Week 5 - Living it up in FG!

Hello hello everybody!! Hope you had a great week!!

This week for me has been good, it actually went fairly fast! Im starting to get into the groove of missionary work and am beginning to feel a little more comfortable. The French is still hard for me, but I improve a little bit every day and Im slowly starting to understand people more. Sometimes I randomly start thinking in French which has been fun! Im excited to have my first French dream, thats a big milestone for the missionaries here haha :)

We are still doing lots of contacting and lots of walking! My feet are taking a bit of a beating  and they have some funky tan lines from my shoes haha! I also have a great sunburn on my legs thats a little bit painful, but its gotten better over the past few days! All this walking is hard but its good for me, lots of exercise! I can feel myself getting healthier, which has been a blessing for sure!

Some of the highlights from this week:

-Playing sports with our friends! (no longer supposed to use the word "investigator"). All the missionaries and anyone else who wants to can come and play basketball or soccer with us outside on Wed night. It was such a blast!!! We played basketball in the pouring rain and got SOAKED, but it really was super fun and I even got a couple hoops!!

-We have been having some interesting experiences with one woman this week. At the beginning of the week she stopped Sr. Krucher on the street and told her she was going to call the police on her and some other jibberish I didnt understand. A couple days later, we were walking and she saw us and starting following us and yelling things at us in French-- it was a little scary and I had no idea what she was going to do. We called the Elders for advice, but she started getting closer and closer to us so we just BOOKED it haha!! Lots of adrenaline in that moment lol. We ran around the corner and onto this little street and luckily she didnt follow us. Miraculously, we ran right to a house where we have some people were teaching, a really really sweet family. Usually theyre too busy for a lesson and we just chat with the kids a little, but this time they let us in for a lesson! I really felt that was a blessing from Heavenly father so we could have a safe place to get away from the woman following us. Who knows what would have happened if she caught up to us, it might have not been a big deal, but I really felt it was a miracle.

-My new mission president came to church yesterday!! It hadnt been that long since I saw him and his wife but it was so good to see them again. I really have so much love for them. We got to go contacting with Sis Fisher last night, which was really fun. We found some people who might be interested, I think having her there with us brought blessings :)

-Im learning to really appreciate the rain here!! Weve had a couple really good downpours this week, which is great to cool us down while were walking. Plus something about it just relaxes me and puts me in a good mood. So pray for more rain to come our way this week haha! :)

-We had a lesson a couple nights ago with a super sweet woman. She brought us a pineapple, it was super good! We had a really long discussion with her about religion-- shes very passionate about the church shes in, but hopefully we were able to bring her a little closer to Christ.

-I really love the kids here! There are so many babies and young kids here and I just love it. Sometimes a 3 year old answers the door and its just really cute haha.

-Hopefully next week we will be getting a truck!! We actually are usually supposed to have one, but the Zone Leaders car has been having some issues so they took our truck. But apparently our truck will be back soon and Ill get to drive it! ive always wanted to drive a truck so Im hyped for that! :)

-Im always touched by how kind the people are here. Most of them arent very interested in the Gospel or are already very passionate about their own religions, but they treat us with so much love and kindness. Theyre just friendly people and they know whats really important in life.

-People here LOVE LOVE LOVE soccer!! There was a game on Friday and everyone was super into it. As we were contacting that day we heard people yelling whenever there was a goal or pounding on their car horns as they were driving with huge flags hanging out their windows haha!! Its funny to see!

I am starting to really love being a missionary. Its hard work and we might not find many people who are very interested in our message, but the work truly brings joy to my life. I have been relying on the Savior to get me through and I know I couldnt do it without Him and His Atonement. It enables me to overcome my weaknesses and improve and grow every day.

Sending you all my love! Youre in my thoughts and prayers!

Bisous,

Soeur Gardner