Week 40 - Living the Dream!!

L-R: Someone's hand, cutest little boy ever, cutest Soeur ever, Soeur Morrell, Soeur Hamner, front row three children getting baptized, back row elder and two members who performed the baptism

 Salut! 

This week was transfer week which meant lots of craziness! But things are going SO well in my new area. This area is a lot bigger than the others I've served in-- it includes three bigger towns: Sainte Rose, Lamentin, and Baie-Mahaut. It's also possibly the most beautiful place I've seen in my life. Rolling hills everywhere with huge mountains in the background, blue skies, palm trees and gorgeous flowers, a breath-taking ocean view every once in a while-- plus streets full of the sweetest people on the whole planet who I LOVE!! I could go on about this place forever!!

Also, the branch is AMAZING. The soeurs say it's the closest thing to a YSA in our mission because there are lots of young people. We also have some great leaders in our branch, including Elder Gamiette of the 70 and President Eclar, who is President Fisher's counselor. This branch truly feels more like a ward to me which makes me excited that we're getting closer and closer to having a stake here someday!!

Soeur Christianson is also an angel haha, we get along so well and just laugh and cry together all the time. Last night we were role playing putting three of our friends on date, and both of us could barely hold it together because the spirit was so strong. :) We are also both pretty obsessed with Haitains because we both served in Guyane (everyone who serves there basically ends up adoring Haitains by the end hahaha). We talk about them so much and just love them to pieces and we think that that attracts even more Haitains to us somehow because we've been meeting a LOT of them lately! You all are probably wondering why we're so crazy about Haitains and it's sort of hard to put into words, but basically we think they're just about the purest, most hilarious, kindest, most selfless, and most believing people out there. The other day we contacted a Haitain woman who was making plaintain banana chips-- basically they're fried plaintain and they're SO good! She offered us both our own bag for free, it was so sweet :)
This week, even though I got transferred, I got to go see the baptism of Yensane, Yeung, and Yenzan! It was THE MOST adorable baptism I have ever attended. They were so excited and there was so much support from the branch as well!! The spirit was so extremely strong and I teared up countless times haha. It was such a beautiful experience for me to be able to teach them, hear their story, and see their faith and testimonies grow. They are great examples to me of courage and perseverance. I love them so much my heart may just pop!! ❤



Other fun highlights of the week:
-In my last lesson with the kids, a member Soeur Felicité shared a little bit about her husband while we were talking about the temple. The kids asked her where her husband was, and she says so sweetly, "open my heart and you will find him." Haha everyone in the room thought that was the most adorable thing ever, me and the other soeurs were swooning over that for a looonngg time hahaha (actually we still are).
-A sweet old woman invited us into her home while it was pouring rain on us
-We saw more really really cute puppies (I don't know if I've missed one week without mentioning some cute animal or baby hahaha)
-The members were so willing to drive our friends to church and were so friendly with them at church!! Hooray for integration!! 😁
-We fixed some transfer goals that'll push us to work even harder and be happier! (because hard work=happiness)
-Someone asked Soeur Christianson if she stole her eyes from a cat
-We saw a very pregnant goat
-The new apartment I'm in is REALLY nice-- I have my own bathroom and everything is brand new and I feel kinda spoiled and guilty living here haha
-We saw our friend Jean-Luc, who's read the entire Book of Mormon and we think he'll get baptized this transfer too! He is the happiest person I've ever met! He's recently been through lots of hard things but his smile never ever leaves his face.

So basically I'm living the dream haha! Hope that you all had a good week and that it's maybe starting to warm up a little bit for you :)

Love you all tons!! 
Soeur Gardner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pre-mission preparations

Image
Soeur Gardner got on a plane a few hours ago, and now it's time to update her blog with all of the pre-mission preparations! February: Call received, started preparations for her visa, studied all we could about the French regions in the Caribbean March: Visa paperwork turned in, went through the Provo City Center temple for endowment April: Finished up the semester at BYU and traveled home for a few weeks May: This is where it got kind of crazy, so we will detail this! The first big event in May is that Morgan's best friend, Jacob, left on his full-time mission to Arizona. We love Jacob and wish him all the best as he serves the people there. Sometime in the middle of May (3 weeks before she was to leave), I heard from a mom in the Facebook group for the Barbados mission that she would need a face-to-face consulate visit in order to obtain a visa for the French regions, otherwise she may end up being a visa waiter. Not that it would be a huge deal to visa wait, but
Read more

Week 36 - Salut!!

Image
Salut!!! ça va?? Hope everyone had a great week as usual! Island life here in Guadeloupe is going pretty dandy! It started off really good with an awesome district council on Tuesday about the Spirit and revelation. It's incredible that each and every one of us, as children of our All-Knowing Heavenly Father, have the right and privelage to receive answers, guidance, and comfort directly from Him? On Tuesday we had almost an entire day of contacting out in the sun, and it was AMAZING!! We talked to a lot of people that were really cool and interested. We made a run to Burger King for dinner and there was a super adorable little girl there that I played hide and seek with while we waited for our food. On Thursday we taught a lesson to a really amazing woman, and her little 6 month old grandbaby was there. Man oh man was it hard to stay focused during that lesson, that baby was cuuuuttee!! It was one of the sweetest things, Soeur Elise, the member we brought with us,
Read more

Week 78 - Heeeeyyy, white people!! WHITE PEOPLE!!! WHIIITTEE!!

Image
Helloooo everybody!!  This was a really happy week because we got to get out of that house and do missionary work!! Sister Pennell got cured, and I was spared from the plague so that meant we got to talk to lots of people and enjoy being missionaries :) We got struck by a power outage this week and had to search for neighborhoods at night time that had lights on so we wouldn't be out in the darkness. We did work in the area book by flashlight and I grew more appreciation for actually having electricity haha. Miracles happen, though, because the power came back on before we had to go to sleep with no A/C  This has been a week of lots of contacting, which is awesome! President Fisher invited us to share the First Vision with 20 people every week, so we had to learn how to tie that into contacting more. It's been a really cool experience actually, and I've come to love sharing it more and more! People respond to it really well, and I think it sparks interest in the
Read more