Week 42 - Beginning a new decade of life!!

Salut tout le monde! J'espère que vous allez bien!! :)

(Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well!)

This week was so good!! I think I reached a new level of loving our friends this week. I'm thinking about them all the time and I want to see them every single day and just talk to them for hours because they're all so precious to me! Soeur Christianson and I are possibly low-key obsessed with them haha. We had some really wonderful and spiritual lessons this week. One that particularly stands out in my mind was with the 3 young guys we're teaching getting baptized in April. We saw them with Ode, a member who got home from her mission a couple years ago. She served in London and she's the cutest ever. Anyways, we talked about some of the commandments with them, and I was just amazed at how open and ready they were to accept these commandments. I felt the Spirit testifying to me during that lesson how prepared they are for baptism. 

They also taught us a couple phrases in Creole! For example, to ask someone how their family is doing you say, "Koman fanmi ou ye?"

This week we did some service for a less active woman in our area. She's SO sweet. She showed us her little garden behind her house. LOTS of people here have gardens and eat fruits and vegetables they grow themselves. It's inspired me to have a garden myself one day. They also have tons of plants in their houses and on their porches, I think I'm gonna take that back home with me as well haha :) 

There are some pretty awesome people that we met this week! We contacted a neighborhood in Sainte Rose and came across three people that invited us to sit on their porch and talk for a little bit! Then yesterday we went back to see one of those people again, unfortunately he wasn't home. But as we were walking back, his wife who is a hilarious older woman from Dominca, came running after us and said, "Hey, will you give me one of your books??" So we grabbed her a Book of Mormon and she asked us, "Will you come back this week? I like talking about God!! Bring me a little book too!" (she was talking about those little brochures missionaries hand out) Haha it was so adorable how excited she was and we can't wait to teach her and her husband this week :)

Saturday was a crazy day!! That morning we had a lesson scheduled with this man that we met the week before. He had some questions about Mormons and polygamists and actually kinda accused us of lying that we aren't polygamists haha. So we were hoping to be able to clear some of that up! But when we call him that morning to confirm, he tells us to be sure to bring our work boots. We just looked at each other and said, "well, looks like we're doing some sort of service instead!" haha. We don't have boots but we grabbed our tennis shoes and drove over to his house. He meets us there and then we follow him to this field where his uncle and his cousin are out working too. He hands me a machete and shows me how to chop the grass-- I gave it a couple hits but I found out I'm not the most skilled with a machete haha. Then our friend decides he wants to knock some coconuts down from a tree! The tree is REALLY tall though, so we walk to another field and he cuts down a HUGE stick of bamboo. We help him carry it back and then he sticks it up the tree and knocks down about 6 coconuts, then chops them open with the machete. We drank the coconut water (and put it on our arms and face because apparently it's super good for skin). Then he cut out some of the meat in the middle and had us try that! It was pretty good but the texture is kinda slimy (think wet hard boiled egg haha). Anyways, that was our morning!!

After that adventure, we stopped and got lunch and drove over to this BEAUTIFUL spot with a really gorgeous ocean view during our lunch time. We had a little picnic there, it was amazing!! Something about being by the ocean makes me feel so much more alive-- almost more like myself in a way. So, soo thankful I get to serve in this beautiful mission :)

On Sunday I hit my 20th birthday!! That was a crazy feeling! It feels slightly surreal to be leaving behind my teenage years, but I'm really excited to see what Heavenly Father has in plan for the next decade of my life :)

Church was also SO good!! Soeur Christianson gave an awesome talk pumping up the branch to do missionary work. One of the leaders, President Eclar (he's President Fisher's counselor) also talked about how the Lord really is preparing a stake here and it's coming SOON! So the work is really hastening in this part of the world and it's insanely exciting. I feel so pumped to be a missionary here right now!!

Hope you all have a super wonderful week! Hopefully it's maybe warming up a little bit more as well :) 

Love,

Soeur Gardner