Investigators comment, "my role models are God, Jesus, and John Stockton." (Too bad he's retired, we could use him).

Bonjour Ma Famille!

I hope you are all doing wonderful and enjoying the best part of the year.  I had a fantastic week...as always...can't really remember the last time that I didn't. My birthday was good, kind of just another day of work.  But, it was fun.  Although, I'm kind of sad to not be a 19 year old sister missionary anymore.  I really liked being the super young one.  Oh well, I guess I'll still always hold the title of being the first one in our mission.

So, we'll start with the basics.  My new companion in Sister Ronndahl.  She is from Sweden.  It's really cool because we have been receiving basically no new American missionaries.  They are mostly European now.  So great.  Anyways, she's 20, is funny, and really likes art and food.  Speaking of, that is one of the funniest struggles of having companions from other countries.  Example--last night we were making a grocery list.  She eats a lot of bizarre things and makes fun of the English names for food.  She was especially confused when she found out that we call the meat we put on sandwiches "lunchmeat".  Haha, "Why?  Do you have "dinnermeat" too?"  ...never thought about that before.  Anyways, she's fun and really dedicated.  I'm excited to work with her.

Funny moment of the week-- 

One of our amis said that his role models are God, Jesus, and John Stockton.  It took a second to compose myself before continuing the lesson because I was laughing so hard.  Haha, sounds like he's a Utah mormon already.

Texts of the week-- 

(an ami) "I just wanted to thank you for the time that you give me.  I really feel something special during our lessons."

(random number) "Hi, I'm not sure you remember me, but you gave me a Book of Mormon a few weeks ago.  Is there a time we can get together this week and talk about it?"

Other miracles--

So this week we had our Branch Christmas Party.  It was unreal.  There were more less-actives and nonmembers there than members.  Are you kidding me?  It was fantastic to spend the whole night running around and sparking everyone.  Examples...

Severine (our amie) came and brought three of her children.

A less-active/partial member family came.  They have not stepped foot in the church for years (some of the super offended ones).  But, you would never know because they stayed after for hours and chatted with all of the members.

Another less-active came, brought a friend, came to church the next day, and payed her tithing (I've only seen her at church once in three months).

Hsuan also came and brought a non-member friend (such an incredible missionary!).

And then, there were several other members that invited friends and less-actives that randomly showed up.  It was so so cool.  It really was a night of miracles...and really yummy food.

Oh, so remember several weeks ago when Severine was in the hospital and we set-up for the priesthood to go and give her a blessing?  End of the story... While they were there, they ended up giving a blessing also to a lady that was staying in the same room as Severine.  She was an old lady who was really sick and was told that she would be in the hospital for months until they could figure out what was wrong with her.  Nope, the day after she went home in perfect health.  Power of the priesthood.

Sandrine is doing well too.  Oh my gosh, I love her so much.  She is so incredible.  It has been difficult lately with her husband because he is so so against the church.  But, she was at church yesterday with all four of her kids.  She has such a strong testimony.  Probably one of my favorite amies ever!

Other than that...we have a new ami from Colombia, all of the buses were on strike this week (apparently strikes are the national sport in France), and our new phone broke.  Um, good week.  Love you all!

Je vous aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme