Elder Mortenson's new P-Day is Monday, so we can all look forward to emails and updates then :)
"You all are probably wondering where I am and who my trainer is... as was I until last Wednesday. My trainer is Elder McMurrin, he's a cool guy from Arkansas and we are in the Hochelaga/Montreal East area (HO/ME). So Hochelaga is French speaking and Montreal East is English speaking. Which means that on sunday, we have 5 hours of church to go to since we cover both branches. It's kinda crazy. It's been bad cause I've just super tired with all the walking and things that we've been doing that I was definitely nodding off once in at least 4 out of the 5 meetings. But it is good here. Our area literally covers the East half of the island. So that is way crazy and the missionary who was here before me was REALLY trunky (he went home and I'm taking his spot) and so we've been having to just try and build up our base again and find places to tract and teach. And because of how things are here, only the Africans and the Hispanics will really talk to us. We have some pretty solid investigators here and so I'm hoping that we'll end up baptizing a couple in this transfer. We've looked through the area book and have found a couple families that may have fallen through the woodwork and so we're going to try and contact them today (oh and by the way, Monday is my new P-day)
"So things are looking promising but there is for sure a lot of rejection that goes down day in and day out and I've only been here for 6 days. Ha it was funny because I thought that I would be starting my mission out in either Ottawa or a really far north area like Chicoutimi or Alma... but it turns out that I took the metro for 10 minutes to my first area. We share an apartment with the Zarahemla elders (spanish) and so that is nice. It's fun to go home and have others to talk to. We ride the metros here like crazy and so it is just kind of interesting and definitely not what I am used to. Running for busses and riding the metros in a big city... can you say paradigm shift? ha Klamath Falls is no where even close to this but it's been good thus far. I've taken some pretty good pictures here. I forgot my chord today but hopefully next Monday I will remember to bring the chord and I can send them to you. Today I got a really cool picture of me and Elder McMurrin in the Botanical Gardens and so I'll have to send that to you soon. I guess we're going to go to Vieux Port today as a district which is like the old part of the city and hopefully I can also get my first putin.
"We do this thing called Metro contacting here where if the car isn't too packed or too empty we'll each start on an end of the car and just talk with everyone. The first contact is always the hardest but then it gets easier and it can be fun at times. I've had an Asian tell me that is name was Jesus before... I think he was just making fun of me as I was getting his number. But oh well. One time we were on the platform and I saw this black guy standing there and I wanted to contact him but I didn't know how to start the contact (he was fairly young and was looking down.. kinda appeared not too happy) so I asked Elder McMurrin how we should start the contact (in english) and we were talking and saying that we'd wait till we were on the metro to contact and so forth... then he just walks away from us and we're like "did he hear us?" and so I looked at him right as he looked directly at me... "so yup... he heard us." Elder McMurrin then said "dang bilingual people!" ha the guy made here he walked at least a car and a half length away from us and we were left standing there just feeling super awkward. Got to love it. My French is actually fairly good when I'm the one asking questions or talking... it's a whole other story when I'm the one listening. I can pick up phrases here and there but it is difficult to understand people especially since people have a Quebecua accent or are from Haiti and so they mix in Creole with their french. But I've been able to get around thus far and it has been good. I'm glad that Elder McMurrin can understand what they say... normally I just have to read body language and can get the general feel of how the conversation went. I'm trying to learn it all though. All the signs are in french and the metro is in french and whatnot. There is a fair amount of english here and when I can't understand people on the metro, those who can speak english take pity on me and are like "Parlez-vous anglais?" "Oui oui!" "oh, ok. Just speak that to me" and of course I feel like a dwebe but it works out.
" It was neat yesterday because as we were trying to find a place to teach, we walked by this one apartment complex and could see a guy with grocery bags and a crutch type thing and so we knocked on the door to ask if we could help him. At first he said no and then we started talking to him. We ended up teaching a first, placing a bofm, and actually helped him with taking the groceries to his apartment and set up a return appointment for this friday. He's from Haiti. Pretty much everyone we teach is from Haiti. I really hope it pans out with him because he is really cool. He got in an accident of some sort and so now he has half of a prosthetic leg. We'll see how it all goes down.
"Don't forget to pray for me.
Thanks, Love you all
Elder Mortenson"
************
It was a pleasant surprise to get this lovely email today :) I wasn't sure when his new p-day would be, but it's nice that it's on Monday now!
Rich has shared quite a bit with me about his mission over the years, and it is interesting to see Trav have similar experiences. It is evident that he is growing and learning; especially assimilating to a new culture and climate. I love hearing the real stories of what it is like for him to contact people. I can only imagine the courage it must take to strike up a conversation (about the coolest, most important thing in life: the gospel of Jesus Christ!) in a foreign language.
The gospel of Christ is truly incredible. We are so blessed to know of our Savior and are blessed by the power and protection of covenants with God.
I came across this beautiful article by Elder Holland about the importance of uniting with other Christians and strengthening our faiths through our common ground. If you have a minute, I definitely suggest incorporating this into your daily gospel study :)
http://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/08/standing-together-for-the-cause-of-christ?lang=eng&query=compassion
With much love,
Jessi
No comments:
Post a Comment