Getting settled in (Katie-Mulhouse)

Ma famille incroyable (My incredible family)!

Wow thanks for your email Dad! That sounds like quite the week...and very busy.   

So our amis are doing awesome! I wish I could tell you every single detail about every single one of them, but alas, there is not enough time. :'( BUT! I do get to tell you about a couple of them. Evelin is an Amie Ancienne, which means she was once an ami (the word for friend in French, which is what they call their investigators) but the missionaries stopped teaching her for some reason. We're still not sure why. In my letter to you, Mom, I tell you the story about how we found her again. But for now, we taught her a first lesson on Saturday! She and her family are AMAZING. She has so much faith already. She's Brazilian, and so her French is pretty hard for me to understand, but everything she says has so much faith and beauty to it. We sang "How Great Thou Art" with her, and in the middle of the song she started to cry. It was a song that her grandmother used to sing with her when she was little, and I know she felt the spirit. It was such a neat experience. We're seeing her again this week :)

Séviley is another one...actually I take that back. She is not our official amie yet parce que (because) she is actually Muslim. And we have to get permission from President to teach Muslims, but she's super awesome! We brought a member with us (Sr. Blazevic and her two CRAAAZY boys ;) ) and they hit it off and we invited her to come to church, but she was going out of town. But we're going to invite her to officially take the lessons soon! :))))

Mirjana (I think I've told you about her) told us the last time we stopped by that she feels it. She's ready to be baptized. OH MY GOODNESS. The only thing is she won't be baptized because her husband is refusing to see us at all. We"ve got to work on him...I love her so much though. It's amazing how close to the Spirit she is already.

Ok, so now for our miracle family. We met Elodie and Giovanni while walking through this strip of magasins (stores). It was originally just Elodie and her little girl Julia, and she wasn't interested at all. But we asked her about her petite fille (little girl) and we were talking and then her copain (boyfriend) (they're not married) came up and he was super interested (he's Italian haha) and super nice and so we set up a rendez-vous (teaching appointment) with them! The first lesson was on Sunday and it was so beautiful. We taught them how to pray and Giovanni was able to do it a voix haute (out loud) for the first time ever. It was one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard. We gave them a LdM and invited them to pray about it and they both said they would! I seriously almost started crying. The Spirit was SO strong. And they said that we could absolutely come back and teach them more about the LdM! So we are. On Thursday. I'm so happy and excited about them! They are so cute and young. What a miracle. :)

Okay, so changing topics a little bit, I want to talk food. I LOVE FRANCE. The food is amazing. Like seriously, Sr. Hafen's aunt sent her some PB (like 8€ for a tiny jar here) and we go and buy a baguette for like 80 centimes and have pb&j sandwiches on a BAGUETTE (Dad, you know me and pb&j. Imagine the best raspberry jam and peanut butter on a baguette. So good). We've also had like 3 repas (meals) with members this week. One of my favorites (let's face it, they're all my favorites) was with Patriarch Mortz and his wife. We had three different kinds of salad first (a cucumber one, a guacamole type one, and a carrot one) and then we had stuffed zucchini and stuffed tomato. And then we had bread and three different kinds of cheese. And then we had magnum bars (ice cream) for desert. I was so full and it was so yummy...it's super hard to keep it to an hour and a half though. The French take a long time to eat...hahaha. Okay, one more thing about food. I love being able to walk like 2 seconds to the closest of a hundred thousand boulangeries and buying a fresh croissant au beurre for 85 centimes. Best thing of my life. :)

 Eating some Mulhousienne ice cream!

We made a quiche.  We made it for lunch Sunday.  It was SO. GOOD.

So, what is Mulhouse like you ask? It is INCROYABLE. My ward is absolutely amazing. The members are so strong and love teaching with us! And it's pretty good. And they are all so patient with my awful French. I am so lucky to be in such a fantastic place as my bleuville (first city). Our DMP (dirigeant mission paroisse) (ward mission leader) is so great. He has so many ideas and loves working with us. And I love the Elders here! They're Elder Johnson (dirigeant de district) (district leader) and Elder Allen. They work super hard and speak with the Spirit.

So, I'm not sure if Beth has gotten my postcard yet, but it says "L'Alsace" on it because of Mulhouse's diverse culture! There are people from everywhere here. And Alsace has had a huge influence on Mulhouse. On the houses, the food, the culture, it's all very interesting. In one of my pictures that I sent, we are sitting on this weird chair thing. Yeah, so Mulhouse is known for two things. Its weird art sculptures everywhere and its sausage. They literally sell sausage on the side of the streets. It's so silly :)

You might be glad to know that the french is coming. Slowly but surely, I'm learning more and more every day. And it helps to have such a wonderful formatrice (trainer)! She's the best! She is such an amazing missionary and a great example for me (also, I was wrong, there are only 7 kids in her family hahaha). And she turns 20 next Monday! Ah!!! On Sunday I could understand about half of what was going on. The hard thing is that now my brain can kind of understand French, which means there is no tuning out. Which also means it tries to translate ALL French that it hears. That = headache. We went to Conseil de Paroisse (Ward Council) on Friday, and afterwards (like 3 straight hours of French) my head hurt so bad. Same thing with Sunday. But it's coming :)

Mosiah 18. READ IT. It is such a fabulous chapter. It wasn't until I left on my mission that I found out how much I truly love the Book of Mormon. And this story...about Alma teaching the people. And in verse 11 they clap their hands because they love the gospel so much. And la conférence général is coming up!! So invite your friends. Because Dieu a appelé un prophète dans nos jour, et il va nous parler ce weekend (God has called a prophet in our day, and he is going to speak to us this weekend).

I love you all! Je vous aime! Keep sending me pictures, I love pictures!  

Bises!

Sœur Pettingill

 We found some AWESOME horses on the way to a rendez-vous! Aren't they adorable?