Montauban 2:6

Last week of twelve weeks!!! So as a new missionary you have an extra hour each week for this thing called the first 12 weeks, and i finally finished it!!!! Good bye watching the district over and over and over again!!!

This week went by so fast! 

On Tuesday.. I think. We went to the Van Tonder's and help Fr.V in the yard! It was awesome and at the end after having lunch, Sr.V came out with these flowers and she gave then to me saying, In case I don't see you on your birthday! They were these little lillie of the valley's! They smelled so good!

And then Wednesday we got our calls. Guess what- I'm going to Perpignan to be companions with SR.HURD and SR. Bolanyos!!!!!! Ans yes, the sr. Hurd that I was companions with at the mtc. I am so excited! I'm sad to leave montauban, but how can I not be excited!!!

All I hear is amazing things about his ward!!!

So that was crazy to hear, but then I had to pack.

Packing is the worst thing in the entire world of missionary life. You have to stuff everything back into your suitcases, your whole life has to fit back! It's the worst!!!! So we spent alot of time doing that on Wednesday. It was probably the worst time i've ever spent on my mission.

okay, but here is the thing, I love Montauban, we sent out a text saying what was happening to the members, and they all wrote back saying they would miss me, wishing me luch etc. It was so nice!! and then, blessings, just wait for it.

So since calls were on Wednesday and we were leaving Friday morning for conference, I had no time to see members, but I got to see so many of them! we randomly saw the magniers as we were waiting for our bus, and they don't even live in montauban,and Adeline was at the church when we went to print something for a lesson, and I got to see soeur Hoxy!!!

See her was so nice! I hadn't seen her this whole transfer, but when she found out I was leaving, we set something up and she was the cutest! She gave me these 2 montauban souvenirs one had all these sunflowers on it, how did she know they were my favourite?!! but since it had been 6 weeks since she saw me, guess what the first phrase that she said to me was,

Wow, you've gained weight!

Ya, hmm

but it was fine! haha, we laughed about it because the first time I met her she said that I would, and she was right. haha

And we got to go over to the dieutre's house, I LOVE THEM! we had homemade pizza, it was sooo good! and lucy sewed me this cute little jean purse!

I'm going to miss Montauban!

So we had a mission wide conference in lyon. To get there we rented a bus, the toulouse zone and montpellier (my new zone) rode together... for EIGHT HOURS!!!

It was such a long bus ride, but it was fun.

The conference was wonderful, but we didn't get Ipads :(

We will probably get them in a week or 2. So that was a bit of a let down, but It was a really good conference.

Elder Kearan and Elder Nielson (gave the prodigal son talk at conference) came with their wives. THe focus was obviously using ipads as missionaries. Something that I really liked was that they said the way we learn to use Ipads during our missions will bless us for the rest of our lives, and prepare us for when we are home. Which is so true! Also, I absolutely love elder Kearan, we got to shake every ones hands, we went up by zones and when my zone went up the was practically crying, but not weird, you could just tell how much he cared about us! And he is really funny! He had us all laughing but then 10 seconds later the Spirit would be there so strongly! He's amazing and his wife is really cool too. She talked about the scripture in the book of mormon that talks about the flaxen cord. She explained what that meant and how it's a really really thin cord, thread kind of thing, so that if it's getting wrapped around you you wont realise until there are too many layers that you become powerless. She was so cute, she said if this is you, if little by little you are having the flaxen cord wrapped around you, "then oh my goodness WAKE UP, (and then she got teary and said really quietly) wake up." it was cool. and a really good lesson especially with the new digital era that we are in as missionaries.

So with the conference, it was absolutely crazy, there were so many missionaries! Our bus dropped us off at the chapel and we spent about an hour there talking and seeing friends and had dinner (pizza), then we wen back to the STL's apartment, which was packed!! the morning of the conference was kind of crazy, so lany people needing showers! but we got there on time, had breakfast (pain au chocolat of course) and then it began. after the conference, our bus was the first o leave, so we didn't really have anytime to see people, or take pictures, I didn't take any!!! so lame! But we switched companions then and got on the bus and left. Also I got al the packages and stuff for my birthday!!! THANK YOU!!! It was so fun!!

It was funny, we tried to get all the Canadians together, elder Pien (chinese from ontario) got i think 3 of us together, but that was it. haha

Perpignan apartment is really cute!!

And 3 people came and picked us up from the gare and drove us home, it was so nice. I'm really excited!!

So, transfer three begins.

Also, Sr. Bolanyos served in montauban right before me, so that was cool, and we got to talk about all the people!

LOve you all

Also, thanks so much for the gifts! I almost cried, but I was around all these missionaries, so that would of been embarrassing...

Montauban 2:5

Okay, so I realised that in writing my letters home I'm pretty much writing my own scriptures or my mission... but not really because it's not scripture.. but it's practically the same. hence montauban, because that's where I'm serving and then 2 because transfer 2 and 5 because it's the week five email.

GENIUS!!!!!

Okay, this week went by fast and was nice. HOT, but nice.

We had an exchange with the Perpignan sisters, which means I got to see Sr. hurd!! That was fun. I was companions for the day with Sr. Castagno, she's really cute, from utah. We went to Cahors for the day and spent it with a member, it was awesome!!! Frère C let us at the gare and spent he whole day working with us. IT was so cool, and he's is pretty much my hero of the week.

So we got there, we had a lesson planned with an ami but he cancelled on us, and the only thing else that we had planned was to see less actives, which was only 2 addresses... and the addresses were wrong... so, we literally had 4 hours with nothing to do but talk to people. Frère C made the day, we walked around Cahors and he just said, hey, there's someone here that I could introduce you to, why don't we go here, I talked to someone a year ago, they might be there. It was awesome. He also showed us a really really old cathedral, and guess what. 

Okay, it was seriously magical for me. We get in are looking around a bit, the stained glass windows are magnificent and it's really beautiful, so I'm happy, then, some one starts playing the organ!!!! I felt like I had ime travelled to the time of Bach; It was so cool. I took a video of the sound sort of, I left he camera in ly bag because I didn't know how appropriate it was to video in the church...

ANyways , back to Frère C, he had spent he day fasting!!! and while we were siting deciding where to go next he just says, let's go here, and later as we were talking he says, I  was just sitting there praying to know what we should do...!!!!!! Isn't that incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's so great!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had district meeting this week and we had to role play being devestated, it was more as a joke, but ya, try and imagine me trying to be devastated.. IT was ridiculous, how to you be devastated??????? and let alone devastated in french, I think I ended up just being angry.. . It was really embarrassing! haha

Also this week, we had met and given aBook of Mormon to this guy, and he always sits outside the carrefour by the church, and we were walking by so we stopped and talked, and then we talked to his neighbour. And his neighbour seems really interested, we met with him, and had a really good first lesson, be said exactly what missionaries do, explained all that, and he said he would come to church... didn't, but maybe he'll be a good new ami.

ALso, I absolutely love the VanTonders. We were porting near Elodie's and we misssed the bus, and we had a lesson in half an hour and the next bus didn't come for 2hours (vacance) and so we started walking, but Sr.everett is having stroubles with her heel, so it really hurt her, and so we called Sr vantonder, but she texted us back saying she was driving, then we texted back saying that we desperately needed some help (sr ev exagerates a bit :) ) and so then she called and just said with the most concerned voice, "sisters, what's wrong?" and she came and picked us up even though they live far. She's so great!! And also Frère Vantonder came with us to visit the Slepciks, and when they opended the door, the 2 younge kids litterally lit up, as soon as they saw him they gasped in excitement. THey call him Papou (grandpa in slovak I think) So cute!!!

Also while we were porting we hat such a nice miracle, no one had let us in yet, and our time was running out, but we ported this one house and She let us in, she was a bit hesitant, didn't have time to answer a questionnarie, but we got in, and she just wouldn't stop talking, but in a good way. And aw I was sitting there I just felt so good, like we really needed to be there. SHe said how it's a bit hard because she has a daughter who has down syndrome and her husband kind of struggles with that, but we started talking about how they really are just angels, and bring so much love, that it's more a blessing, and she started crying and I teared up, and then as we were talking, her daughter came over to me, she's only 5 and gave me this huge hug, and rested her head on my lap, and then hugged me again, it was so precious!!! And together her and I just started talking about her pretty shirt and the flowers on it, and I was wearing a flowered shirt too, so she pointed at all the flowers on my shirt and said the colors, it was so cute; We are going back on Wednesday!!!! I'm so excietd!!!

This week was a good week, and on friday we are going to LYON for CONFERENCE!!! we get our calls on wednesday... YIKES!! What's going to happen??

Sr.everett dies this next transfer, so if we stay together, I'll be in montauban for probably 4 transfers.

I love you all!!!!! 

Thank you for your support and love :)

I'm finally experiencing spring... For the first time in forever!

This week went by fast, yikes!! Is that going to be how my whole mission is? I feel like I just started this transfer.

Okay, so first things first;

ELODIE got baptised!!  But that happened at he end of the week so i'll get to that later.

Monday was super fun!!! We went to the Perez's for easter dinner. Guess what we ate? It begins with an F, and it jumps, and they are usually green...

Yes! Frog legs!! And it was actually so good. I really liked them, it tasted like chicken pretty much. The weird thing about it was that you eat them kind of like chicken wings, but since it's legs you can really tell... They just kind of dangled and when you hold them up it's realy easy to imagine it just sort of starting to leap.

It was really good, and we also ate. Can you guess? ESCARGOT!! Which I really liked, but that may have been because there was a ton of butter and garlic sauce... but still, it was good. My comp tool pictures, i'll have to steal them.

And you know how the french really love their cheese, well. Frère Perez really likes his cheese, so we had the cheese course, and I took a little bit of one (there were three different types) and as he walked by he said that wasn't enough and then served me three HUGE slices of cheese. It was way too much, delicious, but so much. And as I was fighting my way through the pieces the guy sitting next to me asked it I was going to "gardez trop" or something like that, and I didn't know what he meant, and to explain his mom just made motioned me getting really fat... haha. Oh my future haha

And then, after eating all that cheese, they brought out the desserts! 3 different kinds again! And you can't not eat, atleast that's the mind set of Frère Perez, when in france, YOU EAT! So I got servings of all of them, and they were really good. THey had  bought a huge macron, pistachio and raspberry. SOOOO GOOOOD, and then there was homemade cake and flan, or flam, I don't know how to spell it. Which I liked to, but the macron was SOOO GOOD!

After eating Sr. Perez and Elodie took us to see a medevil castel. Super cool. 

I just realized I talked about ALL of that last week... that's annoying.

This week we met this really cool guy, JR, he's French and about 60, but looks alot younger at first glance. He was so cool!! He gave other misionaries on the wednesday of zone conference, and gave them his number, so we called, set up a rendez-vous and it was really awesome! So he believes in certain things, but he's kind of leaning towards budhism, he's into toga and meditating those sorts of things. But as we talked he was really open to learning more about God and Christ. His things is that everyday he things we should be better than the day before, always being nicer, learning more, etc. And at the end of the rendez-vous he said, "merci pour ce bon moment de grace." that doesn't really translate well, but it mmostly just expreces grattitude and that he really thought it was special. and then he said he had goosebumps and was just really touched by it. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was really touched by that. SO cool stuff is happening :)

And now, Elodie got baptised! That day was pretty crazy, you could call it a catastrophe with a happy ending..

We needed to bring cookies to the baptism, so we were quickly making these nobake ones that we had made a few days before and turned out really good, it's kind of like making caramel popcorn, you have a sauce of butten and sugar and milk and cocoa, and when it is all heated you add oats. So we added all the oats, but it was kind of liquidy still, but we figured it would be fine and they would harden and dry up... THEY DID NOT!! They didn't harden or dry up at all! It was llike little gooey mud pies, or gooey slugs. haha, I'm laughing about it, but it really wasn't funny. We had a bit of time so we decided to make more, so we started over, and as were finishing adding the oats for the second batch, there are again, not enough oats, so in an act of desperation, we decided to leave the cookies on the stove and run to the grocery store, buy oats, and run back and add them before they cooled to much. So we ran like mad women to the store, WITH OUT OUR PLAQUES, we were in such desperation, and ran back, looking like theives! just try and picture it, the street are full because there was a marathon going on, and 2 girls in skirts are running down the street, and then 30 seconds latter running back the way they came, but with a box of oats. It was RIDICULOUS! And the stories not over. We got back the cookies seemed fine, and so we added the oats, all seemed good, untill they started cooling and guess what, this time we added TOMANY oats, they were gross!!! But we had nothing else, so we brought them any way. 

I am never baking again.

But elodie was baptised, despite the cookies, so in the end, all turned out. But again, they didn't fill the font up very high... so if at first you don't succeed try again, and again... and again. haha, ya, it took a few tries. 

Sr. Everett and I sang I know that my redeemer lives at it, it was good, and I don't know why but I was barely nervous at all, and half the words I didn't even know, usually when I do things infront of people, sing, piano, talks. I get super nervous nad my legs shake iinvoluntarily, and my hands, but this time, nothing, I was totally fine. So that was nice.

So I said there was a marathon, and because of the marathon certain roads into montauban were closed. Which meant that half the ward couldn't come to church and had to go to toulouse. So there was a grand total of 12 of us at church (including Sr.Ev and I) We did just a testimony meeting. It was very sparce. But good, I love church here :)

I don't know what it is, but as a missionary I have been having the weirdest dreams. Seriously the weirdest, some one try and figure out what this means, the other night I had a dream that I was wendy in Peter Pan, but I had short hair that was really red, and the whole time I was trying to climb a tree, but I couldn't because my hair wasn't thick enough... Seriously, what is that??

Anyways, being a missionary is the best. I love just having nice converstions with people, I think that's one of my favorite things, you meet so many people, and every one has a story and some thing interesting to talk about. It's cool.

Lot's of love, as always!!!!

Soeur Christensen

ps; my favorite talk was Elder Holland's. How can you not cry listening to that???

(And now your wondering... what was his talk on again? And thus, here is the link: CLICK HERE)

PSS; Also, we go to the church early and print our emails, so people, don't worry about writting to much,I have time to read, but reply... just know I love reading them and will try to reply :)

I have had the line "God gave us families" in my head all WEEK!

Hello All!

Okay, this week started of wet. really wet. It rained all Tuesday, but not the pouring rain, this weird misty rain that just never stopped. You know at grocery stores when they water the vegetables, or wet them, I really don't know what to call that, but anyways, and it just kind of mists on them. Ya, it was like walking through that. 

But it was okay, except NO ONE was outside, and all I had planned for that day was contacting and visiting less actives. (our rendez-vous canceled on us in the morning). And noone of the less actives ended up being home, and only 2/8 or so addresses ended up being write. So that day happened. But the nice thing was that we were on exchanges and wednesday was conference, so the other 2 sisters just slept over. We made pancakes. It was delicious. Except the first batch had to much backing soda or something added, so they kind of tasted like pretzles... but I loved it, the other sisters kinda not as much, but I thought it was awesome. I love preetzles. 

Anyways, Wednesday was Zone Conference!!!!!

It was amazing, so so so so amazing! President Roney is seriously the coolest guy. It was all about trust. Which was awesome because I was studying that this week. I think the thing that I loved the most was that when we trust in the Lord we really can do anything. After I felt so ready to go out and just invite everyone to be baptised, or come to church, or pray! It was awesome, and the even more awesome part was that I did!!!

We had 3 rendez-vous set up after conference. 2 of them were with these african men, the first James, he's super cool, and loves Jesus. He's met with missionaries before and already had a Book of Mormon, he brought it with him and in side were some of the pamphlets, like the word of wisdom one and when we asked him about it, he gave us the word of wisdom lesson! haha. We had asked him what he thought of the Book of Mormon and he said, he knew it was true, and when we asked him about everything in general he said "I like your church better, I like the teachings better, your church is better" haha. So that was really cool. And then we met with this other african guy from Senegal, and we were talking doing just get to know you chitchat and how did you meet the missionaries etc, and we were just sort of talking, I don't really know how it got to these different points, but all of a sudden I was asking him if he wanted to get baptised!! It was crazy, he didn't really answer though.. so that was kind of lame, but he didn't say no! My first baptismal invitation! 

I'm now a missionary. 

well, not really, i've been a missionary this whole time, but you know what I mean.

Okay, now on to bigger and better, sortof. We met with our ami partick again, and we taught him the plan of salvation, and all of a sudden I was asking him if he wanted to get bapised! haha

It was a lot more coherent this time, but my heart was beating so fast and my hands were shaking pretty much, but I did it! 

These past pretty much 3 weeks I have been working and studying and praying for more confidence, and more boldness and courage, and everything this week has helped me. From conference to our lessons, to our silly role plays that are super embarrassing for me but also so needed and helpful, everything. 

Okay, I am running out of time, some things that I loved about this week

We visited Cahor with an amis, and the a chateau(medeval) with sr.perez and Elodie, those are the pictures. The one with the devil in the corner, Marc said that when I print that one out i'll have to hide it, so that the devil can't come out, haha. 

and also, marc called us one day and sr.Everett was talking, but marc said, make sure you tell Sr.Christensen I say hi! so cute! he actually nkows my name

Also, this is sweet. I saw my first rat!!! It was just this little baby things that crawled up from one drain and then skuttled down the street, made a lady scream, and then skuttled back into the drains. Gross, but I finally feel like i'm in france, or in a scene from ratatouille

Love! cam

Soeur Christensen