Joyeux Noël!!!!!!!!!!

So where to begin this week. it was another so so week. I honestly don't remember any of the stuff we did this week except for thursday which was the conference. so i guess i'll write about that haha

So thursday we had conference in versailles with president teixeira it was with half the mission. I actually was part of the program. President chose two people (a sister and an elder) to read one tiny section from the missionary handbook in front of everyone. and apparently i was the sister chosen by president. so like yeah... that was cool i guess. afterward we were going to go try to see the eiffel tower but didnt have time. but its okay cause while we were taking the metro back from versailles obviously we had a very clear view of the eiffel tower just right there and all lit up beautiful at night!

 Anyway at the the conference they kind of cassé'd us for not working hard enough. but it was also inspiring haha. President Teixeira told a story about his son's mission. how he looked up the statistics for his son's mission and they were not good. so he made his son promise to teach 21 lessons his first week (3 a day) and his son taught 22 lessons!!!!! he also that him and his companion just decided to invite everyone to church while contacting. and randomly like on sunday 12 people showed up! so soeur r and I decided to do exactly that. luckily our ward had printed pass_along cards for our christmas progam on sunday. so we made a goal to get rid of all of them... and we did! sadly none of the people showed up. But we're definitely going to start inviting people to church in our normal contacting each day. I like it. 

Also i'm super excited for christmas not only because i get to skype home, but also we were invited for christmas to a members and the wife's english, husband's french (but served a mission in england). so basically we were told that it would be  a very englishy american christmas! and we're spending christmas eve with the bishop family who is scottish. so like don't have to speak french and can just chill! so yeah it doesn't feel like christmas is in 3 days, christmas is weird on the mission. 

sunday we taught the youth sunday school. and we bribed them with american cookies :) it worked, we even got them to sing the first verse of like 8 different christmas songs!!!! haha best lesson with them so far. 

Well I think that'

s it. I hope everyone has an amazing christmas. sorry i don't have many photos this week, but a lot more next week I promise! miss you all tons! bonne semaine et joyeux noël!

~Soeur Farmer

1. contacting in the parc just across the river from the castle has become our new favorit activity!

2. J, this ones for you, swan lakes playing in Angers! too bad i'll be long gone by then

Christmas Miracles

Okay so this week was super good! Tons of miracles!

Miracle #1 Tuesday we were supposed to have a rdv with a new chinese amis with a member, but our amis changed it to wednesday. which happened to be one of the days that another member could teach with us, because she works all the time. so we asked the other member if it was okay to teach with the other one instead. She said yeah, but then we invited her to go do some passby's with us that day anyway. So she came with us and every person we wanted to visit was there!!!! and nice on top of just being there! so like we got 4 member presents in one day.... which i never thought would happen. brilliant idea to just bring a member even when you don't have a rdv. 

Miracle #2: a less active that has been really hesitant to come to church came to the ward christmas activity!!! she was gonna leave after the talent show before dinner and we convinced her to stay. then she was gonna leave right after eating a little bit, but then we convinced her to stay for dessert. and she ended up staying the whole time! and she met a lot of members, cause she's been less active since she was a teenager, and she's now like in her 40's. so she doesnt really remember anyone.

Miracle #3: we're at church on sunday, sad that mimi didnt show up when she said she would. and sacrament ends and suddenly a member walks up and says, do you want to meet my friends. first of all, i have no clue who this member is, i've seen him like one other time. So I say yeah, so his friend comes up and is like "hi my name is natalie i'm his friend, i loved church, can you come over sometime this week?" okay so it wasnt exactly those words, but it was pretty much like that. so we set up a rdv, and then she was like, come meet my sister. sadly her sister doesn't speak that much french and is only visiting for a week... but then we gave them a church tour. we showed her the baptismal font and she just loved it. she said it was so beautiful and cool and she asked when the next baptism was so that she could see it and in my head i said to myself "yours" ha ha. but like seriously she's so prepared. and then we showed her the genealogy room and she loved it! and she set up a rdv with the lady who is in charge of that. but like pretty much we were just handed an amis without doing anything. 

and finally Miracle #4 so last night us sisters and elders decided to go caroling at the gare, cause you know there's a piano in every gare. so we went and there happened to be a member there, from chole,t who then played piano for us. and then was just like a member missionary for us. it was awesome. But the miracle was this man came up and thanked us a lot and then left before we could talk to him more. but then he came back and was totally interested and invited us all over to his house for christmas eve dinner. we got his number and the elders are going to start teaching him. too bad, we're already taken christmas eve :/

Okay so those were the miracles this week. Saturday was our ward christmas party. so like we went porting before the party and it was terrible. raining and everyone was rejecting us, no one wanted us to sing for them, just really bad. but then we had the activity. For the talent show I played a flute solo of Gesu Bambino and then afterwards the missionaries did a "funny" talent. Sorry I forgot to have someone video tape it on my camera, but a member did video tape it, I just have to get it from them, so like next week? So it was a competition between the equipes. we had to find a candy cane a midst ice cream and whipped cream. but the trick was that our companion was our arms. so they stood behind us, so they could't see really anything but they were feeding us... yeah so I was the companion eating,... but WE WON! The soeurs beat the elders, talk about bragging rights for the rest of the transfer! But yeah so that was fun.

This week were having our christmas conference with half the mission. so they'll be putting up pictures on the fb page. Ours is thursday not wednesday, so it'll be the second batch of photos put up.

So like i got really homesick this week, must be with the holidays, so it's a good thing we had so many miracles this week to keep me going. But i love you all and miss you so much! 10 more days before I get to skype you all :)

so just gonna tell you again to go onto christmas.mormon.org but also there is another video that's beautiful. it's called "the coat" you can find it at mormonchannel.org/thecoat go watch that one too! 

Okay this email is getting to be too long. Have a great week! Gros bisous!

~Sœur Farmer

1. Singing at the gare

2. Christmas activity

3.Cake competition at the activity

4. another picture of the marché

5.wow they translated his name....

I'M GOING TO....

be staying in Angers!!!!!!!!!! so like I don't understand what happened, no one stays in their ville for 4 transfers, let alone staying in their bleue ville! but every single elder and sister from my group stayed in their bleue ville too (except for the two sisters who 2nd transfer trained). So yeah i'm still here in Angers until february so you can start to write me letters again haha.

Okay, super jealous that Bishop Caussé came to our stake conference! like seriously his sister is SOEUR BABIN????  but like it's really not fair! he comes after i'm already here in France. But it's okay, i'll probably bump into him sometime through out my mission. Thanks mom for the story of how the paris temple came to be. sad it won't be done before i leave, but i'll just have to come back! but yeah I heard another story too about how they decided to let it be built, but it was in french, so like I don't really remember it too well and who the actual person was that made it possible because it wasn't told by the actual person, it was told by frank pozanski  (old mission president).

So this week was good. Mimi, i don't know when her baptism is going to be, cause right now she has her kids at her house every weekend which also means she has a social assistant living with her too, so she can't come to church. so we'll see where that goes,if we were in the states she could just get baptized during the week, but i'm in france where half the members live hours an hour away. so baptisms have to be on sundays, other wise no members show up to support them. but that's the update with her.

But other than that i'm just loving the Christmas holidays! everyone's so nice, we get to sing to people, it's just awesome!!! so like yeah I love Christmas i wish it could happen more than once a year.

Also we contacted this lady and right away she said that she doesnt like to talk about religion and said that she believes Jesus is a myth. but then we started talking about Christmas with her and she said that Christmas is a sad time for her because her parents are dead and all her kids are gone out of the house. But then we started testifying to her about Christ and all he did for us and why it's important to remember him during the Christmas holidays and she started smiling!!!!! and her eyes lit up! and then she started opening up and telling us how she used to love going to church with her parents and misses that. it was so cool to see her completely change in front of us. at first she didnt want to give us the time of day, but as we testified of Christ you could see her change and be more happier. it was such an awesome experience.

okay i keep on saying it but if you haven't gone to christmas.mormon.org and watched the video, then GO DO IT! I absolutely love it every time, it's short but very beautiful!

well have an amazing week! I love you all so much and can't wait to skype you in 17 days!!!!!!!! miss you!

~Soeur Farmer

1. I got my Christmas package and put everything under the tree :) now i just have to wait a few more days....

2.the beautiful lights in centre ville

3. our district photo. elder platt is dead... (not literally, he's just done with his mission-so like mission dead)

Happy Thanksgiving!

So i don't even know where to begin with this week. it was a somewhat okay week.

District meeting was fun! we had thanksgiving dinner on thursday, it was pretty lame, but turned out okay. we had chicken, mashed potatoes, stove top stuffing (thanks mom!), rolls, deviled eggs, and banana cream pie. but yeah it was super good. 

We finally saw mimi!!!!!!! and we set up rdv's with her for her baptismal interview and to finish lesson 5. i think she's actually going to be ready for next week! super excited! she was supposed to come to stake conference on sunday in nantes, but didnt wake up in time to leave with the member.... but it's okay because Emma came! i felt so bad though because we got there like 5 minutes before because we took the train in the morning and walked because there weren't enough members to drive us. so emma found some members she new-thankfully! but apparently they didnt get her the headphones to translate the meeting for her... she was sitting next to a member who speaks fluent english, but she didnt want them to have to translate the entire time, so she only got a little of it translated.... So yeah that was a stressful morning.But a cool thing that happened, i was talking to her afterwards, and one of the chinese speaking elders came over and started talking to her, so i left cause i didnt understand any of it. but she talked with both of them for a while and she said it was really cool and nice to be able to speak her "mother tongue", as she calls it.

the other days were okay. I honestly am so ready to leave angers. these past few weeks have been tough, and i can't wait to just start over new.This last week has been especially tough. i'm starting to feel  homesick with the holidays coming around. 

we find out about transfers saturday morning, so i'll tell you next week where i'm going! its so crazy how fast this transfers gone by- 4 weeks. next transfers 8 weeks so we'll see how fast that one goes haha. I'm going to my 2nd ville which means i'm officially not a bleue (apparently you're a bleue until you leave your bleu ville)

also i finally did see the "he is the gift" video, so good!!!!! if you havent watched it, please do. and share it everwhere!

Love you all so much and miss you a ton!!!!! only 24 more days till Christmas and until i get to skype you all! Grosses bises!!!!!!!

~Sœur Farmer

1.our thanksgiving meal... it looks like mush but its actually stove top stuffing, green beans, and steak haché. not to bad... 

2. we made indian headbands for our zone leaders... hahah

3.our apartment has a tree!!!!! we put it up i thanksgiving night :)

Elder Cook Conference

So yeah the Elder Cook conference was soooooo cool! and amazing. so like i dont even know where to begin, maybe the getting there part. so our train was at 6:40 am caught it, got to the gares at 8:18 and had to take the metro to be at the RER in st lazare at 8:44 for the last RER that would get us there in time. We ran off the train and down into the metro's and it was really crazy. some of our zone didnt catch the metro because we were packed in no space for anyone. but they caught the next metro in 3 minutes. we got to the RER at 8:40, like seriously was a miracle we made it. we ran the whole entrie way, it was very tiring. but we made it, then we had to walk from the station to the versailles chapelle. so like 10 min walk. all missionaries were supposed to be seated by 9:30 and elder cook would come at 9:45, we got there at 9:35 and the perks of being late was being in the front row!!!!!!!! so elder cook got there and shook every single missionaries had so that was super cool. 

Okay the actual conference, he talked alot about how preach my gospel was made and it was just super cool. he talked about how missionaries are assigned to their mission. He said that when they're assigned they  get the impression that they need:

1. to go to a specific mission president

2. go to a specific group of people (for example the french people, or german)

3. need to go to a specific place be cause they need those experiences for their life after the mission 

but yeah so it was really amazing, the best part was that i was in the front row so like him and his wife and the other people that spoke looked me in the eyes a bunch of times. At the very end Elder Cook started testifying of Christ, and while doing it he looked me in the eyes and wow, it was so powerful. i don't even know how to describe it! He truly is an apostle of God people! it's amazing the relationship he has with Christ and God, like seriously, the spirit was so strong. and then right after testifying of Christ, he then blessed the whole mission for a good 5 minutes. yeah, we were all bawling so hard. like seriously, it was the greatest feeling ever to have an apostle bless your mission, physically and spiritually. Like i know i've said this a lot, but i can not begin to describe how amazing it was. 

Okay, now that i've spent the entire time writing about that, there's not much else to write about this week, it was a bland week. We didnt see Mimi at all this week because she's been "too busy to see us" and she didnt come to church. i'm starting to get really worried for her. she wants to be baptized, but she's not putting forth the effort. please pray for her, i hope she still is ready to be baptized on the 7th.

on another note, we're supposedly getting ipads at the beginning of next year (so january?), we're keeping our fingers crossed. it'd be soooo  nice!

No fun way to celebrate thanksgiving :( but its okay, for district meeting on wednesday, we're making a thanks giving meal :) but that's the best we get. so yeah.

Also after the cook conference we had a formation on the Christmas campaign for the church. it's called He Is The Gift!!!! there's a video, but it wasnt working so we didnt get to see it. the website is christmas. mormon.org and it will be available for preview tomorrow, but wont launch until the 28th. also the church bought out all the advertisement for youtube for the whole day of december 7th! how cool is that! also there's going to be presentations in some select visiter centers around the world. and we have a lot of billboards bought out for the month of december in time square. so cool! as a mission we get to go caroling as part of our contacting! and Neil L Anderson is donating us a book that he wrote that is a true story that happened here in france(i think when he was mission president here) that he wrote. it's called "room in the in". but everyone should go on the website and share it on facebook and everything because it's a super cool campaign. I just love the spirit of christmas. okay this letters getting too long. 

(this extra paragraph was in an email to Diana)

I'm doing fine.I know i said i wanted to stay in Angers for christmas, but i'm actually ready to leave soon, i've been here so long and i cant wait to experience another ville. my companion plays softball and is all about stats and stuff so she takes stats of all the sisters in our mission (what transfer they're in, how long they've in their ville, if they could train next transfer, if they could be stl next transfer, how many stl's are leaving) its pretty intense. but we counted and there's 12 villes that i could go to next transfer.... so we have no clue what could happen for me next transfer. but we still have two more weeks so its fine. so yeah, i'm fine on clothes- i've already got a lot from past missionaries leaving behind their stuff. so i don't need anymore.  also transfers are dec. 10th. so yeah I think that's it. what's in the package and i can't wait for the ensign!

Love you all have a good week! groses bises!

~Sœur Farmer

1. exchanges with soeur barton! 

2. I tried PB&J on a baguette, best thing ever!

3. took a selfie of us all squished in the metro

4. tried to porte a house, whoops theres no house, just a gate with a doorbell :/

Tiring Week

okay i dont really know what to write about this week. i'm so tired! transfer day was crazy, the tram wasnt working so we had to take a bus to the gares, luckily there's one that goes straight to the gares, but it only comes once an hour. it came a minute after we got to the stop (tender mercy). then we said goodbye to emma and a member lucile at the gares and then caught our train. we got off the train in paris and to the metro to les halles we then accidentally exited and couldnt find the place where all the missionaries meet so then we finally went to the entrance we did know and got to what we call the plan de salut (plan of salvation) mural thing. and soeur rasmussen wasnt there.... apparently she had been escorted to the gares... so we barely missed each other. so i had elders escort me to the gare, and i got there with 20 minutes before our train left. so yeah that was a very tiring day of running all over the place and carrying luggage. 

so yeah i really dont know what to write about, its been an okay week...

Mimi's baptism got pushed back again :( she didnt have time for us this week... which is really annoying, so we couldnt finish lesson five with her and she didnt get her baptismal interview. one really good thing that came with the transfer is that our district leader is now in angers, not cholet. before the district leader had to take a train to interview our amis, but now the DL is in angers. so it was really nice because we didnt feel bad canceling on him for mimi's interview  because its not like he had taken a train... but yeah, very disappointing pushing mimi's date back. we had to move it to dec 7th because there's stake conference on nov 30th. and we do baptisms on sunday and then they get confirmed the next week. so if she got baptized next week she'd have to wait two weeks before she was confirmed. but she hasnt been to church in a while, so its all for the best.

I guess one thing i didnt tell you last week is that elder cook (the apostle) is coming to our mission on thursday. so yeah that'll be super cool. except i just read the email and its super organized and like we cant talk to anyone really, there's even assigned seats haha. oh well, i'll be writing you about that next week.

sorry for being lame this week, nothing big happened. i like my new companion, she's cool, dont really know what else to say. oh actually this is something interesting from this week, no one can understand Soeur Rasmussen... she's been on her mission for 10 months and when she says something the person will say they didnt understand and then turn to me and i have to repeat what she said for her. its a little ridiculous, she has way more vocab than i do but no one has been able to understand her. she said this happened in each ville she's been in so now i'm scared to move villes. i like it when people understand me, just saying. But yeah my french has grown a lot in the past week, i think i was just kind of being dependent on Soeur P and letting her talk cause you know she's really good at speaking french. but yeah that's about it.

hope you all have a great week! love you!

1. Soeur Rasmussen and I 

2. soeur p wanted to ride the lions her last day in angers,

3. Last photo together as companions :(

Transfer 3 Quoi?‏

okay so theres alot to write about. first of all the transfer. Soeur Pettingill is going to Brussells Belgium as STL!!!! I'm staying in Angers with my new companion Soeur Rasmussen, how do i always have companions with long last names? She's going into her 7th transfer and I actually will leave my mission with all the elders she came in with. so that'll be cool to find out who they are. the night we got the repetoire she called us and it was a little awkward because we were just like "hi, we're going to be companions..." and did the whole, where are you from stuff. but yeah we'll probably only be together for 4 weeks because she hasnt trained yet and Angers is a training ville. So i'll have to leave right before Christmas :( but i'll write more about my new collegue next week when i actually know her. 

So mimi.... saddest story ever. I don't know if I've already explained her situation. She has four kids that don't live with her because the government took them away a year ago, and she's been trying to get them back ever since. so friday morning we're trying to get a hold of her and finally she calls us back. And she told us that she finally got a rendez-vous to go in front of the judge for the following week so we were super excited. However, she said that before she goes in front of the judge, she has to spend a weekend away alone in an apartment with her kids and a social assistant. So mimi then told us that she cant be baptized this weekend. She was freaking out, she was like "i really really want to be baptized but i have no choice they say i have to go away for the weekend but i cant because i have to be baptized and so i don't know what to do". She did everything she could to change it. She asked them if they could change it to a different weekend or if she could just do it friday night till sunday morning. but it had to be friday night to monday morning... she had absolutely no choice, its so sad. but its okay, she's getting baptized next sunday. so its okay, and now it gives us more time to finish the lessons and not be rushed. but it was just so sad. It's amazing what happens to keep people from baptism. Its my first one, so i dont really know. but soeur p said that never has she seen the devil fight so hard against one of her amis to the point where they have no choice. its amazing. anyway so we havent heard from mimi all weekend, but we hope her weekend went well, because we really want her to get her children back. 

okay just one last thing i did this week, it was Emma's birthday and Fei Fei's birthday, so we went to Saumur (a small town outside of Angers, but still in our area) where Fei Fei lives and we celebrated their birthday. It was so fun. Saumur is beautiful!!! it was super fun, i loved it. 

okay nothing else really big... oh wait no. 7 elders are coming in and 14 sisters. never has that happened there's always more elders than sisters or its even. but anyway 7 sisters that i came in with are training (so glad im not) and 1 sister who came in last transfer is training in her 2nd transfer.... its just crazy. and Elder Rollins from my district is training (only one from my group) so yeah. that's weird. 

1. half of the saumur castle because the other half was under construction....

2.them with there birthday cake!

3.sorry its so dark. but heres my district. we didnt have enough ones. so elder orton is holding the one for himself and for elder platts 15

4. just us waiting for a member to pick us up in front of the castle....

Playing Tourist

This week was actually one of the longer weeks, which i have no idea why because it was just a normal week. 

So much to talk about...

 I'll start with Halloween. It was a very sad day... it was our weekly planning so we were inside most the day. we celebrated Halloween by taking a break and going down to the boulangerie below us and buying the most american thing we could from there. Our options were donuts, cookies (which are different here, i dont know how, but they're not as good), brownie ( which isnt like a brownie at all) crumble or chocolate cake ( which is more like a brownie than the actual brownie). I got the chocolate cake, soeur p got the crumble. then we went back upstairs to the apartment and turned off all the lights and turned on the electric candle in a plastic jack-o-lantern that soeur p got in a package.... later we sprinted to catch a bus, so that was fun... and lastly the best part of the night. we had a soirée familiale with mimi and a member family. So we didnt eat dinner because in french mormon culture soirée familiale means have dinner and a lesson. yeah apparently these members didnt get the memo. they didnt feed us. and on top of that they taught the lesson instead of us, which is weird, and set us behind on the lessons we need to teach mimi by next sunday... so finally we got home starving at 9 at night. so we made toast, but the problem is that we dont have a toaster (or an oven) so we use the microwave oven  to toast our bread. so we put it in and started planning.... bad idea, we forgot about it. so our Halloween dinner was burnt toast. so that was my day.

Okay castle it was beautiful of course! and i got to sit in the throne :) don't worry i'll send lots of photos.

Tuesday we went to paris for soeur p's legality. we got to the préfecture at 11:45, I went to the bathroom while soeur p was standing in line. When I came out she was done and we left the building at 11:50. so then we had 3 hours before our train ride... so what did we do? EIFFEL TOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so yeah we went to the eiffel tower nbd! don't worry i'll send tons of photo's. but yeah it was the dream. after being there it officially hit me that i'm in france, dont know why it didnt before. but yeah tuesday was basically a second pday, loved it. also I had this viennoiserie thing i think it was called a nutella brioche. which is basically a roll with nutella in the middle. I'm pretty sure there was more nutella than actual bread... so good! sorry I forgot to take a photo. but yeah paris was awesome!!!!

Mimi is doing well. a little worried about how we're going to be able to fit in all the lessons before her date because she fruged us saturday and sunday, so we're a little behind. but it's still do-able. she's really excited for it, we just are hoping that she understands how important it is.

It's been really good weather up until  yesterday.... super sunny and then today it's been raining non-stop, so basically like home. I love the rain, but not as a missionary. no one is out when its raining and we basically can't talk to people because they don't want to be outside. so we've started to do a lot of porting houses. Last night it was pouring down rain and we had forgotten our umbrella's so we were soaked. so that was also fun. 

Well this is the last week of this transfer and it it very very likely that soeur p will be leaving :( so i'll be getting a new companion. we wont know until saturday so next pday i'll give you the news. i'm just hoping i don not get a call from the ap's saturday morning because that would mean i'm training. which could be likely if its a big group. so yeah things are going to be changing there. 

There's not much else to say. love you all so much! have a great week! miss you! groses bises!

~Sœur Farmer

1. picture with the Eiffel Tower


2. First view of the Eiffel Tower! 

3. you know just kinda freaking out

4.the grand throne.... but not really that grand

5. you know just me

6.standing in front of the entrance to the castle

7. beautiful views from the castle

8. our halloween celebration

9.on Halloween day they put up christmas decorations.... they don't have thanksgiving to be the mark to start celebrating christmas

Weird Week

This week was good too! this is probably going to be a short one again though, sorry.

First of all keep me updated on marysville pilchuck! thats so scary! also all of you siblings need to keep me updated on your lives because i just got an email from mom saying Julia broke up with her boyfriend that i didnt even know she had.... 

Also sadly france doesn't really do halloween. it's more for like the 5 year olds and under. most french people hate it because it's an "american" holiday. so no haloween over here. they do however celebrate Toussaint november 1st, the day to celebrate all the saints. and france does a lot of vacations, so they get two weeks off just for that one day. its kinda ridiculous

But anyway this week was good. I guess I'll just write about one miracle that happened this week. We were waiting at a bus stop and soeur p started talking to a lady and her son. we missed our bus to give her our card, and got on the same bus as her which really only put us like a two minute walk farther from our apartment. but she didnt continue to talk to us on the bus and it was really sad because soeur p felt we really needed to talk to her, but we didn't get her number. then a few days later we felt like we needed to pass by an old amis, so we did and she wasn't there. but her neighbors below were being really loud, so we decided to ask if the old amis still lives there. We knock, the door opens, and its her! the lady from the bus stop! she was so surprised she asked us how we found her. haha but anyway now we have her address, so a phone number isnt really needed. But yeah that was our miracle this week.

yesterday i heard a new pick-up line. I dont think it really works especially if you say it to missionaries haha. two guys came up to us and asked if we had any cigarettes. We taught them the restoration haha. but it was hilarious because in the middle of the conversation smoking got brought up again and we said again that we don't smoke and then they said neither do we. And then they confessed that they were just trying to start a conversation to talk to us cause we were pretty. Haha, so someone can try that pick up line and see how it goes, but don't try it on a missionary

mimi is progressing still! we went over the baptismal interview questions with her and found out where she stood on the whole law of chastity thing. and we dont know exactly where she stands but we think she's going to brake up with her boyfriend. at first she said she had a dream that she needed to stay with him. But then we were talking about how he can change with the gospel of Jesus Christ and she just kept saying, no he'll never change. he's immature and not good for me and doesnt care about our children and stuff like that. so we think she's breaking up with him but continue to pray for her so she can know what to do and be prepared for her baptism in two weeks.

This week was a good week, but also a weird week. I just was feeling so discouraged for no reason. I was happy with my progress in the language, our lessons, everything, but i still just felt not good inside. So i got a blessing. It was so good, i love the priesthood. It's seriously amazing that the elder who doesn't know anything about whats going on in my mind can have the power to give me a blessing where he basically reads my mind. The funny thing is some of it i didnt even realize i was thinking that until he said it. I didnt even know what to expect from the blessing, but it was perfect. It just talked about how God hears every single one of my prayers, my questions, and pleadings for help. and that right now i'm trying to find out how the Holy Ghost works through me and that God is helping me with that and that I need to "continue to talk to Him and he'll talk to me".  Then he talked about how i'm supposed to be here and that I shouldnt doubt my mission, that i'm doing what the lord wants me to do right now. And that i need to be patient with myself, that's something i really struggle with. I'm actually very patient in a lot of ways, but not at all patient with myself. And then he told me that i'd been given the gift of tongues and that my confidence and such has really helped me through this situation that others wouldnt be able to go through. and he also said I had the gift of kindness and that i bring a light to the room that makes others feel comfortable. but yeh that's all i can remember off the top of my head. it really was a beautiful blessing.  but yeah i didnt even know that i was doubting my mission, but apparently subconsciously i had. also it was really good to hear the first thing come out of his mouth in the blessing was that the Lord hears every single one of my prayers.

Love you all so much, please continue to email me I love hearing from everyone always, so yeah just write me.

Je vous aime tous!!!!!!

~Soeur Farmer

P.S we're finally going to the castle today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lots of photo's next week! also tomorrow we're going to paris (again!) to pick up soeur p's carte de séjour. haha so that'll be fun.

1. our soirée familiale with emma and fei fei

2. someone sticky-noted the tram stop to be pac man

3. I don't know if i've already said this, but there is  a piano in every gare available for people to play whenever they want. Its really cool, i like it when people play it, and are actually good!

cimitière de l'est‏

This week was good! Went by sooooo fast. We had zone conference this past week and it was interviews!!!! I loved it so much! President and Sœur Babin are the best!

We went to the cemetery last pday because we didnt have time to go to the castle. Maybe today... But it was sooooo cool!!! Sounds weird because it's a cemetery, but it was really cool. reading all the names. Here they put "la famille so and so" at the top so people can see what family they're part of. But there is this one that says "la famille gentil". gentil is their last name,but in french it means nice. And because it's an adjective it agree's with the person. So the funny thing is that famille is feminine, so to be grammatically correct it should say la famille gentille. Haha so there's some french humor for you. We also found somebody in the cemetery with the last name babin. so that was cool. 

There's not that much to write.... our amis are doing well. Today we're actually having a soiree familiale with emma and a member that's chinese... so we're having authentic chinese food. I'm so excited. Don't worry i'm taking photo's. 

I'm sorry i dont have really much to write... Its just the same old normal life. Some of our amis arent progressing or calling us back so we're going to have to start finding people again like those first two weeks i was here. That was sooo tough only doing contacting all day. I really hope we don't have to do that again....

We're already half way through the transfer, meaning in three weeks I won't be a bleu anymore. which i'm sad because bleu's get cut a lot of slack. And just because i wont be a bleu anymore doesn't mean i'm going to suddenly be amazing at the language. so that's a little worrisome. but i've still got 3 weeks left. 

The Weather was actually nice this week, a lot of sun, but it's supposed to turn bad this week :\   

Well i hope everything's going well back home. miss you all and love you a lot!!!!!

~Sœur Farmer

1. beautiful stain-glass windows

2. us with the Nantes stl's at zone conference

3.Our beautiful castle

4. Went to the cemetery, it was so beautiful!

5.The beautiful chapel in the cemetery

Baptismal Date

I'll start with the best news. Tuesday we committed Mimi our amis to a baptismal date! She is going to be baptized on Nov. 9th! It so great she really is progressing so fast. However she didnt show up at church this sunday, which she said she would. and her phone was off all day and we stopped by and she wasnt there. so I hope everything is well with her. but we already had a rdv set up with her for tuesday. But it really was great. 

Also we were teaching emma and somehow just mentioned a little bit about baptism and she asked us at what age we were baptized and what it was like. And Soeur P had a picture of her at her baptism so she pulled it out and we both testified of baptism and how we feel afterwards and it was great. And then I looked at Soeur P and she gave me a face that said yes invite her and the spirit was telling me to do it too. So I asked her if she would want to be baptized. And she said that it sounded amazing but she doesnt want to commit to it right now because she realizes how important and sacred it is and doesnt think she's ready. So then we talked about how we set dates as a future goal, but we didnt set a date with her. But just before this we had watched President Uchtdorf's talk from this past general conference about receiving a testimony for yourself. So we committed her to do the things that were in the talk so she could have a testimony for herself. It was a good lesson. And we committed her to come to church the next day, sadly she missed her bus by two minutes and the next one would have gotten her there for the last 30 min. of sacrament meeting. But next week!

On monday we had a little birthday party for our less active friend Camille! It was amazing because she left the church 4 years ago when her parents got divorced. But she used to be best friends with one of the girls in the ward (Juliette Chevé) so we invited her and some other girls the same age in the ward and it was amazing! we basically helped rekindle an old friendship no big deal. They made plans to go out for lunch this past week and it just awesome. Before Camille didnt know if the members really remembered her and such but after that, i think she really felt the love of the ward. It was perfect.

This week was a lot better. I think I just set too high of expectations for myself. Anyway, this is like the first week that actually went by slow. And it didnt even go by that slow, just slower than usual, but still fast.

So I did the math... which was not a good idea haha. And I found out I'll come home Dec. 16th 2015...Each sister gets 12 transfers out in the field and depending on where the transfers fall, usually a sisters mission gets cut short by a month. so its technically only a 17th month mission. There are a lot of ups and downs about this. The down side: I'll only have one christmas in france (i wanted two because it's a once in a life time opportunity), also france has what they call solds twice a year (a month where everything is on sale for up to 50% off). one in the winter and one in the summer. So i'll only have two solds and i was hoping to have three. and last reason because they say its an 18 month mission and then only let me stay for 17 months, whats up with that?! I committed to an 18th month mission, I want a full 18th month mission haha. but the up side: I'll be home for christmas!!!!!! I'll still get to experience  part of the christmas holiday in france. Also I can buy a bunch of france stuff to bring home as presents for people! And lastly at christmas time everyone's home from school so i'll see all my friends and family!

so yeah that's kind of my dilemma right now. I don't know how to feel about it... haha but either way that's forever away so who cares. 

This past week it has rained a lot... the weathers starting to be bad :( but today's weather is really good! So that means today we're going to either one of the cool cemeteries here or the castle. depending on how much time we have after buy groceries and having lunch. 

 And lastly this week is zone conference with President Babin so you'll be seeing pictures of me up on the facebook page. Also i had pistachio ice cream for the first time with soeur richards, it is soooooooo good! may be one of my new favorite flavors! france is like the best place ever. We took one of our morning runs around the castle nbd :P

Well I love you all and miss you so much. I hope everything is well back home. Always know that no matter what is going on in your life, the Lord is always there for you. 

Je vous aime toujours!

~Soeur Farmer

Pictures:
1. We went to a boulangerie for lunch at pday and they had an sandwhich called "the American" It's just thin hamburger patties place in a baguette with fries sauce and some lettuce haha. so basically a hamburger, but in a baguette and the fries aren't on the side they're in the sandwich. But i didnt get that one, i got the chicken version of it. but still, it was a lot but really good. 


2. Camille's 21st birthday! she's on the furthest right

3. Soeur Richards and I after our exchange

4. we had heard that france doesnt do donuts as well as america (besides beignets). and we were craving donuts, so we bought some. They were good, but i think amercia has france beat donut wise. you can only find these donuts or beignets, nothing else.