Hot temps, french speaking update and love for France…( response to Dad's letter)

AH I will be in Paris July 2nd and July 3rd, too bad I just barely missed them! Its ok though. We have zone conference ther in St. Merri again, and also I have my 2nd year legality so we get 2 days there, and I am staying with s.simpson, and s.tippett, so that will be so fun! The weather here is SUPER HOT. the same as you guys, except france does not have AC. At all. Our apt. is a oven literally. the church has no AC either, we have resorted to our 1 fan, and the members are asking President to give us permission to stay inside during the really hot afternoon hours because they said if we go out for more than 30 min we will get heat stroke. SO HOT. But other than fighting the heat we had exchanges this week and I was with a francophone from Bordeaux. It was really fun, I got to speak a ton of french, and the best part was at the end she told me that my accent does not sound like an american speaking french. she said the way I formed my sounds was very french. She said it was refreshing becasue a lot of missionarries work hard on their grammer, which is good, but at the same time, half the language is the accent. so that was really cool. We had a fun exchange, we met with a less active and she taught us how to make beignets. It was just fun to be with a francophone too. I didnt get a pic of it though, darn. anyway. S.Erickson and I continue to have the time of our lives here. Really, I finally feel comfortable with the life, the language, and the culture here. It is literally my home, I love France dad. Its really amazing. The other day S.Erickson and I thought about going home, and we both almost cried. We are more than excited to be with and see family again, but its really amazing what this life has turned us into. 

I love you and hope you have an awesome week!

love,

Ashley 

Teaching by the spirit….( response to mom's letter)

So this week was really fun, something spiritual. We have this new amie, with the Ipad thing Im really not supposed to tell you details of our work btw. Its illeagal here in France to put information on someonelse on the internet. But, she is cute. and the last lesson, we talked about the plan de salut. the plan of salvation. it was very heartfelt and strong, she has such a sincere desire to do the right thing in life. Oh I really admire her. So we talked about baptism. and I asked her if she felt she had recieved a response from her prayer asking if it was the truth. she said she felt a very peaceful calmness. and i asked her if she thought it was the spirit. she said she knew it was, and she knows this is the truth. MOM IT WAS SO COOL! So please please pray for "Venessa" this week. We are going to try and set a baptismal date tomorrow with her. She is amazing. We really feel like the spirit is so strong in her lessons. and I know one of the biggest things we can do it LISTEN to the spirit, and ASK inspired questions, based on our listening. When we do this, everything works in harmony and the investigator can really feel the truth for themselves.

I love you and have an awesome week this week!

Love soeur Stevens 

Random pics...

The first is when we were at a members house for dinner, the next is after church s.Erickson snapped it right as I was laughing lol, but that is JJ or Joseph James haha he is from Liverpool england here for studies and he always walks with us home... he got baptised almost a year ago! Preparing for the temple!!!

Yummy Food!

like look at the size of that cheese!!!

Macaroons!!

The elders love us:) or they are in love with my companion... one of the two haha

Loving Orleans

Hey mom, so glad you guys had so much fun this week in California!! That looks so fun! Oh how I wish I could have been there!, but its ok becuase I know im exactly where I need to be right now. I LOVE it here, S.Erickson is an amazing companion and we continue to just be awesome friends. I am so happy and we just work a lot, teach a lot, but we have so many adventures doing so. It was the French nation music festival here and there was music on every rue! It was so much fun to see the entire town get together, and just play some cool like "african" music, but like fifa stuff, so everyone was just "together" and it brought a really cool spirit to the town. Its just a very happy place to be during the summer. I couldnt think of a better way to start off the summer than this! 

Ah I really do love it here mom, its so amazing, if this was the rest of my mission, I would never want to leave! haha, but about that, Im still praying and will get back to you later, I will have to talk to President about it again, but anyway. I love you all, hope you will have a fun week!

keep laughing, keep smiling, keep praying!

Love you tons!

Soeur Stevens

A conversation back and forth with Ashley and these were her responses!

hey yes I am here, I will try and get some pics of Chateaus near by next pdays, today it was really overcast, and we were worried if it would rain.

hahah i have make up that is spf 20 and some sun block that is 30, but yes and the hotter it gets, the more burn it becomes, ahah we will have to break out the sunblock soon!

I sent it to you guys in oregon, i sent andrew a letter at that address, but it never got to him, so I figured he will just get it when he comes home, it was a safer bet, and a lot cheaper.

oh if you ever get like little samples of laundry dryer stuff, bleach, or softener, everyone hand drys their clothes in france, but we have dryers, but nothing like the soap or nice smelling stuff like the usa, somethimes i have to wash my g's like 3 times before they smell good enough to wear haha 

i have started to do some video diaries so when i send this next sd card home it will have some 

longer videos. 

If you ever are wondering about what I am doing during the week, just know I am loving life, laughing, and probably teaching someone about the gospel. LIFE IS GOOD,

Im excited to come back here  with you all!. Also side note, everybody here thinks im russian....EVERYBODY! hahaha 

anyways im going to go, but thanks for chatting, I love you and hope you have an awesome week!