First Email from the Mission Field - Geneva

Alright fam bam, here it is, the first e-mail from the field. First of all sorry if this e-mail is very mispelled because the keyboard is different so I don't know how to type very well. And it is saying that i am spelling everything wrong because these words are english and not french. I AM HERE IN GENEVA...Genève for those who speak french. Life is good. Its very very difficult. I have had an entertaining week. Culture shock is an understatement. But its good non the less. President and Sister Murdock are great. We had a lot a good time with them at the mission home for the first night but then quickly left the next morning. Because I am serving here in Geneve our train ride was like ten minutes unlike some other missionaires who had 4-12 hours on a train. I was grateful to not have to travel any longer. The plane rides were quite shaky like i mentioned in my letter home and I was very sick from them. When Sister LaLa--that is what her name is here in the field, no one can say her last name so it has been shortened and I dont even know if I can pronounce it correctly, any way. When we got to the apartment we put down my bags and got to planning our day. We first did some studies and then ate and then went out porting (knocking doors) and contacting. We tried to go visit some less actives but no one was home so we continued to contact. After a while we went home and ate dinner and then had a lesson with Miryan and her son Edouard. They are our progressing investigators at the moment and they are golden! Edouard is so smart and asks so many questions about the Book of Mormon, its awesome. They were supposed to come to church yesterday but Miryan got sick. Please pray for this family! They are so wonderful and I know that they will be baptized. After we left our rendez-vous is when the entertainment came. Sister Lala and i were running for the bus because we did not have much time before we had to get home. When we were on the tram, yes we take public transportation every where and do some walking, no car no bikes, okay so when we were on the tram I told Sister Lala that I was not feeling well at all. In fact during Edouards prayer I thought i was going to puke. So we got off the tram and not 5 seconds later I threw up. Four or five times right there on the street. I felt so awful but i took a picture. I will send it to you soon, i forgot my cord today. So after i threw up i thought i was better and i thought it was just because of my motion sickness from the plane but then later after planning and going to bed i woke up at 11 and threw up again, in the bathroom sink. Then i went to bed, threw up at 12 and then again at 1 and then again at 3. Needless to say, i was sick. I was so sick that i ended up sleeping the whole next day. At one point i tried to wake up to shower and get ready to see home i felt but after about 1hr and 30 mins of being awake i felt so dizzy and went back to sleep until 8 at night. It was awful and I felt so badly for Sister Lala but it wasnt as bad because we did not have any appts. But NOW i am better! So that is good. That was thursday, then friday the district leader Elder Saurez and his companion Elder Arnold, gave me a blessing. After the blessing we went back home for more studying and planning and then we had an appt with a less active. She has been less active for like 30 years at least. Soeur Spada, she is probably 75. She is so sweet. I am pretty sure she is from Italy because of her accent but i love it. She lives in this town called Carouge and it is my favorite town we have been to so far. It is SO CUTE and SO Eurpoean. There is alot more farm land out there. Where i live is very urban and although they say Geneve is very clean i think it is kind of dirty. After seeing Soeur Spada we went to another part of our sector-area- and went contacting until we had another lesson with Hayda. She is an investigator that we have however she does not keep her commitments so she is not "progressing". The rendez-vous with her was good. She is from Africa and her children are so cute, but they are WILD. It is very hard to be able to tell if she is feeling the spirit because there are so many distractions during the lesson. Hopefully she will keep our commitments this week when we go see her on friday. After that lesson we went home and ate and went to bed. Saturday was good. We had our normal studies and planning and then went to some appts. Two of them fell through and then we went to our next one and she forgot and said she couldnt meet with us. And then when even our back up plans failed we decided to go to the institute building to get a board and go boarding in carouge. We ended up getting LOCKED in the institute building... dont ask.. and by the time the Elders came and let us out it was too late to go do anything before our French class, the Elders teach English class. So then we had French class and that was fun, there were a lot of Mongolian people there. After french class we just went porting all night because our other appt fell through on us. Then we went home and ate and went to bed. Sunday was great. It was so nice to be in a dedicated building where even though i could not understand i felt the spirit. It was very refreshing to be doing something familiar. I bore my testimony in sacrament so that was pretty fulfilling. But otherwise i didnt understand much. The members are great there though. They are so sweet and so welcoming. I am not sure home many YM/YW there are because I am not in with them but i would guess there is probably like a group of 10 or 15. After church we had a lesson with an investigator, Tatiana. She is 11 and her mom Soeur Schneller, is a less active but Tatiana, wants to learn about the church. Yesterday we asked her to be baptized and she said yes! So wednesday we will be setting a date with her. We are very excited for her but need her to keep her commitments! Please pray for Tatiana and her mother that they will have the desire to keep Gods commandments. After our lesson we went home to study for a little bit but then went out and went porting. After porting for almost 2 hours we went home and broke our fast and had dinner. After dinner we had a rendez-vous with Soeur Humez. She is great. She is also an old less active lady. However she has been going back to church a lot more lately. Unfortunately she is a very sad person, seems depressed but hopefully with the commitments I GAVE HER, she will be a little bit happier this week. Thats right i actually talked during this lesson. The spirit was so strong and I gave her some promises that i know the Lord will fulfill if she follows through. And now today. We are writing home a little later than normal. Yesterday was Sister Lalas birthday so we went out to Lunch with the other Sisters. We did laundry, studied, grocery shopped--which was one of the weirdest experiences ever, and now we are going out to go porting and stuff. We were supposed to have a rendez-vous with this young man however his mother called us and told us that he will not be coming. Haha some moms are so protective.Okay so now a little bit of time to try to answer questions. The apartment is small but its good. We dont have a good view of anything, and yes the address that was sent is where i live, not an office or mission home or anything. Sister Lala is from Grenobile--i dont know if i spelt that right. Her parents are from Madagascar. She is great. She speaks english so well so i am very grateful, however she doesnt understand how hard it is to learn french. She is wonderful though. Such a great trainer and she is SO enthusiastic about the work and such a good example to me. She will be going home in May. Her hometown, Grenobile is in the mission field because she was called to Tolouse but then they combined.As of right now I do not plan on getting another coat. I have not been that cold. There is not any snow on the ground, I have no idea how cold it gets. Last week it rained ALOT.To be honest i have not had any food yet, made from some where else. Where we went to eat was Indian so i still have yet to have a bagette or pastry. We bought king cake to have with Hayda and her family but our appt went over and we did not have time to eat it with her. Everything is very expensive here and we are missionaires so we do not have much money. One day soon.Sorry I dont have any more time. I was very happy to hear that the babies are listening to the french primary songs and relax when they here them! Send pictures of them walking together! Thank you so much for all of our wonderful e-mails and I am sorry if I did not get back to something specific. Please bold it in the next email if you want something addressed!I love you all very much and miss you a lot. This is hard work but I have commited myself to the Lord and I know that you all are being blessed for my work. Write soon. Love,Soeur Addis