Bonjour ma famille!
Sorry that I haven't written yet. The mission P-day is on Monday, but our district is in charge of the new visitor's center on Monday's so our P-day is on Saturdays.
Wow it seems like I've been here a lot longer than one week and I have loved it! I actually felt very normal when I came walking out of the plane and I loved hearing all of the French around me. I did fly by myself and sat next to a man who has live all over the world; he works for the military, but is stationed where ever he wants to go, in fact he has lived on every continent except for Africa (yes, he has lived in Antarctica). He told me lots about all of his experiences with that and then I slept for a very long time, because I knew once I got to France it would be the middle of the night in Utah and I wouldn't get to sleep for another 10 hours. When I woke up and before getting off the plane I talked to him a little bit about the church and he said he has some Mormon friends. I just bore a short and simple testimony to him about how the gospel has blessed my life and the reason I'm on a mission is because I want to share it with others. I gave him a pass-along card and I told him that even though he won't be in the US for a long time he could look at
mormon.org if he is interested in learning more about the church.
When I got off the plane I walked to customs to get my passport stamped and a lady standing in front of me in the line saw me and got the biggest smile on her face. She pointed at my missionary tag and said, "You're a missionary!" I asked if she was a member and she said, "Yes. Isn't it so nice to see a familiar face?" She doesn't even know me, but I love the fact that she used the word familiar with me, because it's so true that no matter where you are in the world when you run into a member of the church you feel like you're at home. She then started crying and said, "I just saw the missionary off who baptized me. It's because of missionaries like you that I have an eternal family now. You're doing a great work, and don't forget it." She was so kind and it was such a neat experience! What better way than that to start off the first day of your mission?
The AP's, Elder Schwind and Elder Helvey (the brother to Brittany Helvey, Allyson's roommate while in Paris), picked me up from the airport. We got to the mission home and ate lunch with President and Sister Staheli and the AP's, my companions, and two other new missionaries (French missionaries waiting for their US visas) and their companions. I love President and Sister Staheli! They are wonderful, President Staheli is so funny and Sister Staheli is always smiling (she reminds me of you mom).
I am serving in Versailles with Sister Gappmaier (from Switzerland) and Sister Larsen (from Utah) they are both so wonderful and fun and dedicated missionaries. Sister Gappmaier goes home in two weeks! I'm going to miss her, and Sister Larsen got here 1 transfer before me but is already amazing with her French.
Yes it's hard to understand people, because they speak so fast! but I'm not surprised, it's what I expected. I can usually get the main gist of what they're talking about though. And I can tell that it has slowly been getting easier compared to a week ago.
Almost all of our amis (or investigators) are African so I've had to try and get used to their accents. One family we are teaching is from Portugal (originally Africa) and I am in love with them. The parents are Julia and Rui and they have a 14 year old son named Philippe and a 6 year old daughter named Bruna. They are progressing so well and have been continually reading the Book of Mormon. They are going to come to church for the second time tomorrow. My dream is for them to be sealed as a family in the temple for all eternity (congratulations by the way to Kelli and Adam! That is so exciting I'm so happy for them. And Ryan I'm so glad you were able to go through the temple last week and I'm grateful you're worthy to do so.) We have two other progressing amis, one who is getting baptized next week and then a 9 year old son of a less active member who set a baptismal date for March 19). We actually have lots of other amis, but some of them are hard to get ahold of and others don't understand the importance of keeping commitments.
We had Elder Hallstrom and Elder Teixeira come on Tuesday! That was a wonderful meeting and Elder Hallstrom talked a lot about having faith and being 100% obedient. Obedience isn't so much about what we can and can't do, it's about showing the Lord that we are willing to keep our part of the covenant and then he will poor blessings down upon us.
We then had two days of training on Thursday and Friday, learning about the simplified curriculum. All of these meetings were amazing and I always feel like they're directed toward me. My companions and I have immediately started applying what we learned and our rendez-vous (appointments) have already been going so much better.
Today for P-day our district went to the Opera house in Paris and then we went and got Kebabs (they were very good, but probably the least healthy kind of meat for you). Oh and outside of the restaurant there was a big march going on for peace between Arabs and Jews (don't worry we stayed inside the restaurant until it ended). My companions and I are in the district with all of the office Elders. They,re all great missionaries.
Well I should go, I would have emailed earlier, but we got stuck in Traffic in Paris. I'll send pictures next week.
Love you all!
Bisous,
Soeur Valerie Reeves
