blessings

Bonjour!!
I hope everyone had a good week and hopefully no one melted from the heat;) Shout out to Mama and Papa Holmes who celebrated 26 years of marriage on Saturday! Way to go! I love you:)

This week was SO good. I'll start out with our amazing zone conference with President and Sister Brown! They are such kind, loving, happy people. They light up a room. When they were talking I felt so much love from them. I really could feel the love they have for each and every one of us. When we went up and shook their hands they already knew our names, even our first names! So cute. They really have been preparing to come here. We all were able to have an interview with President Brown, and it was so good!! During my interview he promised me that even though the work is hard here in Cannes, that miracles were coming our way. I saw that promised fulfilled this week in more ways than one.
Miracle 1: Amelia. So we were coming home from zone conference and we decided to contact on the way back to our apartment. So we are going along and talking to people and we are hearing lots of no, no, no. Then we stop this lady. We ask her if we could do the questionnaire with her and she told us yes we could if we hurried:) so we start talking to this lady when she stops us and says, "are you Mormon?" We told her that we are and she said, "actually I don't really like Mormons that much.
" So we asked her why and she told us that we do weird things like pay 10 percent of our income to the church, and that we are some sort of weird sect, etc. So we start talking to her about tithing and explained why we do it and the blessings we receive from paying our tithing. By the end of the conversation she told us that paying tithing actually makes sense and that in comparison to everything God gives us, it is the least we can do. Then we clarified that we aren't a sect:) We kept talking to her and she just opened up and really told us how she was feeling and how she is going through hard times but she knows that God is there and He never leaves her alone. SHE IS SO COOL! By the end of the conversation she gave us her number and let us pray with her on the street. As we were going to leave she said to us "you know, I don't think it was an accident that we met today." Turns out she never really leaves her house because she is just really lost right now and she doesn't want to go out and be surrounded by "the world". She just randomly decided to go take her dog for a little walk as soon as we were walking up the street. Not a coincidence. God's hand is in every situation of our lives. I'm so glad we met Amelia.

Miracle 2: So we show up to our ward council on Friday when a member of the bishopric walks up to us and says, "Sisters, remember that friend I have been trying to share the Gospel with for a while? Well she came over to our house on Monday for FHE and she wants to meet the missionaries!" That might not sound exciting, but here, that NEVER happens. Very rare. We were so stoked! Not only is someone interested in learning more about the church, but she is the friend of a member! It's a missionaries dream:)

Miracle 3: So I don't know if you remember this, but there is a recent convert in Cannes named Raphael. He got baptized in January and is so cool! Well since the end of March he's been mia. No one can get a hold of him, he doesn't answer his door, won't call us back, nothing. It was so weird. He was coming to church and meeting with us and then all of a sudden he just stopped and no one knew what happened. So since March we have all been super worried. Well we were on the bus on Saturday and guess who I saw walking down the street?? Raphael!!! I about died in my seat! So I quickly pick up the phone and call him and he answered! What?! He was being kinda weird on the phone and he wouldn't fix a rendezvous with us because he didn't know his schedule, but hey he is alive! It was a really cool tender mercy.

Plenty of really cool little things happened this week, but those were the three that stuck out to me the most. I really saw President's promise fulfilled. Not only that but two fast Sunday's ago we had a ward fast concentrated on missionary work. I'm certain that those miracles came from the fast. It's also really cool because Frere Rutily the one who his friend wants to meet with us, bore a really powerful testimony on Sunday about his desire to share the Gospel and his hopes of having opportunities. God answers our prayers. He loves us so much.

Also in the week we had the opportunity to go to Aix and do an exchange with the STL's there. It was so great! Like I said I love exchanges and the opportunities we have to learn from one another. Aix is beautiful and the people are so nice! We were able to meet really cool less actives, recent converts, amis, and members there. We had a really cool experience with a recent convert there named Rachelle. She got baptized about a month ago and she is so cool. So solid. We sat down and prayed to start our lesson when she said, "sisters, can I ask you a question?" Of course we said yes and she began to pour her little heart out to us about how scared she was to give a talk in Sacrament because she felt inadequate since she hasn't been a member that long. We reassured her that Heavenly Father would help her and that she didn't need to feel like she had to impress the members, that the Spirit would teach them. It just was really touching to see this recent convert of a year so humble and ready to do what Lord asked of her, even though she was scared of messing up. Then we showed her a video by Elder Holland called Good things to Come. In the video there is a quote that says something along the lines of, "some blessings come soon, and some blessings come late, and some blessings don't come until Heaven. But for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." This is true. Heavenly Father will always bless us for doing what He asks, but sometimes we have to be patient and wait for these blessings to come. At the end of the video Rachelle was like, "Honestly I'm not even waiting for blessings, being a member of this church is a blessing enough, I couldn't want anything more." Now that is a humble disciple of Jesus Christ. I want to be like her.:)

Yesterday we had a cool experience with the Tantely Family! So Saturday Frere Tantely texts us and invites over for lunch on Sunday! Yay! In his text he told us to be praying for opportunities to teach during our time at his house. So we go on Sunday and they have their kids over who are inactive. They were super nice but not really interested in the Gospel. The whole time we shared the spiritual thought they just looked at the ground and didn't participate. But it's ok! Even if they weren't really listening, hopefully something we said touched them or stays with them. Then Frere Tantley took us to go see some of his neighbors. None of them were home, but his desire to share the gospel really impressed me! He has so much faith and really wants to share with others the happiness of the gospel. I'm grateful for members like him.

OK now I'm going to rant about my new obsession for Elder Neal A. Maxwell! So remember that talk Endure it Well that I read a couple weeks ago? Well it lit a fire of obsession for Elder Maxwell. Soeur Hurd and I are obsessed. The way he writes is so beautiful, so poetic and so touching! Everything he says just amazes me. I created a list of every single talk he has ever given and I plan to read every one of them before the end of my mission. If you don't know Neal A, go check him out!!

I love you all so very much! I'm so grateful for the Gospel in my life and for the opportunity I have to share it with my friends in France. I know He lives and loves every one of us individually. He knows us personally. He wants to help us. Have a great week and watch for the tender mercies in your life, I invite you to write them down:)

Challenge: read this talk by Eldrr Maxwell https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/04/the-man-of-christ?lang=eng

Love,
Soeur Holmes

Endure it well

Bonjour!
This week was a good one here in Cannes. Hotter than ever but still good.

We had some really cool experiences this week that I would like to
share with you:) On Tuesday we had a rendezvous with a less active, so
I super awesome relief society president offered to come with us. Her
name is Nancy and she is great. So we went to this meeting and it
started out good but then her crazy husband just started trying to
tear down our testimonies and was spitting out so much false doctrine.
I was pretty irritated. But in that moment I have never felt so
strongly that the church is true. This is the true church of Jesus
Christ. He lives and leads His church. Even though it took everything
in me not to freak out at this man, I calmly kept smiling as my
companion and I testified of the truthfulness of the church and
invited this man to really pray. Sadly this meeting was to go see his
wife because she really has some potential of coming back, but he
kinda just made it a mess. Even though it was a not so great meeting,
I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to testify to this man that
this is the true church on God. I know it.
After that crazy rendezvous Nancy took us to see Soeur Rouby the blind
sister in the retirement home. She's so precious and I always feel the
Spirit around her, she's just so close with Heavenly Father.  I'm
grateful for her humble example.
Then we went to pick up Mama Gentil (I think I've told you about her,
she's like the grandma of the ward and 3 of her 5 sons are in our
ward) and headed to Laurent and Sandrine Gentil's house for dinner. I
love this family so much. Being with them makes me feel at home. We
did a family home evening together and talked about the importance of
the Priesthood in our lives. I'm so grateful for the Priesthood in my
life and for the countless times I have received wise counsel or
blessings from worthy priesthood holders.
After the lesson we all ate together and this is where it gets funny.
So Laurent is like hey sisters do you like dr pepper?? Um yes!! So he
brings out some dr pepper which is hard to find and we start sharing
it amongst ourselves. So we gave Mama Gentil a little bit and she just
scrunched up her face and practically spit it out and was like
coughing and freaking out and saying it was poison and it was
hilarious. We then got her to try rootbeer as the kids chanted "Mami
cool, mami cool!" Haha it was one of those moments where I just felt
like we were all family.

Saturday we had a cool experience with the Freund family. They are the
ones who live in like a medieval house and she isn't a member. They
are great and we went there on Saturday to celebrate Soeur Hurd's
birthday. When we were getting ready to leave, Soeur Freund thanked us
for the Spirit that we bring into their home. She told us that when we
come it's so strong, and when we leave it isn't the same. I was really
touched by that. Sometimes I have a hard time feeling the Spirit. I
think it's because as missionaries we try and have it always so it
just becomes kind of normal. But it was cool to see that people notice
a difference. Even though she isn't a member she still recognizes the
Spirit. I'm grateful for the Spirit that leads and guides this work.
Well after the Freunds we headed home but our bus never came so we
waited for a small eternity and then took a bus to a different city
and then a train back to Cannes. Whoo. Although it was slightly
irritating, I'm so grateful it happened! Because of that when we
finally got back to Cannes and started contacting we saw really cool
miracles. We were able to testify to different people that God is
there and He isn't a make believe being but He is living and loves us.
We also met a really cool Jewish couple from Canada who loves Mormons
and they've visited Utah several times and love the motab! They were
so kind and gave us so much encouragement that was well needed after a
long week of walking up and down the streets of Cannes being told no
over and over again. I learned a valuable lesson about patience this
week, we all have challenges and trials, that's sure. But sometimes we
have hard situations so that we can learn to be patient and prepare
for other experiences. I'm not sure why we don't have Amis right now,
or why when we go contacting on the street for hours every day that
still at the end of the day we don't have any new Amis. I don't know
why it's like this, when we are doing all we can to hasten the work.
But I do know Heavenly Father has a plan and I know He is watching
over us. And even if I don't understand it now, I know that if we
endure it well and have patience I'll understand later. And that's
enough for me:)
I love the Savior and I love this work. I know He lives. Have a great week!!:)

Love,
Soeur Holmes
Challenge: read Endure it Well by Elder Maxwell, it's incredible.



                                                                            The Gentil Families

As I have loved you, love one another

Bonjour!

I hope everyone had a great week! This past week was a pretty good one! We started out last week with a super fun p day in Nice! We went on a really pretty hike to this place called Eze. It was so pretty, France is beautiful.

Tuesday we had a pretty cool miracle! So we went to a Chinese restaurant with Rebecca a member of our ward, well we are just sitting down at this place when all of a sudden this random less active shows up that I guess hadn't been to church in a really long time. His name is Guest. So Rebecca invited him to eat with us and it was a pretty cool miracle. We talked about how we need to share our light with others and to not hide it. Hopefully Guest will stop hiding his light and come back to church.

This week was a little bit crazy! So we had to exchanges back to back in Cannes. First the sister training leaders came and did an exchange and then the Montpellier sisters came and did an exchange. So for two days in a row we had 4 different sisters at our house. It ended up being really cool! My first exchange was with Soeur Haws, she is lovely:) So the day before the exchange I contacted this lady on the street who was pretty interested, so Soeur Haws and I went to teach her the next day and she was so cute! She is probably like 85. We had a really good lesson about the Restoration, but then the next day her daughter told her that she isn't allowed to talk to the Mormons. Boo. I was sad, but at least she has heard some of our message, and now it's up to her to choose.
Soeur Haws is really great. The thing I love most about exchanges is what you learn from the other sisters. Soeur Haws is someone who just leaks light. She has SO much light and she is sincerely interested in each person she talks to. It's amazing. I see the love she has for the Savior through her missionary work.
The next exchange was with Soeur Grant. Soeur Grant is bleu and so adorable. There is this thing in our mission called "bleu fire" when you are new in the mission; miracles just follow you. It's so cool! Soeur Grant works really hard and she is probably the most fearless bleu I've met. She just goes for it. It was really cool to work with her. I'm feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many incredible missionaries.

We had a really cool lesson with a man named Kasem. He is Muslim, but he was such a kind and genuine person. We talked about the Restoration of the church, I'm not sure how much he followed it, we spent a good part of the time talking to him about how much God loves every single one of His children. Kasem knows God is there. He knows that God listens to our prayers and that He does answer them. He is someone who truly relies on the Lord. This man has practically nothing, but he puts all his faith and trust in the Lord. I think that is pretty admirable. I don't know if Kasem will change religions any time soon but he taught me a lot about even if we have nothing else, we have Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

JOAN!! Ok Joan is a miracle. We found Joan on a potential list so we called and set up a meeting with her. We had such a good lesson with her yesterday after church. She is from the Philippines, so she speaks English. She's Christian but super open to learning more. We taught her the Restoration and she had so many questions it was great! I'm really excited to see where it goes with her.

Carla. So she's super busy with work and told us she can't see us again until OCTOBER. So sad. BUT we aren't going to let that keep us down. We are going to have weekly contact with her still. So either sending her scriptures or bringing her cookies. We are going to make sure she doesn't slip under the radar because she is literally so prepared. I'm sad, but maybe by October she'll be ready to be baptized:)

This past week I was studying love and charity. It's such an interesting subject. I think the biggest thing that I learned was that without charity we really are nothing. We could be the most talented most athletic people in the world. But if we don't have love and charity for others then nothing else really matters. Charity is truly a gift, it's hard to acquire! I'm still working on it:) But I know with Heavenly Father's help it's possible.

Ok kids that's all for the week! President Brown gets here tomorrow so if you could keep him in your prayers that would be great! I love you all!

"Remember that our HeavenlyFather and our Savior, Jesus Christ, know you best and love you the most."- Elder Ballard

                                                         Me and my fellow Davis High graduates!

                                                             Me with President and Sister Roney

                                                                        Mission Conference

                                                                      District P- day in Nice!

Bonjour!!

Wow what a week!! I don't have a ton of time so I'll have to give you
the highlights!
Ok so this past week we had an empty day so we decided to go porting.
We went and ported a neighborhood that Soeur Gerritsen and I had
started last transfer. So we are just porting and talking to nice
people and it's going well. Well we walk up to this house and the
little gate was open so we walk through the gate and knock on the
door. This like 80 year old lady comes out and just starts yelling at
us!! She's like "how did you get on my porch?! Get off now or I will
come after you!!!!" It was actually really kind of scary but like
funny at the same time. So we keep porting along and we see these
nasty black storm clouds rolling our way, so naturally it just starts
pouring rain like hardcore! So we ran to the less actives house that
we were planning on going by later, luckily she was home then:) so
this less active is named Soeur Monaca, she is 95 and so awesome.
She's only less active because she is literally so old and too sick to
come to church. We went in and spent time with her and it was
incredible. She told us her whole life story haha her testimony is so
solid and when I'm 95, I want to be her. The most precious part of the
visit was when she was giving us golden advice and really building us
up. She was telling us that even if we aren't seeing the fruits of our
labors now, to keep going anyway. Because we can't even count the
blessings or number of people we will touch later on because of the
work we are doing now. This really touched me. As a missionary, we
can't always see the fruits of our labors, but we don't even know how
many lives will be changed later because of the efforts we are making
now. I have a strong testimony that our work doesn't go unnoticed. God
is aware and He will make sure that our work is worth something. We
might not see it now, but I'm confident we will see it later on.

Thursday we had the incredible opportunity of having our last zone
conference with President and Soeur Roney. I cried. A lot. So many
tears. Obviously I was sad, but they were more tears of gratefulness.
I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to be led by two of the
most amazing people for the past year. The Roney's are an incredible
example to me of love. They love everyone. They love this mission.
They love their missionaries. They love each of us individually. Most
importantly they love The Savior. I will forever be grateful for their
love for me personally. President said something at the conference
that really touched me, he said, "it doesn't really matter what
happens to you, but it matters what you do with it." We can't always
choose our situations, especially as missionaries. But we can choose
how we handle our situations. And we can chaos to be happy. The Savior
had given us every tool to be happy, but it's up to us to follow Him
and His example. Thank you Roney's for your example. Oh and President
Roney gave me a real hug!! Well a side hug but still:)

We had another beautiful experience with Soeur Rouby this week. Soeur
Rouby got moved to a retirement home because her husband is too sick
to care for her anymore. Her sight by this point is completely gone.
It's so sad. But as we sat with Soeur Rouby and Mama Gentil, I felt an
enormous amount of love. They reminisced about happy times in the
past, they laughed and cried together. I witnessed true friendship
that came from these two women serving as disciples of the Lord in His
church.

Carla:) we had a beautiful lesson about baptism. She knows it's true
and she feels so much love and happiness in the Gospel. But she feels
this need to be perfect before she gets baptized. We testified that
she doesn't need to be perfect. And that baptism is a step leading to
perfection. Even though we testified and shared scriptures and Mormon
messages, her answer was still "not now." But you know, it's ok:) we
can't force her to be baptized, that isn't the Lord's way. We will
keep being patient and loving her and teaching her, and when she feels
ready, we will be able to make the next step. I love her, she's so
cool and such an example to me.

Ok I love you all so much! Thanks for your example to me, you're
incredible. Keep being great and spreading the love!!
Alma 37:37
Avec beaucoup d'amour,
Soeur Holmes

OH!!
Funny things that happened this week,
Soeur Hurd got pooped on by a pigeon.
A lady tried to put a hex on us
And President Roney is the chief of a tribe in Africa! He did service
there a while ago and they loved him so much they made him their
chief! He sends them each a chicken every year:) haha he's so cool!
I'm attaching p day pics and I'll send more next week.

feeding 5000 sheep

Bonjour!! Comment ça va??
This week was a pretty good week! The first week of the transfer is
always long but Soeur Hurd and I get along so well and we are already
good friends that it didn't seem so long.

We did a lot of less active work this past week! We visited two less
active women and it was honestly the strangest thing, both of these
women love the church, love the missionaries, they agree with
everything in the Gospel, but they just don't come to church!! It's so
strange!! The sad part is that they think they are " living the
gospel" but if you aren't coming to church you are not fully living
the gospel. Both of them were so kind and we are going to work on
getting them back to church!! We need their testimonies with us
strengthening the ward!!
We visited another less active family who just talked a lot about
dreams of aliens and such, it was strange and there was a lot of false
doctrine they were trying to feed us but they weren't successful:) BUT
the cool part is that the wife of that family has potential so we are
going to start working with her and seeing what we can do to get her
to come back to church.

So we see the Rodrigues family every week on Mondays for soirée
familial and they are great. They are from Portugal and some of the
best people I've ever met. They don't have a lot, but they feed us
every single week and they do it joyfully. The love the gospel and
they love to serve. They have 4 crazy kids and they haven't been part
of the church very long, but they just give it their all. I love them
and we were able to spend time with them this last week and help Soeur
Rodrigues with her English because she got a new job. It was really
cool to serve them after all they do for us. I love them:)

Friday all of our plans fell through and we literally had an empty
day. So we went contacting:) not always my favorite activity but
sometimes necessary. So we started up this huge boulevard and just
started stopping every person we walked by. Within an hour we had
taught 3 lessons on the street and set up 2 rendezvous for this coming
week. It was really cool! I know that doesn't sound like a lot but
French people don't just willingly stop and talk to strange girls on
the street. It was a tender mercy that reminded me that Heavenly
Father is aware of our situation here and he is watching out for us.
We are also trying to feed 5000 sheep as a mission, which means teach
5000 people in 4 weeks, this is our last week, so your prayers would
be great! I think we are at like 3000 something:) it's been a really
cool experience so far and has pushed us to really reach out to
everyone.

We also were able to visit a couple other members this week and spark
them with Soeur Hurd's famous chocolate chip cookies:) they were all
over that! There is this little 85 year old lady in the ward named
Mama Gentil who is just crazy! In a good way:) every time we visit her
she is just like, "what did you eat today?" "Is your apartment clean?"
She also makes everything dramatic and calls us her "children" it's
great. Haha I love her and I always leave her house smiling.

That's about all for the week!! I love you all and I hope your week is
great! My challenge for you is to pray for an opportunity to serve
this week. Go fight win!

Je t'embrasse,
Soeur Holmes

I'm baking like a toasted cheeser!!!

Bonjour! Or should I say Hola because it's literally so hot here I feel like I should be in Mexico or Spain!! haha but really it's toasty here in the South of France! How hot? The members who have lived here their whole lives are complaining. How hot? A missionary serving here with us from Brazil says he has never been so hot in his life. haha it's hot. BUT we will survive:)

Ok now that my heat rant is over, how are you all doing?? So transfer came and went and I will be staying here for a 3rd transfer in Cannes! I'm so happy:) I love it here. I love all the members and it's beautiful and I really love Carla our amie, I love it here and I'm glad I get to stay for at least another 6 weeks. I got a new companion, her name is Soeur Hurd and she is from Virginia and I love her already. She is delightful. Soeur Gerritsen moved to a place called Clermont Ferrand, it's about 2 hours from Lyon. I'll miss her, but she'll do great things there.

This past week was good! Tuesday we did and Fhe with the Gentil family! There are 4 Gentil families in this ward and yes they are all brothers! It's crazy. We took about a 45 minute bus ride to their house and it was lovely. They have 4 adorable children and they just had a special spirit in their home. I love the members of the church in France. It just amazes me how strong most of them are. None of their friends are members, sometimes they are the only members in their family who belong to the church but they just hold strong. I'm grateful for our faithful members of the church here in France. I love them dearly, especially the Gentil family who just made us feel at home:) We shared Mosiah 7:33 with them, Frere Gentil brought up a really good poing, he talked about how in the scripture it says "turn to the Lord with a full purpose of heart" it doesn't say like "keep watching the Lord" or "keep your heart fixed on the Lord" but it says turn to the Lord. We all kind of took a minute to think about what that means to turn to the Lord. We can be living our lives right and doing what we need to do, but sometimes we need to take a step back out of our busy lives and refocus our sights on the Lord, just turn a little bit closer to the Lord. We tend to get busy and wrapped up in life that sometimes we turn a little bit away from the Lord, but I hope we can turn closer  to Him and keep our sights on Him.

We had a great lesson with Carla! We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the steps we need to follow in this life to return back to our Heavenly Father. Once again she was great with everything, she asked good questions about the Holy Ghost and Priesthood. But she really is solid and has a testimony that it's true! Now we just need to figure out what is stopping her from getting baptized! Please pray that we will be able to ease her hesitations and fears and let her know how important this decision is!

We were able to spend time with the Vivier family this week as well and teach them how to make American cookies:) They loved that! haha Soeur Vivier shared her conversion story about how after 5 days of meeting the missionaries she was baptized!! WHAT!! The bishop was worried she wouldn't last but here she is like 30 years later strong as ever and married to the Bishop:) I love that family and their strong example.

Sunday was a great day:) Hugo got baptized:) Hugo is Kiwa's son, Kiwa is a member of the church. She is from Portugal and just so delightful, I love her. The baptism was beautiful and the Spirit was really strong. Even though half of it was in Portuguese:) I learned that the Spirit is the same in all languages. The funniest part was that after he was confirmed, Hugo just like walked out of the chapel and Bishop was like Hugo, come back we aren't finished! haha it was great:) Then we had a ward meal and the members were obsessed with these oreo truffles that we made and everyone was just happy and it was great. I love them!!!

Sorry that this email isn't terribly exciting, but that was the week!! Oh and we did a lot of street contacting, as normal. It would be greatly appreciated if you could pray for us to be able to find some people to teach, we are really struggling here. Thank you:) Thank you for all you do and for all your love and support! I hope you all have a great week and be good!

Avec beaucoup d'amour,
Soeur Holmes

celebrating my 20th birthday

Salut toute le monde!!
This week was great! First off, I want to say a BIG thank you for all of your birthday wishes, cards, packages, etc. I felt super spoiled and very loved. I love you all. Thanks for making my 20th birthday great.

So I'll give you the highlights of the week!
Tuesday we were able to have an awesome lesson with Carla! Laeticia are recently returned missionary came with us again, she is always with us for these lessons:) So this time Sylvain, the member and Carla's boyfriend was not there for the lesson. He is great, but talks way too much and we never know what Carla is actually thinking. So it was really great to just have a lesson with her. We taught the Plan of Salvation, my favorite lesson:) Once again she is just golden and agrees with everything! We learned that she is Catholic, but what she likes about our church, is that she says "it fills in the blanks". She really does believe this is the true church but she is really hesitant about getting baptized. I don't blame her, I think she feels a lot of pressure from Sylvain. We told her to really pray about it to know if it is what God wants her to do. She agreed, so we will see this Friday how she is doing.
Then we went to lunch with Laeticia she told us about her mission and such and it was great and I love her.

Then we went to Montpellier for an exchange with the sisters there! It's about a 4 hour train ride. Kind of long. Also we got to spend a whole 20 minutes in one of the most dangerous cities in Europe, Marseille! Don't worry Mom, those 20 minutes were spent in the train station waiting for our next train:) Montpellier was good, it's really pretty there and very busy. It's a college town so it was refreshing to see so many young people! We are used to all these retired people here in Cannes. haha But a really cool miracle happened there! So as we were heading home Wednesday afternoon we stopped at McDonald's while waiting for our train, well we sat down and the cutest old lady just came and sat next to us. She of course asked us about our tags so we explained to her that we are missionaries and we were able to give her most of the first lesson in McDonalds! haha it was pretty cool! Unfortunately she lives in Nice, but maybe she will search out the sisters there!

Another cool thing that happened this week, was that we were walking down the street talking to people and we stopped this lady. We had a nice discussion with her and at the end she said that the only reason she talked to us, was because of our name tags. French people don't just like talk to people on the street. It's not a thing. But because of our name tags she stopped. I found that to be really cool, because normally our name tags, are the reason that people won't talk to us. I'm proud to wear my little name tag with the name of my Savior over my heart every day.

So the birthday!! Well cool thing happened, since Monday we were in Nice all day getting our Ipads and Ipad training and such, we got to have our p day on thursday! So we went to these Islands that we had been planning on going to for two transfers now. haha the island is called St. Marguerite and it's actually pretty famous for the story of The Man in the Iron Mask. Supposedly the man in the iron mask was held in the prison there for 12 years. So yeah it was pretty cool to explore the prison and the museum. And we got to take a little boat ride so that was really fun:) Pictures are attached.

This weekend our ward had a Soiree Country/Cowboy. Aka an American Party. haha it was a blast!! Everyone was wearing flannel and cowboy hats and cowboy boots and the gym was decorated all America like and it was fantastic! We ate "american food" but it wasn't really American but they tried and it was so cute!! We even country line danced. It was so fun:)
We were also able to do some service with the ward on Saturday as well. We split up into groups and visited some less active families and brought them cookies:) We visited this one family and the wife thought that Soeur G was the Mom of the bishop's son. haha and she thought I was 16. I don't think I will ever look older than 16, I've been getting that for years haha

Then Sunday was Mother's Day in France and we were able to sing with the young women and the elders "love is spoken here". All the Moms were crying and I felt like I was in primary again. It was adorable.

Overall it was a pretty good week. We are still trying to find people to teach and it's been a little rough, but I know with the Lord's help we can do it. I love you all, thank you for your love and support and all of your prayers. Have a great week!

We got Ipads !!

Birthday presents from home:)

I'm 20 today!!

Celebrating my 20th on the Island of  St. Marguerite

Me and Soeur G. on the Island of St. Marguerite

American "cowboy" party