Joyeux Noël!

Bonjour ma famille!!!

Sorry that there was no email yesterday.  We are going to have a mission-wide online conference thing in a couple hours so the president told us to take P-day today.

Man, I'm getting so excited for tomorrow!!  I don't even know what to say!  So I just finished fixing up the Skype account and everything seems ready to go!!  Haha so this letter might not be too long sorry, I was spending a lot of time getting that all set up, and it was in French for the first part. Then I realized I could just change it to English... Its all good now!

So the best part of the week was the Christmas party, we sang the songs that we did for the rest home and then there was Indian (from India) dance performed by Sr. Bakch and S.r Anthony who are both from Guyana hence, they are Indian, then the Société de Secours did a Christmas sketch that was super hilarious!

We had a long work week this week though, not too many lessons.  But we did meet a lot of people.  We even met this one lady who invited us over for tonight with her family, she's going to have a family Christmas party and she will make banane pesé:)  Also when we knocked her door she brought us in and we tried to help her clean her house, she was painting it and everything, she said no then gave us food. haha  What stinks is that we started eating, it was delicious, then Elder Miyasaki and I looked at each other and realized that we were in the middle of a fast... Shoot... So we had to start it over after we left. haha. The lady is named Mdm. Holland and apparently she has seen the missionaries before and fed them all the time!

I will plan to Skype at 4:00 my time, 12:00 your time.  I'll add you to my contacts and call you then.

This week we had another exchange, I went with E.Santos in our area. We found a family with 5 young men in it, we taught all of them and we keep thinking how cool it would be to get 5 new priesthood holders in this branch...

The Party at the Presidents for Elder Fraley's birthday was fun!  We sang happy birthday in 5 languages! We all sang French, the Elders in English, the D'Abreu's in Portuguese, President in Spanish, and Elder Miyasaki in Japanese!  At the end of the 5 songs little Momo cried "Arrête! Arrête les chansons! Je veux manger le gâteau!" Stop it, stop the songs, I want to eat cake!  He's a funny little guy! 

I love all of you and can't wait to see you guys again tomorrow!!  Joyeux Noël!!!

Avec amour,
Elder Call

The Relief Society doing a funny skit at the Christmas party

Sr. Edith and Matthieu

So the little kid in the middle is Otilly, we met him by Sr.Edith and her son Leo, He and Leo are friends along with the rest of those kids and we invited them all to come to the party and they actually came! They talk a lot but they are funny. Leo is on the right. and that's Brian in the blue. 

Sr. D'Arbreu had me stir the chocolate pudding for the party, but I had to wear the apron and mitt whilst doing it, no complaints though... haha

Elder Fraley's party

Just the three of us...

Bonjour ma famille!
Comment allez-vous?

First off way to go on the French!  Aussi, I just think its crazy that you shared that little spiritual message at the end of the letter and my mission president shared close to the same thing in his letter. I should probably take the hint... haha thanks for that!

Haha, my friends all stopped by?  That's awesome!  My friends are the best!  Thanks ladies for taking care of my mom! haha!  How did you get the picture of all them at the temple?  You didn't go with them, did you...?

So something cool, its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Kinda, There are Christmas lights on all the roads of the city and the big mall has loads of lights!!  We might try to get a picture of it sometime. Other than that its all about the same, except it's rained every single day this week!  At least two or three times a day we get a flash rainstorm, then it gets back to normal hot weather.

So this week was different than usual, Elder Santos got flown up to Trinidad for a zone leader meeting of some sort, so us three were in a trio taking both of the areas.  It was awesome haha! We had to teach in both areas so we never had much time to just knock doors, there was always someone to teach!  Also the day that Elder Santos left, there was all of the sudden this big 'ol gas strike throughout the city... and we were low on gas from driving him out to the airport.  So, we decided to bike the rest of the week which wasn't TOO bad, until my bike broke.  The pedal broke off, again, and I could'nt really fix it this time because the spare pedals we had were all too big to fit on.  So we had to drive in our car to the rest of our appointments.  I was praying pretty hard that we wouldn't run out of gas, that would have been no good.  As soon as we drove out, the gas station by our place wasn't on a strike anymore.  Either it was the lamest strike in history or an answer to my prayers, I prefer to believe the latter.

Oh and by the way we got the package, and it is quite awesome!  We went crazy with those decorations! haha Yeah, we opened two days because it was two days late, hope that's OK!

I'm planning to Skype with you guys at 16h our time and yes, we have to share the one computer. I'll just go two hours before him.  I'm really excited to talk to everybody!!!!

We didn't really get any new contacts this week but we did get another baptism date fixed!!!  This lady Alina that we contacted a while ago, I don't remember if I told you about her yet so I will again.  She's so cool!!!  The first day we met her we shared the Plan of Salvation because she had a lot of questions about it.  She ate it all up and told us to come back the next day.  When we did she had read through the brochure TWICE and even took notes on the whole thing!  She's done the same with the Restoration brochure and the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon, she tells us that she had heard it before but couldn't remember where she thinks she saw a video on a plane or something about the Book of Mormon.  One visit she asked us out of nowhere if we believed in shooting stars, we said, uh... yeah, I've wished on shooting stars.  She said the week we met her she had wished on a shooting star that someone would come help her understand these things, then BOOM we show up!  WHAT!? haha  She even said that she knows all of it is true!  We fixed a date de baptême for the 11 Janvier!

I don't think we're doing anything for Christmas mission-wise, the missionaries in Trinidad are probably doing something with the president like they did with Thanksgiving, but I doubt they could for everyone else.  We have a branch party and talent show thing this Saturday though!

This week we were passing by some houses as the trio, and asked this one lady if we could help her, she was painting her house.  She got super excited and asked if we could move this rubbish pile that was by her house.  She told us just to scatter everything so that her son doesn't hurt himself climbing on it or something, so we shoveled a rubbish pile!  It felt great doing service!!!

I love you all SOO much, I can't wait to see you for Christmas!!!

Avec amour,
Elder Call

I found this Chinese thing at Alecida's house.  Tell dad I'm learning Chinese!

This was a crazy apartment we found.  It looks like it's a crazy tourist knick-knack shop!

Moving the rubbish pile

The three of us on our own this week

Elder Miyasaki's face after he ate your delicious caramels.  He loved them.  I was going to share with the other Elders, but he said no...

Some of the Christmas decorations you sent

5 months

Bonjour ma famille!!

First off I want to thank you again for that Words of Wisdom thing!  Its SO cool!  Thanks everyone who wrote a little note in there!  I open a flap every morning and find something awesome every time, but those little notes are awesome.  I read Brianna's yesterday morning and I really liked it, merci Bri!

J'ai finalement reçu the package from grandma that we've been waiting for forever, I check the mailbox before we leave and again when we get back at night.  I saw something in there but I thought it was another random flyer that we get just about everyday.  Upon further inspection I perceived that it was no mere advertisement but, in fact, a notice with my name on it!  So this morning we woke up and walked right over to La Poste to pick it up before the huge lines got there.  We only had to wait about 10 to 15 minutes in line so it wasn't to bad!  I really love it Grandma!  I actually really needed a new shirt because my soccer shirt got all mildew-y... It's weird because it was the only thing that's gone bad, probably because it was my work out shirt and was all sweaty.  BUT now I got a new one MERCI MUCH!  Also tell Grandma K thanks for the money in the card!  I'm not sure what to get with it but I will probably use it for some pâtisserie! Or a volleyball to use at the church!  Or another shirt!  The options are endless!!!

I haven't received your Christmas package yet, but now that I know it's arrived in Guyane I'll keep my eye out for it.

As far as investigators go, we did get this one family that came, the girlfriend of the son seemed really interested but shes not in our area sadly, the parents live right next door and we will try to pass by sometime!  Most of this week we were trying to find people to teach.  We did have a lesson with some Témoigne Jéhovahs (JWs) that were there at the same time.  They yell a lot... We just kinda sat there while the TJs and our investigator yelled back and forth at each other. We would try to talk but they didn't really stop talking and really didn't listen, it was interesting.
 
We stopped by last week a the two ladies I told you about last week and we even committed Belinda (English) to baptism!  We even picked a date!  The 18 of January ! Malheureusement, unfortunately we went to go see her Sunday and the guy that answered the door said she was out of the country and should be for the rest of the month to get papers done in Suriname or something, so when she comes back, IF she comes back, we'll have to move the date back.

I know you're worried about my pants getting too small, but they're mostly still alright... there was one day that I yawned and stretched a little too far in the morning studies and one of the little hook things popped off... They really aren't held on there too strong, just stapled on there, but still!  I'm going to work out a lot more now, and eat less...

It doesn't feel a lot like Christmas, its too hot.  But there was this band one night that was playing a reggae version of Christmas songs all night long, so I guess that was sort of Christmas-y.  Everyone says Joyeux Noël every so often.  We are going to have a Christmas party with the branch too.

We won't have another zone conference until next transfer.  We have zone conference every other transfer so if I am still here next transfer I will go to Suriname again.

The best part of the week was easily when we went to the rest home outside of Cayenne to sing Christmas songs for the people there.  We went with some sisters in the branch.  It was great, practicing every Sunday before wasn't so great (everyone kept making me and Elder Fraley sing by ourselves and we aren't so good) BUT when we went we had a lot of fun. We were talking with the people joking around with the members and having a really good, Christmas cheerful time!

Well that's all I can think about for this week there wasn't too much different that happened but it was alright!  Oh!  This morning we helped Alecida (The member I found) move to a new apartment, it was good and she fed us, she's the best!

Alors, je vous aime tout le monde!!
Avec amour,
Elder Call

Elder Fraley and I on splits this week

Birthday party for Pres. D'Arbeu's son

Best part of the week!  Singing at a nursing home.

I saved the marshmallows you sent for Halloween and made my favorite...

A peanut butter, Nutella and marshmallow grilled sandwich!

PICTURES!!! Parties and more parties!

Bonjour tout le monde!!!

Well there is so much to tell about this week, mostly about my Birthday and Thanksgiving so I don't know how much other stuff I can get in there but I will try!  Hmm... Where to start...  Well we planned Thanksgiving for us 4 Guyane Elders on P-day, Monday, and everybody had to make something.  I made some mashed potatoes with garlic in it, Elder Fraley made the ham and he poured brown sugar on it and pineapple, Elder Santos made this broccoli casserole that didn't look so good when it came out but it was really good, especially on top of my potatoes, and Elder Miyasaki made fried chicken.  Man it was good!!! haha!  We had sparkling cider and everything!  It was a blast, kinda stressful because the preparation took awhile so we didn't have that much time to eat before we had to go back to work at 18 heures.  We had like 40 minutes... we ate a lot really fast.  That night we went to the Françiettes house for soirée familial family home evening where I found out it was her birthday on Saturday too!  They fed us crepes... I was already stuffed from Thanksgiving but it was so delicious!

So then on Tuesday or Wednesday we visited the Narine family, no wait, Soeur Narine told us she was having a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday because it was her birthday and she has been really sick for the past 4 years, so sick that doctors turned her away saying there was nothing they could do for her and that she didn't have long to live.  So after surviving 4 years of that she was throwing a party for her birthday and she said it would be like a Thanksgiving.  Then I picked up the package on Wednesday because we had a hard time timing it right with the delivery dude, he would leave with it every time we went to pick it up and he couldn't get in the gate to knock the door, I doubt he tried too hard, but finally we told them just to leave it there for us to pick up.  So I had the package and had to wait till Saturday to open the presents, I opened the letters... I couldn't wait haha!!  Thanks everyone for those!!!  Anywho... Thats what I did first thing Saturday morning. Then we worked through the whole day, it was a rough day, a lot of appointments fell through and we had to drop an investigator who had taken all the lessons, some twice, and wouldn't change. We are keeping in contact with her but its just up to her now to make the change she already said everything was true but she wont be baptized... Its very sad.  Alors, at the end of the day we were helping the Narines set up for the party.  It was in this little alley in front of their house.  They invited all the members and even their non-member friends and neighbors and they had a TON of soup, and rice and chicken.  Holy cow it was awesome!  Anyway they had a huge program and everything set up with testimonies and musical numbers sang by some members.  It was so cool. She had like 5 cakes too!!  Everyone brought a cake for her and her son's wife is like a chef or something because she made 3 or so of them and they were delicious!  Most of the time I was talking to non-members, introducing the church and making friends with them.  It was so cool... When Soeur Narine bore her testimony (she's from Guiana Anglais) I had to translate for when she went off in English.  One time she changed back to French and I didn't even realize she started speaking French, so I was just repeating what she said.  Everyone got a good laugh out of that.  It was a good day.  We had to leave early being missionaries and all but it was awesome...

You asked about the gun laws and nope, there are no guns.  France has very strict gun laws, that's what my French MTC teacher said.  She says that it's nearly impossible to get a gun and people would freak out if someone carried one around.

We found a couple of people to teach this week.  One guy came up to us while we were in the middle of a lesson and asked if we were the Mormons and said he wanted to get in contact with us again.  He came to church the next day and we taught him.  He wouldn't tell us where he lived but we have his number so we'll try to set something up.  We also met these two ladies that live together but one speaks English only and the other only speaks French.  We basically taught two different lessons at the same time going from French to English and English to French.  Belinda, the English one seems really seriously into it and she even said she knew that it was all true wanted to be baptized!  We want to bring a French member and an English member and do two split member lessons, we'll see if we can get it to happen!  Mdm. St-Aubin has been really hard to get a hold of recently but she was committed to baptism.

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

Our Thanksgiving Feast!

Birthday presents!

Birthday party with the Elders

Party at Sr. Narine's

Seour Françiette and Seour Narine

A little gift I got myself!

Hmmm...lets just say I don't need to worry about Braden ever going hungry!  He mentioned that they're going to start riding their bikes more.  Sounds like a good idea if he wants to keep wearing those pants!

Thanksgiving and Birthday week

Bonjour ma famille!

So this week we had a pretty cool contact and lessons, we were going around in a résidence knocking doors, the one with the giant grasshopper, (I'll get to that later) and we met this lady that let us in and talked with us.  She was asking questions and when we gave her a brochure she basically stopped listening to us and just read it.  She said "Sorry, I just really love reading."  haha We said that was awesome and that we had another book that we would like her to read and that we would love to come back another day and give it to her.  So we came back on Saturday and she had read through the entire brochure on the restoration THEN she went back and read it again and took notes on the whole thing!  WHAT?!  haha  She had basically found all the main points and said she didn't have any questions because it explained everything in the brochure.  We gave her a Livre de Mormon and invited her to read the first couple chapters.  She jumped right on it.  She also said she had seen all the pictures before.  She told us to come back the NEXT DAY and talk more with her.  So on Sunday we visited her and tried to push towards baptism, she had read the first chapter of the LdM and had made a résumé summary of the Plan du Salut pamphlet as well! We probably won't be able to get to see her this week because she has a lot of exams this week but we might on Saturday.

I got the notice about the package.  They came today and didn't knock on the door so we went there and they said it was out for delivery.  I should be able to go get it sometime today, they're going to call us when the truck gets back.   I'm not too worried about it, there hasn't been a problem with DHL before.

We should be able to Skype for Christmas, there is a computer and a camera at the church that I think we will be able to use, that's what I imagine we'll do.

Elder Miyasaki is from the Big Island.  I told him Larry's house is near Kona up on the mountain, and he said he knows where that is, but he is from the other side of the island.

We have some American Betty Crocker cookie mix in the pantry probably from an Elder that was here before that we could make for my birthday.  Thanks!  I think we are going to eat at a members house also that day, she invited us there for HER birthday and she said it could be a Thanksgiving dinner. Its going to be one big party!

We were able to visit my first contact that committed to baptism last week.  She doing alright, she works all day everyday like most people here so we only see her at night and she can't come to church so we are working on that right now.  She really loves seeing us though!

Sorry that I freaked you out about "the boss" last week. haha  That guy was awesome!  And honestly I haven't been scared of people hurting me in any way, they might rob me but this is technically France and there are no guns anywhere, kids light of loud firecrackers all the time, but no guns or anything like that.

For Thanksgiving we have to celebrate it today on P-day but we are going to throw something together, haha we'll see how it goes!  It probably won't be too traditional but it'll be fun!

I call French Guiana Guyane because, well, its pronounced Gwee-an, and the other is pronounced Gi-on-a so there really is no need to distinguish between the two, and since we are in France its just the other one that's Guiana Anglais.

I hope everything goes well back in the States!  Make sure you keep your tennis practice up, we might finally be evenly matched by the time get home!;) haha!

Love you lots!
Avec Amour,
Elder Call

Bonjour from the ocean!

These are the pictures of the biggest darn grasshopper I've ever seen!  Really though, it was bigger than my hand and could have eaten me, we sprinted down the stairs past it and it jumped and started to fly after us. One of the scariest moments of my life... 

Lelette is an old ami de l'église friend from church who was living in E. Santos/Fraley's area.  She moved into our area and we went and helped her move in, then she took us out to eat.  That is the basic Créole dish, rice, chicken and sauce with haricots rouge red beans and of course piment (spicy pepper sauce) We eat piment (pronounced "P-mo") with just about everything, its good stuff.

Staying in Guyane

Bonjour!

Things are still the same for me here in Guyane.  No changes or transfers here this week.  We're all staying put.  Me and Elder Miyasaki are still partying it up together!  I have no clue what happened elsewhere until we get a transfer sheet emailed to E. Santos for where everyone is in the mission, but we didn't get one last time.

In news about the letters, I did finally get one letter from Ellen Milburn.  It was sent on October 22, but that's the only letter I've received.  None from anyone else.

I got the chance to go back to that inactive sister's house.  We went with president D'Abreu, who speaks Spanish so that helped a lot!  She even came to church yesterday! It was great!


You asked if they have plans to put more Elders here in Guyane.  Not that I have heard of, Pres. Mehr said he wanted to when he was here but I haven't heard of anything yet.  We'll probably hear about it before it happens because we will have to get new apartments and stuff for when they get here, or to get things ready in our own if they plan on fitting 2 more in ours, which there is room for, maybe.  I think it would be cool having 4 Elders in an apartment.

I have no idea what I want for Christmas.  You know I can't think of Christmas before my birthday!! haha

Oh man we ate GOOD this week!  We had a lot of money left over for the transfer so we ate out quite a bit.  We went to a Chinese restaurant and we also had "Madras" which is a local specialty. Its basically a heart attack on a bun but it was super good!  Kettlie fed us some Colombo, it was delicious.  Its basically curry with different spices.  The President fed us tripe too haha! Stomach lining of a cow or sheep...yum... Not gonna lie, it was weird but I have yet to eat something that was gross, I've liked just about all of it!  Man... I'm scared I'm gonna get fat...

This week was a little tough.  We had an exchange on Friday, I went with Elder Fraley and we taught together in their area. While I was away the others committed my first contact to baptism which is awesome, but I was upset that I couldn't be there... With Elder Fraley we went and contacted this jungle street, like a major jungle street.  It went DEEP into the rainforest haha. Most of the people only spoke Spanish but we found this one house with two guys out front.  We introduced ourselves as missionaries and they told us, in English, that we had to speak to "the boss" so they opened the door and we spoke to the guy inside.  He was a Rastafarian and we had an interesting conversation about the bible and Elder Fraley was talking about Joseph Smith and the restoration.  We had a fun conversation with his whole posse.  I'm pretty sure he was a gang boss or something but he seemed pretty cool haha!

Well I gotta go! I would really like some pictures of whatever is going on with everyone!  Also tell Jordan to send me some Spanish I can use, and sorry dad I'll respond to your letter next week!!!

Avec amour,
Elder Call

This is Madras. It's like a hamburger with everything on it.  But the special part is the Piment (Peemo) sauce which is a pepper paste that's hot, notice how I am sweating haha

Opening a jar of spaghetti sauce that exploded everywhere! Oops!

Elder Miyasaki et moi chillin' playing dominoes before bed with a tub of ice cream.

Apparently when you don't live with your mother you can just throw your mattress on the floor and sleep wherever you want!  Life is good!

pâtisserie‏