Week 64 - THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING

BONJOUR!!! As you can tell I'm very excited because this was an incredible week!! :)

It actually started off on a bit of a weird foor-- we ended up having to spend a lot of our time running things around to other missionaries and doing little errands since 2 of the cars broke down including the Zone Leaders, and the Senior couple got back from the youth conference in the Dominican Republic this week. So the week was pretty crazy at first and Soeur Kitchen and I were starting to get hungry just for a nice long day of normal missionary work without any things coming up taking us away from our area.

But the last few days of the week have been WONDERFUL!

On Friday we had Zone Conference!! Soeur Kitchen and I shared my love of Hawaiian haystacks and the newfound cream of chicken soup in the foreign foods aisle haha. We made lunch for the whole zone which was a little crazy but everything turned out good!! :)

Zone Conference was incredible as well. We talked a lot about the training plans we've been using the past five transfers and how we can continue applying them. Hearing from President Fisher is always so uplifting and I took away a lot of things to continue applying in the work and keep it going!

That night we had a lesson with our friend Wilens. He's a really nice younger Haitain man who stopped us while we were contacting a few weeks ago and was super open to learning more about the Gospel! That night we were teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and applied something we had talked about that day in zone conference-- extending a commitment that the person is actually more likely to say no to, which allows us to explore their concerns and help them progress more in the Gospel. So in that lesson, we extended a baptismal date to Wilens!! He paused for a moment and thought, and then gave us a big smile and said, "Pa ni pwoblèm!!" which means "no problem!" in Creole :) The next day he came to the baptism and to church on Sunday!! He's awesome! :)

And as I already kinda said, on Saturday, our adorable 13 year old friend, Vanessa, got baptized!! It was SO beautiful, she looked gorgeous in her white dress and was seriously so so excited. She bore her testimony afterwards and talked about how ever since she was little, she had a dream of being baptized (most righteous childhood dream I've ever heard of hahaha!). She said she is soo happy to finally have that dream come true. She also thanked "les filles" (the girls), aka the sister missionaries for helping her understand the scriptures and learn about Christ. Her testimony was definitely a tear jerker :')

She was baptized along with another man named Geoffroy taught by the Elders!

Sunday was wonderful because Wilens came to church, and our other crazy adorable Haitain friend Eugène. We've been able to keep in daily contact with him this week through phone calls and I die after every one because he's just ridiculously... Haitain? I don't know if there's a better adjective to describe it haha!! But he made it to church on Sunday as well and had a really great experience. And I was in heaven because we had two Haitains at church!! Also everyone should check out the video of the Haiti temple open house because it's beautiful and almost made me cry seeing Haitains walking up to their very own temple!!!!  Can you tell I'm obsessed with Haitains yet? 

We had a miracle yesterday!! We were going to visit a man named Claude, who we had contacted really fast a couple days before while he was weed whipping. He called the phone number on the brochure we gave on Sunday morning and said he'd read and had a few questions about Joseph Smith. So we set an appointment for that afternoon, only knowing that he lives in Sainte Rose which includes quite a few large neighborhoods and downtowny areas. 

Before our lesson, we stopped at another's friend house really fast to drop off some birthday cake. We decided to run over to another house a couple houses down to see if another man was there that we had talked to a few weeks ago to do a little follow-up. We ended up meeting his son who also is super cool and interested and accepted a Book of Mormon! 

Then it was time for us to head to the lesson with Claude. We were planning on hopping in the car and calling him so he could tell us which part of Sainte Rose he lives and so he could help us find his house. Soeur Kitchen started climbing in the car and I got ready to do the backup when this man comes out of the house we're parked literally RIGHT next to. Like he is the neighbor of the friends we gave birthday cake to! He comes out and says, "Hey, I'm ready for my lesson, why are you leaving?" and I say, "No way, are you Claude??" and he says, "Yeah! I called you this morning! I was just about to leave but I guess I'll let you stay for a little to answer my questions." 

So in the end, we drove literally RIGHT to his house without having the slightest idea of where he lived!! A huge miracle!

Fun fact: This happened in the same neighborhood as the similar experience we had about 2 weeks ago when we found Elisabeth's house. In conclusion, that neighborhood is magical and we've started calling it the City of Enoch haha!

TRANSFER NEWS:

I'm sadly going to be leaving the beautiful area of Sainte Rose this week!! I've been called to return to ABYMES, the other area on Guadeloupe that I served in about 6 months ago for a transfer. I'll be serving with Soeur Herrera! She's been out for 6 weeks and was Soeur Kitchen's companion in the MTC so we're doing a little switcheroo, haha. But I'm so excited to be back in Abymes!! I love that area and the branch and it'll be super cool to see how the area has grown since I was there and to catch up with the dear friends I made!

JE VOUS AIME!!

Soeur Gardner

Hope all these pics upload! I sent lots to my mom that I think she posts on a blog she made haha, so maybe check that out for more :)

Including the huge shopping trip we made for the Hawaiian Haystack Zone Conference meal (thank you sister missionary dresses for being able to carry in all the groceries when we forgot our grocery bags; no plastic bags here!), another groceries picture from when we had to share our car with the sisters because the Elders were in ours, an old picture of me and Soeur Kitchen eating bokits, and some pictures from Vanessa's baptism!