June 25, 2013

Let me just start of by saying i am sorry i dont respond to your emails i print them off and read them and love them sooo much but i never have enough time to email back but i am trying to write people back but these last 6 weeks have been crazy i never get an actual p day haha yesterday i spent all day in the garre so ya but i do love the updates so very much and i have written you back in my head haha congrats to all who have gotten engaged and congrats cherokee for your talk i heard it was awesome!! happy brithday tater tot and happy graduation er bear sorry i am sooo late!! super excited for all the fun things going on at home!! claire bear you leave soon that will be such a blast!! ally cat you look darling in your pics super stoked for you!

sooo back to a french keyboard sooo this email will take me a little longer to type so i am sorry for not responding to your emails, butttt thank you for the emails i love opening them  up every monday and today is tuesday because,,, suprise i got transfered!! hahah remember last week how i said i wanted to stay sooo badly ya well the lord has another plan for me annnnndd my comp is the same age in the mission as me,,, we both have been out for 1 transfer! so yaaa crazy stuff is happening we both dont know french at all so its been really fun trying to get ourselves around on limited french! buttt have no fear the lord is with us!!! 

soooo last week we worked with less actives like we always do and we invited all of them to church because we sang in church on sunday,,, hahah yes i sang in church as alto ask me if i can read music for the purpose of singing,,, i cant so ya hahah i have no idea how it went but it was an awesome excuse to invite people to church and we got 2 or 3 less actives to church for my last sunday so that was exciting!! so thursday night we had tim tam slams,,, does anyone know what those are? look them up they are the bomb so we had those and then did this funny thing where we predict where we will be serving next before transfer calls,,, haha my fortune was that i was going to open up the first sister equipe in corsica haha and be relief society president because the senior comp of the elder equipe there is always the branch president because the ward is sooo small and cant run on its own,,, haha ya well my call wasnt exactly the same but i got transferred to st etienne which is just outside lyon and it is cold and rainy and windy and BEAUTIFULLY green!!! oh it is a very beautiful city but its soooo cold compared to the coast i just left!! i cried most of friday because i was not ready to leave perpignan i loved that place so much but if i can say this,,, my old companion is receiving a new missionary again to train this next transfer and i am excited for her!! so ya i had to bear my testimony on sunday and i cried through the whole thing! that ward had sooo many problems they were trying to heal from but they were sooo good to me! oh i loved them!! the bishops wife got me and soeur mata because she got transferred too perfume and mine smelled terrible but soooo nice of her to do that!! oh that family is sooo great and when i saw her at church she was like you cant leave you just got here your supposed to stay with me!! and i was like no worries i am coming back when i can actually speak french haha but ya so the last few days in perpginan i just tried to see people and get last minute things! unfortunally i wasnt able to see my amis before i left but they are in good hands! one of my less actives sister le cornec was like who is your mission president i am going to call him hahah i gave her a card mom are you proud? you know  those embarassing ones that you made me haha ya and she is going to write me and we took a pictures together because she wants to paint us together because she is an artist haha she is sooo great! 

so ya now we are in st etienne and it is so great haha so we arrived at the garre in st etienne with all our luggage! keep in mind we are opening up a BRAND NEW Equipe OF sisters! st etienne hasnt had sisters for 10 or more years so we are thinking that we will have people waiting at the garre to help us with our stuff to our brand new appartment and everything and no one is there so in my broken french i ask to borrow peoples phone to make a call and we get a hold of the office elders and they are like why are you in st etienne... ummm because this is our new ville and he is like oh shoot your opening do you have keys we are like no are we supposed to he is like crap sit tight we are coming it is going to be a bit haha so we waited at the garre for almost 3 hours buttt while we waited we taught a lesson to this awesome muslman man and gave him a book of mormon and he was like you have so much luggage how are you getting home do you need me to help you find a place to stay because you dont speak french and just sooo helpful maybs a bit too helpful but still nice!! so basically he has been calling us ever since we got our phone to make sure that we are getting settled in and we plan to teach him later this week so it was a total miracle and he waited with us until the elders got to the garre just in case we needed help with our bags and stuff it was his one day off of work so he was out on a walk! haha so nice! so then we got to our apartment and we have no appliances haha so we tried to settle in but couldn’t really, there was a family night at the church and this girl in the and came and got us and she has only been home from her mission one week and speaks perfect english??? she is a gift from heaven seriously she is sooo helpful and is checking in on us helping us get bus passes and everything we need for our apartment and before we left our apartment for the family night she started crying and she was like you dont know how long this ward has been waiting for sister missionaries you are an answer to our prayers and i can go out and work with you whenever now because i just got home and i was doing the exact thing just a week ago!! ahhhh she is sooo great and we met a bunch of members last night and they are all just pumped we get treated like royalty its sooo great haha so anyays there are so many miracles happening here tons of people to work with, this girl and the elders set up a bunch of appointments for us so we are super busy this week just getting to know the ward and meeting sooo many people its great!! not a lot to report on but next week i will!! 

anyways i am running out of time it takes so long to type on this keyboard but my new address is 

124 rue bergson

immeuble ce neptune

4200 st etienne france

no worries if you sent something to my other apartment i will be seeing those sisters soon!! love you all have a good week!

McCall and my new comp Soeur Russell with Enoryah the awesome girl that is helping us get settles she served in Italy.

McCall  and soeur mata and the B enedetti family they are sooo awesome!!

McCall and soeur dressayre... McCall helped her with piano and her son lives in salt lake so when she comes to visit she is visiting our fam!!

 

Soeur Howden and McCall with Christelle's husband

Soeur Howden and McCall with Katy and her friend who is also interested in the church.

This is McCall and Soeur Mata with our recent convert Katy.

June 17, 2013 Last week of transfer

Hello all!

Wow can you believe it?? I am on the last week of my first transfer here in the beautiful Perpignan! soooo crazy! it flew by! I hope I stay here! I love this place and it is finally summer here and it is HOT HOT HOT! wow! I haven't felt heat like this before but its good because I was freezing like 2 weeks ago! But the french BO is at full force:) if any of you want to send me something send me razors to pass out to the women who don't shave their armpits:) that is a really thing... and Amandine is one of them (she is one of my amis) haha anyway!

The begining of the week we were in Aix en Provence on another exchange... haha ya so today is my first P day in Perpignan so that is exciting! after we did emails we ate at this mexican restaurant which are a dime a dozen here and we ate burritos and root beer:) not to be found anywhere else in france! haha it was crazy they had a utah license plate hanging in their restaurant... bizarre! so anyway I went on exchanges with sister reintjes and she is from california studying medicine at byu! she only has one transfer left and she is AMAZING! wow i learned soooo much from this exchange! we taught a ton of lessons too so it was great to see how she teaches! she teaches very visually and its great! we have been trying to do that more as well! in fact if anyone wants to send me the plan of salvation visual aid thing go for it! my comp has one but i need one too! so ya we taught a lesson to this awesome guy and we taught it in english... it was sooo weird! i stumbled over my words so much because I had never taught that lesson in english before? it was weird but cool! he will be baptized sooo soon i know it because he just gets it! it was fun to teach someone with a religious background! 

ON wednesday we had a zone training/conference and a member of the europe area presidency came! Elder Richards.  He was incredible! He talked about how missionary work is changing and that we should only be talking for a minute for each principle and asking more questions so that our investigators teach themselves.  IT was really inspiring and as we have been applying it this week its been super hard!! its soooo hard to think of questions that won't let them go off on tangents but keep them thinking about the principle you are trying to teach! the conference was 4 hours long with no break... not even for a drink or the bathroom or anything! it was a long time to be in a chair but it was so incredible! i have a lot of work to do to be the missionary he is wanting here in France! 

Then on Thursday we worked all day because we had been gone and that night we had a family home evening with Christelle and her husband and the Family Faucheux! It was awesome too because Amandine ended up coming because her and Christelle are friends and then Stephan (christelle's mom) came too and she is not a member! so we taught 3 amis that night! and the faucheux's were awesome! They kept making jokes about how christelle and stephan need to get married already I was like AMEN! haha but then we gave a retab lesson where we tried to ask questions and let them teach us because we had already taught this lesson to all of them before.  It went well and I think they are getting it and understanding the necessity of the retab and not just the story of joseph smith! so that was fun and then 

Saturday was a day of miracles though! we had another rendez vous with Christelle where we were following up on retab and doing plan du salut and making mom's caramel cake! which i actually still have not gotten to eat because it wasn't done when we were so she said she would bring it to church but then she couldn't come because her little girl is sick since the weather changed so fast she has had a fever for the past couple of days:( sad! but anyway it was a weird lesson it was really short and christelle seemed stressed about melissa and ya i don't know what to say other then it was a weird lesson! and i think she believes this church is a good thing she loves the comraderie of the ward and her and stephan are inviting people over during our lessons all the time but i don't think she is ready to make the big changes in her life that come with baptism and that is our struggle with her.  But i feel like she is really getting it and gaining a testimony of it... so pray for her! so we left there feeling weird because we both had visions of the way we wanted the lesson to go and it went neither way so we prayed to have a better attitude.  I finally was like lets just port and contact around here until our bus comes and then we will just go home and pass people in centre ville or just go home and do book work that we are so behind on.  So we started porting and it was saturday evening so tons of people were out enjoying the nice weather and we talked to sooo many people that were like ya tell me more! it wasn't like they were inviting us in for lessons but they let us talk and that is almost  just as rewarding:) then we started chatting with these kids and they were fascinated that we lived by california... this kid was like towhead blonde wearing a snapback and billabong! haha i was like are you french? he was like ya why.. i was like because you look like me! haha anyway he started taking us around this cute little village to people he thought would be interested! they were soo cute he was like and here is your church and took us past this old cathedral we are like ummm different church:) so ya then we went home and decided to just contact people on the way back with the last hour we had left so we kind of split up so we could find and talk to more people and I contacted this black guy and he was like ya ya i have met missionaries before and i know of that book and pointed to my BOM and i was like really? and he was like ya give it to me i am from Toulouse but i will be on a train all day tomorrow and i will start it you have missionaries in Toulouse right? i am like tottttallly! so we got his coordonnee and send him on his way with a BOM:) then soeur howden stopped this really philosophical man so i quietly passed and began porting which is kind of dangerous to do because if someone said "yes come in" i would have to grab soeur howden from her contact to go in but porting you never have much luck.  So the last sonnerie rings and a man is on the other line and I can't hear him at all.  So i was like ahhh well whatever its almost 9 anyway.  So i go back to soeur howden's contact and then all of the sudden this man comes to the door and was like was that you on my sonnerie i was like yaa!! and he is like my mom is really ill but you want what? i was like to share a spiritual message with you:) and he was like ok can you come back later i was like ya when? and he was like tuesday at this same time i would love to hear your message.... I was beaming I am like ok great! and what's your mom's name we will pray for her! he was like oh you are sooo nice! haha it was awesome! we kept stopping people on our way home that were just really spiritual people it was amazing you don't always find that here in france! so ya it was an awesome way to end the week! 

Church was good! i was asked to accompany the priestood singing called to serve... didn't realize they were coming to the stand to sing so i was sooo nervous! but it went well... thankfully their voices are loud:) haha so ya now its P day and transfer calls come on friday... but i am pretty sure I will stay:) i hope I do!

Thanks for all the love and support! sorry this week is a little uneventful I was gone for most of it! but hope you all had a good week! good luck ally cat! you will be amazing! i pray for you everyday! love every minute of it! claire bear stay strong cutie! love you guys!

Soeur Modersitzki

June 10, 2013

Je suis fatigue!‏

The famous french line that means I am tired... its the frenches excuse for everthing! If you ask how they are 8/10 they will respond with that! So i always come back with "Oh ya always try the life of a missionary:) and give them a little wink haha! 

Anwyays! HI everybody! I have been here a month can you believe it! i cannot! Thank you for all the love and support! I am on exchanges yet again this week so i am in Aix en Provence so you might be thinking I am not actually serving in Perpignan and you might be right! I have left like every weeek i have been here and always on my P day so i feel so rushed and stressed every time i write so I apologize if my letters are all over the place! But Now I will begin!

So Last Monday we spent in Montpellier on excahnges... ya I don't know if its normal how many exchanges I have done this transfer but oh well! Fun field trips! So we went there and did emails and then we were meeting up with the elders to go bowling... i know fun right? and as we were buying our train tickets some gypsy romanian kids ran up and pushed cancel on our transaction and grabbed all our coins and bounced.... ya we all got cheated our of like 3 euros and they stole like 15 euros collectively! I wasn't mad that i was out 3 euros i was mad that i had been played by gypsies... i was american that got conned!!! it took my pride a good hour to calm down! I just took it out on the bowling alley:) haha then my trainer took the sisters from montpellier back to perpignan and i stayed there.  The next day we taught a spanish guy because i was with soeur vidal who speaks spanish because she is mexican and then she grew up in quebec so she is fluent in french too! her english is really good but i would say something that was like slang and she was like hold up what does that mean! it was HILARIOUS! she made me laugh so hard all exchanges! and then Soeur Mata who is with me in perpignan speaks spanish too so it was a 2 hour lesson in spanish so i was bored out of my mind! I followed like one part of the convesation and that was it! Then his friend came to pick him up and we gave him a small lesson and it was in french... I was actually thankful that someone spoke french so that i could converse with them! We gave him a book of mormon and he was interesting... not sure what happened to him because I don't serve in montpellier.  So then we decided to go contact in this huge plaza called the commedy! There are tons of people so it was really good for me to practice contacting especially with soeur vidal because she is fluent in french so i learned a ton! So i stayed with her and we contacted this women on a bench and she was really open we had a nice conversation and then this guy came up and started bashing us telling this women that we look nice but we are witches and that the stuff we are preaching about it blasphemous and that there is no God... blah blah blah so we just bore a short testimony through his yelling and moved on to the next lady on the bench... another nice lady humored us in a conversation and the guy came up again saying the same things!!! I was like goooo away! Just because your athiast doesn't mean everyone wants to hear your opinion about why there isn't a God?  So then we just moved away from that area and went more into the plaza.  I contacted this pregnant woman who was sooo nice! I was sooo flustered I was stumbling over my words and couldn't form a single sentence! she was sooo nice to wait while I tried to string words together and just as I did the man appears again but this time with the police.... MCFELLAN is at it again! hahah that's right the police came up and told us we couldn't proselyte and we were like no actually we can and they are like no you can't give us your license number or else we are going to fine you 80 euros... so everyone starts up in a rage! The old man is arguing with the pregnant women a member happened to be at the plaza and came over with a friend and was defending us! Soeur vidal calls president and I understand nothing at this point and soeur mata is just standing there like dumbfounded because we can't believe this is happening... so ya we had to go to the police station and get it all sorted but when we did they were closing up and the french work such lazy hours the guy was like just go home if it ends up being a big deal then come back tommorrow? ummm ok? haha so we just left? hard to explain over email but it was hilarious!!! i got robbed and nearly put in jail in the matter of 24 hours! thank you montpellier! 

Then on Thursday my comp and I fasted because we are needing miracles in our ville! We are trying so hard to get acquainted with the buses so that we can use every minute efficiently and visit people who live by each other so we can pass and contact as many people as we can but its hard when you are new! So that day we were passing less actives as we do almost everyday and we had no luck... couldn't find their house or they wouldn't answer whatever.  We got to one of the last less actives apartment before we had actually appointments and no luck... so I am like I am porting this building until someone answers there dang sonnerie! so i just start pushing button after button! haha this lady comes to the door and opens it and I am like do you know sister schacher or are you sister schacher and she is like ya.  I am like great! we are missionaries can we please come in! hahah as missionaries you invite yourself in all the time even if you aren't welcome its great! haha breaking all social norms! so we go in and she has 22 birds!!! oh my gosh like a huge cage of them and they are sooooo loud and obnxious i was like how do you sleep??? so we gave her a brief lesson! it was short sweet and to the point and I gave it:) oh yaaa my french is coming along:) and she was like you speak really well... i was like thanks that is in fact the spirit:) haha the lesson was short and powerful and we asked if we could come back and she said yes! yaaa! so ya then that night we had dinner with this family in our ward the benedetti's! they are like the superstar family in the ward they are seriously the greatest! And they had their less active brother over and we have decided with members and less actives we are teaching the restoration to remind people how unqiue our message is or to explain to members how cool the message is that they can share with their friends using the intro of the BOM.  so ya i lead the lesson again... ya gooo me:) and I bore my testimony about when I went into the same grove joseph smith did and did the same thing he did and prayed to know if his story was true.  I started crying... like i do all the time now! its sooo weird! Ok i wasn't crying but i was choked up and i just said how cool that because of ONE prayer we have alll this and how incredibly grateful we should be for it.  I was like i left my family and everything at home on pause to testify of this one book.  We are finishing the work our courageous joseph smith couldn't.  and as my comp and i bore testimony back and forth the spirit was SO strong and Alain (the less active brother) began to respond and then went really quiet... and he began to cry... pretty soon the entire room was crying! this guy is like 45 or so keep in mind and we were all quiet for several minutes and he said... your french is broken but your testimony is sincere and I feel something I haven't felt in years thank you for your simple powerful testimony... and guess who was at church on sunday! ohhhhh yaaa! guys the spirit is a miracle worker i tell you! Probably one of the coolest experiences I have had on my mission so far! 

Then on friday we had a preach my gospel class for all the kids in our ward preparing for missions or for people in the ward trying to be better missionaries! We had a decent turn out but they loved mom's caramel cake soooo much i am sure we will have more next time:) we had them role play contacting and it was hilarious to see them try and be missionaries! i was like ya i do this everyday:) they were pretending to be jehovah witnesses and all this crazy stuff it was sooo great! I think it was a huge success! We taught about the importance of studying! all of you should ready the second chapter of preach my gospel! it will change the way your read your scriptures its amazing!!! i have such a testimony of scripture study now i wish i would have been better before the mish!

Then on Sunday we passed less actives and it was POORING rain! like dumping! i felt like i was in the shower but we had a less active that we had an appointment with and we weren't going to miss it for anything! She is totally crazy! like i think she really is loosing it but she is super nice and when she is with it she remembers her testimony! by the end of it she gave me a painting because she is an artist! also on sunday i got called up in the middle of sacrament meeting to play the piano... i am now expected to know all hymns off the top of my head at that moment... haha it was a bit of a disaster since i hadn't practiced at all but it was good! the bishop looked over and just giggled to himself and i was like sorry:) haha so ya they now will tell me ahead of time what I will play:) i love playing though! its sooo great! i always hope they need me to practice! 

So ya there is the week in a nutshell! sorry these are sooo long! every week is sooo exciting i love sharing it with all who care! i know sandals does:) haha anyways have a good week! remember the gospel is true and I challenge you all to read the intro to the BOM and the second chapter of preach my goseph if you don't have a PMG then get one! EVERY MEMBER SHOULD HAVE ONE! love you all thanks for the prayers and support! bonne semaine!!

Soeur Blondie Modersitzki

June 3, 2013

I just want to start off by saying happy anniversary to my cute parents! they established the modsquad/quad/trio 24 years ago! i sent a card so hopefully it gets there sometime this week!

Happy graduation Er Bear! sooo exciting and so fun with BYU this fall! I am stoked for you! Thank you other Mod's for your letters before I left the MTC its been super crazy but I plan to write you all back!

Megan congrats on the mission call! That is soooo exciting! What a perfect place for you! Oh my gosh and its brand new that is sooo great! You are going to love it! 

I don't know if I am missing anything but I hope you all had a good week! Oh I know what I am missing... Beau you are darling:) ok now on to my email! 

Sooooo you should all know that missionary work is very hard and SOOOO rewarding! I am like a total ball baby now and I don't know if I will get through this email without crying.  The ward here in Perpignan has like 200 less actives or something? Yeahhh like a ton of less actives and we have been trying to visit as many as we can and after a visit with a cute lady named Maria we realized why.... hahah so this ward is like a total soap opera.  She told us how there was a generation in this ward that all got divorced and husbands were unfaithful and they were holding presitigious callings in the church and so people were turned off by the church and then they tried to come back and people were gossipy and just DRAMA! To say the least.  So she was the last appointment of the night and as we were walking home my comp and I were like woooowww do we have our work cut out for us.  We fasted yesterday for ways we can strengthen the members and help the less actives so stay tuned for what that might be:) but we visited a handful of ladies this week that are just like Maria... older women probably in their 60s that live alone and still have solid testimonies but are scared and turned off by the church.  It’s sad really because they know they need to return they are just being stubborn. They are sooo nice to us missionaries too they LOVE the conversation as well:) 

Then we had Ward council this week and our bishop's wife just had a baby like 5 days ago and he was there! She had the baby that day and he still came to ward council! He is seriously a rock he is the reason this ward is still functioning... poor guy he looked exhausted! He is like 30 or something super young! So anyways hardly any of the auxiliaries should up for the meeting... it was like us and 2 other people... like I said there is a lot of work to be done here! So of the people that were there they asked us to visit auxilary members and try and get them to come to meetings and fulfill their callings... haha so the missionaries are pretty much running this ward unfortunately.  Its crazy because in Utah if someone just had a baby you wouldn't have to cook or clean for like a week and we called to see if we could cancel the dinner appointment we have with them everyday sunday night and they said "No, we love having the missionaries over its a blessing... were fine please come" so we were like ok well can we at least make dinner then instead of you? I am like where is the relief society president? Where are the meals... the groceries the babysitters for this cute new family? Umm hi... Right here... the missionaries! But I don't mind at all its just that we need this ward to be functioning kind of on its own you know? Its hard to do member work when they are not involved themselves in the service of their fellow ward members.  So anyways any tips on that would be helpful! We went to our mangez-vous with the Bishop on Sunday and gave a lesson about the Book of Mormon and how easy it is to share it with your friends.  We asked them to pray for missionary experiences and so hopefully the bishop will feel a little more at peace since that is the lesson we are going to teach the rest of the ward to try and spark them into helping us bring their brothers and sisters into the gospel! Anyways enough of the ward I want to share 1 cool experience and then a little bit about my amis (investigators)

So Amandine: she is a friend of Christelle our other amis and she was passed to us by the other sisters because they have some progressing amis and we started with none because we are new.  They told us she was really slow and understands hardly anything... comforting... haha so we decided to just start all over with her this week.  Lesson 1: Retab (I am actually not sure what you call it in English... restoration ha! that's what it is) so ya we started our lesson and she was still hung up on 3 Nephi 11 and wanted us to read it with her again we were like NOOO! Not again but anyways we did and we actually made it through the whole chapter! It was a miracle and she was sooo engaged it was amazing! A recap 3 Nephi 11 is when Christ is talking to the people of Nephi and shows them his wounds and calls Nephi to be a prophet at baptizes everyone! superrrr cool chapter! So I try and take the calling Nephi as a prophet as a Segway into joseph smith but she isn't having it she says, "So Jesus Christ is your prophet and this book is your version of the bible?" we are like uhhhh no not at all.  I was like what the heck how did we not know that she didn't know Who Christ was? Fun fact... most Catholics no nothing about religion they just claim to be catholic so they can say they have a religion! So we were able to testify of Christ as the head of our church and that this book along with the bible gives us the fullness of the gospel and that we use them together! She doesn't even have a bible soooo we are getting one for us this week! It was such a great lesson! We now know where we need to start with her and she came to church one Sunday for the blessing which was awesome!!

Christelle-- oh christelle yes we bake with her every week and we made banana bread with her this week that was a total bust! haha darn they don't even know what banana bread is.. She was like so its like a long cake? haha I am like yes sorry its not a flakey pastry! Anyways so we watched the retab movie with her and talked about joseph smith and asked her to pray for herself and she said "I will when I am ready"... basically she is living with her boyfriend and they have a darling little girl together which they blessed yesterday in our church but she knows the church is true but she doesn't want to make the changes necessary to be apart of this church... its so frustrating.  Her boyfriend is a member and they are so happily in love I am like just get married... you do everything as if you were married! But ya she will get baptized eventually I know it.  They are planning to get married in like a year so if all we do fails at least the missionaries a year from now will have her in a better position.  She comes to church every week and they were so excited about the blessing it was darling! So ya we will see.

So my cool experience this week was yesterday in church! We had like 5 amis come to church! Our gospel principles class was like over flowing it was awesome!! and we didn't have to teach it finally the teacher returned and she was awesome! Had people looking us scriptures and everything it was awesome! Then in sacrament meeting they blessed Christelle and Stephan's baby and she looked SO cute in her white dress! ahhh sooo cute! And 3 old guys in the ward blessed her and one of them in Frere.  The guy that corrected me on my "Jesus is my son" testimony that I gave haha! As I listened to the testimonies which I actually understood:) yaa finally! I realized that this ward needs a lot of work.  It’s barely hanging on but it hangs in there because of a handful of super strong members like Frere. He is always asking to teach with us and help us.  It is seriously soooo inspiring to see the strength and courage they have to faithfully keep coming to church and never stop trying to help people come back to the church.  I haven't had any super hard moments on my mission yet but I will admit... it’s a battle every single day to remind myself why I am here.  I hope that eventually I won't think like that but sometimes its hard not to think... wow my life at home was super great! I have a boy that I am madly in love with at home that I can't wait to marry and I had school that I loved.  I had a family I saw almost everyday and did super fun things with all the time.  I had music that would calm me down when I was uptight.  I had a car that I could take when I wanted.  I had my own room.  I had so many things that I don't have here on a mission and its hard! But I see the strength of the members here like Frere who never stop thanking us for our service and I realize that I am needed.  And I realized how important that feeling is.  To feel needed.  And my goal this week is to make the members and the less actives realize that they are needed in this ward.  The Lord needs them.  We need them.  Anyways I was crying all during sacrament and I am crying right now thinking how great it is to be a missionary.  Because of how hard it is to not think about yourself, it’s the moments you are thinking of others that are the reasons the 60,000+ missionaries stay out on their missions. Anyways I don't know if that made any sense but I want you all to know that missions are not easy but they are worth it and I am grateful everyday to be one! Don't be the lame members we have here in Perpignan! Look for ways to serve one another! I love you all! Have a good week!

Soeur Modersitzki

May 27th email!

Hello all!

So today this awesome family in our ward... Which by the way pretty much is the ward! haha they had 3 daughters and a son and they all got married and had kids and they make up the bulk of the ward and the primary but they are soooo great! But they are taking us to this cool chapel on the beach or something? I don't know I just know that we had to email early this morning because we are leaving this morning and will be gone for a good chunk of the day and we have no groceries so that must happen! So ya! I am excited for that but you will all wake up to this email and probably be a little confused? Haha I am writing this at 8 in the morning here which means you party animals might still be awake:) its midnight where you all are! But yesterday was mother’s day in France so Bonne Fete de Meres to all you mothers out there... again:) This same family had us over for a BBQ on the patio out in the countryside... yes it was amazing and everything you would imagine a French countryside to be! There was a vineyard on every side of us.  The husband of one of the daughters is our bishop... so if you remember me going to their house last week this family gets a little confusing! haha so ya it’s kind of sad though the dad of all these daughters is inactive and its super sad because this family is what holds this ward together. He is sooooo cool too! Like so so cool and his family will be together forever but he won't if he doesn't get his behind back to church... and start following the word of wisdom... loves his coffee! but he makes me laugh so much and I don't understand him super well because his french is like french and spanish mixed but he is super cool! 

So for last week we were in Lyon for a training that my trainer had to go to because she is still technically a "new missionary" and then on Friday we went to Zone training in Montpellier which is like a 2 hour train ride away.... so we weren't in our city that much once again buttt we have A LOT of less actives in our ward here in Perpignan and we try to visit a lot of them throughout the week and with a new equipe here we can cover more ground then we could with only 2 sisters here before.  So we dedicated one day to visiting less actives we visited like 4 people! sooo much french i thought my head would explode! and apparently our name is polish... every time i introduce myself they are like oh your polish and i am like no german and they are like no your polish... i am like haha whatever you want me to be i will be:) haha but we visited this one guy Jerome and he is sooo cool he is obsessed with bob marley and is like a young adult and from the islands just a cool guy and all 4 of us visited him and shared a thought and they we were like why jerome don't you come to church? so he gave us his excuses and we were like ok well its super important and I bore my testimony at the end... not completely sure if what i was about to say was relevant to conversation but i was like we need people like you jerome we need bright smiling faces and church and we need your fun spirit.  this ward is small but they have fun and they thrive off of the church and you can too.... guess who was at church yesterday... Jerome!! ahhhh it was sooo great! Its really cool because when I first got here I was thinking that we needed to build the young single adult population because they will get married and have kids and they is how the ward can grow in number and size and some of our investigators are worried if they get baptized if they will ever find a spouse.  We have been blessed to find a handful of new investigators that are just around that age! and we are bringing people back to church which is really excited! we have a huge investigators class on sunday because of all the people we got to come back from our visits and from people we are already teaching! So mom I have this investigator and her name is Christelle and our appointments always consist of baking something while we teach her... can you send me that caramel de leche cake recipe and if possible the conversions to the metric system:) haha thanks! 

But ya a little about Christelle... she is about 40 years old and her boyfriend is a member but he was less active but now he is completely active because she is investigating the church.  She has 2 kids from a previous marriage and one little baby girl with him his name is Stephanie.  Their little girl is getting blessed this next Sunday... ya i know they are like totally a part of the ward but she has a lot of debt i guess and so they don't want to get married because it will ruin his credit?? i am not sure butttt she has an autistic son and in our last lesson we were talking about eternal families and at the end i bore my testimony.... haha i always testify at the end of lessons because that's about all i can contribute:) haha but i told her that her daughter... yes i didn't understand that it was her SON that is handicapped.... would be perfect in the next life and that we all will have perfect bodies and live happily together. hahah i keep mixing up brother, son, daughter, sister, ya its a problem after the appointment my companions were like by the way its her son that is autistic i was like ohhh mince!(oh man in french) so ya that was a fun experience!

Then we have Amandine... we haven't met with her that much so I will tell you more next week when we meet with her more but sooo far she is extraordinarily slow... like comprehension of a child and short attention span... i get a little frustrated when we teach her because i know we are not teaching simply enough and i don't know how to get her head out of the clouds haha but ya there is lots to do there! she is like 30 years old and is friends with Christelle.

We also went and helped the Benedetti family... they are in our ward... paint their new house.  they are super nice and another family that is like the backbone in the ward.  The mom and dad both served missions and one of theirs sons is serving now and they others are all teenagers and make up the bulk of the young men and young womens! haha they fed us and when we prayed to leave Sister Benedettis prayed the sweetest prayer ever! She started crying and told the lord to bless us and that they were so grateful for our sacrifice to be here.  ITs moments like that that really put my mission in to perspective.  I realize that I am not just here to find people but to build the people up that are already part of this gospel.  

Anyways super good week! lots of ups and downs! Mission life is crazy crazy! Hopefully this week will be more organized and we won't be in a million different cities in one week! I love you all mucho! Thank you for the love and support and the prayers! I need them and I feel them thank you!

Bonne Semaine!

Soeur Modersitzki