Soeur Sarah Hunt France Paris Mission: IT SNOWED!!

It snowed. THREE TIMES. Once it was sleeting and so was the next one, but then the next one was awesome with HUGMONGOUS flakes which only lasted 10 minutes and didn't stick to the ground. Oh well, I'm glad I saw it.

Thanksgiving was awesome. We had our own American Thanksgiving with the district. We made turkey with ash potatoes and sweet potatoes with brown sugar and baguettes and green bean casserole, and finished with the classic pumpkin pie. It was fun. Our district consists of St. Dié, Épinal and us here in Nancy. Two Elder équipés (companionships) and 2 Soeur équipés. So there is 8 instead of 6 now, because they added St. Dié to our area. Anyways, it was fun and it felt like a little American Thanksgiving. That was the day before thanksgiving. So Wednesday.

We saw Emina on Wednesday too. It was way awesome We made sure we left enough time open on our scheduled for her. She had just gotten out of bed when we arrived. Again, she talked more about her life and opened up a lot. I love hearing about her life because we can understand her better and help her according to her needs. After her stories she said she was going to take a quick shower and be back. Ok... So we're just sitting downstairs waiting and just trying to decided what to do next. We were also going to have lunch with her and we wanted to share the Plan of Salvation and really focus on the Atonement of Christ for her before we ate. We did and it was awesome. We give her things in Italian because she reads better in Italian. She was super focused on what we were saying. She really liked talking about these things. She believes a lot the way we do. It went very well and we will be seeing her again to talk about the restoration! We had a good lunch, she cooks nicely and it tastes very good. She gave us the leftovers and we ate them the next day.

Thursday we had our lesson with Raphaël. We were super nervous for it. We just babbled on at the beginning, but then I bore an awesome testimony about missionary work ;) I'm able to speak more and more and come up with my own complete sentences! So, we gave the last lesson of laws and ordinances and just went over it within 30 minutes. He understands everything and is so on top of things. Also, the Elders prepared him very well, so we didn't do much. We talked about his baptism for a little bit, because he had already prepared everything. He has such great support. I mean the family he's most likely marrying into is so awesome and strong in the gospel. They have all helped him get things ready and he's getting more excited. It'll be such an awesome baptism this Saturday! Pray for Raphaël :)

We saw Valerie on the road. I can't remember if I told you already, but we saw her after a long time of not seeing her and scheduled a time to meet. She frudged (ditched) us a lot, so I didn't think I was going to see her again. But we did and we taught the Restoration. It was very good. I used some really fun visual activities that helped her to understand better. She can't be baptized till she has a legal marriage and is legal in France. So it’s going to be pretty hard. But we really want to help her. She also needs to understand the authority between us and the other religions. But it's going good.

The security guards in our building are the best. Since there used to be just one companionship of Elders living in this building, there is only one set of keys. So... we have only one sensor for the door to the building. We asked for more keys, and we got more but still only have one sensor. So, we have to sometimes coordinate who will be home first so we don't have to wait or just stay locked out. Then we have to wait and have the Sœurs come get us. But the security guards are so nice, they usually let us in unless it's a new guard and doesn't know who we are. But they usually do and they're so nice and sometimes they just laugh at us because we’re a bunch of weirdos and they know that we are "the four American girls." One of them knows me as the one who really needs to pee all the time because I’m always doing the pee pee dance when we get home. He pushes the up button over and over for the elevator to come down for me when he sees me coming.

So, we decided to write a note and deliver brownies to them all. We wrote a funny note in French just saying, hey thanks for always opening the door when we forgot our keys... (even though we have keys just not a door sensor). They loved it. Then next day when we went down to go running at 6:30 two different guards were changing shifts, but they said thank you for the card that it was very nice of us. So, we became the famous four American girls to all the security guards and so now they always open the door and wave at us every time we pass by haha. Then just last night one security guy came up to our room and gave us a note half in French half in English and some amazing cookies that tasted like Almond Joys. It was so awesome haha!

Today was really fun. We met up with the Toul Soeurs and had sushi and went ice skating. It was super fun and the sushi was amazing as usual. They played the Michael Bublé Christmas album as we skated around a fun looking decorated tree thing. It was snowing a tiny bit as we skated too. It was super-duper fun. It felt like Christmas and we loved it so much.

This week we will be heading down to Paris for a mission conference (Sabin Conference) and also have a baptism. I'm super excited for all the things I'll be able to experience. Love you all so much. Thanks for everything, comme d'habitude ;) (as usual) talk next week! Stay safe and pray that I get more snow!

Love

Sœur Sarah Hunt🎄🎁