And the world keeps turning round and round

So, I decided to start with my mass email this week.  And I shall start with

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TORI AND DAD!!!!!! I told America happy birthday yesterday, and now it's your turn.  Besides, it was your birthday here like nine hours before your brithday even thought about starting in the USA.  Suckahs.

You know who else is a suckah?  Guess who moved three weeks ago and just got transferred?  HA!  Not me!  My pauvre colleguee did.  Teeheee.  I have not finished unpacking my clothing yet, and I've been waiting to hear about transfers.  Well, Soeur Gappmaier couldn't do it any longer and unpacked ALLLLLLLLL of her stuff last week.  I'm still smiling about it.  Teeheeeheee.  But I am sad thazt she's leaving Déja.  I love my mission Mom, and she's going all the way to Brussells on wednesday, which is good because that's the mission she got called to and she has never actually served in belgium.  I guess she gets to now.  She's really nervous.  Me too.  Why?  Because I'm not getting a new senior compaion.  I'm getting a co-companion, which means we're both senior companion.  I've also been informed that that means I will never be Junior companion again.  Yeah.  I got one whole transfer to be lead, and now I'm going to lead with someone, or even lead someone else later, far earlier than I ever wanted to.  I don't know if I should be pleased or quoi.  Mostly I'm just confused, a little scared, and Okay... I'm a bit excited.  I've met my new companion deja.  She is currently in ST Quentin.  Yup, the ville I did exchanges in.  We met at zone conference and then as we switched companions in Paris.  She came to Caen when I went up north, which is good because now some of our amis have met her and so that awkward "hi I'm new" phase is over with ... at least for some of our amis.  So Yeah.  Soeur Barros.  Transfer Deux.  Senior companion (ish).

What is the Lord thinking?????????

But on a less stressfull/ bizarre/ exciting note, I met a very nice american man on Saturday.  He was getting on the tram, saw our nametags, and started chatting it up with us in ENGLISH.  Well, okay, I knew he was american before he even stepped onto the tram-- we have a look about us, ya know?  He told us some of his best friend are Mormon, and he really admires what we're doing out here.  He admires the sacrifices we make for the Lord.  WHAT????!!!!  It was SOOOOOOO nice to hear someone say that!!!!  We both got off at the gare (train station), and we the sisters had the plan to go to a cyber cafe across the street to see the transfers email in case one of us got transferred. The nice American asked us if we could give him a hand buying his train ticket, and we're like, sure, why not.  We've done that before, so it shouldnt take all that long.  Well it's a good thing we did because there ended up being NO trains open because it's summer break here, and the summer vacation is SACRED to the French.  We found a way to get him where he needed to go, so he begged us to let him buy our lunch.  We finally relented (no really, he  begged), and he sat there and talked to us some more.  Him and I talked about US history (he's a high school histtory teacher/ track coach in Louisiana) and LA history. I told him that Someone is looking out for him, because we're never on that tram at that time on that day-- we were just going to see who got transferred.  He said he totally believed that, and that he was going to thank God that night for having met us.  He gave us his name and email adress and said that any time we came to Louisiana to email him and he'll take us for begnés (i think that's how you spell it) (ha, and I told him that i really wanted to eat begnés in New orleans some day, so I think that's why he said begnés).  He tried to hug me (why do people keep doing that???) but I had to explain that we don't hug men (or much else really) while on our missions.  So he gave us some high fives and handshakes (ah american hand shakes-- they are different you know), and caught his train.  We called him our tender mercy, because people have been exceptionally mean to us this week, telling us we are most definitely a cult.  Ha, did you know that the way to say religion in French is culte, and the way to say cult is secte?  Yup, the meanings are changed here.  So really, it's "secte" that I hear all the time.  Fun Fun.

Life isn't bad here in Caen.  One of our amis is having a really tought time, but suprise suprise, it started when she began working on sundays instead of going to church.  We're working really hard to help her see that connection, but she has her agency.  Curses.  And Yan is still progressing, but we're never sure how much she really understands.  She keeps most of the commandments, at least around us, but her reading of the Book of Mormon has slowed down.  But now she ha this friend that actually just finished reading the book of Mormon and told her he's going to start over soon and read it all again.  We're hoping that helps motivate her; she is sooo funny when she tells us these types of things.  We ask her for referrals, and she says stuff like "oh you know what?  I really should bring this person to our next RDV!" Wow.  We just wanted a name and phone number, but we'll take it.

The finding is sllooooowwwwiiiing down.  We have started "spiritual finding" like dustin told me about in one of his letters; during our porting, we only knock on the doors that we feel like knocking on.  It's like regular finding without all the rejection.  We talk to people for much longer now, and we even had someone set a RDV with us.  But he cancelled like two hours later.  Elder Oaks said something interesting in the last Priesthood session: our faith is in Jesus Christ, and not in outcomes.  So it makes me wonder-- is my faith in Jesus Christ or in outcomes?  Think about that...

Well, time is up.  I'll try to send photos in another email.  Je vous aime!!!

Soeur Barros