Perpignan 4:4

Okay. So another week has passed. And based on some questions this

email is going to be very honest about what I think about my mission.

Here I go.

First things first, I love my mission, and I'm pretty happy, but, not

everyday is easy.

When I wake up in the morning, usually my first thought is, here we go

another day and I'm a bit bummed out, but then once I actually get

going it's fine. I'm working on changing that, but like I said, in

this email of honest soul sharing, it's hard. Right now not many of

our Amis are progressing, and not many people talk to us. It's

discouraging. The days when all we have planned is walk and walk and

try to find people, waking up happy and excited for the day is hard.

And the days, well more, everyday, when someone looks at the name

Jesus Christ on our plaques and says how they want nothing to do with

us, that's hard. Feeling inadequate in my abilities, and in my French,

that's hard.

BUT

It is all completely worth it.

No matter how hard the mornings are, or the negative feelings I have,

I smile and I work, and with out fail there is something everyday that

I look back on and say, today was worth it. What I have learned and

felt so far on my mission far outweighs any negative things that have

happened. I think about my future, and I am overcome with how much I

will need the things I am learning on my mission, and how thankful I

have for this time to learn, to go through hard things, to be

rejected, but also to see the changes that happen in people's lives

when they let God and Christ become a greater part of their lives. As

a missionary I am learning and seeing in my life and the lives of

those around me the importance of things that before, I might have

taken a bit for granted. For example, we have an hour for personal

study and an hour to study to get her each day, I always knew it was

important to read and study the scriptures each day, but right now,

there is something different in my day if I don't get those studies

in, I need them, and I rely on them. We can not progress with out it.

Also, with having companions I have realized how important good

communication is. For me, I don't get mad or frustrated with other

that easily, I can get over things fast, and I'm not that picky, so

I've always just kind of ignored the things that bug me, I just figure

I'll get over it and I leave it there. but I have noticed with the

companions that I have talked to, openly and honestly about the things

I am thinking and feeling in regards to our relationship and I guess

who they are, that more good comes from that open conversation than

from trying to just ignore and get over it. We need to communicate,

otherwise, we can't teach, we can't have the Spirit, we are not

effective. (I'm a huge fan of comp inventory now, I know, it's

shocking, me expressing my feelings! I have made so much progress :) )

and don't even get me started on goals. When I say goals you say

planning, GOALS! (Planning) GOALS!! I hope your saying it! At the

beginning of my mission I had no idea what to do with goals, I had no

idea picking goals took forever!!! Now, I have too many tags I want to

make goals about and get better on. You know that scripture about

being shown our weaknesses... Ya, it's very true, I have realized so

many weaknesses, was I really just blind before? I don't know, I just

have anol of work today. And it's awesome, because that's what life is

for, becoming someone better. And it's awesome when you can look back

at a week or two weeks 7 months... And see the changes that have

occurred. Seriously so cool.

So, yes, life is hard right now, but there isn't any other way I would

have it. :)

Now, back to Perpignan. This week,

I will start with the weird experience. We were walking to a rdv doing

some contacting, so I stopped a man and asked if we could ask him 3

questions about the family, he looked at me and without saying

anything slowly turned his whole head, not just his eyes down to my

shoes and stood there, regarding them very pensively,  very very

pensively and then without looking up he said no and slowly turned and

walked away. Weird. But funny. We had a good laugh. It was the first

time I had ever been rejected because of my shoes. And they aren't

even that beat up yet.

The cool experience of the week, a few weeks ago we talked to this

lady named Claire. We walked with her as she was going to a bus stop

and then waited with her and taught her about the restoration, and

what we're here as missionaries doing. She gave us her name and

address and said we could stop by. We had spent the last few weeks

going over, but never being able to see her, she wasn't home I guess.

And then during the exchange we we just walking by her house, and in

my head I though, I guess we could see if she's home, but I was a bit

skeptical, because we had tried so many times before and nothing. But

just as we get to the door, sister Stapley got a phone call, so we

paused out side her door, and then as we are standing there guess who

walks up. Yes! CLAIRE!! She looks at us and says with the biggest

smile, your coming to see me!!! We go inside with her to her apartment

and he whole time all she is saying to us is at she is so happy to see

us, "vous pouvez pas imaginer combien ça me plais!" And then to top it

off, I ask her if she read the brochure that we gave her, and she did!

I asked her what she thought, and the first thing she says it that

it's true. And how it can't be a lie. I was so stunned. So stunned.

That has never happened too me before, never! Np one ever actual

reads, let alone likes it and thinks it's try! And thenwe spent the

rest of the rdv answering her questions. So cool :)

Another cool thing this week is a conversation that we had with a

woman on the street. She said she didn't have much time, but let us

ask the questions,  it before we could even finish, she asks us about

what we are doing, who we are etc, and so we had a good conversation,

she believed in God and had a lot of faith that he guides her and

plays a large role in her life. So we had a lotto talk about, and we

asked her if we could pray with her, she didn't know how we prayed, so

we gave her a quick lesson, and then I said the prayer. At the end she

was even more interested in us and asked about church, when where...

And the she said how she really needed to talk to us, and how much

good it did her, and how she wants to see us again because she really

thinks it'll help her. :) so we got her info and will hopefully see

her soon.

Also, this week we gave the relief society missionary minute and I

talked about the joy that comes from member missionary work, I showed

the pic maija sent of ashel and fleur and how important they are to

us. I was a living sprinkler, with ugly sound effects and all. (Okay,

that's an exaggeration, but not that far from the truth)

:) love  sister c

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Perpignan 4:3

This week we did an exchange in Toulouse with our stls. It was nice,

one of them was sick so I spent a day in the apartment with her, but

it was nice to just talk and study. I love Soeur James. She has family

in tanker so we bond over our canadianess :) she is just so cool and

smart I love getting to talk to her! Also she trained Soeur Nef so we

get to talk about her! She's awesome too. And the other stl Soeur

Stapley gives really good advice, so i really like exchanges with

them.

One of her things we talked about was praying, and ways we can improve

our prayers. Soeur James told me 2 things that she has started doing

that has really changed her mission/life. A friend told her to do

this, and the advice is to take the time everyday, morning and night,

or when you can, to go into a room to be alone and pray, but not to

start praying until you felt like the Savior was kneeling next to you.

And the other things was to take that time to pray in your native

language, which is something I didn't really want to do, I need as

much practice as I can get speaking in French. But I started doing it,

and I LOVE IT!!!! I feel so much closer to Heavenly Father and

especially in English, I can actually express what I am feeling and

want etc. It's been really nice. So I'm definitely going to keep doing

that.

This last week, like all others has gone by so fast. I can't believe it.

We visited a member this week, Soeur Meunière. She's lived in France

for the past 20+ years but she's originally from Vietnam. She is a

super classy but cute lady, not the standoffish classy, but the super

loving but just super classy. She's cute. We talked about the the Holy

Ghost, and yes, I cried, and yes, I remembered my hand sanitizer and

Kleenexes this time :)

His week we had a rdv with someone I had met my first week in

Perpignan but hadn't seen since. It was to give her a my family

booklet and talk about the family. It surprises me sometimes because

we meet people, ask questions about their family have a good

conversation and then they have us over at their house. Sometimes I'm

just so surprised that people are open. She took us all through her

house, gave us the tour, and then we sat and talked, about her kids,

her grandkids, everything. I have the best "job" in the world. I don't

think she's interested in talking about Christ, but at least we were

able to make a friend.

Okay, so there's this ami of he elders, he's awesome!! I really love

him, but sometimes I just have absolutely no idea what he is saying.

We went over to his house and had lunch with him and his fiancé, so we

were talking and then he started talking, and he did not stop, and I

am sorry, but I could not stay awake! He kind of mumbles and his

rhythm of talking is very un and down like a boat on waves kind of

deal, and all his words are slurred together, so I understood very

little, and it was hot, and we had just eaten, so.... But I wasn't the

only one, I heard his fiancé next to me snore a bit. :)

So we have this ami right now, who is apparently madly in love with

one of us. (We haven't figured out which, but I'm rooting for Sr.

Staples) He texted us saying that since the moment he saw one of us

he's been in love... We explained many times that we are only here to

talk about God, and help people come unto Christ, and he says he gets

it, but in his words, we aren't missionaries for ever... Haha. So we

might pass him over to the elders. But the weird thing is  that when

we meet for lessons, he doesn't act like it at all. Not at all. I

would have no idea if he hadn't texted us. And he asks good questions

about what we teach and he said he would read the Book of Mormon ...

So we'll see what happens there. The worst part of that is in our last

rdv with him, this guy came up to us (we were sitting in a park) and

after finding out where we were from he said how he wanted to go to

Canada, and how we could get married and he could come to Canada with

me.... So horrible. I'm pretty sure I just said no. No point sugar

coating it. Just gross.

This week a recent convert got married at the church, so we went for a

bit of it. Getting there was a night mare though. It was just at the

church, which takes about 15 minutes to walk there. But our rdv before

it took longer than we planned for, and we wanted to change out of our

sweaty close before. So we ran home after our rdv, we had 20 minutes

to get there. We changed really quickly, and got out with about 15

minutes to get there. Not bad, except it's a wedding and you can't

just stroll in when it's supposed to start. So we ran there. Did I

tell you that it was 33 degrees out? It was horrible. Can you just

picture us running through the street in these nice outfits, jewelry,

lip stick and all with sweat just dripping off our faces??? It was so

gross. Luckily we got there with enough time to slightly compose

ourselves ( more like dry our hair and wring out our soaking clothes)

:)

At the wedding I started talking to this couple and then one of the

members comes and joins us and he said to them, listen to her, she is

really nice! If jumping for joy wouldn't of made me sweat so much I

would have. A complement from Frère boltor!! I died.

This week was hot, but next week, I don't even want to tell you.

Apparently we are getting a special wind, kind of like our chinooks,

but from Africa... It's going to be 40 or even more. I'm already

melting. We stocked up on water bottles. I'm considering sleeping with

bags of frozen veggies as my blanket.

Have a wonderful week everyone. I love you all!!!!!!!!

Go swim in a pool for me :)

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Perpignan 4:2

This week we said goodbye to President and Sister Roney, we all cried

a bit. But I am excited for President and sister Brown. Good things

are coming :)

So with this past week we were in aix en Provence for the conference.

It is really beautiful there, it reminded me of when we visited Barb

and Danny.  And lavender is coming into season now, so the sisters

serving there said they are starting to smell it. I hope I can serve

there, they just need a sister equipe there, but it's an stl equipe,

so... Probably not for a long while :)

Conference was really good. President talked about the last supper. He

talked about how that was he last formal teaching setting Christ had

with his 12 disciples and how the lesson he was teaching was how to be

happy. Christ knew he would soon be gone, and he knew how hard that

would be for them, and so he taught them what they needed to be happy,

and continue with out him physically there. And what did Christ talk

about? The sacrament. We need the sacrament if we are to progress in

this life and be happy.

Sister Roney shared some videos with us, one of them was a big

slideshow of all the missionaries. Soeur Hurd and Bolanos and I had

one of our selfies in there, from when we received our iPads. So

pretty much every single missionary in the mission got to spend 4

seconds staring at us 3. I Don't really know how she got a hold of it

...

So we spent Wednesday Thursday and Friday morning traveling and in

aix. And Saturday we spent the day in Montpellier. Our ward had a

relief society activity there, journée de la femme. And they asked us

to come and help them with a musical number. So I played the piano and

sr s sang. It turned out pretty good. And while I was there I met a

senior missionary couple, the laplante's and at ainlay there was a

French teacher with that name so I though, hmm, maybe they are

related. Nope, but guess who they are related too. They are the

parents in law of mark butler! They

had the daughter that had been

staying with Barb and Danny, Audrey, I'm pretty sure. So that was

really cool. For the activity there were 3 different wards there into

km and so each shared a musical number and then one of the sisters

bore her testimony.  There were a lot of tears and as I was sitting

there listening I realized how much these sisters need each other. The

church here is small, and very spread out and I realized how important

it is to be unified and together, supporting one another. There was a

great spirit of unity and love. At the end they did a small talent

show. The other wards did video presentations of art work that they

had done, some of the sisters are really talented. But our ward did a

little skit. It was fun, I'll try and upload the video. They dressed

up as nuns and sang along to the sister act. It was fun.

But, because we were away from out sector for so long we didn't have

much time to spend working. But we still had a cool miracle! We

starting talking to this guy and as we were talking he said how he

didn't really believe, and as we kept talking and explained abut about

the relationship we can have with God, and how he wants us to be

happy, and how with him the hard things in our life can be better,

easier to get through. As we were talking he said to us "it's funny

because right now I'm going through a really hard time, and maybe you

were sent to me." It's moments like that when I think being a

missionary is the most rewarding work in the entire world.

Also, we were sitting outside this store sending a few texts off

quickly when this guy walks by, we didn't have time to talk, but I had

made eye contact so I just smiled not thinking of actually having a

conversation with him, but then he just starts talking to us, and we

were able to again say how the gospel has blessed our lives, and even

though life is hard God is always there to help us. He said probably

20 times how he wasn't believing, but he gave us all his information

and set up a rdv to talk to him and his wife or girlfriend. That was

really nice for me because lately I have been having trouble knowing

what to do or say when all people say is how they don't believe there

is a God. I know he is there, I have no doubts, but I was struggling

knowing how to bear my testimony with out feeling like I was trying to

slap them in the face with it, ya know. But the last few people I've

been talking to I've been able to express how I feel about God and

Jesus Christ with out feeling like I was force feeding them something

they said they were allergic to.

I read a talk on the train to aix, it was by president Monson, about

courage. In it he said "A moral coward is one who is afraid to do what

he thinks is right because others will disapprove or laugh." That was

a bit of a sucker punch for me. But how true is that! I don't know why

I get so afraid of doing things that I know I need to be doing,

especially as a missionary. Sometimes talking to people makes me so

nervous!

We went to the beach this p day. Collioure. I felt like I was on

vacation, it was so beautiful and nice out. Seriously perfect

weather!!

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The lady let us in for free with the elders because of the good work

that we are doing here in France. So nice. He view from one of the

windows.

Perpignan 4:1

This week was really good!!! 

First off; my new companion; She's awesome!!! She gave me a make over the other day. and basically I need to buy a lot of new make up. haha. It was fun.

This last saturday and sunday was stake conference and it was AMAZING!! I loved it, and what's super cool is that I actually understood most of it! My mind kind of wandered for a bit, but when I was really listening I got most of it :)

The cool part of the conference is that in the stake there are 7 recently returned sister missionaries, 7!!! How awesome is that? And so they all spoke and I loved it! It was amazing! the topic, or atleast what a majority talked about is being blind, spiritually. Some of the things I really liked from the conference are as follows:

1) one sister told a story of contacting a guy on the street, aho turned out to be an inactive member, who with time started coming back to church. She said that we are all spiritually blind, she didn't know who the guy was; she just knew she needed to talk to him, but that the Spirit opens our eyes, and helps us see.Heavenly Father knows what is going on in the lives of others, He knows who we need to talk to, the Spirit is how he tells us.

2)the next sister, was super cool, she was so happy!! She said that we are all in darkness sometimes and blind, but that Christ is the light that leads us. With Christ we will not be lost in darkness, but we will be led and guided.

3)one of the sisters told a cool story. she server in tahiti, and she said her and her companion had started meeting with this 21 year old, he wouldn't really pay attention during the rdvs, always looking out in space, seeming totally un interested. So this sister just thought to herself, what can we do? and what came to her mind was that she needed to just share her testimony of the book of mormon. she read ether 12:27 and all of a sudden this guy, who acted to cool to really listen, was crying, and said "i am weak" the story ends with him getting baptized and I preparing to serve a mission. But in the process he lost all his friends. But what he said I really liked "I have no friends, but I know it is true."

4) one other thing I really liked was that someone said, "all excuses slow progression" and that is so true! we will never grow and change and progress if we are constantly giving excuses for not acting. NO MORE EXCUSES!!!

The conference was really great, I loved it :)

Also this week. A sister that had just finished her mission came to perpignan with her parents. she's from italy, and so her dad showed us how to make real italian pizza!!!! It was cool. They came to soiree familial too, that was really fun. we played musical chairs as the game and sebastien played the recorded as the music. it was really funny. And the pizza we made... SO GOOD!!! I ate so much, I think he used 3kg of flour... there was alot of pizza, and so I ate, alot of pizza. and had it for lunch the next day. SOOO GOOD!!

Being a missionary is kind of like being, I don't even know how to explain it. You meet people on the street and for some people they immediately trust us and just tell us their whole life story, literally I have had conversations where they just talk and talk and talk and I say nothing more than oui, mhhhm, oui.. but when we look at the time weve been talking for 20 minutes. But then others will only answer us and say yes or no and that's it. And something I've realized is that being kind is ALWAYS BEST. We get alot of different reactions when we ask people if we can ask them the questionnaire. Some people stop and listen and are very kind, some people are really nice znd want to talk, but don't have time, but still are really nice, others though, the ones that really don't and aren't really nice, those are the ones that just throw their hands in your face kind of fend you off... that's not fun.  I just don't see how it is so easy for some people to be so rude. All we say is we are doing a questionnaire and ask if they can answer the questions. and there are only 4 questions. How hard is it to say with a smile no thank you. we aren't going to force you to take the quiz, if you don't want o you don't have to, but you can reject us a little nicer...

Anyways, it's just funny the different ways people respond. And for the majority; if people say no, they do it nicely. There are just some who aren't the nicest...

This week we met some nice people, and have found a few people that seem interested in God and the lessons, so I'm excited to see what happens.

One cool thing from this week that I really liked. We have an ami who came to cooking class with her husband. Who the missionaries have never met. And as we were talking he said that he has a lot of respect for the mormons and is really thankful for all the work we have done in genealogy. He said he has been able to find his ancestors through our archives! For met hat was such a yes, finally! moment, because we have had such a focus on family history and genealogy and finally someone who has benefited from it!

I'm excited for this transfer :)

as always lots of love!!!

Oh, and this week I finally had the missionary moment of standing outside houses, porting in an unexpected shower, getting completely soaked.

that's one check in my list of things that must happen on a mission

Perpignan 3:6

This last week was really great! This last Sunday was awesome. Our 2
Amis came and also 5 less actives!!! 4 solo women and 1 family!! It
was awesome!

Your all probably wondering.. Transfer calls.

So we were all pretty nervous, and we were waiting for president to
call, no one wanted to answer it first, so we had left it on the desk
and we're waiting and guess what. The phone ringer was off and we
missed his call!!! We were all freaking out, because he's the kind of
personality that would just not tell us till the next day or something. So we were all freaking out and then We noticed he left a Voice mail. We checked it and all he said was "sister Bolanos, your
going..." And that was it!!!!!

We called him back though and he answered us and all ways good. When I
talked to him he apologized for waking us up.. Haha. I said we would
forgive him that one time, but.. Haha.

And so the results. I am staying in Perpignan and my new companion is
sister Chanda Staples! She came in at the same time as sister Bolanos,
and so she's just had her half way mark, she's from Virginia and she
studied singing before the mission. She sings opera! So cool, I'm
pretty much going to try to get her to sing every Sunday at church,
and maybe teach a singing class, she's so great.

Some members picked us up to take us to the gare Monday morning, and
then while we were there, Lucie and Jeam and then freer boltor came.
He came in disguise to surprise us. I saw him walking up and he put
his fingers to his lips to ,and sure he could scare the others. Haha.
It was so funny. As the train pulled away free boltor pulled out a
handkerchief and was wipping the tears from his face dramatically.
Haha, what a joker.

I can't believe I'm already pretty much at my 6 month mark. On the
20th of this month I'll be back... Time is going to fast! Oh and I
never said, but elder Garside, from Maija's ward is in my
district(this past one and this next transfer). So it's pretty fun, we
get to reminisce about Edmonton together, haha.

It is hot hot hot here. And doing the whole French cheek kiss in the
humidity is not pleasant. Gross really, your cheeks are both sticky
with sweat... Blah.

But I think the worst would be if I had to be close to the beach in
this heat.. Oh wait, I am! HahaI just want to go swimming!

We spent Sunday night at the bishops house. They are so fun! And their
kids are the cutest! We talked about movies and he said a really good
French one is called intouchables. It sounds really good, it's about a
rich old man who has an accident and becomes paralyzed and gets this
helper guy... You should see if you guys can watch it. There are
probably English subtitles.

One funny story from this week. 2 members took us to the border town
Perthus, and we were in to store that had a butchers attached and
while we standing there waiting for them to buy something a few of the
workers started talking to us, and then before we knew it all of the
male workers we talking to us and the other customers were all being
ignored... It was bad, one of the costumes asked if he needed to taken
his pants off to get their attention... It was quite a moment for
us... And the bad part was they started speaking in Spanish to
sr.bolanos and so we had no idea what was going on. Apparently one
said something about blondes and I don't know what. It was hard not to
laugh at the scene of people behind the counter. And hard not to blush
also. Sonya, that happened.

I'm really excited to stay in Perpignan. I love the ward. But man, I
don't know what in going to do with this heat!

I read a good devotional broad cast thing this week. It was the latest
CES broadcast I think. It's about real intent, and the man gives the
parable of the oranges. I don't have time to explain, but basically he
tells a story of a man who just goes above and beyond in his job and
how it was his desire to please his boss that brought his success, not
his aspirations to a higher position in the company. He related that
to why we do what we do. It made me think about why I m serving a
mission. The gospel has blessed my life, it makes the hard parts in my
life easier, and it makes the good parts even better! How could I not
want to share that with the world, with the people of France?! Read
the talk it is really good! Living with Purpose: The Importance of
“Real Intent”
Randall L. Ridd
Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency

Love love love!!!!!!!! Someone go swimming for me! And also congrats
mark and Michelle!
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Perpignan 3:5

Okay, so pretty much the biggest thing that I want to talk about is that we had our soirée talent on Saturday. The funniest and most fun night of my life!!! Well, mission life. I'll try and upload some pics next week. Some of the acts were pretty interesting, but the best part was that 2 of our Amis were there and Huguette started dancing with one of the members! It was so funny, and cute! We were all dieing. Pictures will come I promise. It was super fun but also probably the hardest night because we all just wanted to dance so bad, but we couldn't. It was one of those moments were you don't really feel like a missionary in the moment because you're doing such a normal life thing, but then you really realize that your a missionary and can't actually be part of it. It was kind of sad. But okay, because I have the whole rest of my life to dance, or try to dance, we all know I look like a blind zombie having a seizure when I dance. One of the elders Amis was trying to film the show, but he would just starting dancing in the aisle , that was fun to watch. I'll send of video sometime. The ward is so great!!!!!

We had dinner at the family Boltor's house. They are so nice. Sr. Boltor was the first missionary to serve from the Perpignan ward! Cool, eh! Frere Boltor's is Spanish and has the funniest way of talking, he always tries to scare people at the church. He's so funny.

Let me tell you about the chocolate.. So a few transfers ago the sisters did some service for someone, and she was really really thankful. So she promised to give them chocolates. So when we left the Boltor's they gave us "the chocolates". It was literally 1 kilo of chocolate. Not just a few bars, 1 full kilo!!! So we got that on Friday, it is Monday and the chocolates are more than half gone. And I wonder why my skirts just keep getting tighter... Oh la la la For the talent show all the missionaries sang amazing grace and I played, and the. Soeur Hurd and I did a piano violin arrangement of I need thee every hour. Everyone said we did a good job, but I made so many of mistakes!! But they liked it so it was nice.

Missionary work is kind of weird here. Well not weird it's kind of slow, but we are always busy. We visit a lot of less actives and there are a lot of recent converts and so between all them and the Amis that we have right now we haven't spent a lot of time meeting new people that want to hear our message. So it's been a bit slow in the finding people area.

This week I studied knowledge. It was really nice. There's a scripture in d and c that I really liked. I think it was 88:78. What I took from it was that when we diligently try to learn and throw all our effort in, the Lord is there to help us, we have our weaknesses. We may it be the greatest teachers yet, but when we try our best, he is there to

help us. It was a nice confidence boost, because sometimes I feel so inadequate. Especially when I'm trying to explain the gospel to people. But that scripture helped me realize that it's okay, I'm not going to be perfect, but as I try, the Lord will help me.

Until next week!

Love cam!

Also, it is really hot. It's the worst!!!!! I just sweat, all day, it's great.

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