The lucky number 6

Bonjour toute le monde!

Encore je n'ai pas le temps pour bien ecrire le post aujurd'hui. Je suis telement d'esole! Je sais que vous aimez bien ma parole n'est pas? Ok la francais, c'est fini. j'ai fini avec ca.

(translation: again, i don't have time to write well today. I am soo sorry. I know that you really love my words don't you? Ok french, it's over. i'm done with that.)

I'm so clever!

Did you know that this last week was a land mark in the life or mormon missionary dom. I rolled right on through my 6 month mark. Just to make sure it was officially recognized i ate lots of wonderful, not american chinese, chinese. man nothing says life mark like eggrolls and chopsticks. yummy.

And today becuase of local events you may have heard of, we are limited to the efficiancie of pedestrian life. Does efficiancie have a y? I'm so confused with things english france back and forth craziness! regardless of my limited capacity to communicate, i have many things to tell you and very little time. if we want to eat this week we have to get our shopping done before 5 pm and it's already 4 and takes 1/2 by metro. a slight predicament. ahhhh....the life....

If any of you might by chance be loosing sleep becuase you are so concerned for your favorite missionary in little old france, i'm ok. Political activity has very limited inluence on the daily life of a missionary. We are safe, on alert, and still progressing in the work. An apostle said in april conference "when you are on the lord's errand you are entitled to the lord's help." There ya have it. we are serving the lord and he knows where we are. if we are obedient, meaning 9:00 pm curfew for real, we are goign to be kept safe. So go back to sleep! Life is good for the obedient!

Ok so tagent over, Les Miracles de jour...

Nov 1 - First of all the senior couple just gave us the car for the day! what??? it was awesome. We went to a book store to get a chineese dictionary so we can teach this chinesse chick. for somereason we thought just a dictionary would enable us to actually speak a language, let alone communicate about God to a girl who is totally new to the idea. And we meet this Macedonian guy who was so excited to meet the missionaries. turns out he already had a map to the church in his pocket. what the miracle? Soeur Johnson decided to go talk to a family we saw in a patisserie and they ended up giving us free rasberry tarts. yummy! I love missionary work. A lady that I met 5 weeks ago, Marie Antoinette, found us again. She said she would call us last time but we never heard from her again. and today we were deciding bus or metro bus or metro. we decided metro and bam there she was. she said she was ready to be taught again. and there you have it. we set up an apointment right there and bam! miracle. president called at 10:00 just to say hi and see how i was doing. he's such an amazing guy.

Nov 2- met a lady named Farida who was so drunk that she was dancing in the middle of the public square. Why do people have to be drunk to dance in public. Dance!!!! Farida means sunshine in Arabic. I liked her. Taught english class tonight. I really really love teaching. I think i might look into that. They actaully got it tonight to. So do you know how sacred the present tense is? And to see the look in their eyes when they could conjugate! It was magic.

Nov 3- we sang nearer my god to thee with a lady in a wheel chair. Her name is Reine. It means queen. She doens't feel like a queen but she will. She is. What a good name reine. My big 6. 1/3 is gone. Loving that. My companions' advice for the next year: Keep going. Ask the lord to change you not to change the situation. ask for strength to change you not to change others. have a living testimony of Christ. Be good within yourself. Find the joy. If you are not happy, change it. They are smart huh? We went to a artist exibition of a less active member. It was amazing. Her whole show was about creating your own reality. Making it yours. and she made a painting for women. and she got all fired up and said il faut bouger! je vais bouger. One must move. I'm going to move! Talking about how we must act to help women and create the occasion for women to create their own reality. If a woman is not alowed to read, how can she chose her own life? One must act! You know I was drinking it up!

Nov 4- Teaching our Metro Miracle girl. Marie antoinette. Ok it was amazing. Absolutly amazing. She doesn't belive that God loves her. do you know how rewarding it is to tell someone that God loves them? And to really know, really know that He really really does? Ok i'll just tell ya, it's good stuff. Try it sometime. As a mater of fact, try it to your self. Go look in the mirror and practice. Do it. It will make your day. A 17 year old girl named marion put zit cream on my face tonight while sitting in McDoe. Nothing says love like zit cream.

Nov 5- Teaching Sophiane. We talked to him on the phone and the high pitched voice threw us. Thought it was a woman. So we set up the rendez vous with anouther femal member of the church. Turns out, nope it's a dude. It was wonderfuly akward. but such an amazing lesson. Loved the cold winter day. I wore gloves. I love gloves. Its just fun to touch things with gloves on. Things feel different on cold winter days wearing gloves. Transfer calls. Dun dun dun...6 more weeks in toulouse. yippie!!!

Nov 6 - Seeing a muslim lady crying at the bus stop and really feeling my heart breaking for her. I cried. I actaully cried becuase this lady I didn't know, and didn't talk to was crying at the bus stop. Who am I? So we talked to her and helped her carry her grocery bags home. She had just found out that she lost her brother. Very sad. We were 10 minutes late to church but it was so worth it. I really love strangers. What the weird o? I'm so weird. Funny huh that it makes me weird to love a stranger and be sad when she is sad? What's wrong with the world? Why is that abnormal? Oh so the Macedonian bookstore miracle? He came to church! Yes! But turns out he was homeless and looking for food. He slept in a classroom through all three hours. Poor guy.

Nov 7- Getting a stack of letters! Love you guys! Girls night family home evening. Getting a letter about my parents new house. It looks like it should be in a movie! Awesome. Love it. Meeting a lady randomly on the street who said if i go to africa I can stay with her family. Just like that. after 5 minutes of conversation, she offered my her family as a home in africa. Amazing. I'm so going there. I don't know if they have need of me but one day, i will be there. I will be in africa.

Nov 8- today we took a historic tour of toulouse. a member of the church, an amazing woman, told us the secret history of toulouse. it was awesome! I love love love strong intelligent educated women. But she is also a woman of faith. and that is what makes her even cooler. its so fun to discover the little parts of a big city. Loved it. I'm so blessed to have had such strong woman in my life. Starting with my strong amazing mom! i'm so lucky!

Ok sorry for the spelling errors. thinking, typing, all at warp spead. it 's not working out too well.

Love you all, keep the letters flowing!

Shai