Okay, so this week was super crazy! Probably my favorite week since coming out here. So good!! I'll try and remember everything!
Monday: P-day, so lots of relaxing and then emailing family. Super awesome every week. We ended with a mangezvous chez Soeur Cuisiat, and she made us rabbit stew. Literally just every part of a rabbit chopped up and thrown in a pot. Surprisingly good! Good day.
Tuesday: Exchange with the Yverdonne Elders. I was with Elder Pesnell. We got tons done! We passed a bunch of people and drove a lot but it was super fun. We ended up arriving and hour early to our dinner appointment with la famille Guerin, but that was okay because Soeur Guerin just had us help make dinner (also rabbit. If anyone just really wants to learn how to make rabbit, I got you covered. So much rabbit...). But it was a super awesome spiritual lesson, and I love our ward! And a great exchange too, Elder Pesnell is awesome and a really good example. Another great day.
Wednesday: We had a rendezvous in the morning with a dude named Richard that Elder Laney contacted on the street a week ago (cool story. He told me later that the dude looked like his brother out of the corner of his eye and that's why he contacted him.) We met him in the park and started talking, then this drunk guy came over and started babbling at us and we were super confused and sketched out, but we just tried to comfort him and then he started crying and it was WEIRD and then he was walking away and he said "Jesus est fils de Dieu" (Jesus is the son of God) and we were like "Amen brother" and then he disappeared. Richard was a little weirded out but then we had an awesome super spiritual lesson and we committed him to baptism at the end and he said yes! So we'll be meeting with him regularly to help him try and receive and answer from God by the end of June. Then we drove to Lausanne for zone conference on Thursday and slept over with five other elders in the tiny Lausanne apartment. Party!
Thursday: Zone conference! So so so so so so so gooooood! Lots about the temple consecration and geneology, then Soeur Brown spoke and talked about eternal marriage, and then that was the topic for the rest of the conference (we teased Elder Laney a bunch that the conference was just for him cuz he's going home soon). So President and Soeur Brown and the STLs talked about marriage the whole time, and it was actually super super spiritual. Like, everyone cried a lot. The temple is a fantastic thing, and we're all so so excited for the Paris temple to open! My favorite quote was from Soeur Brown talking about marriage and family and the importance of it. She said with tears in her eyes "Don't you EVER settle for just this life. You deserve eternity." I one hundred percent agree. Weird thinking about all that at the start of a mission, but I am so very glad to be in the one true church and to know that I get to be with a family that I love with all my heart for all of eternity. Anyways, after that, Elder Laney bore his departing testimony and we all cried again, then we had Ecuadorian completos (hot dog things) for dinner. I had my once a transfer interview with president (love that guy), he gave me my recommend for the consecration, and we drove home.
Friday: Poe's wedding! Aaaahhh! So awesome! We went to the actual wedding in the morning and it was awesome! Super small and cute and so good! Then we helped with the reception and it was so so fun! Poe cooked a whole pig in a whole in the ground and that's what we ate, plus some poisson cru (raw fish) and shish kebabs and "fafaru" (fermented, rotten fish. Not my favorite, but apparently lots of tahitians love it). There was a live tahitian band and it was just the awesomest thing ever. We had a blast hanging out with members and I've never seen Poe and Tatiana so happy.
Saturday: Poe's baptism!!!!! Could this week get any better?! Apparently so! Poe got baptized and we all cried and it was so beautiful and I can't even express how great it was! He had this look in his eyes after coming back from changing after the font that I will never forget in my entire life. It was pouring rain the whole time, but stopped as soon as we opened the doors to leave, with a beautiful rainbow (in the words of Soeur Cuisiat "Dieu est grand"). So very incredible. I don't even know what to say about it other than that it made me wish I could live that day over and over and over again.
Sunday: Poe was confirmed and given the Aaronic priesthood. So cool! And in sacrament, Bishop Casagrande opened the pulpit up to everyone to bear their testimonies on the temple, with the consecration being next week. Everyone cried a lot (that seems to be a common theme for this week). I want to recount one really touching testimony that one sister told. She said she was a guide for the Paris temple open house and that they got a lot of really critical and sometimes malicious people trying to work their ways into the tours. She said she had one guy who said that he'd signed the petition against the temple "to keep Mormons out of Paris" and that he was just totally against everything the church stood for. He was super loud and rude the whole tour, until they reached the sealing room. She said that as soon as they walked in, he went silent, then fell to his knees and started crying. The people around him gathered and were concerned and asked how they could help, but he just sobbed and said "My mother passed away a month ago. She's in this room right now." and was silent for the rest of the tour. I just want to say that I know for a fact that the temple is the house of God, where families are made eternal. It is the meeting place between the past and the future, the confluence of both sides of the veil. I don't get to go for two more years, as there's no temple in the mission, but I look forward to the day when I get to go be reminded of my covenants and the purpose of my life on earth. I love the temple and I want to challenge anyone who is able to go to really ponder on its purpose and what it means to you. Anyways, Sunday was a huge cryfest and I'm sure there were like nine other miracles I can't even remember. So awesome. THEN I got to Skype my awesome family! What the heck?! Best week ever!
Anywho, that's about it for this week. I love you guys tons, et que Dieu vous beni.
Elder Suisse
Some of the pig that Poe cooked. Literally had to carry it in on a grate.
A panorama of the food at the wedding. I had to take a panorama. Crazy.
Fafaru. Nothing more needs to be said.
The wedding!!
The party!!
The baptism!! We weren't fast enough to get one with him in baptismal clothes, he was just too excited to get in the font (;
One last comp photo with Dijon in the background. Elder Laney leaves next week...
Our awesome zone!!
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