If you're not a car, get off the road! (Katie-Toul)

Dearest everyone,

I had a really good week. 

Okay, let me start over. 

I had such a GREAT week!! I have a few very specific things to tell you about, so don't look at the pictures until AFTER I tell you the stories that go with!

But first I want to tell you about a little miracle. We were Easter porting a few weeks back and knocked on this man's door who said he had a friend who is American! He told us his name, and we said to ourselves, "Huh...ça nous dit quelque chose..." ("Huh..that tells us something") and then he told us some more things about him and we figured out that he was a missionary here 30 years ago!! He taught this man 30 years ago, back before he had children and before he was divorced. His name is Hervé, and he is so cool. Like, so cool. We were finally able to have a lesson with him and a member this week (his son who is a chef made us dinner). He told us that back when he was being taught, he didn't care about God or religion or anything. He worked a ton. He had a family. He didn't even have time to think about things like that. But now he works a lot less, his son is grown and he is divorced. Let's just say he has time to think. And now he has a real desire to know if God is there and if religion is even worth his time. Ah it's so worth his time!! Pray that he will receive an answer to his prayers. He is so ready. :)

Now for the pictures. The first picture was during the exchange I got to go on! Exchanges each transfer are the BEST. It's mostly because I was in the same "sister zone" in Lux, and so I have the same STLs, and so I'm a very happy person because I just love them. They are the same sisters I lived with for a few days after leaving Lux, so we have a special bond ;) Something we like to do as sister missionaries is dropping off cookies to members, and in this particular picture, we didn't have time to go in and share a thought, so we were super sneaky and dropped them off at the door and ran. Mission Drop-Off-Cookies was successful!

The next picture has to do with the subject line of my email this week. Okay, as a missionary with a car driving through country roads and tiny villages, things that do not drive fast are included in the "Get off the road!" statement as follows: tractors, ATVs, cows, smart cars. Can I tell you how many times we have gotten stuck behind all of these things and more? Oh, you are going to drive 25 (maybe) km per hour on a two-lane country road where we can go 90? Yes, I'm going to pass you. Well, TRY to pass you. But seriously. No tractors are. not. cars. *sigh*.  A few transfers back I prayed for patience. Bad idea.

Now, you may scroll through all of the rest of the pictures I have included. We went to visit an ami on Saturday that lives in Chaumont, about 100 km away from us. This meant about 4 hours of driving in one day (2 hours there and 2 hours back), not including all of the other driving we did. So Soeur Evans thought it would be a good idea to take my camera and take about 705126984 pictures of french landscape/tiny towns/anything on the way as we drove. So I thought I would include a few of them for your enjoyment :) French countryside really is beautiful!

And the sky was all cloudy and mysterious looking and we were driving through fields and fields of Colza (vegetable oil flowers that are super bright yellow). It was like driving through a dream. We also drove through tons of tiny villages that were just so cute! So she took pictures of that too. One thing about French history is Jeanne d'Arc.(Joan of Arc) She's french. Surprise! No I think you knew that. But that means that there is at least one rue (street) in each ville (town) called rue jeanne d'arc. BUT! On the way to Chaumont, we passed through Domrémy, which just happens to be where Jeanne d'Arc was BORN. We stopped for 2 seconds and took a few pictures really fast. I'm definitely going back there...it was so beautiful. :)

I love being a missionary. I love you all. Have a great week!

Gros bisous,

Soeur Pettingill