July 25, 2011

Bonjour!!!

I am sure that you are all sick of hearing about transfers. BUT know you now what it feels like for a missionary. One week stressing about what is going to happen, one week gossiping about what happened, and the next week dealing with what happened. So yes my past 2 emails have been about transfers and all the emotions that come with it...but this week they ACTUALLY happened. So needless to say, its been emotional. (Im starting to think thats more the rule than the exception on the mission) As of Wednesday, I am officially companions with Soeur Williams. She is from American Fork, Utah and is in her 6th transfer. She has amazing french due to her French bother-in-law and an amazing high school teacher. She is adorable in every way, and we are already good friends from living together for the past two transfers since she has been serving in the Paris-Lilas ward (the ward on the other half of Paris). She had to make quite the move this week ALL the way across our 'huge' apartment. We feel pretty blessed to be put together. We keep waiting for someone to burst into the apartment and tell us they were joking....we aren't ACTUALLY lucky enough to be companions. But voilà, no one has said anything yet, so maybe its real?!

We started off the transfer with quite a bang....ZDRAVKO IS NOW A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH!!! Everyone who is reading please breath a sigh of relief because it was quite the close call! Soeur Pearce and I spent alot of time debating about whether Zdravko's baptism could really happen so quickly. We were worried that with all the language barriers that he wouldn't understand quite what he was commiting too and since he is going back to Bulgaria for a few weeks right after his baptism that we would loose contact with him and he will disappear into the depths of the Bulgarian wilderness....BUT after lots of prayer and discussion we decided to go ahead with it. SO in comes Soeur Williams. Wednesday night, we had an appointment set with Zdravko. OH important missing detail: Zdravko is always late for his lessons but never misses them. Except for Wednesday night. We waited at the church till 9:30 to see if he would show up. No show. So I went into panic mode thinking maybe Satan took ahold of Zdravko and he no longer wants to get baptized. False alarm. When he showed up the next day he explained the train had broken down and he hadn't gotten off the train till after 10... ok fair enough...we will forgive him this time.Especially after we had a mock interview with him. There was a guy visiting our ward who happened to serve Ukraine Russian speaking, and was willing to come to a couple rendez-vous with Zdravko. It was so cool to hear him translate the baptisimal questions and Zdravko look at us and say firmly "Dah,dah,dah,oui,oui,oui, yes,yes,yes" (I think he wanted to make sure we got it...) But then we explained he HAD to be there on Friday night because it was his interview and so if he didn't show up he couldn't get baptized. So fast forward to Friday night. Seven-thirty passes. Eight o'clock. Eight-thirty. Nine. Yes. I was fuming. As missionaries were leaving the church they all told us to call and let us know if this baptism was actually going to go through. At nine the zone leaders told us they could wait till nine-fifeteen and then we would have to go home. Well guess who comes bounding in at 9:07 claiming he was only seven minutes late. I had to fight my urges to strangle his curly haired-head as we shoved him into the room for his interview. He passed. Well thinking we had learned our lesson we told Zdravko to meet us at 3 the next day so we could be on time for his baptism at 6. Naturally he didn't show up till almost 4:30, and by the time we got to the church with the font he was a good 15 minutes late for his own baptism. Good. Zdravko knows about Mormon Standard Time already.

Despite the stress zits now covering my face, the baptism went great. Everything was in typical Zdravko style- dramatic and hilarious. The man baptizing him memorized the prayer in russian and wrote it out phoentically for the witnesses. I think the kids in the front wish they had been wearing raincoats as he did the most dramatic back-bend into the water, and he shook his lion-mane hair fercoiusly as he came out of the water. Oh wait it gets better. The bishopric asked him to share his testimony after he was baptized and after 10 minutes of 'well-I-can-see-what-he-is-trying-to-say-and-its-sweet-in-a-way' english he ended with..."you are all interesting people. ça va? ça va" and sat down. THEN before everyone ate the refreshments (yes the church is the same everywhere, people in france eat refreshments after every church function as well) the man of the hour had to give a blessing on the food. It was somewhere along the lines of "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank for the blessings. I am not sure how old I am...maybe I am now 20 minutes old. etc." I think through all the language barriers he somehow understood what baptism is:)

So feelings of joy of seeing Zdravko's baptism ACTUALLY go through were mixed with feelings of sadness as I had to say goodbye to Soeur Pearce. I won't go into painfully boring detials for all of you back home rolling your eyes and thinking that I need to get over it because its not like she is dying...but we will just say Ive been a little weepy this weekend and my chocolate-intake has drastically increased as I've had to say goodbye. I know Ill see her next year...but that sounds like such a long ways away!! I am definately going to miss her wise words like "Don't die" everytime I go to cross a street and "keep things spazzy" after sitting through a painfully boring district meeting. And Ill miss trying to not loose her in a crowded metro station and listening to her argue in french with the parade of crazies in Paris. Yup, she was a great trainer. But even better she was a great friend! So, I guess Ill just put a bookmark in that chapter of my mission and go back to it in a year when I can do normal things like wear pants and chew gum in public.

Good weepy and emotional moment over. Now on for the all the amazing things Soeur Williams and I are going to do in Paris this transfer!!! I love you and miss you all!!!
xoxo
Soeur Smith