The time goes so fast… every week is crammed for Soeur Holt and those she serves with. We were shocked this week because p-day wasn’t spent playing ultimate Frisbee but the Sisters all went to the zoo; so cool all of the animals are from this area of the world and because of that the cages aren’t really cages and a lot of the exhibits are outside which made us all feel a lot happier about the welfare of the animals. Lots of pictures to come through with our adventures there including a walk in the canopy along lots of wobbly bridges. I got car sick coming back because it was deep in the forest with lots of windy roads.

Funny experience of the week was meeting Tom Jones’ mum. Well… not really! We met a lovely lady. She told us that in another life time she was Tom Jones’ (yes the welsh singer’s) mother. Today she received the calling from God to stop him from his provocative dance moves!!

Monday evening was Family Home Evening as usual. It was with the Verger family. Sister Verger, her son and two little girls. The eldest daughter, Emma is serving her mission on Soeur T’s islands in French Polynesia. We played a game of a face missing all its parts and we each took a turn to be blind folded before trying to stick the parts in the right place. All this to illustrate faith and how through faith and prayer and scripture study we can remove the blind fold- we used Alma 32.42-43.

And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst. Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.

We then ate and as I took the photo of our table it turns out that Sister Verger is a fan of our blog and is very excited to see what I will write about her!! Haha!  Well, hello Sister Verger, and thank you so much for all you’re doing to take care of our beautiful missionary!

Something cute- the littlest girl Alexia is maybe 3 and she plays with peoples ears when she loves them…she played with my ear!!!

Exchanges again this week which all seemed to be about the Book of Mormon- we dropped Soeur Reep off in abymes with Soeur t and then it was my turn for an exchange with Soeur Needs (our final one because she finishes her mission in 2 weeks!!) We did lots of contacting and gave out six Book of Mormons. As I spoke to millions of different people about the Book of Mormon it impressed me how truly it adapts to every person’s situations- a single mother and man searching for a job…all of our answers and help from Heavenly Father can be found in prayerful study of this book.

A really bizarre lesson in a stair well of a shopping centre with a young man. He had read the Restoration brochure and had questions about how he could know whether the Joseph Smith was prophet- so we gave him the Book of Mormon- he seemed interested and I really felt the spirit during the slightly awkward lesson but he said that he would read and get back to us. That afternoon we had a lesson about the Book of Mormon with a recent convert called Anita- she is super cool and is a retired Olympic runner and is maybe 6 foot.

Wednesday morning we had our exchange review. I am really going to miss Soeur Needs she has been the only Sister Training Leader that I have known and I love her so much. We have been through a lot together in our little transfer and then all the rest on pdays, exchanges etc. I wish you all could know her. Back to Abymes. I missed Soeur T so much and I think she missed me too. We talked about what we learnt from our exchanges and how we can apply those things in our work.

Church was interesting for the people of Abymes this week. In the Church we have a lay ministry which means that everyone has some kind of calling/responsibility. Our clergy (Bishops or Branch Presidents) have other jobs but minister to the members of the Church in their time outside of work, and are supported by other members. Soeur Holt has grown up with her parents always serving in the Church, and being served by others. Currently Soeur Holt’s dad serves as the Bishop of her home ward, something he did when she was a toddler too. This service is only for a period of time, so Soeur Holt is grateful for the service of the people in Abymes, and especially for our branch president who was released and replaced by President Otto. It brought to mind a lesson she taught this week about sacrifice I love the quote by Joseph Smith that we shared I can only think of it in French but something like a religion without sacrifice can never make the change of heart necessary to inherit eternal life [“a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation”]. It is so true and I am grateful for the blessing that I receive every single day as a direct result of sacrifices that I have made.

Soeur Holt has got so used to speaking French that we had forgotten that it isn’t the only language spoken on the island. A lesson with a man called Joseph. Not super great because he told us that he can’t understand French so we tried with our broken creole- Soeur Volet who was there, translated for us. This is the first person I have met who can’t understand French only creole- the two languages are so similar even I can understand most creole and speak a little bit. It’s just like broken unconjugated French. So yes! Plan of salvation creole version. Wikipedia gives us some examples of some Creole phrases that might help those not familiar understand it a little bit:

Hello – bonjou /bonzu/ (from “bonjour”).

Please – souplé /su ple/ (from “s’il vous plaît”).

Thank you – mèsi /mɛsi/ (from “merci”).

Excuse me – eskizé mwen (from “excusez-moi”).

Rain is falling – lapli ka tonbé / lapli ap tonbe (Haitian) / (from “la pluie qui est à tomber”).

Today is a nice/beautiful day – jodi-a sé an bel jounin / yon bel jou jodi-a bel (from “aujourd’hui c’est une belle journée”).

How are you/how are you keeping – ka ou fè?

Contacting this week included Mr Bricolage which is like B&Q.

Friday was made brighter in the afternoon after going to do some gardening for a man called Rodrique and he hadn’t prepared the stuff for us to do so we were able to talk about the first principle of the Restoration that God is our loving Heavenly Father and he loves us as his children.

We visited Soeur Rosa- she was sick in bed. We talked about what she can do and the comfort that she can receive through the priesthood blessing and through the Holy Ghost and the strength of Christ. We left her, I think, better for the company and a little more cheerful.

got to go but love you all xxx