going to have a SISTER-IN-LAW!!! Oh man!  This is awesome congrats you two!  Can't wait till I actually get to meet her!

So I imagine you've already heard everything that's going on from other missionaries, crazy isn't it!!?  I never would have thought!  Everything is going to be so different!  We all got our transfer calls on Saturday as we were up at Abimes waiting for conference to start, so everybody was going crazy!  I had to say goodbye to everyone, we took pictures I only cried once when I said goodbye to the Duflos.  OK and of course when I said goodbye to the Hucs.  It was tough...  But now I've only got 16 hours until I fly out to go back to the land of my first inheritance, Guyane I'm comin' home!  Yep I'm going back down to Guyane Française to be zone leader with Elder Smith.  I don't know what to think, its not at all going to be the same!  They have had so much success down there I probably won't know half of the members down there!

Conference was great!  Did anybody else catch on to the marriage theme?  I know Jordan did!  WOOT!! haha!  Follow the Prophet!  Speaking of which, was Thomas S. Monson looking a lot thinner to you?  Also, he stepped out early and didn't give his closing address.  I hope everything is OK for him and many prayers are going out to him from the Caribbean.  I listened to the whole conference in French, realizing that this may be the last time I get the chance or have the desire to do so.  Did Joe listen in Spanish?  I was so very hoping that Gérald Caussé was going to speak in French, but he did do his own translation.  He recorded his voice beforehand and then played it for the translation as he spoke in English which was pretty cool.

I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to the Pommier family....  When I went by they weren't home and they didn't make it all the way up to Abimes....  I'm just going to have Elder Stew-J take them the package. I got the photo for David and Cindy, they loved it and already have it up at their house.  We stopped by on Monday for family home evening, we couldn't make it to Pointe de Chateau, but we watched The Testaments and they loved it!  It was so sad saying goodbye, especially to Mindiya.  They asked for your address to send a thank you package, so that should be coming.  I also am sending one, sorry, its mostly filled with letters and old study material that's too heavy to take with me, but there is some stuff I got for you all, so keep your eyes open for those.

Well, time is coming to an end and I feel like I'm flying to my death, I'm going to die in the wilderness... (mission death) I couldn't be happier, nor could I be sadder.  I'm not quite sure how I feel right now, but things are good no worries!

I love you all so much!  Family and soon-to-be family ;)

avec amour,
Elder Call

Saying goodbye to the best district in the world!

Goodbye Gwada!

Favorite Sunday on my mission!

Bonjour! 

Well sadly, my email didn't work until I had just about 15 minutes left so I'm going to do my best to get as much of your beloved info in here. 

Zone conference was last Sunday and we had our interviews this Tuesday. It was nice, nothing to exciting but I felt good talking to the president, he told me that he's going to move me this transfer which will be next week. He also told me about the deal with getting home. I'll be going home the same day as Elder Fraley. They are cutting my last transfer a week short so that the new presidents don't come in on a weird mid transfer thing. So I'm getting shorted a week...

Yesterday was an awesome Sunday, one of my favorites on the mission. It was a fast and testimony meeting and everybody had a chance to share. The spirit was so strong, especially when David got up and bore a testimony about trials of faith that he had and how he was thankful that they brought him closer to God. Afterwards everybody talked about trials. It was very powerful. Then he helped me teach the gospel principles class and bore an awesome testimony on baptism. It was really cool. I felt very thankful to be a part of this branch, and with general conference next week, it may have been the last Sunday I get to see everybody.

Sr. Duflo got called to be the Sunday School teacher, the Pommiers are going through interviews with the Branch President and should be getting callings soon as well. Its just great. I love these people! We went to the Duflo's house last night and sang some hymns. Sr. Duflo wanted to come with us to help teach some people. Its most definitly one of the places that I want to come back and visit after the mission. Its going ot be very hard to say goodbye. David and Cindy keep asking if I can get permission to spend a whole day with them haha, we are going to try to drive to Pointe de Chateau next P-day (which is actually going to be on Tuesday next week so don't freak out, because of the holiday everything will be closed and we won't be able to email until Tuesday)

I love you all so very much! Tell dad I'm sorry I could shoot him an email today but I'll get back to him, I love reading his emails haha! I love yours too, don't get me wrong, I love all emails!

I love you all!

avec amour,

Elder Call

Zone Conference

Allo bonjour! Ca va bien?!

What a weekend!  On Friday we drove up to pick up Elder Christensen, an assistant, who came and worked with us for a day.  We planned out the entire day and had some 50 back ups for all our rendez-vous, all of which fell through.  It really bummed me out, but Elder Christensen was a good sport and helped us contact a lot of people even though he couldn't speak French haha.  The best part was when Fr. Potin came with us and we split up.  Elder S-J took the assistant and taught, mostly by himself because he was the only one who could communicate with people, while I went to do a training with one of our members.  I heard he did really well!  When we met back up at the boulevard he was teaching one of our less actives and Fr. Potin bore an incredible testimony.  I felt the spirit so strong!  I love that guy!

The next day we drove up to Capesterre for the Baptism of "Jackie" Chan.  He was the guy that I did the baptismal interview for a while ago.  It was great, not many people showed up because it was the district relief society activity the same day.  But I was very happy for him, as well as the sisters. They've been working hard, and he was really happy as well.  We stayed in Capesterre last night to save us from having to drive up again this morning to email.  That's why I'm on so early today.

For the Zone conference the next day, we drove up early the Sunday morning for the church service.  I missed the meeting at Basse-Terre, I missed David bless the sacrament for the first time :(  But I hear it went well.  We spent the whole day aux Abimes. The zone conference was great, we talked a lot about the atonement.  I didn't get to take notes because I translated.  I love, love, love translating!   Its so hard, but so fun!  Too bad there won't be much translating for me to do in French when I get back home.

Sorry I got to go!  I got too distracted with the other things that I didn't get to talk more about conference!

Love you lots!

avec amour,
Elder Call

The Gnomes, er...Dwarfs, nope Gnomes!

Hola mi familia!

Since your all speaking the espanol I thought I'd join in! haha  I hope you had a great time in Mexico!  I could go for some nice toastadas or some Hangman street tacos right now, with some Oaxaca cheese....mmmm memories!  haha

Updates on the eastern coast:  Zone conference will be this Sunday, and, well... I'm not quite sure what else to add to the list, I guess I'll just move on.  But for zone conference, its going to be rapid fire because Elder Cornish (area president) will be blowing through the islands faster than an iguana climbing a tree.  Its going to ALL be on Sunday.  We will have church in the morning at Abîmes, then zone conference right after and then the member fireside right after that.  Should be a crazy day.  I'll be at the church building the entire day.

ALSO! Dd you see David and Cindy's picture on the mission newsletter?  Alright!!

Recently I've been trying to focus a lot more on training the members.  I realized that if we want to have anymore progress we need a better foundation. I've finally gotten my hands on a Handbook 2 and have been studying according to the members callings.  I started with Fr. Duflo (Branch Mission Leader) and gave him the responsibility to call the other members of the branch council and fix appointments for us to stop by their house to do training for their callings.  It went very well!  He's gotten a hold of everyone within 2 days and we now have rendez-vous for this week and next week to talk about our member's calls.  I wanted to simply go to their house and start talking about their responsibilities, most of the time when we ask if we can help, they say no.  I assume it is because they don't know how we can help.  So as we talk about theirs callings, we'll be able to find questions that come up and give engagements to help them further the work in their specific area . I'm going to be talking with Fr. Abenzoar (1st counselor in the branch) and try to get him helping us with the training so that we can get some follow ups going between everyone.

The baptismal interview was a very interesting and spiritual learning experience for me.  I was very nervous going into the interview, because the man said that if he didn't get baptized that weekend he'd never come back and would not be happy.  So yeah, I was pretty nervous, because I felt like he should wait a little longer.  But during the interview I could see the Holy Ghost soften his heart and when he left he was smiling and determined to be ready the next time.  I just did his next interview yesterday and he has changed quite a bit and the baptism should be for this weekend.

As for Elder Stewart-Johnson and I things are going well. We have been taking more time to have fun together which I believe is something that we were missing. He has made a lot of progress with his French. Being a trainer makes me really appreciate how much the Lord has blessed me through my mission. Being able to see Elder S-J at the beginning as I approach the end has made me realize how far I have come and the things that I have learned.  It has been a miraculous year and 3/4, hopefully the Lord has some more tuning to give me, before shipping me back home.

I love you all a ton!
avec amour,
Elder Call

You're darn right...we made a fort!

Well, he always did enjoy fort building as a kid

 Our Roamin' Gnomes

I tried to tell Braden that these aren't "Gnomes", they're  two of the Seven Dwarfs!  But he insisted that the French don't have "Dwarfs" they have "Gnomes!"

Nice lava-lava Elder!