20 December 2016 - Joyeux Noel!!

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope y'all are enjoying this Christmas season!

FOR SKYPE: It'll be at 1pm my time on the 26th, so I think that's 6pm for CA, 8pm for TX, and 9pm for MI on Christmas day. Sorry it's a little on the later side, but at least Rachel won't be up at 2am ;) BE READY! We only have 30 minutes and I don't want to waste it just trying to connect everybody. I want to spend as much time as possible talking to you! IF THE CALL DROPS and it's taking too long to fix, CALL ME.

Here in New Cal it doesn't feel too much like Christmas weather-wise because it's the beginning of summer, but it is fun seeing people try to decorate and make it like Christmas anyway. Last Thursday, I was on exchange with Soeur Sorenson in Vallee des Colons. When we were en ville [in the city], there were Christmas lights set up on the Place de Cocotiers [Coconut Square]. That night was the first night of their version of the Festival of Lights. Sadly, we couldn't stay out after dark to see all the lights, but we saw a few that were already on and they were also playing the Michael Buble Christmas album through speakers set up throughout la Place! haha Can't have Christmas without Michael Buble singing Christmas songs :) 

And here in Koutio they've set up a couple light things on the light posts like they do in small towns, haha. It's cute. Soeur Glade has been decorating the bureau [mission office] and it's super cute. We've been singing Christmas songs at church and for meetings! But the people here don't sing the French ones like Il est ne le Divin Enfant or Noel Nouvelet. It's weird. Maybe they just don't know them... But for Christmas with the missionaries, we're gonna make sure we sing them!

This week like I said earlier, we had an exchange with Vallee des Colons. Soeur Sorenson (from Washington and been out for 6 months) and I did a lot of contacting en ville [in the city]. She likes talking to mamis and telling them she likes their kanak dresses and asks them where they bought it, haha. She's so funny and just loves talking to everyone, so being in VDC and en ville will be great for her!

We had an exchange with Motorpool as well and Soeur Utia came with me in Koutio. She's Tahitian and has been out for about 7 months. She really loves the Qashqai [vehicle] and driving around, which was good because we spend the day driving around Normandie and Auteuil looking for inactives, sadly with little success because we couldn't find the right streets and we had a lame map. We also had a lesson with an ami named Elsa who really loves learning about the gospel, but the application aspect hasn't clicked for her yet. We invited her to baptism, but she said she's not ready yet. We're gonna keep working with her bien sur [for sure]!

We had ANOTHER zone meeting for the South Zone. Now that there's one set of STLs, we go to both the south and north zone meetings. I've literally given a training at a meeting for the past 3 weeks... And we'll probably do another one next week for the north zone... So many things to plan! SO BUSY! But getting pretty good at giving trainings so #skillz

I'm excited for Christmas and to SEE you! JOYEUX NOEL et BONNE FETE!!!

Bisous!

Sœur Matheson