Saturday, April 25, 2015

St Malo!



Dancing, sunshine, conference coming, ice-cream ...

Well this week really flew by thats for sure! I learned a lot and a lot of things changed. I am not sure what to write about it. We did a lot, taught a lot, it was pretty hot, were all getting a nice coat of color so were not invisible anymore haha, but yep a pretty spiritual week for us here. 
We had our district meeting outside, so that was fun, then we just contacted a lot. I met a couple from England, I wrote mom a letter back, with a lot of details on life. haha. 
I am glad everything is going well for you all and that the talk went great, and you all had a RS breakfast! Thats awesome! Oh the ward here is having a big party for Spring, on May 29th and if I stay in Rennes for another transfer which I really want to, I love it here, I will be there for it, and the best part is that its a cultural dance fest, so I am learning a bunch of island dances now for this ward party, I think I just want to cry of laughter from the practices we have, but I learned the Pilou Pilou, dance ahaha its pretty fun, I think its from the island of Maurice. 
Really its was just a nice week, of SUNNY weather and nights where I have just had very spiritual moments telling me I am right where I need to be, doing what I should be doing! So I really just love life this week, and this next week is going to be awesome preparing for the elders here to have a baptism and one of the member families we work with their son will be baptized too, then we get to know what is happening next transfer, then we go to paris and then we will have pday then we will have transfers so... not much "missionary work" but just other organization stuff and training going on this week. I am excited. Oh next week my pday is on TUESDAY April 28th, because the conference is all day Monday, so I will be emailing TUESDAY, so dont freak out if I dont send anything haha. 
I got a call from S.Simpson who was a little distraught and wanted to talk. Another soeur in the Paris zone went home from depression, and her colleuge was being transfered to a trio with S.Simpson and her comp. I reasured her all would be well, and she could do it just fine. 
Then S. Bell called me and she has been in the hospital for the last 4 or 5 days because her appendix burst! Then it infected her small intestines! So yikes, but her family gets to call her whenever to check in, she is doing well, but needs some love and change. I wish I could have been there, I guess only the AP's and President were there for a bit, but then they had to go to Germany to pick up the ipads for the mission conference. So she was alone in the hosptial for a long time... but I think she will be fine. 
What else is happening, Oh today!
St. Malo.... were going back when we come and tour around france ok?! haha my favorite little town yet. Just the best relaxing place in the world! 
Ate the BEST ICE CREAM EVER MADE! its called Sanchez its super famous, a member told us we HAD to get it, so we did, and it was the best 5 euros ever spent! Lets just say I got a flavor called "amour de glace" i think you could take that literally.. lol. were coming back, even if its just for the ice cream. Also I am going to send home all of my sd cards, the pics are so scrambled and you can print off the new ones, but then just delete the rest please! 
Ahh.... life is just good now. 
I am trying to get some sandals Rennes is really a lot hotter than Paris and I will be here until June, so I found a pair at a store here for 35 euros that look like they will work, my feet get so hot now, I feel like it just flipped a switch and in one day we went from winter to dead of summer. 
So i think the other set of soeurs in Rennes will close down, with the sisters going home, and only 1 coming in we just keep closing villes every transfer, so there is just not enough of us to keep everything going :( so I think I will go back to being a 2 man apartment, but we will know for sure this week. 
well love you all, have an amazing week!

Weekly email from the President

Sheri Dew said “Life is filled with moments of joy, but life is also hard. It is an unmistakable privilege to be here in mortality, but the burden we carry is weighty, relentless, and laden with importance. So I repeat two questions posed earlier: What have we come here to do? And how will we do it?”
Nous pouvons remplacer le mot "life" et "mortality" par "mission" et nous poser les mêmes questions. 

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Biking and forest adventure!!


Miracles and adventures

Hey so this week was definantly memorable in many ways :) 
we had so much fun, but allergies and sickness kept us inside for a bit. 
We first had our zone conference. It was so good! Literally spiritually filled for life! Elder Hall gaves us a quote (he is our new ap! crazy) "fear and faith cannot coexist in our hearts at the same time. in our days of difficulty, we choose the road of faith, jesus said, "be not afraid, only believe" -Anderson
Then Elder Gram whipped out my second favorite quote, "Courage is not being fearless, but being afraid and saddling up anyway" If I could just tell you all how much that describes my mission it would scare you lol. I have done a lot of crazy things, but this week I contacted every woman that was in my path, tired, hungry, whatever, and I am sure I could still do better, but I felt so good every night, having tried my hardest to be faithfull, because "obedience is an act of faith". Oh it was such an awesome conference! I ate lunch next to soeur Babin and Soeur Tippett and we chatted it up! I love her, she is so nice and patient. Oh also we get ipads on the 27th at the conference in Paris, I guess they will add on the total to the monthly payment?? Im not super sure, but they have all been bought by the church and we will just slowly reemburse I guess. OK so then after the conference we went to Nantes on exchanges! SUPER FUN! It was so hot, we got sunburned, but we were on such a spiritual high we walked all over contacting, I taught a couple people restoration, and it was so good! They listened! haha but we taught a couple lessons, and then went back to Rennes the next day (after missing our train)... how did we miss our train?? thats a good question... Well Soeur McOmber and I went to this lesson to teach the Restoration and it was to an african couple. Well he went off for like 20 minutes bashing the US, and then us for coming to france... yeah it was not fun, and I was just trying to be patient and not do anything rash, and finally McOmber just looked him in the eye, and hard core threw down! She testified  of why we were there, and what our message was, then I backed it up with the change of hearts haha, we kinda felt like Peter and his apostles when they have to rebuke a couple people, but it was the most intese lesson I have ever been in, we didnt even get to say a closing prayer, because the spirit was GONE. Oh it was so sad, and hard to be a part of. But we did our job, as wierd and rough as it was. 
Then the next couple days S.Ellis was SUPER sick. then we all got allergies, and my eyes are puffing up and nose is clogged, and we are all sneezing about 100 times a day haha. but its all good. Then sunday happened. We had ward conference, and the bishop gave the most wonderful testimony, and everyone was so connected, then we had a ward potluck, there was a couple from England there who are moving into the ward, so that was cool, and they thought I was british because I guess the name Stevens is VERY english, haha. So it was super fun chatting with them. Then we got to go contacting, and taught a woman Kelly and her son and daughter, and mom to answer your question, it was the second time I have ever met her and we invited her to be baptised! She said YES and her daughter! So that was awesome, we dont have a date yet, but they agreed to start preparing! HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK! 
ok so today we got up early and did our studies on the bus, and went to this place called Pampoint Forest. Most MEMORABLE adventure ever.
haha we looked around at first when the bus dropped us off and we were in the middle of this rue that was a town with nothing open... then out of nowhere this guy comes up riding his bike, and asks if we were trying to get to the forest, we said yes, and he showed us this map and it was about 4 miles away, so it would take a long time to get there. ok lets pause so I can explain more about this forest, it is supposedly the forest where King Aurther lived, and it has Merlins tomb, so its supposed to be mythical.. why I get myslef tangled in these I dont know, but so we went to this magical forest. well. this guy was like, hey I have bikes you can rent, do you want to ride them in? it wont take too much time to get into the forest and it will be faster (we had a bus to catch.. spoiler we missed it quand meme). So I called our district leader to see if this was possible to ride bikes, and he made us call our zone leaders to get permission, and after a couple minutes of promised prayers before we ride he accepted!! YES! haha then we went with him and rented some bikes, but not just any bikes... they were electric bikes!!! YESSSS! turbo speed ahead for me! So... we get everthing together, and we start down these country roads full speed ahead, literally that thing rides I hit 30 kph! haha and it was just a day full of sunshine and 75 degrees! Through the sunny forest, then we got to the path of the tomb and left the bikes to walk another couple kilometers to the place. Well, we ended up seeing the tomb, and then walking to the supposed "Fountain of Youth" then hiked back and got back on the bikes and rode into town again... all in a pencil skirt and flats. By the time we got back the bus was gone and we had an hour to kill before the next, so we asked the guy where was good to eat, he showed us this good place and we could eat outside to catch some rays. So she gave us some menus but not a lot to choose from because everything is fresh. So its like all "house made you have 2 choises" haha one was salmon and the other something I didnt recognizes, so the hostess came back and while taking our orders I asked what this word was, and she said,"hmm comme saucisson" "like sausage" so I was thinking oh yumm i could do a sausage hotdog thing now. so we ordered.. then the food came out, it looked like a sausage... but something smelled a little funny, it was a bit more thick than a sausage, and it kinda smelt like cow pies. Well, i thought maybe its just normal were in the middle of nowhere france right now there are farms all around, I just picked up a breeze... NOPE... i cut a bit without looking and ate it.. I ate something that wasnt sausage.. i looked down and it was cows intestine., from the ends... so yep, that happened, and I almost cried eating it, but I got a couple bites before I could spread things around enough it looked like I ate it.... I should have taken the salmon.. haha anyway lesson learned... even though some people say its a sausage....its not always a sausage. ahahah. so not done yet, in the hurry to get to the bus to Pampoint, i didnt have any change left to get home besides mission money, and were really not supposed to use, so i had the exact amount of change in my hand and was just thinking "oh Heavenly Father I really dont want to use this, but its my only way home! Please forgive me already" well the bus driver pulled up and I walked on change in hand, he looked at me and said "C'est gratuit" "Its free" !!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT! Its the plaque im telling ya! So we got a free ride back home! It was awesome, such a fun day, but i forgot my camera, so I will try and forward some pics that others took for me. but yea that was my week, full of miracles and adventures!

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Another baptism! Sore stomach but with inspiration, better and lots happening in the mission...

Ok so for starters, we've been having a pretty chill pdays lately, i've been tired, so we just sleep, and I love it. 
 
So, tuesday I went home for dinner and we ate a salad and orange, and we were on our way out to an FHE with the frere who is over the missionaries, DMP in french, anyway his family invited us for a soiree. So with our dinner of salad, we were on our way out, and my knee had been pretty nasty feeling all week, so I remembered the medication I got from the MTC, and was like PERFECT i can take that and it will help! So I took it. and we left, the night was fun with the family. Then that night, i though i was going to die, my stomach hurt SO BAD! It was the worst! I couldn't sleep at all, and was in the bathroom all night. 
So then the next day, still thought I would die, but we had a bunch of rendez vous I was not going to miss, and so we went and did a member split. BEST THING EVER! haha I went with a member she was about your age, to teach our amie Amandine. So the whole time the member was just so happy that we called her to teach with , and was like "can we take a picture and post it on facebook?" I just love working with the missionaries here! AH Im so happy you could do this! haha Anyway the lesson went amazing and the Lord granted me some what french to be able to go through a day of a francophone, lessons, contacting, and needing to throwup every hour with somewhat ease. So then that day happened, still couldnt sleep that night from pain. 
The next day, we went to say goodbye to Celine our amie who was just baptized, she is officially moved to Amiens, but we cried and said goodbye, and she was really sad to leave, but ca va c'est la vie. Then after the lesson, we walked out of the apartement, I looked at Soeur Ellis was like "im either going to die, or were going to get help" so S.Ellis was awesome and we just went straight home and called the mission nurse. She is an older french lady and needless to say we couldnt really comunicate, but she gave me a perscription that she thought could help. I was a little bit skeptical at how much she understood, and if I wrote the perscription right, so I felt inspired to call my favorite person in France, Pascale. a recent convert who is a single mom, nurse, raising 2 kids, lived in Paris Lilas before Rennes and had a baby the same time I came to France. Anyway we have a ton to talk about all the time, and she is just an awesome example to me that no matter what life throws at ya, take it. and roll with it! haha anyway, so she told me to call her if anything ever happened and she would be happy to help, so i did, (she also speaks fluent english and french, so much easier to talk to) I told her the whole story and for how long my stomach was hurting and I didnt want to eat, just kinda miserable. After the story she just asked. "What medication did you take, that you have to eat food with?" haha I looked at the perscription from the MTC with bright red letters and a picture of a burger and soda spells "take with FOOD" haha well. she just laughed, and said "Thats it!" she was like what did you eat with your dinner that night, I said a salad and orange... she was like " Oh my goodness are you trying to die" haha so solved that one, and she gave me a better perscription to take, and I went to the pharmacy and got it, they are like little sachets of like the size of crystal light, but its like lemon cake batter mixed with protien powder... not bad tasting but just wierd. Anyway I take those like 5x a day and it helps a lot. She told me I need to help heal my stomach and complex foods will hurt, so now i've been living off soup and ice cream and saltine crackers until my stomach is better.
SO.. many days of self inflicted pain later.... Im doing a lot better, its almost gone now, but I ate some romen noodles and wanted to throw up after so, going to go a few more days on soup. and the next day we didnt have anything planned except one renedez vous and they canceled, so I think Heavenly Father was helping me out with that one. I got to sleep all day and just take my lemon cake batter protien poweder sachet shots lol. But then Sunday happened. 
We went to church and talked with Leena, she was getting baptized in the US, spoiler alert, she was denied a visa, so shes getting baptized here with us this week instead!! Ok, and she is good friends with this american member who she served her mission in Sweden. Well she (the member) was putting on this fireside presenting her doctrate thesis it was on the immigration on the scandanavian saints (yeah, dont ask me what her degree was.. I heard it was Folklore.. I really dont know) anyway Leena really wanted to go so we were excited we got to go to this fireside. It was pretty cool learned a bunch of stuff, and was an example of what a scandanavian saint was haha that was funny.
Anyway the day was fun and we just got to finalize Leena's plans for her baptism in the US... which is now off because she cant go.. really bummed for her, but I know its what the Lord wants. So now we are going to be busy planning her baptism here for this week or the next! 

I am excited to start our easter contacting, getting ready for Leena's baptism, and General Conference, the other soeurs are having exchanges, so I get to see the STL's this week, we are also going up to St. Brieuc to visit a less active, but she seems excited and will look for us at the gare! yay! Lots happening this week and the next we will have our zone conference here in Rennes again, but then right after we have our exchanges with the STL's and we will go to Nantes for that so yep lots happening then soon after we will have mission conference and I get to see everyone! And possibly ipads... lots happening to keep my mind here 
Love you all.
Have an awesome week!
Soeur Stevens