Baptisms on Martinique!

Bonjour toute le monde!

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.

General Conference

Bonjour tous!

This week was very different.  Well, mostly just because the last two days were General Conference and also the new senior couple came in!  The work throughout this week was a little tough.  We were trying so hard to get people to come to Conference this weekend but we just couldn't find anybody to come.  We got some lessons in with some of our regular investigators, but most of the days our rendez-vous fell through, sometimes before we even left the house!  Normally we call people in the morning to make sure they know we are coming over and on Wednesday and Thursday everyone said that they were too busy or wouldn't be there.  BUT all's well that ends well, even better when it ends with General Conference, am I right?

So Friday night we had a branch basketball game, sadly only the missionaries and Fr. Lagin, our branch mission leader showed up.  But we invited all the kids that were there and were passing by, it was still a good time.  After that Elder Johnston and I stayed at the Fort-de-France apartment for the weekend. Saturday we got up, did our studies and then went to the church to set up the conference.  We had English set up in one of the classes and French in the main room.  During conference the we all switched languages to see how much we got.  I did pretty well with the French when I went to listen in, but its hard to pay attention because if your mind wanders a little you miss a lot.  But I loved it.  I learned so much, not so much with the information I would say, but just listening in and thinking to myself personally and applying things to myself is where I really learned the most.  One talk that I really loved was in the priesthood session, sadly I don't have my notes with me so I can't really expound to much, but Hallstrom had a really good talk and so did Ridd right after him.  I really enjoy listening to the speakers from the Seventy who we don't hear from too often.  They just have a different style and its something new.  I did enjoy, you know, I could sit here and just list all the people I liked but I would probably just list them all... haha!

We stayed in Fort-de-France all three nights and for the most part we stayed at the church doing studies and talking with members in between sessions during the day and at the end of the Sunday evening session.  Then the missionaries went to the new senior couple's apartment to eat tous ensemble.  Their name is the Turner's and they are from Canada, not Quebec so they don't speak French, but they are very nice! haha!

I got your package on Friday.  Do you think I'm going through deodorant like crazy or something, I mean its hot but I'm still on about the third stick and you've sent one every package...  :)  I'll be watching for the next one! haha

Kyle and I send each other an email every week.  Usually its just a funny picture or story of something that happened during the week. There was a long chain email going around from everybody in our school giving updates, it was pretty cool. That was the last time I heard of how Brad and Dallin are doing.

We were able to visit the guy from the Cyber-base and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he is really intent on reading it.  We called him and he was talking to us about his search and that he hasn't found a response to his prayers yet, but he said all that without our asking so we know he's been doing it!  He's trying and I'm praying for him!

Something I am working on studying right now in Prêchez Mon Évangile is chapter 10.  I've really been focusing on how I can better relay this message, how to better connect with people and how to get them to really understand instead of  just agreeing with what we say and learning nothing.  Its tough.  President Mehr has also asked us to memorize a scripture, a statement of doctrine, and an inspired question for every point of doctrine in the lessons, so that's taking up some of my time.  In the mornings we have personal and companionship study until 10:00 then leave to work, with our language study being the last thing of the day right before bed because that is usually an ineffective proselyting time, as we missionaries say.

I love all of you so much and I love hearing from all of you.  Oh, I did get your post card too!  Its nice that Tahiti is French!  Mail goes nice and smoothly between French countries!

Have a wonderful week!
avec amour,
Elder Call

So we tried to make a cake for Sr. Martial's Birthday, but it didn't really turn into a cake... We took it to her anyways because she would get a laugh out of it, we tried it and surprisingly it was pretty good! Haha! It tasted like chocolaty caramel with a crust on the top. Not sure what happened but it was fun!

Have you ever drank chocolate milk from a coconut?  I have, its amazing!

Watching Conference

The work rolls forth

Bonjour!

So this week felt really long.  After last week when we just worked so hard in order to get 21 lessons and then climbing Mt. Pelée, we were all dead tired this week and it made it tough!  BUT it was a good one none the less!  Elder Faley got here too!  He brought tidings of great joy from Guyane, it sounds like the work there is just exploding!  We also had some good lessons with people that we found this week!

Our good luck last week started from when we left the Cyber-base after emailing.  The guy that worked there chased us down and asked us about what we are doing on Martinique and and what we do as missionaries.  Then he said he wanted to be a missionary too!  We said that he had to be a member first, and he was OK with that haha!  His name is Ricardo and we have taught him twice now, he is 23 and I am very excited for him!

On Wednesday we went to the funeral of Fr. Coïné's sister,.  I had to wear my suit again.  All is well too! haha You may have doubted but it still fits!  Fr. Coïné is an incredible guy, he was walking in the procession and when he saw us he still was able to give a beaming smile and a peace sign.  Afterwards he was his normal happy joking self and was asking us all about out investigators and how he could help them.  He really impressed me.  He has helped us so much in the missionary work!

We had another really cool lesson this week with Sr. Martial,.  We found a lady who speaks English and so we decided to bring her along with us.  When we got there it turned out that they knew each other because Sr. Martial has waved to her everyday.  Which just goes to show that you never know who you are going to see, and that one day, being nice could go a long way.  But in the lesson, the spirit was so strong.  The lady even began to tear up a little bit, I almost teared up too, the feeling of the spirit was just so powerful and it was another testimony to me of the truth of this work.

I haven't received your package yet, but I know the address works because other Elders get stuff there.

The sisters here were able to watch the General Women's Conference at the church, and we even had some of our investigators go!

Watching General Conference is going to be hard because we'll be spending most of the day in Fort-de-France.  I'm not sure of the specific plans though, we'll probably figure it our tomorrow at district meeting.

Our first new investigator came to church yesterday and it was so great!

Its awesome having Elder Fraley back!  Its weird that we were separate for only a month and a half, but we're back!  And Elder Lever and Fraley just switched places!

I'm glad that you noticed my shoes!  haha Those were Elder Russell's shoes who left to go to Guiana Anglais.  He left them and I took them, I had to use them because I accidentally left my running shoes at the house.  It was really early.

I love all of you so much!  Have a great week!!
avec amour,
Elder Call

You said you were looking for my house and I don't know how else to explain it other than "its that one."

View from our apartment

Elder Johnson eating a Bokit, a flatbread sandwich that's famous in Guadeloupe

Yep, the suit still fits!

Playing basketball this morning for p-day

Elder Fraley's here!

Another picture from our hike last week.  We had a blast!

Hiking Mt. Pelée‏

Bonjour ma famille!

I hope you got the pictures from this morning, because they are quite spectacular!  So this morning we climbed Mount Pelée, at it was really cool.  We got up in the morning bright and early and all drove to the north to hike Mt. Pelée.  When we got there the mountain was covered in clouds and we hiked through the mist.  It was a little cold actually!  But when we got to the top all of the clouds separated and we could see all the way across the island!!  It was incredible!  I took a lot of pictures :)

This week was a week of miracles!  For this last week of the transfer we had to achieve 21 lessons in order to hike Mt Pelée.  We average 14 a week.  But our zone leaders said we could do it so I believed them.  I am so tired though!  Everyday we prayed and prayed for miracles, in order to get all the lessons that we need to get each day.  The Lord answered our prayers and that for sure!

The first day we planned for 5 lessons.  We were in our 4th lesson at the end of the day with a lady we met a week before.  Towards the end Elder Johnston and I looked at each other thinking, "There is no way we are getting 5 lessons today."  When all of a sudden Mary-Jo's friend walked by and she called him over, sat him down and told him to listen to us.  We had another lesson with him and were miraculously able to accomplish our daily goal.

The next day we had 5 planned again.  Again we did not have enough time, and NOBODY was able to have a lesson or was willing to listen.  We were at the top of a staircase in a building knocking doors, when a man literally RAN up the stairs and asked if we were missionaries.  We said yes and he cried, Hallelujah! haha, we had a quick lesson on the top of the stairs with him.  Afterwords Elder Johnston and I said a little prayer of thanks.

We have a couple people we are teaching right now, but the progression is kinda slow.  One lady who is Buddhist is really nice but we are trying to get her real faith in Christ first before anything else.  Muriel, who has been an investigator for a long time and has a daughter who was baptized and we are also teaching the Family Manuel that we have a hard time seeing.

The mosquitoes haven't bothered me too much.  There are more here than in Guyane though.

The tourists here are usually French, and there are lots in our area.  We see cruise ships just about every other day in Fort-de-France.  We don't talk with them too much.

We do a lot of tracting, because we just don't have that big of a base to grow off of.  Its a lot bigger here in Martinique than Guyane was church wise, but we still are out trying to find people around the town usually.

I love all of you so much still!!  I hope the last couple days on vacation are good!  I hope Jordan and Brianna are doing good at home, and anyone else that happens to read this, Have a great week!!!

je vous aime,
Elder Call

Here is a little history about Mt.Pelée 

Mount Pelée ("Bald Mountain") is an active volcano at the northern end of the island of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean. 

The volcano is famous for its eruption in 1902 and the destruction that resulted, dubbed the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. The eruption killed about 30,000 people. Most deaths were caused by pyroclastic flows and occurred in the city of Saint-Pierre, which was, at that time, the largest city on the island.

The flows completely destroyed St. Pierre, within minutes of the eruption. The eruption left only two survivors in the direct path of the flows (with a third reported): Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell; Léon Compère-Léandre, living on the edge of the city, escaped with severe burns. Havivra Da Ifrile, a young girl, reportedly escaped with injuries during the eruption by taking a small boat to a cave down shore, and was later found adrift two miles from the island, unconscious. The event marked the only major volcanic disaster in the history of France and its overseas territories.

Pictures of our hike to  Mt. Pelée.  

March 16th letter, Aline got baptized!

Bonjour t à tous!

Wow!!  Dallin is going to Germany?!  Thats so cool!!  I hope you do realize that that adds another language to the list in our family!  Chinese, Spanish, French/Crèole, Portugais, Korean, Swedish, English, and now German!  I love it! haha!

I hope you are loving it in the other ocean!  Those islands probably aren't as beautiful but I guess they'll be good enough! hahaha I'm just kidding, I bet they are amazing!  I hope dad doesn't kill you driving on the wrong side of the road!

Oh!!!!  Big news!!!  I heard that Aline got baptised on Saturday!!!!!! I'm so happy!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!

We found a really cool family this week.  The famille Villo.  We met this older lady at her house on Tuesday and she said we could come back Sunday.  When we did her sister and her sisters daughter and her sister's daughter's daughter were there, I hope that made sense.  But we got in and it did not seem like they wanted to listen to us at all.  They asked us if we spoke English and we said yes.  Then we spoke in Crèole and they just went nuts!!  haha  We didn't teach too much but they we so nice and they gave us cake and juice and we talked a lot with them.  We are going back Wednsday and I think it should be good!

The best part of the week was Sunday after we ate at a member's house we had an investigator there and a bunch of members too.  We (the missionaries) didn't even teach at all!  The members just went at it!  I was so excited, they bore so many testimonies, some in Crèole, but the spirit was so strong and the members afterward were very willing to come work with us after!  It was great!!

I love you all!!! outta time!!!!

avec amour,
Elder Call

This coconut is from our yard.  I cut it open and drank it.  It got all over!

Tropical beauty

Just a little chill day at the café in Ste. Luce

Beautiful Martinique

Bonjour à tous!

So I guess this week I kinda need to explain Martinique.  To start off, there was Carnival this week, and we were advised to stay indoors Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday unless we had scheduled rendez-vous. Sadly, A lot of our plans fell through so we did a lot of studying and planning at home... not so fun. The coolest thing happened though, even though we got almost nothing done the first half of the week, we were able to meet most all of our goals for the week on how many lessons we were going to have and how many people we were going to meet.  I found that to be a tender mercy of the Lord this week.

à part de cela, Carnival was very cool, for the beginning.  It turns out that all the stuff I saw going on up to this week was just "practice".  But especially Mardi Gras and Wednesday, were crazy.  There were parades all over in the main towns and little spray painted cars zooming around honking their horns all day.  We could hear the drums all week from our house and we weren't even near a major city.

The island of Martinique itself is beautiful.  I can't get over it.  This morning we went on a hike around the peninsula of Trinité, starting at Tartane.  It was fun, but long... haha the members here are great.  In our area we have the Coiné family, an older couple that really love the gospel and Fr. Coiné loves to come help us teach.  Whenever we see them Sr. Coiné always has some kind of food to give us, and she makes good food.  We have about 70 members coming regularly, including the Group held in Trinité.  We don't have a chapel, church is held in a building above a garage outside of Fort-de-France . The Group is held in the apartment of the Elder Lever and Elder Dayton.  Also in our area is the Martial family, we play soccer every other Wednesday with their kids and Sr. Martial usually bakes a cake for all of us afterwards haha! Missionaries love food!

We found a couple new investigators this week.  Friday we had a good day of finding and we got a couple lessons with some.  One man Olivier that we met at his door was very open and took a Book of Mormon planning to read it.  Then right after we left his door, we met his next door neighbor who let us in to teach him, we should be seeing them both again on Wednesday.  There was another lady that we have been trying to see for a while now but she had always been busy, but yesterday we got in and shared the Restoration. She is Catholic but seems to have some doubts about if it really is as good as it used to be.  She showed me all her paintings she made and also her little workshop on the balcony where she makes her own dresses, she's super cool.  I was wondering if you could email me some pictures of my paintings and my unfinished sculpture?

Some of the investigators we're working with are Muriel, whose daughter got baptized in December, and the Family Manuel from Cuba.  Muriel loves the church but has a few doubts about the restoration and hasn't recognized any answers yet.  The Family Manuel is awesome, we just can't get them to church!

Sister Jean-de-Dieu is a member that is not in our area, but she really loves to feed ALL the missionaries. We now have rules on how often we can eat at her house haha!

Zone conference is in Guadeloupe so next transfer I'll fly there for Zone conference.  Elder Dayton is the district leader here.  There is one district, one zone, with all ten missionaries.

I love you all STILL, I know, its a shocker... Have a great weekend!
à bientot!

avec amour,
Elder Call

Today's p-day adventure

Carnival

Bonjour a tous!

Sadly today I am typing on an American keyboard again which is throwing me off, I had gotten used to the French set up but now they are just trying to make things hard for me I guess!

So this week was pretty good!  I had a nice exchange in Fort-de-France with Elder Ardesh, the Frenchman, and it was good!  Sadly we didn't get too many lessons in but we went and played some basketball with some of his investigators which was fun and something different.  The best part was that I could go the whole day just talking French with him and joking in French!  I LOVE speaking French!  I still have times where I just stop and wonder about how cool it is that I can speak another language.  The gift of tongues is the best!

So Carnival is in full swing now, to me it seems like a giant Thanksgiving Day parade that happens every day, or Sunday to Wednesday at least.  It is more scandalous though... we have been told to stay in after 7 at night this week and just refrain from going into the centre villes.  Other than that we don't have regulations. Carnival isn't as crazy in France as in other places.  There are always drums going and loud noises, and the occasional man dressed as a woman... but we are just advised to stay clear of the major areas of Carnival.

I do want to tell Brianna Joyeux Anniversaire!!!  Holy cow she's OLD!  Which means I'M OLD!  This is crazy... Alors, I hope you have a fantabulous birthday Brianna!  I hope grandpa gives you a lot of birthday spankings! haha  Be good and good luck with Chauntairs!  That so cool that you made it!!!  I love you so much Brianna!!

We met a Buddhist lady during the week and we've met up with her twice now.  She is really nice but the hard thing is helping someone gain a testimony of Christ when they don't already believe that he is the Son of God.  Maybe dad has some advice there?  I'm sure he ran into some of that on his mission.

The members here are the best!  We had the group in Trinity join our meeting yesterday because of Fast Sunday, the church was PACKED!!!  Then we had a branch repas meal afterwards!

We don't have too many members that live in our area.  Fr. and Sr. Coine live in our area. Fr. Coine really likes to work with us, and its great.  Sr. Coine loves to give us food, haha, shes so nice!

I love all of you!!!  I love hearing from you!!!  Happy Birthday Bri!!!

Avec amour,
Elder Call

Elder Johnson let me use his camera to take some pictures this week.

Chillin' in my hammock.  I bought a lava-lava before I left Guyane and Elder Miyasaki showed me how to wear it.

Pumping up the tires.  (Ok, we did have to pump up the tires but not with that, haha)

This is where we run to in the mornings.