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

Missing the World Cup...

Bonjour!

Wow that was a really long letter and I don't think I'll be able to to match that... haha

So the World cup is going pretty great I hear!  Yes I hear a lot of it. I am definitely going to have to watch all the games when I get home.  When we go shopping all the TV's have it going and everyone is telling me about the games. Radio statons are always talking about it. Its basically impossible to not hear about it even if I don't watch TV or listen to the radio.

As for our investigators, they are progressing very slowly.  Dana has a testimony of the church, she is just scared to share it with her family her significant other is very strongly Catholic and she is scared of what he'll say.  Also he was sick this last week so she had an "excuse" not to tell him, but she told us that there were a couple times where she felt that the Lord gave her opportunities to do it but she was too scared.  We taught the word of wisdom this week and it seems that she understands it pretty well, we'll see how it goes next week.  Claudia has a testimony of the church as is thinking of a baptismal date, but can't get to church.  Her biggest worry is that she might not be able to find a husband that is in the church haha

We met some pretty cool people this week again.  The problem as always is getting that second lesson.  If they miss the appointment for any reason its gets all too easy for them to push it off and slowly fall of the map.  One family we met was super cool.  It was a lady that Elder Johnston said he had contacted.  One day we had extra time so I thought, why not?  She let us in and introduced us to her husband and family and the spirit was really strong when we shared the first vision.  The husband said that he had been waiting to get baptized because he hadn't found the right church and seemed very serious about praying to find out, I am very excited for them.  During the lesson I felt so happy and couldn't stop thinking of how great it would be if they were baptized and sealed in the temple and really jump started the work in Martinique.

Tonight we have a soirée au parc where we are going to be performing the Plan of Salvation with the Martial family for all their friends, I'm really excited about it!

The primary here is around 4 or 5 kids and we have Trevon, the teacher, Dario, the deacon, and Joani the only Young Woman.

Well I got to go, I love you all so much!

avec amour,
Elder Call

Elder Ardeche

The Old Zone

Elder Glover made carrot cake for our play tonight.  I helped!

Enjoying raclettes

Bonjour Maman!

This week was pretty good as usual.  The World Cup has really gotten started, and no I did not watch it, but I know everything that's going on because there's not a person on this island that isn't watching it.  So no matter where I go I can hear it blaring, its very tempting haha.  I was in a lesson and someone was watching a game in the other room.  Oh man, it was hard to stay focused... haha.  I heard that Spain got beat 5 to 1 par Pays-Bas (Netherlands) what?! haha  And also if there is France playing, absolutely everyone is watching the game and will not give us the time of day, especially when its Fathers Day haha!

Not too much else special happened this week.  Edwin came to church again which was really exciting, what twelve year old boy likes to go to church, let alone when he's the only one in his family going?  I'm not complaining!  We have been trying and trying to get a hold of his Mom and brother but apparently his mom is assisting a lady deal with rehab to drugs and spends a lot of her time with her to watch her.  His brother is just never around, unless we play soccer.

We saw Claudia again this week and she is doing really well.  She has been reading from the Book of Mormon very regularly and almost memorizes and recites everything she reads to us when we come by.  She says she's been thinking about baptism but is worried about her family.  Also she doesn't have a way to get to church...

You didn't tell me about dad getting a call in the high council, is it a student ward again, or what?

I love the talks you send me and I hope you keep doing it.  Also I suggest you listen to some talks on byu.edu.  There are some really amazing talks in there.  I download them and we listen to them in the car, which is nice.

This week for PMG I finished lesson 2 the Plan of Salvation.  I didn't get any new ideas this time around but I was thinking a lot about the spirit world after our death and what it would really be like.  I can't really explain my thoughts, especially when I don't have a lot of time, maybe I'll write a letter about some of the stuff I am learning.

The best thing of the week is Jean-Claude!  Remember the story about the guy that ran after us into the building by the Chinese restaurant that sold dim sum!?  He finally got baptized and is preparing for a mission!!!

Elder Miyasaki isn't in French Guiana anymore.  He is one of 4 zone leaders on Guadaloupe right now, I'm going to see him again in July for zone conference!

We had a fast with Fr. Renard and Sr. Telcide to help the missionary work and to help them share their baptism with their family and friends, it was really good, and we ate... can't get much better;)  That's what some of the pictures are.

Transfers are this week and I'm staying.  Elder Drennan is going to Guadeloupe, Elder Ardeche is going to English Guiana, Elder Lewis is coming to be with Elder Bodily, Elder Dayton is the new zone leader with Elder Jex, and Elder Russel is coming back from English Guiana to be with Elder Fraley.

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

Fr. Renard and Sr. Telcide

We're eating Raclettes, its a type of cheese that you melt and pour on top of cold cuts of meat and potatoes, its delicious.  I've come to love cheese, I had no choice, after all...this is France!

Hiking Mt. Pelee again.  I'm getting good at it!

Bonjour de Martinique!

Bonjour Tout le monde, plutôt, Maman ;)

This week was good, not the best. We only had Edwin come to church which was really cool and he really liked it, but Dana couldn't make it. She went with her family on a little outing for the holiday weekend (pentecôte) But it sounds like you all had a good time in Florida! Can't believe you could go without me!

Things are going well with Elder Glover and I, sometimes he makes me slow down and not get too stressed out trying to get everything done which is good. We are having a lot of fun together and I feel comfortable with him. So thats nice.

One good experience we had this week was with a lady named Claudia, who Elder Johnston and I met one of my first weeks on Martinique. We had lost contact with her after seeing her once but she called us a while ago and asked us to pray for her friend in the hospital out of the blue.  After that we couldn't find her again. Last week she called again to see "how things were doing" she even remembered my name, apparently she has an amazing memory.  Finally this week we were able to teach her again. she was able to recite back to me quote of the first vision, sadly when I had recited it to her, I stumbled on my words or something because she had thought I had said "un Colombe (dove) de lumière" instead of "Colonne de lumière" So she thought that God and Jesus Christ appeared on a dove of light to Joseph Smith.... Lucky that's all squared away now.

I did get the package.  And I didn't know it had been opened!  I guess you won't be able to send mousse any more.  Unfortunately they don't have any of that here that I've been able to find.  We just watched the DVD 17 Miracles for Sr. Geurnsy's Birthday that you sent.  Thank you, it was great!  Also thanks for those pictures!  They were awesome!  I would have liked some of the MTC because I don't have any to look at...

We played soccer with Andy and Edwin again this week which was really fun! And yes, there was another gas strike.  They have so many I don't even seem to notice anymore!

Have a great week!

avec amour,
Elder Call