"It has been incredible to see this miracle unfold." 5/28/2013

Our "Chateau"

We love contacting in the rain.

Bonjour Ma Famille,

So this week has been wonderful.  I love being a missionary.  Honestly, it is unlike any other experience that you can ever have.  You learn so much and are pushed in many different ways.  I have such a strong testimony that my mission is being perfectly catered to me.  I have had to exercise my faith so much more than I ever have in my life.

It's really interesting, a lot of missionaries talk about their transfers as a "bleue" as being the ones that require the most faith.  You're brand new, don't understand anything that people are saying, you're learning how to do missionary work, you're still getting used to being away from home, etc.  That always made sense to me...until I started this transfer.  Being a trainer is absolutely incredible.  I have prayed harder and put more trust in the Lord in the last two weeks than I ever have before.  Literally, as a trainer, He is the only one that I have to fall back on.  There is more responsibility when it comes to...everything and everything that I do is setting Soeur Luthi up for the rest of her mission.  I have been helped so much the last two weeks I cannot even explain it.  Everything that I have been able to do has been all God.  For example, my language skills have shot up insanely.  Before I became a trainer, I had made one phone call in French.  Well, now I man the phone and call people all of the time.  I'm taking over substantial parts of lessons, working a lot more with different people in the ward, etc.  I don't know how to explain in, it is different when you are the only one in the companionship that knows what is going on in any conversation or has a way to respond.  I feel like I was totally sheltered while I was being trained, especially last transfer when we honestly spent a lot of time in the apartment without opportunities to utilize my French.  But now, it is just coming.  God is giving what I need to accomplish the things that He wants.  It has seriously been amazing.  Haha, our bishop is super confused how I can suddenly speak French over night.  It's incredible.

While it has been cool to see the changes in myself, it has been even more incredible to see the changes in our ward.  We had a wonderful meeting with our évêque and DMP this week.  I feel like, unlike other meetings that we have had with this ward in the past, there was an overwhelming feeling of hope and an excitement for what we have recently seen.  Honestly, this ward is doing a 180.  For example, when we first came to Carcassonne, it was a struggle to get into the houses of any of the members.  This week, already, we have planned to see five different families between the two équipes (companionships).  The lessons are good in classes.  The talks are good in sacrament.  The members are just happy.  Most of all, the Spirit is here.  I don't know that I've ever experienced what I did here before.  When I first got here, literally, you did not feel the Spirit at church.  It was not here at all.  The past couple Sundays, Soeur Fairchild and I just look at each other after church with a look of amazement and ask, "What just happened here?"  During this meeting, the évêque looked at us and explained that in his eight years of being a bishop, he has never felt a Spirit like this in his ward.   He told us that, the transfer before I was sent here, he had called President Roney and pleaded for him to send sister missionaries to the ward.  I don't know what we have done, but we have tried to do everything through inspiration.  When President sent sister here, all that he said was, "Carcassonne needs a miracle."  It has been incredible to see this miracle unfold.

Another cool follow-up to a miracle last week...  Remember that random lady that we found while contacting?  The one who just moved here and we helped get to church?  She was called as a ward missionary this Sunday.  How awesome is that?!

Right now, Soeur Luthi and I are focusing not only on strengthening the ward, but finding new people to teach.  I feel like there is a reason the missionaries for the last little while have had struggles finding people to teach here--it's because the ward wasn't ready to accept them.  Now that the ward is starting to look up, we are bound to find more miracle converts.

I hope that you all have a great week.  A mission is the greatest thing ever.  It seriously hurts my heart to think that I have been out here for almost 5 months, I never want to leave.  The church is true.  I love you all, thank you so much for your prayers!

Je vous aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme

Welcome to our district.  Sister missionaries are taking over the mission.  I'm pretty sure
the only reason there is a companionship of elders is because we needed a district leader.

First Week As A Trainer 5/20/2013

Bonjour Ma Famille,

Oh wow, it has been a crazy, wonderful week.  I spent the majority of it up in Lyon picking up my bleue.  It was great, I absolutely love that city.  It feels like home even though I only served there for six weeks.  There is definitely something special about the first ville that you serve in.  We were there from Wednesday to Saturday and were able to go to conferences and do tons of contacting (my favorite). 

My new companion is Soeur Luthi (like "Lucy" with a lisp).  She is incredible and I love her so much already.  She is from California, goes to school at BYU, and has four sisters.  We are so similar and get along really well.  And, she is 19 too!  We are the only companionship in the mission with two 19 year old sisters, it is seriously so exciting to see the work here explode.  Companionships like this are only going to get more and more common as time goes by.  Soeur Luthi is exactly the bleue that I have been praying for.  Right from the start she told me that her goals were to give the mission everything that she has, work extremely hard, be exactly obedient, and see miracles.  Okay, so basically she repeated back to me my goals for this mutation ("transfer"...weird translation, right?).  She has so much fire and confidence, we're going to see some serious changes here!

In our short time together, we've already seen amazing things.  Let me share with you a few miracles...

We've had a little bit of work to do because we are opening up a new équipe (companionship) here.  We're making a new area book, starting with a completely empty phone, etc.  We have spent the past couple days getting organized.  One thing that we did was go through old progress records and set aside a couple names that looked promising.  The next day we got a call right out of the blue.  Long story short, an old investigator wanted to meet with us.  He hasn't been taught for two years and is now interested in retaking the missionary lessons.  He just so happened to be one of the few progress records that we had pulled the night before.  We taught him Saturday, he was at church yesterday and we have another rendez-vous tomorrow.  New amis are literally falling out of the sky.

While we were contacting, we ran into this lady.  She was super nice and explained to us that she was actually a member of our church.  She had just moved to Carcassonne and didn't know anything about our church services here.  We were quickly able to give her the information and she was at church yesterday.  Right place.  Right time.

Soeur Luthi was telling me about one of her friends in the MTC.  He and everyone in his family are members of the church except his grandpa.  This elder will actually be serving in our mission in a few weeks and is determined to teach and baptize his grandpa (because he lives here in Carcassonne).  Although he is the only non-member in his family, his grandpa has had no desire to see missionaries and doesn't want anything to do with the church.  Unfortunately, because there are only sisters serving here, it's not really possible for this elder to work with his grandpa.  So, we decided that we wanted to find and teach him.  After debriefing Soeur Luthi on our sector, we had an "ah ha" moment.  Soeur Fairchild and I actually were invited over by the elder's grandma at the end of last transfer.  We had a great conversation with her and her husband.  And, in fact, the husband invited us to come back another time.  After connecting all of the dots, we realized that we are already set up to teach this man.  How amazing is that?

We also had a little hindsight miracle.  Last transfer we did a lot with the Mulanda family in our ward.  They are a cute young family with 7 kids, they are great and literally fill up half of the primary.  The mom lives here with all of the children and the husband works in Africa.  We had lots of lessons with them last transfer, did family nights, taught the kids primary songs, etc.  The mom was constantly thanking us for the Spirit that we brought into their home and the things we were able to teach her and her children.  Because we didn't have many amis, we had time to meet with them more frequently.  But, more than that, we just really felt like this family needed our help for some reason.  Though not necessarily logical at the time, we continued seeing them several times a week.  Come to find out, the father called for a divorse a few weeks back, he's staying in Africa, they just lost basically all source of income, and he left them with tons of debt.  All of this just barely came out and she hasn't even told the kids yet.  We are continuing to work with them this transfer and are thankful for the inspiration we received to be there to strengthen the family last transfer as well.

Everything is going great.  The ward is continually improving week by week.  It seems slow, but when we look back to see how far it has come, the progress is incredible.  The Bishop and our DMP are overjoyed to have four sister missionaries here.  The work is really just going to explode.  They're calling ward missionaries now to help us too.  God knows exactly what He is doing with this sector.  I'm so ready to work hard and see His plans unfold.

Thank you for all of your love and support.  Haha, while in Lyon I was able to pick up my mail for the last month...  Let's just say that I have the best family and friends in the world because the assistants were literally rolling their eyes as they sat there and handed me letter after letter.  Thanks so much, I feel so blessed.  I love you all, have a wonderful week!

Je vous aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme  

Alisa is now training! 5/12/13

Bonjour Ma Famille,

It was absolutely wonderful to get to talk to you all on Saturday.  I loved it and it made me so happy.  I guess I'll just give a little update this week for those who I wasn't able to talk to.

Most pressing, we got our exchange calls... and I am training.  Both Soeur Fairchild and I are staying in Carcassonne.  But, our companionship is splitting and we're both training.  In the U.S., when you are a new missionary, they refer to you as a "green".  Here, you are a "bleue".  You keep that status through your second transfer because you are still being trained.  So technically, today is my first day not in training as a bleue, and tomorrow I will pick up my bleue (fresh out of the MTC).  No lapse time whatsoever.  I've never been a senior companion...or even a normal junior companion.  I guess that all changes soon.  I have just been taking a lot of deep breaths, repeating the phrase "God qualifies who He calls.  God qualifies who He calls..." , and occasionally eating cookies dipped in Nutella when I get too stressed.  It will be great, though.  I really am so excited.  I'm most nervous about my French skills, but this will definitely just push me off the edge and force me to become fluent a lot faster than I would have been.  It's crazy to me that this is happening after the transfer that I just had.  It was not the easiest.  I can count the lessons that we taught in six weeks on my two hands.  But, maybe God needed me to learn other things so that I would be prepared for this next step.  I hope I'm ready.  It has been one of my goals from day one to be ready to train by my third transfer.  I didn't expect it to happen, but I wanted to be prepared so that God could call me to do whatever He needed.  One thing is for sure, I will have Him with me the whole way...and I will definitely need it.

I've had a quote going through my head a lot since that call.  Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, "The Lord does not ask us about our ability, but only about our availability.  And then, if we demonstrate our dependability, the Lord will increase our capability."  My dad has this quote on the wall in his bishop's office.  I always thought it funny and rather clever that he would have that quote plainly in view for everyone that he extended a calling to.  I think that it definitely applies to my situation here.  I am excited to take on this new challenge and watch the Lord work miracles through me.

One more highlight of the week, I got to work in a garden!  I was so excited.  At home, we do all of that the week of Mother's Day, it was awesome to keep that tradition alive in France.  We were talking to our bishop about how we could serve him and his family.  They have a massive garden and were planning on planting last week.  We insisted that we help with it.  He was super confused and said that girls in France don't work outside, they do house work (how ridiculous is that?).  Needless to say, we won that argument and spent a wonderful day out in the sun, planting a garden.  I loved it!

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'm getting prepped for a crazy couple weeks to come.  I love you all and hope that you are doing wonderful.  Thanks for everything!

Je vous aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme

(So, the way I have been ending my letters, "Je t'aime", is not necessarily wrong...this way is just more right.  I realized that about three weeks into my mission but didn't want to change it.  It would hurt my pride too much to admit I was wrong.  But, there you go.  That is better French now.)

5/17/13

Bonjour Ma Famille-

It has been another great week to be a missionary.

I'm sorry, Mary, that you think my letters have become "too spiritual" lately.  I thought I'd start this one out with two stories just for you.  I hope that they are "approved".  I almost killed my companion twice this week.  Just to be perfectly clear, that was a hyperbole.  An exageration.  She was not near death, but she did have allergic reactions.  First story... So we were at the store and I was picking up the toilet paper.  Trying to be economical, I just got the cheapest one.  Who sells scented toilet paper?!  I didn't even know that was a thing.  One thing is for sure, it is definitely a problem for someone who can't handle anything with scent.  Needless to say, we're not using it and have to buy a different kind today.  Second story... The next day I got up and was getting a bowl of cereal (again, another seemingly harmless act).  We had an unexpected guest in the cabinet.  A cockroach.  Yes, I am serious.  Yes, my life is a joke.  This meant that the rest of the morning was spent deep cleaning, sterilizing, and anti-cockroaching the entire apartment.  Luckily, I didn't find any more...hopefully it stays that way.  Remember what I said about Soeru Fairchild having reactions to the neighbors using chemicals?  I had to completely cover the apartment in them.  Fortunately, she didn't have that bad of a reaction because she was able to medicate before.  There are my two stories this week.  I hope that they gave you a good laugh.

I was able to go on an exchange this week and spend a day in Perpignan.  It was wonderful.  We did tons of contacting, had lessons, and even had a porting miracle.  We were planning on stopping by a coordonnée (I don't know the term in English...someone whose contact information they were given while contacting).  As it turns out, the person had given them a false address.  But, because of this, we got into a random apartment building.  So, we ported it.  Out of the four doors in the building, we found this awesome girl that they are going to start teaching in a week or two.  It was great, porting miracles are rare and to have one in such a small building is amazing.

So I have been doing something kind of cool with all of my time in the apartment this transfer.  I've been sending texts out to the members in the ward and our investigators.  It's a good way to practice my French and I like still being able to "teach" people even when we don't have a rendez-vous.  I send them a scripture and a penser spirituelle (spiritual thought).  We've been having great responses to this and even had several members comment on it during testimony meeting yesterday.  They talked about how it has been exactly what they have needed and how the sister missionaries are so inspired.  I'm glad I can still accomplish things for the Lord while not necessarily doing "typical" missionary work all of the time.

I found something interesting this week in my studies of Doctrine and Convenants.  I tend to pick out a lot of patterns when I read and I noticed that the Lord tells us to "harken" a lot in this book of scripture.  So, I mapped it out.  Turns out that if you take all of the first verses of the first 81 sections of D&C, it mentions the word "harken" (or an equivalent..."listen", "give ear to", etc.) 53 times.  I thought this was super interesting.  You'd think that if God were directly talking to you, you would be earnestly listening, taking notes, and eagerly awaiting the opportunity to apply His teachings.  But, I guess that was not necessarily so then, as He was constantly needing to remind them.  It is often the same today.  The scriptures, the words of modern prophets, and personal revelation are God's means of communicating to us.  We would do well to "harken" to those teachings, warnings, and words of guidance.

In other news, it rained a lot this week.  I love the rain.  I occasionally have Les Mis songs playing in my head as I walk down wet, cobblestone streets here.  Oh, and I finished The Book of Mormon this week.  It is true.  The church is true.  I'm so glad I get to share that as a missionary.

I hope you are all doing great.  I can't wait to talk to you this week!  I love you so much!  Thank you for your support, your love, and your prayers. 

Je t'aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme

4/29/2013

Bonjour Ma Famille,

Well, it has been another great week to be a missionary.  Number one miracle of the week, the two Campaner children were finally baptized!  I heard that it was absolutely wonderful and that everything went perfectly.  I am so happy for them.  They will be the first people that I have taught to be baptized, that's super exciting.  Even though I wasn't able to be there for the event, I feel so blessed to have gotten to witness some of the steps of the miracle.

It was another down week in the apartment.  I'm not really sure that things could be more organized and my mind feels a little bit like mush after so many hours of studying the gospel.  I am definitely getting through a lot of material and it's great.  I am learning a lot.  It's kind of making up for my laziness in seminary.  In seminary, I always read.  But, I didn't like my teacher telling me what I had to read (surprise, surprise), so I always went back to just reading the Book of Mormon.  Haha, I got all the way through Exodus in the Old Testament, Acts in the New Testament, and maybe 1/3 of the way through D&C in all of my years in seminary.  This time is giving me the opportunity to catch up on the other scriptures that I previously neglected.  This crazy amount of studying will be a huge blessing, God has to have a purpose behind it.

During my many hours of studying, I came across a cool idea.  Christ performed the Atonement for us.  This is the most wonderful gift.  Through it, we can receive more happiness in this life and have all of the blessings and promises of joy in the life to come.  But, what do we have to do to utilize the Atonement?  Essentially, we must keep the commandments--do the things that Christ has asked us to do.  Okay, so that's logical.  Christ sets the stipulations that we must follow to use His gift to us.  What are these commandments?  They are things that we do in life that bring us happiness, not just because they allow us to utilize the Atonement, but because they are just generally good things to do.  So basically, Christ offers us complete happiness for the price of us being willing to do things that will make us happy.  That seems like a pretty good deal to me.

The several days that we were able to leave the apartment for a couple hours, we visited members and less-actives.  We're starting to create better relations with people and are seeing some changes in the ward.  There were actually seven less-active members at church yesterday, several of which we had visited.  That was exciting.  Haha, church is very interesting though.  Our ward is rather...apostate.  The most apostate ward in the mission, according to President Roney.  Yesterday our bishop, probably the only 100% doctrinally sound member, was out of town.  We've got some work to do. Oh the stories I could tell...  All of our investigators besides Chan Than either moved or left on a two month vacation last week.  This will probably be a blessing, we can focus on the ward.

Things are great, I love my mission.  Thanks for all of you and the love and support that I feel.  The church is true and we're so blessed to be a part of it.  I love being a missionary.

Je t'aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme

4/22/2013

Bonjour Ma Famille,

It has been a great week!  We were able to get out a little more, went to a zone conference (incredible, as always), and are seeing some improvements in our ward.  Work is definitely different here than what I am used to.  After having interviews with President, he told us that our main focus should be on strengthening the ward.  There is very little point to finding and teaching a bunch of investigators, only to bring them to a ward that can't support them.  So, that has been our work here this transfer.  We are striving to work with members, constantly doing "public relations" (most of the missionaries refer to it as "endearing," but I think "public relations" is funnier and it has a nice, little abbreviation when I put it into my planner).  It's great, one of our greatest tools for this is the fact that I can play the piano (thanks Mom), but the skills that Dad has taught me have payed off this week aswell.  We were able to get into the homes of a couple member families and less-actives.  What better way to strengthen our public relations than to introduce them to real American chocolate chip cookies?  They don't know what they are, but they love them.  We are starting to see some progress in the ward.

There are a couple amazing members here that have been such a support to our work.  Our bishop and the DMP (I don't know what that is in English...ward mission leader maybe?) are wonderful.  They are very focused on helping us be successful here and are so willing to help with the work.  It's great.  Our DMP's name is Frere (Brother) Vital, but we affectionately refer to him as Sensai.  He is a karate master and makes us food from Vietnam every week.  He's a convert and is absolutely fantastic.  Our bishop, Eveque (Bishop) Martin, is such a rock.  He has been bishop here for over eight years and literally holds this whole ward together.  He and his wife are both converts and have a huge, wonderful family with several daughters who have served missions.  We went to their house last night for dinner.  For part of the meal, we eat this mushed up thing of stinging nettle.  Who knew that you could eat that?  Actually, it was not bad.  So there you go, we're working with great people who feed us interesting food.  What more could you want?

We are still teaching a couple investigators aswell.  Our main progressing investigator is Chan Than.  He is an older-aged man from Cambodia.  It's definitely interesting teaching him because he only speaks limited French, like us.  We are constantly switching back and forth between French and Cambodian scriptures...not only two different languages, but two different alphabets aswell.  We have really seen a change in him the last couple weeks, though.  While he is progressing slowly, he is getting there.  It's amazing to see God's hand in teaching him.  In any other circumstance, it may seem nearly impossible to teach someone with such a language barrier.  It would be ridiculous, however, that God would let something as small as a language barrier stop His work from progressing.

One thing that I have loved working on since I have been out has been my journal.  That should be no surprise.  I have been a huge advocate for journals for years, but it has been incredible to do it here.  It's something that I have put a ton of time and effort into...doing it during meals and taking advantage of the time in the appartment that we have had lately.  I don't only write down the daily events and the miracles, though.  I have all of my thoughts, impressions, cool things that I have learned, personal progression, etc.  My companions like to refer to it as my "novel"...as I tend to write quite a bit.  Let's just say that I go through a Pilot G2 pen at least once a week.  It is fantastic and such a treasure.  Even when I wasn't on a misison, though, my journals were a source of so much happiness for me and it is amazing now to have my life completely documented.  They are definitely one of my greatest accomplishments.  It's easy to see the Lord's hand years later when it is recorded.  If you're not a journal keeper, I suggest you start.

This week, I actually had some extra time to study too.  Soeur Fairchild is a little better, but with allergies, things set her back quite a bit.  It's insane.  Going to church and smelling perfume or having the neighbors clean their mirrors can set her back for a whole day.  But it's fine, I'm getting stuff done.  I've made a significant dent in the missionary library.  I have also moved on to Doctrine and Covenants, now that the New Testament is done.  One thing that I studied a lot this week was Zion's Camp.  While the outcome/purpose that the members of the camp had expected were not realized, God had a higher purpose for this band of saints.  The Lord needed future leaders who had been tried, given experience, and had been personally trained.  They needed to be the ones who were proven obedient and faithful to the Lord, even under difficult circumstances.  God promised them that "all victory and glory" would be brought to pass by "their diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith" (D&C 103).  This success was not brought about in the way that they had desired or foreseen.  While the whole experience was a trial of their faith, I think that one of the most difficult parts for them would be dealing with the realization that they were not going to have the "success" that they had expected.  Completely submitting your will to the Lord's is the big test of this life.  If you truly comprehend and live according to this ideal, your life and the eternities will be blessed in ways unimaginable.  Those in Zion's Camp had to learn to be content with God's purposes.  The Lord was testing and training His leaders.  Seventy-nine of the eighty-two original leaders of the church later came from this group.  Of this, Joseph Smith said, "He (God) could not organize His kingdom with men...unless He took them from a body of men who had offered their lives."  God needs a strong, dedicated people.  Although He may be "frustrated" at times by the quality of army (yes, I finally read Elder Holland's talk...absolutely phenomenal), we can find peace in knowing that we are becoming who He wants us to be if we are constantly striving to make our will allign with His.

I love you so much.  Thank you for everything that you all do for me.  I am also very grateful for everyone who has been a blessing to my family at home lately.  I am very excited to get to talk to you on Mother's Day.  I will be able to do it through Skype, which means that you will need to set up an account and get me your information.  I'll let you know more as it gets closer, but it will most likely be sometime that morning (as we're eight hours ahead).  Everything is wonderful here and I am so happy to be a missionary!  Have a great week!

Je t'aime,

Soeur Alisa Hulme

PS-- I can't believe that Patrick was able to figure out where we lived in Carcassonne just by looking at the picture I sent.  Here's my address if you'd like to check his accuracy... 49 Rue Marceau Perrutel, 11000 Carcassonne (but please don't send any mail to it, continue sending it all to the mission office).

PPS-- And yes, Soeur Fairchild is allergic to peanuts.  So the peanut butter that you sent is all for me...not a bad thing.

4/15/2013

Bonjour Ma Famille,

City Streets of Carcassonne

This week has been very...interesting.  Actually, this transfer has been altogether interesting.  I guess I'll skip the fluffy introduction and go straight to the climax of my week.  

(Disclaimer: Do not freak out.  We are fine.  Everything is good.)

Thursday night we prayed that we would have a miracle lesson the next day.  Let's just say that this prayer was not answered in a way that we could have ever preconceived.  We were randomly woken up at 4:00 AM (miracle #1) to a terrible, yet familiar smell... like when you are filling up a lawnmower or your car at Flying J.  You get the picture.  Our apartment was completely flooded in gas... a lot of gas.  In fact, it was not just us, the entire apartment building was filled.  We did everything that we could to try and solve the problem.  We opened up all of the windows, turned off the gas lines, worked with neighbors, etc.  Nothing seemed to work, though.  It was only getting worse.  By 8:00 AM, the carbon monoxide detector started going off (haha, not a good sign).  We obviously quickly left the building.  Through working with the mission office, we were able to get a government emergency employee to come and fix the problem.  It turns out that the guy who works in the garage next to our building knicked the gasline the day before and it had been going up and through our ventilation system.  But don't worry, the problem was fixed later that day and everything is aired-out now.  Cool part of the story (miracle #2), the guy who came to fix the gasline had a lot of questions and was super interested in the church.  We ended up teaching him an hour and a half lesson on the restortation.  It was awesome.  So there you go, God answers prayers in interesting ways, but I would definitely consider that the miracle lesson that we had prayed for.

Other than that, the week has been fairly uneventful (as if many things could be considered more eventful than that event).  Sister Fairchild is great.  She is a very good missionary but she has been sick a lot.  She is basically extremely allergic to...the world.  Perfume, all cleaning products, mold, dust, smoking, grass, basically any bad food allergy that you can think of, etc.  I have never seen anything like it, I feel really bad for her.  Because of it, she is sick a lot.  So besides the couple conferences that we went to (which were great), we were stuck in the apartment three days last week.  So, I read my scriptures, studied, and played the piano all week.  It's difficult, especially as a missionary, when you can't be out working with the people.  But, I'm still trying to stay productive.  I really am so blessed that I have been able to stay healthy throughout my mission, most of my companions have not been as lucky.  We're able to get things done here, but just at a slower pace.  I think God is trying to teach me compassion and patience.  If that is His objective, this is definitely the way to do it.

I really am loving my time here and am learning a lot.  A mission is such a wonderful thing.  I hope that you are doing well and I love you all!  Have a great week!

Je t'aime,
Soeur Alisa Hulme

The view from Alisa's window each morning.

Sister Hulme and Sister Fairchild on the Train

At a Conference.