March 18, 2013

Ma chère famille, 

I'm here!!! In Sixième and I'm with Soeur Lamb and it's great!! Well, actually, I'm technically in Rivière Salée now cause that's where our internet place is, but yah. Speaking of which, that's miracle number one of the week. The place we do internet now is free. Well, we had to pay 1000 francs to subscribe to this place, but after that it's free. The thing is, I had been spending that once a week for email, soooo, HUGE bénédiction blessing. Thank you Heavenly Father. Even if I'm only here for one transfer, that'll save me 5000 francs. And if I ever come back to Sixieme or Ducos this year I can still use it. So it's great. 

Anyways, that's not very important. But I'm à pied on foot now, and I've learned lots this week about being on foot. What to do, what not to do. First of all, I found out yesterday, cause Sundays are my make up day, every other day laisse tomber.let it drop/ forget it But, apparently, I will no longer be wearing eyeliner. Because I put it on before church, and we actually got a ride to and from church this week, cause we had to pick up food after, the members here are soooooo kind. I can't get over it. But, anyways, we had a lesson right after church, so after Ducos dropped us off with our food we took off booking it to our lesson, who lives a bit away. But, long story short, I looked like a soaking wet Yzme from the Emporer's New Groove by the time we got there. Soeur Lamb was very alarmed. And was motioning mid lesson for me to wipe off my face, didn't even come close to getting it all, cause I looked in a mirror when I got home. I'm sure between that and the fact that my fro is constantly bigger than my face was quite a site to see walking there and back. Also, I broke out the mole skin this week. I am still loving my chacos. They are miracles, like seriously, I'm considering advertising for them for missionaries when I get home, but being on your feet all day everyday will do that. I have one little blister, but my feet are in surprisingly good shape. Also, I will never whine about fasting again. We fasted Saturday Sunday and ohhh man. It has never been harder. It was the water factor... I could have kept going with the food after 24 hours, but I legit downed a liter of water in like 5 minutes when we broke our fast. Also, we chose Saturday afternoon to explore our sector and walk every road so that we knew where everything was. Looking back, not the brightest idea. Mais! Je suis toujours en vie.  But, I'm still alive!

But, other than that, I am loving it here. It feels like home. It was SOOO good to finally move in Wednesday afternoon. We met all the members this week, and we visited almost all the members that lived here in person, which was my goal, so I'm super stoked. Some of them just wanted to see us at church, so we just took some time to talk with them there. But yah! It's great! There are about 7 families that live in our area, so it's a good amount. We have our choice of people to choose from to take with us for lessons, now we just gotta get some lessons lined up! Working on it... But yes, I am thrilled to be here. And to be here with Soeur Lamb. We are working hard and being obedient. I know that we will see miracles. I'm so happy and blessed to be here, and it's hard to open a sector, but I know that we can do it with the Lord's help. This week has been lots of finding, but even more than that, just introducing ourselves to the people that live in this sector. The people here are not used to seeing missionaries walking around Sixième, so we've been trying to find people to teach for sure, but we've also just been knocking doors letting people know who we are and why we're here. We've been taking the Ammon approach-offering service to the people that live in this sector, and it has been a blessing. I love it here. The people and members are great, and I feel so blessed to be here.

And, leave it to Soeur Lamb and I to have the weirdest experiences here in like our first two days here. Goodness grach. Day one. We're looking for an inactive member, the ZL's showed us where she lives (cause one of them covered this area with 7ieme in the last year ish.) so we went there that very same afternoon to try and track her down, but apparently she moved. We did however get greeted by an older women, "Mami." And she's great. She invited us in and we talked a bit. Actually, she did most of the talking. But, she was talking in third person the entire time. I was confused at first, but then I got it. That was my first french third person narraration experience. hah. Also, she went to the back to get something right before we were about to leave, she comes back and sticks 5 mille (5 thousand)  down each of our shirts (the equivalent of 50 dollars.) So that was day number one here. We tried to give it back, but she wouldn't let us. Since this day, we've tried twice, but no luck so far. It's in la bible blanche (the white bible, aka the missionary handook) though that we can't let people give us money, so we're gonna try maybs one more time to give it back, but if not, we'll probs just give it to Elder Syphus. He'll know what to do. 

That was day one... And day two. We tried to find Victoria, an ancien ami,(former investigator) but she wasn't there, so we knocked her building. The first door we came to an older lady named Gabriella let us in. She's Catholic. I didn't know it until Soeur Lamb whispered something to me, but she was very drunk. Which came to light when she said that she thought it was September, and then May later on. But, that wasn't the best part. We were trying to set a day to come back, and we asked if we could have her number, but she didn't know where her phone was and she didn't know what her number was. So she began wondering the house picking up and unfolding every single piece of paper to see if her number was written on one of them. Apparently I made a face, because Soeur Lamb looked at me and completely lost it. Like tears were coming out of her eyes she was laughing so hard. And I joined her not to long after. It was bad. But it was too funny. We're going back this week. Hopefully she'll be a little more sober.

Well, I didn't get to everything, but time's up. Anyways, I love you family! Thank you so much for your love and support! I know that you are praying for me and I love and pray for you too! Vous êtes les meilleurs!  You're the best!

L'evangile est vrai!

Love, Soeur Santos

p.s. PICS. Next week. I'm sorry! I promise.