Monday, June 29, 2015

"families are the best" - week 13

(written June 29)

no package yet! but i hear they take forever to get here so... maybe soon my companion said they go to France first before they get sent here because we are technically France soo it might be a while? also sorry i know you just sent a package but if you send another one will you send me some bike shorts that go to the knee!! or past the knee lol im using my comps right now but she may not be here next transfer and they are like 40 euros here just get me some cheaper ones! that could be awesome:) and if possible could you send me the smaller bag that you bought online the one i brought is huge!! the cute one you got with the pink and gray? if not that's totally fine!! annnd deodorant lol the secret version. France sells weird deodorant or just different but it doesn't really work i think that is why most everyone has some solid bo. annnd lastly a Watch that is water proof!! cuz i bought one last week on monday annd it said it was water proof and it rained on us on our bikes the other day and it broke. lol just if you send another package anything would be nice sorry i didn't tell you sooner i just forgot every week to write it i almost forgot again but you said package so i remembered! sorry i dont know if its expensive or not! alright i will figure out the drop box thing ill try to send stuff next week!

okay down to business this week was awesome!! we met the coolest family they reminded me of our family there name is loic and katsia. loic owns his own business because he said he doesn't like having a boss lol so he owns his own carpentry company if that's what you call it anyway they are supper awesome!! we had such a good lesson and this was like the first lesson we've had where i could solidly participate is was awesome!! and okay throw back sœur banks and one of her old companions found them. they gave them a stop home one day and they said that they felt like something was mission in their lives but they didn't know what and sœur banks and her comp then tried to get a time when they could see them again but it never worked out.. so we ran into them i cant remember if it was this week or the week before that but we met them and they said they wanted to meet up with us again and the lesson went through!! they live so far away on top of this huge hill on a dirt road. biking it is awesome lol but the lesson was awesome they were both there and they had there kid listen too! and we taught them about the restoration and it was so cool they said it felt different and they wanted to learn more and more about where we came from and what were doing here and oh my goodness were so excited to go see them again!! and after the lesson they drove us to our next appointment because they really do live so far away lol and our bikes are going through a rough time right now and loic just fixed them up! after the lesson he looked at our bikes and was like what are you doing.. took out his tool box and fixed up our tires and everything. it was so sweet of him. and today i read an article i cant remember the name of it i think it was something like teaching with the end in mind and the end is having those eternal families and how important it is. we don't just want baptisms they are very important because that's our first step but we want eternal families and the grandchildren of the parents we teach now to continue to make those covenants and how important it is to help people really gain a testimony and feel of the truthfulness of this gospel. oh my mom i have never worked so hard and have had so much fun working! its the best feeling ever!! we come home everyday literally dripping in sweat and you get backpack sweat and its really disgusting but half of that is thanks to the humidity here and its just kinda hot either raining or your sweating anyway this work is awesome!! i cant even express how i feel being here but its awesome! and we found this baby kitten on the road we saved it and gave it to our neighbor kevin lol and lastly we painted this persons house the other day! with a paint brush that was almost as long as my thumb and the width was like a third of my thumb lol best way to paint a house if you ask me:) i hope you guys have a good week!! love you! bike life is the best life:)


















"THIS WORK BRINGS SO MUCH JOY" - week 12

(written June 22)

hahahaha i am so behind on these emails i am so sorry but seriously it was such a funny week when we turned off his water!!! gaaaah thats awesome how is the house coming along,?? send me pictures of everyones adventures. i tried to send pictures from my camera today did it work?? lol basketballl is so fun! sometimes like 15 people will come and sometimes like 2 will come but it is fun all the same:) are you just spending the entire summer in the house in Utah?? 
ok mom Sonia is doing so good she seriously just loves everything we share with her and she asks a TON of questions!! its awesome shes real smart and totally participates in the amies class and shes got a baptism date. ok another cool story i cant remember if i told you about brenden but he is supper cool we have been trying to get him to come to Church with us for a while now like 6 weeks and we didn't drop him for whatever reason it just didn't feel right. well he came to church with us this sunday!! We had a lesson with him the day before sunday so saturday lol but he told us he had a dream that he needed to get baptised and he got baptised in his dream and there was sœur banks and i and then a third person he didn't know who that other person was though. Then he told us he said he knows he needs to get baptised. It was so cool then at Church we walked through with him and he speaks English lol so i was all about talking to him and we were walking to the amies class and there was a painting of joseph smith's first vision on the wall, he starred at it for a moment and i was about to say that's... brenden finished my sentence "joseph Smith vision i know, i want to paint that, you think i should paint it?" I was so excited on the Inside i said of coarse and he had to show it to me when he finishes it. This week was so good mom!! I have never truly seen how heavenly father influences us and others and its amazing. serving a mission is the best decision i have made in my life. THIS WORK BRINGS SO MUCH JOY. to me and to our investigators nothing is more rewarding than sitting in a lesson and just seeing that our investigator can feel the spirit and what we are saying clicks. I know without a doubt in my mind when the spirit is not there no one can learn. I didn't realize just how much the spirit influences people and us even when we don't know it or realize it at first! but even a thought of hey we should go visit this person in this area today and then all of a sudden that person you planned for isn't there but we always find someone else in that area who is interested or asks us a question. it is truly so amazing! and i always thought it had to be like a burning in my heart or some grand experience every time but its not. its just thoughts we have and then it comes down to our agency and what we chose to do. I am working on knowing and feeling the spirit and searching for the spirit more. it says in preach my gospel we can't force the spirit to come but create an environment where we can invite and protect it when it is there. so that's my goal. lol sœur banks and i are going to create the best environment possible because nothing else is possible without the spirit. i also don't think i have worked and studied this hard for anything else either. the french is coming! its harder than i thought it was going to be honestly in my head i was like gift of tongues yeah and i totally 100 percent believe in the gift of tongues but it is also tons of hard work. some lessons i have no idea whats going on and others i feel like i understood every word. i asked for advice on how to learn french and one of the elders said to force myself to think in french... easier said than done lol but that's what I'm working on this week!! 

how has the family been??? send me pictures lol I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!
sœur driggs










Sunday, June 21, 2015

"we invited him to come and HE CAME" - week 11

(written June 15)

MOM!!! sorry for some reason i have like 198 emails in my lds thing i haven't read i dont know where they all came from but once i hit guadeloupe all the sudden hey were there!  so i am just trying to catch up i always search for yours first lol then i go on but i think i miss some on the way... OH MY GOSH i was terrified to talk at zone conference i didnt think he was going to call on me... THEN HE DID haha it was good though he let me do the topic i prepared my talk for. that was sweet of him. i cried. i always cry i dont know why but i am a crier. thank you mom and grandpa lol just kidding :)

naha thanks mom they gave me a new bike and fixed the old one they take care of that stuff i was just laughing and in my head i was like... now i know how kirstina felt then when i got the new one i was so used to peddeling so fast i just took off i didnt even realise but i was cruising! my companion didnt even see it coming lol 

hahaha basketball is so fun!! getting real good at shooting and then cuz i am a girl and boys cant really guard us any time we get the ball we either shoot and everyone watches us or we pass it and everyone sorta just stands and watches us its funny. but its supper fun!! 

we do emails at this little computer shop. its cool internet is good most of the time! oh my gosh the church here is solid and the members are amazing and so nice!! the ward is probably as big as the relief society in our ward that show up every sunday oh it was mothers day here like two weeks ago and fathers day this week so HAPPY Fathers day dad!! i dont remember when it is in america. 

on grand terre there are 3 sets of missionaries us and then two sets of elders and then on the other side on base terre (i am totally spelling that wrong) there are 2 sets of sisters and 2 elders. 

OK COOLEST EXPERIENCE. SONIA  we had an amazing lesson with her this week the spirit was so strong and she committed to being baptised with a date and everything it was amazing!! ok JOEL he is SOOO RAD so we didnt realize this area was apart of our area and we just found out last week so this area hasent been touched in like 2 or 3 transfers or maybe longer but its been a while so we game planned and decided to go out and find the less actives in that area annnnnd we didnt find any of them. but that's alright. we were contacting this girl outside of her salon and we left and were cruising around on our bikes and this guy pulls up to us and is like "hey you preach the word of god?" we were like yes we do! he asked if we could teach him .... we were like of coarse so we pulled over and taught him about the book of mormon at this park, gave him the book and we had a baptism on saturday so we invited him to come to that and HE CAME it was so cool and then we asked if he wanted to go to church on sunday he said bien sur annd HE CAME and then he had to leave really quick after church so we couldnt talk to him more but we went back to that same area sunday to hopefully find those less actives and guess who we ran into! joel and we asked if he had time if we could teach him something becuase everything fell through sunday lol  but its good so we taught joel and we asked why he pulled us over that first day and he said it was because he saw how happy we were and said he wanted that. we were like thats awesome and testified of the spirit and he said everyone at church had that light in there eyes and he wants that and when he met us he found hope again so we invited him to be baptised and he agreed and has a date and said he will do whatever it takes to be able to be baptised. oh my gosh heavenly father has blessed us so much for seriously leading us to people and leading others to us in joels case. I cannot explain the joy we felt knowing that we were able to be tools for our heavenly father it will be an experience i will never forget. I love this church and this gospel i am so glad i made this decision soeur banks and I are seeing miracles everyday and its incrediable.  Soeur banks and i have seen so many this week its incrediable i am sorry this is so long but its been such a good week and we have everything thanks to heavenly father and the coolest thing is we prayed for guidance right before we met joel because all our plans seriously fell through we had no idea what would be the best way to spend our time so we prayed and just felt like we should ride around until we felt like we should talk to someone or something and then all of a sudden someone was asking if we could talk to him oh my gosh heavenly truly directs us everyday i have never noticed how much until now!! ok I love you guys i'll send pictures in the next email lol 

thanks dad i love you!!! seriously that is AMAZING!!! READ ALMA 13:24 because we have been sharing this with our members for a while but god totally put people in our lives that are searching for this gospel but we just dont know it because well, i was anyway, had the mind set i didnt know anyone who wanted to change! looking back there were tons of people that asked me questions but anyway i only have like 2 more min till we have to go but i am so excited for Dave and his wife tell them i say hello!!

thats amazing!!!! we talk about doing family history work here and it makes me so excited i wish we had time for that on the mission lol but the spirit of elijah is definitely around us!! gaaaah this is how i feel right now i am so excited for you guys and the experiences your having!!! love you:) share these with mom they are the only pictrues we took this week lol LOVE YOU!!!! 



Sunday, June 14, 2015

"got proposed to this week" - week 10

this week has been so good!! we found two supper cool families to teach this past week!! one of them has a little resturant we didn't eat there but it looks cute so we are supper stoked to get to teach them this coming week. the french is coming people will still laugh in lessons because of my accent but it is coming lol. my companion always says at least she's trying so its been good!! we got proposed to this week by one of our investigators we found last week he told us he would be happy with either of us and that he would get baptised if we did and this guy spoke english so i knew what was going on i was tryin hard not to laugh it just seemed so random after talking about joseph smith and i honestly thought things were going well until he popped the question and then said he had been drinking earlier that day which was a good thing cuz now we know how he really felt about us teaching him. it was funny though. 
so i found a way to study flashcards while on my bike mom and honestly i think it is very effective lol i learn more words in a day! and it is the coolest thing when i study a word it'll come up in a lesson with someone and ill have a little party in my head because i know whats going on lol. the spirit is seriously so strong everyday its so cool nothing even compares to how i feel about these people and how i feel eevryday serving here. 
ok!! for pday today we went on a sick hike i have pictures i will send you but they dont do it justice it reminded me of the hike i went on with kristina back before abby came along but just a little more dense with the trees!!. it was so pretty i love you guys!! hope you have a good week





we went on exchanges this week and the other sisters live ON THE BEACH you open the door and you can hear the waves. spent a night there is was so cool!!! 



Monday, June 1, 2015

Haven't showered in 4 days - Week 9

mom again sorry no punctuation ok so this week was crazy lol it started out normal so that was nice we are teaching this girl named sonia right now and she is awesome she is just starting to realize that we are different from the other Churches she has been going to so we are just hoping we are able to help her feel the spirit and do lots of good stuff. also! ok so i just figured out the punctuation lol we are off to a good start but we met this really cool guy his name is Brandon and we have been teaching him and he doesn't want to come to Church but he came to a fireside with us that was at the Church building and showed him around and said like what we do at Church and he finally promised to come to Church with us!! then his bike broke down so he actually couldn't make it but he said he is getting it fixed and will come next week with his friend Markey which is so cool because he isn't a member either but he is actually the reason brandon went to Church in the first place because ok sorry i am not good at typing stories lol but so we went to brandon's house with the intention to teach him a little and then invite him to the fireside but he wasn't home. his Buddy markey was staying at his house and he answered the door and we taught him a little lesson and invited him and brandon to come to the fireside and THEY BOTH CAME it was so cool and brandon said he wouldn't have come if markey didn't so i think that was exactly what was supposed to happen so brandon wouldn't feel as awkward or whatever going by himself but he is sooo cool and the fireside was amazing president mehr talked about how we make things in the world more important than our heavenly father, like fashion and business and it was so good we also had zone conference this weekend and all the sœurs(sisters) fly in and they stay at our house because we live so close we can walk to Church so we have like 10 sœurs at our little apartment and ok i have a funny story about that but zone conference was so good we all planned talks and president mehr just calls on whoever to give a talk and well he called on me lol oh my gosh i was so nervous i don't know why but i just get so nervous lol and i just talked about our purpose as a missionary. people said it was touching and stuff but thats probably because i cried at the end i always cry when i bare my testimony i think a third of that was the spirit and then a little cuz i was just so excited to not talk anymore lol but the spirit there was so strong it was so cool sister mehr talked about how we need to search and find how the holy ghost talks to us and then president mehr talked to us about how we can better study and then talked about the atonement it was so good. preach my gospel is amazing use it for family home evening lol i am not even kidding it is so good!

ok get excited for my funny story so we had a gazillion sœurs at our house (only 10) but one of the girls broke the handle off of the faucet thing where water comes out and water was just spraying everywhere!! so the only solution was to turn off our water supply because we couldn't turn off the sink. we haven't had water since friday.... lol haven't showered in 4 days because it broke before i could jump in the shower but that doesn't matter so when it was supper crazy and we were trying to figure out how to turn off the water and which one was our water supply one of the sœurs was like i know how to do this. one is hot and one is cold so when we found the water supply knob things that sœur turned off two knobs and our neighbor last night came over and asked us if we had water, we turned off his water too!!!! he hasn't had water since friday!! he waited three days to ask if we had water oh my gosh is was so funny so we turned off his water too we felt so bad! were baking him a cake to apologize and we finally bought a new faucet thing, put it in and have water now! sœur banks and i are thinking of opening our own pluming business when we get home. but mom we haven't been able to flush our toilet in like 4 days our upstairs started to smell like a port a poty seriously i have never been more grateful for running water! poor kevin.

so we read this talk this week about a missionary who did a 40 day fast where you start with a 24 hour fast and you write everything that comes to mind that takes you away from the spirit and for the next 40 days you fast from those things to help get your mind and heart and everything in line with the spirit we started that this week and have already seen so many miracles with it especially on the day we fast. having the ability to fast is such a gift even though it doesn't seem like it sometimes but it is a tool for us to be able to grow closer to the spirit and to become closer to the savior and it works!!! its amazing i have never really had a testimony of fasting before and now i do and its amazing i don't know why but i just seriously took so many things for granted back home like the scriptures and running water and fasting i am so Lucky to have this opportunity to serve!

i love you all have a good week sorry i forgot my camera so no pictures sorry

also could you send me some easy recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner stuff cuz we don't know what we're doing lol we both like top ramon which is cool but some variety is nice lol

love you!!!
sœur driggs