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I'm on an American keyboard! Tender mercies. Although the computer is in french so it's underlining everything I write.
Ok so it's Friday, we budged our P-day because we had a bunch of amis who could only meet with us on Saturday so yes. We got permission to move it.
What to tell... I wish I had exciting stories. I got a letter from one of my montreal elders and apparently he's been spit on a couple times, among other things. I never have anything like that... I'm so jealous :) haha. I have gotten yelled at a couple times though.
Ok so in Paris the Church is trying an experiment. They have a mini visitor's center for the church and they are having the missionaries take shifts and you work in there and give tours and switch off with another companionship and contact in the area, so every monday Sr. Gappmaier and I head to Paris and contact for two hours and then watch over the visitor's center for two hours. Contacting in downtown Paris is no bueno. Everybody's in a giant hurry. So this week we headed over to Notre Dame where we figured everyone would be standing still, at least for a minute, and I was so excited when I started talking to this girl and she said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak French." And I went, "Hooray! Me neither!" She was Irish and super nice. She was spending her last day of vacation in Paris and then heading back but I convinced her to look up the missionaries in Ireland. So hooray, I got to check out Notre Dame and speak english. Good day. And last p-day we went to Sacre Coeur. So I'm getting all kinds of culture in.
Wednesday we had interviews and training with the zone. It's way encouraging to get together with a bunch of missionaries and talk about how to be better missionaries. Want to hear some cool stuff? So last year in the mission the focus was 'The Miracle of 2010' and the mission goal was 300 baptisms for the year. They got 262, which averages out to about 1.6 baptisms per missionary, where before the all-time mission high was 1.4 baptisms per missionary and the average is usually 1. 1 baptism a year, can you believe it? But I guess that's a 60% increase, so that's good. And the goal for the Miracle of 2011 is 360 baptisms, and our zone goal is 3 baptisms per month. Another number President talked about was the effictiveness ratio, which is the number of new amis that turn into baptisms. In Europe it takes 23 new amis to get one baptism; in the Paris mission it only takes 9. I thought those were cool to hear, I don't know about you guys.
So, I'm listening to Disney music in French, are you guys jealous? You should be. It's cooler this way. Also my kids are going to speak French, I hope my future husband is ok with that. Because it's happening. Oh and I learned how to make African peanut butter soup. I'll make it for you guys when I get back. It's delicious, I'm kind of addicted. Want to hear what's in it? Onions, peppers, tomato paste, pepper, chicken (or mystery meat, if you really want to be authentic), peanut butter, and water. Also I'm learning German and Portugese. I'm going to come back so well rounded. Literally.
Also studies this week have been amazing. I've been studying that talk you sent me, dad, and I've gotten Sr. G converted to listening to talks in the mornings while we get ready and during meals so we've been listening to Marvelous Work and a Wonder and I've started reading Jesus the Christ. The fun thing about being on a mission is knowing that the gospel is the most important thing and being able to live it every moment. I'm going to miss having three set apart hours of study time just for the gospel every morning and being able to talk about it all day long. The gospel's insane, it covers everything. I can't believe how little of it I knew or understood before I came out here and now I'm just starving for every new thing I can find out. Marvelous Work and a Wonder is a genius book, absolutely incredible.
Being among the French people helps too because these people are difficult to talk to about religion. All the ones I've talked to so far really know their stuff. I always went by feelings but now I've been finding scriptures like crazy and it's fun to whip them out. The spirit obviously is the only convincing thing, we can't do anything without it, but often people will only listen to you in the first place if they feel like you know what you're talking about. And a respect for the Bible is huge.
Thank you, dad, for teaching me faith. I have a whole new understanding now, the kind that I can actually use to help people. People talk about it like such an abstract thing, but it really is a principle of power. If we really understand our relationship to the Lord we realize that all things are possible when we are being obedient to him. We have to use that a lot on people here who work on Sunday. Some of the people we teach are so very poor, their jobs are so important to them and they often work on sunday. Being able to testify, without reservation, that the Lord will bless them for doing what they can to attend church, is great.
Sorry I don't write great emails, it's hard to remember what all happened. But everything is going great, keep praying for the French people and a temple here. I love you all!
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