Soeur Gardner's Caribbean Adventures

This week I was reminded that I truly am surrounded by the sweetest people ever here in Guadeloupe. Here's just some of the super sweet people we interacted with this week... 1) Junie, our recent convert, has been struggling with some stomach pain and just making ends meet for her family. But her faith is SO strong in God and she finds a lot of strength in the covenant she just made with him. She's just angel and lights up our day every time we see her!! 2) Vanessa (Junie's daughter) accepted to be baptized this week! I'm not exaggerating when I say how INCREDIBLE she is. She reads and understands scripture, asks deep, meaningful questions, has a personal relationship with her Savior-- she is so ready to be baptized on August 3 and we can't wait!! Getting to teach her has been so wonderful so far 3) The really sweet man with long silver hair who picks up the trash every morning in the park. He greets us with a "bonjour" every time we go run...

(Note: pictures from this week did not load correctly, so I took this one from the mission facebook page. This is Soeurs Gardner, Morrell, and Watling welcoming Soeur Kitchen to Guadeloupe.) :) This  week was pretty much crazy!  I said goodbye to my companion, Soeur Christianson, which was crazy hard!! She's become one of my best friends and it's a bit sad imagining the rest of my mission without her, but God also provides something new and wonderful, which in this case is my super cute and amazing new companion, Soeur Kitchen!! She's from Riverton, Utah, and these last few days with her have been so fun. She has such a sweet heart and is really motivated to get out there and dive into missionary work! We get along super well and I'm excited for the time we'll get to spend together :DOn Monday night we had a soirée familiale with Albie, another recent convert named Luther, the Eclar family, and a lady from the Abymes branch and it was a weird mixture ...

Bonjour mes amis!! :) This week was CRAZY but also super wonderful!! First, for the most exciting news..... JUNIE GOT BAPTIZED! It was a super wonderful and special week leading up to Saturday. We did a fast with her on Friday and she bore a really powerful testimony that she knows this restored Gospel is true and that it will infinintely bless her life.  Her baptism was absolutely beautiful.  And after Junie got baptized, Pegguy Afoy got baptized as well!! She's someone who I helped teach for a couple of months before she moved to the other branch-- their family is incredible, it's the part-member family I might have mentioned before. Except now it's an ALL-member family, which brings happiness to my heart! :) Second.... This was Soeur Christianson's last week, she leaves me tomorrow!!! :'( But that means that I'll be getting a new companion, and there's big news!! I'm training AGAIN! My new companion's name is Sist...

Hi everyone!! This week my testimony of God's hand in all things was truly strengthened. Every night when we take a look back on our day and all that happened, we realize how so many of the details must have been orchestrated by Him. One example is that on Friday, we turned a corner in this neighborhood in downtown Baie-Mahault and find this apartment complex that Soeur Christianson had been looking for-- and as we get closer, we see Roselynne, who was taught by the sisters about a year ago, outside struggling to carry in about 10 huge bags of groceries! She also is the cousin of Junie, our friend who's getting baptized (which will now for sure be THIS SATURDAY by the way  ). It was a miracle, first because we found those apartments, two because we were able to serve her and help her bring everything in, and third because we found her after she had lost touch with missionaries. We were also able to teach her a little lesson, after struggling a bit to find new friends to...