I get kissed all the time...by women

First and foremost I would like to say that the e-mails i received this past week were the best emails i have received during my mission thus far. Thank you so much for those of you who consistently right me. Know that I love you very much and your words are very inspiring and motivating for me. Remembering that I have an amazing family and group of friends praying for me helps me to continue each and every day. I love you. Yes you specifically. Second thing, I know I usually do a funny story first but this week I am going to start with the spiritual because the story is really important for me. I never have time to write in my journal so this will have to count as my journal entry.

Okay so this past weekend has been one FILLED with the E Family, the C's. We had a great meal, a dish from Portugal since that is where the Cornetas are from. Lots of potatoes, cream and fish, not sure what it was called. Anyway so we had a great meal with them and then at the end had planned a short lesson on Following the Prophet. We started by asking Sr Co. how following the Prophet has blessed their family. She gave us a powerful, heartfelt response. Then we asked Edouardo a question about prophets and he came out of no where and said, Actually I dont believe in prophets. WHAT???!!! We were caught so off guard. This was not anything we saw coming. Edouardo was our golden child. He was the one who always had the perfect answers and was willing to change his life to be baptised and become closer to our Savior. Well it was handled very well. Sr. L was quick on her feet and turned to the scriptures to show proof of prophets and that one could be called in our time, and in fact that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today. Fr. and Sr. C are both return missionaries so they were very helpful as well. It turned into a great lesson and we committed Edouardo to go home and listen to the talk by President Monson from this past conference, Dare to Stand Alone, and pray and ask Heavenly Father if Thomas S. Monson is the prophet on the earth today, called by God. He accepted and we concluded our lesson. I wish I could put into words how powerful the testimonies of Fr. C's their 17 year old daughter, but its impossible. Oh also. Fr. C. told Edouardo that he should pray kneeling because it is more powerful in showing God our humility. Since this advice, everytime we have prayed with Edouardo it has been on our knees :)

The next day Saturday we went to Cern, a science center, with Edouardo and Miryam. We traded p-day hours so we could go spend time with them there. It was a lot of fun and it was really cool. Side note: Cern is where the World Wide Web was created. You will have to search it on google but they make particles there. It is really cool, something Dad would have taken us to go to when we were young. However the language and being able to understand the concept a child should not go there. Great for people who have had some studying of science. Some of the attached pictures are from there. Anyway after Cern Miryam took us to a Peruvian restaurant and we ate like Queens. It was delicious but not my preferred. Then we went home and then quickly left for French Class. Where Edouardo assisted us in teaching our class because he is fluent in both French and Spanish and most of our class is Spanish. He loved it and we saw it as a great opportunity for him to serve! After French class we had a rendez-vous with Edouardo and Miryam. It went pretty well again. We had a little more of a break through with Miryam, trying to commit her to a baptismal date but unfortunately she would not comply. I know that she will be baptized soon. She has already had her heart softened so much. The time will come. Okay so at the end of our rdv (rendez-vous) Edouardo said. In fact Sr. Lala you asked me if i wanted to be baptized March 10th and i said i dont know maybe. And then the next time we met you said okay so you are being baptized March 10th. This of course is not how we percieved our engagement to him but it is how he saw it. His mom was laughing so hard saying Edouardo why has it taken you so long to say this? Are you just getting baptized for the missionaries? He said no that he was getting baptized for the right reasons but thats just how he saw it.

Then the next day at church they were there and Fr. J., a YM counselor, and the sunday school teacher (for adults), talked during Sacrament meeting. His talk was very powerful and was about Forgivness and pride. Miryam was so excited after the talk to tell us that she felt the spirit very strongly and that the talk really touched her heart. Then later after church we started our rdv and Edouardo told us that he was not ready to get baptized on the 10th. He felt like he needed more time. We were not so much shocked, I kind of saw it coming because of some comments that were made and some other things that have occured. Anyway it was so cool because Sr. L and i were just guided by the spirit to know what to say to him. He said that he had received his answer, he knows the church is true, he knows the book of mormon is true and he knows he needs to get baptized but he just feels like he needed more time to learn and understand the gospel. The spirit quickly reminded me of my decision to serve a mission. Once i felt that I needed to serve a mission, I started my papers. I never wanted to go on a mission and i never thought i would. However when i received the prompting I was obedient and went forward in faith. Even though there were times when it was hard to continue to prepare for a mission I went forward because I knew it was what the lord wanted for me. I recounted this experince to Edouardo. I told him that when we receive an answer to our prayers it is important to quickly obey and not delay. If I had delayed my feelings of going on a mission or preparing for a mission I most likely wouldnt be here right now. I didnt know if he was touched by this exerpience or not and if it was helping him. I didnt want to push to much because I know its his decision to be baptized but because he has received his answer its important to act in faith. His mom wasnt in the room for this story because she was on the phone, however when she came back and we were talking about a new baptismal date he wanted me to retell my story. So again I told it to Miryam. However this time i added that when we get an answer and we dont listen to it the answer could go away or changed. She was surprised to hear this. But then Sr. L added that the Lord will give us an answer however, if we dont listen the first or second time he is not going to force us. He wants us to choose for ourselves. I think this has helped her realize as well how important it will be when she receives her answer to go forward in faith and be baptized. We also told Edouardo that we knew that this was the adversary working against him because he has received an answer and is going to make a grand covenant with Heavenly Father. Okay so then after i told the story again, Edouardo said that he wanted to be baptized the week after the 10th, the 17th. We definitely were happy about this and he is very excited as well. He wanted to plan the program right then and made a list of who he wanted to particpate. Theres a chance I will be giving a talk. Its funny that for Edouardo one week will make a big enough difference but we are grateful that he has picked his own date and is so excited about it.

Last night while falling asleep Sr. Lala told me how this is an answer to our prayers in disguise to be able to have one baptism a week. This has been a great desire of ours and we are seeing that is starting to be possible. The 10th will be Tatiana the 17th Edouardo and we are hoping Miryam the 24th, even though she doesnt know it yet. Please pray for these three. They need all the prayers they can get so that they may continue in Faith towards the waters of baptism. Please pray also that Miryam will have the desire to be baptised. Her biggest concern is that she doesnt think she knows enough yet. Faith is not a perfect knowledge of things--Alma 32:21. I know that we were with the Es so much this week because Edouardo was being tried. When we are there he is lifted up and feels the spirit. Satan is working him so hard right now because he is our Golden Child. Its a beatiful thing to help someone come unto Christ and I am so glad I am here doing this work. I love my Savior.

Now a short funny story.We had district meeting on thursday and i was asked to rd a scripture. Luke 24:18. In french the name in the scripture is Cléopas. Not sure what it is in english. Anyway so while I was reading this I said Célopas and Sr. L and Elder Lumakaso started laughing under their breath. I realized the mistake i made so i corrected it but didnt know what was the other word i said. Well Sr. Lala ended up telling me that it is very very close to the word that in english means a**-hole. Go read this scripture and substitue the name for a**-hole and you will probably laugh as hard as they did. Did I mention, I am the only American, and only native English Speaker in my district. Needless to say everyone got a kick out of it! I know this is really really long but I hope you enjoy it. Sometimes i hated reading long emails from missionaries so sorry if i bored you.

I love you,Soeur Addis

P.s. This week was extremely hard for me so thank you again for your emails and for the continued prayers. I couldnt do this without them.

and sometimes we go grocery shopping with our Amis

Highlight to this week would have to be spending quality time with Miryam and Edouardo. We love them so much and really get closer to them every week. We are so close to them infact that this past week they decided that we would go grocery shopping with them. It was so funny. We were supposed to have a rendez vous on friday with them. We arrived to their home around 7:30 and Miryam was just getting home. However Stephanie, her daughter missed the bus so she needed a ride to her boyfriends. Miryam and Edouardo said just come with us it will be fast. So we thought we would just take her there and come back. Nope in fact we dropped her off and then went to France to go grocery shopping. It was a good time but unfortunately when we got back it was too late to teach a lesson. So we just had to go home and then came back the next day. Well the next day was even better. We came back to teach la loi de la dime...tithing. Yeah that one did not go over to well. I have never had someone be so opposed to my personal testimony. I want to cry. It was so hard to hear someone didnt think that they would be blessed for paying their tithing when I know that this has been such a huge blessing in my life. Miryam said the closing prayer and in her prayer said that she didnt think that tithing was a commandment or an obligation but that if she was wrong to please let her know, but she didnt think that she was wrong. It was so sweet and you could tell it was hard for her but that she was willing to find out. She has been praying so hard to feel the spirit like we do and to be able to know if this is the true church, please send your prayers her way to help her to know that this is the true church and pray that she will know how to recognize the spirit.

There is not too much else to report this week and my time is getting really short because again I chatted with mom and Caroline. I would like to wish Whitney Kelly a belated Happy Birthday and Hannah Welch should be having a birthday very soon if she hasnt already. Drivers license here she comes!

You all have been asking how my french is. The simplest way to explain it is that its coming. I try my best everday and learn everyday that there is so much I dont understand about this language. It is really hard for me because I know how to explain and teach gospel concepts but i just dont have the words. The other hard thing for me is that people think I am quiet. And the other thing is that I am not able to get to know people as I normally do because I have no idea how to ask them about themselves and even if i did i would only understand about half of what they say to me. So in all, its coming. Pray for me.

Recieved three letters this week, Caroline, Jill Kelly and The Couillen Family. Thank you all. Also Michelle Wadsen, I am so sorry I havent had time to answer your questions, i just never have that much time.

I think about everyone at home a lot and I pray for all of you all the time. Please keep doing whats right, I know the Lord will bless you.

Love,Soeur Kimberly

P.S. The ad in the picture says, 'commit yourself to becoming a good missionary'. The picture of the mountain is near Sr. Spada's house. It was a beautiful day, does it look cold to anyone else?

Also another P.s.s. we just found out that the new Mission President will be Blake Roney and his wife. They are from Provo and have 8 children. They will be brining 3 Children to the field with them! We are excited to find out more.

mutation two already? couldnt be

Hi, its me again. The little french missionary in Switzerland. I am just loving the freezing cold. When it eats through my clothes and makes my limbs numb i just cant get enough. I wish we were allowed to go into the water so i could embrace the polar bear experience. Obviously this was written with a very sarcastic attitude. I really am doing great and although its cold we are staying warm. I will be here at least till March 25th so hopefully it will begin to get warmer, I really hope to stay at least one more transfer after this because I KNOW it will be beautiful here in the spring in summer and i really want to enjoy it.

So this might be a little shorter than normal. I was lucky enough to be on the same time as mom and chat with her a little bit, so she stole some of my time. Either way it will be good, as always.Okay so funny story for the week is that I may have poisoned our amis and less actives. We wanted to make cookies to take to them for valentines day and it was a way to get the members involved and tell us friends that they wanted us to take treats to. So we made these CUTE sugar cookies with pink frosting and put them in clear plastic goody bags and tied them closed with pink ribbon and then had a John 3:16 written on a little piece of paper that was attached to the ribbon. Alright so it was all good and fancy but the frosting was kind of funny. I made it with shortening which I had never done before, usually i just use butter. The shortening was from the kitchen at the institue and I thought it kind of looked funny but I didnt know it was possible for it to go bad. Well it definitely can. After making the frosting and applying it to all the cookies i looked at the bottom of the shortening can and saw the expiration date. 07/07/06. Yup you read that right, 2006!!! IT was soooooo bad but we had nothing else we could do so we gave them anyway and prayed that they wouldnt make anyone sick. So far no phone calls about trying to kill anyone so I would say those prayers were answered.

Now for the goods. Our AMIS. They are great as always. We had kind of a weird week. First i had legality in France, which was successful, so we had an exchange on Tuesday and then another exchange on Wednesday with the other Soeurs who are here in Geneve. So I felt like I hadnt seen our amis in a long time but it was good to see them on Friday. Irene has been sick so we havent seen here in a week but hope to see her today. Edouardo and Miryam are definitely progressing at different rates. Edouardo is still golden. Last week we talked about the Law of Chastity and before we could even said it he said, So that means pornography is bad right? We were so excited. He really is understanding and applying these principles to his life. We also talked about the priesthood with them yesterday. They are great. We really love them and have become so close with them. Keep praying for them please. I know that Miryam will be baptised and have a strong testimony like her son soon. Tatiana is doing well. They didnt make it to church yesterday and we didnt have a lesson with her but we will be seeing her this week. Shes great. She prays everyday and is reading the Book of Mormon everyday. Please pray that their family will be able to understand the importance in church attendance, especially all three meetings!Not much further to report. We have been trying with other amis but they are not as receptive. We have a couple that we will meet with for the first time this week so please pray that those go well!

Hope you all have a wonderful week and that you remember who you are. Attached pictures. The first is of the cute crossiants i couldnt attach last week. The second is the Monastary in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. The third is at the gare sending off Elder Pilling. Me Elder Pilling Soeur Lala and Soeur Scott. Love you much famille et amis,Soeur Addis

La salle de bain

This week, I found out something very critical.
La salle de bain is not the same thing as les toilettes. --side note, when i spell things in french the may be wrong, i just speak it correctly-- I had probably one of the funniest things happen to me this week. We were at my favorite members home, Soeur H, she is a very sad old lady but I have become very close with her and I love to see her smile, as we have been meeting with her she has become more happy. Anyway we had been out for a long time before we arrived to her home so I had to use the bathroom. So when we arrived i kindly asked in perfect french, Puis-je utiliser la salle de bain, S'il vous plait? She responded, Salle de Bain? and guided me towards the bathroom. I entered and sat on what i thought was the toilet. It looked really different, it didnt have a toilet seat, just the bowl and then it had a drain that looked more like a sink. I REALLY had to go so i proceeded to sit down and release the pain that was occuring in my blatter. As I was sitting i looked around for toilet paper and thought about what I was sitting on. How it looked and how confused I was. I couldnt find toilet paper anywhere, nor a place to keep it. I was genuinely confused, how could this old woman have a toilet that would not flush anything but pee and why didnt she have toilet paper. I quickly realized I was not sitting on a toilet. As i drip dried I tried to decide what I was going to do. Did she hear me pee? Did she know that I just peed in something that was not meant to be peed in? I had no idea what I was going to do. I just laughed to myself. I saw some disinfectant and a sponge so I cleaned the bowl, after i replaced my drawers, and washed my hands and walked out of the salle de bain. S. H needed to go get something at her neighbors apt and she had to leave for a second. While she was gone I ran to S. Lala and told her while laughing, Sr. H. doesnt have a toilet!! She was like what and ran to look in the bathroom. It was definitely not a toilet. I found a door next to the bathroom and saw a toilet. So she did have one but what was that thing i had just peed in. Sr. Lala started to tell me what i had peed in was a bee-day, in her cute french accent. I was so confused, a bee-day, what in the world is a bee-day. It took a second to click until i realized what I had just released my bodies toxins into. I peed in her bidet (french spelling, unsure of the english)!!!!! We laughed SOOO hard and continue to laugh about this experience everyday. Luckily I dont think Sr. H hearing is well enough to hear someone urinating, she still doesnt know the horrible sin i commited in her home and hopefully she never will. I have now learned that when i need to use the restroom to say, Les toilettes instead of La salle de bain!!
Now that we got out the giggles I will let you know how our wonderful amis are doing. They are just too great all of them. We are still working with Tatiana and Edouardo, who are being baptised on March 10th, Miryam, the mother of Edouardo, whom we love a lot. She is so great. She has great faith in Jesus Christ but wonders why her Heavenly Father could let such terrible things happen. We are working with her on this subject. I know that through many prayers she will soon be following the example of her son and preparing for the waters of baptism. We are also still working with Irene, but she no longer has a baptismal date because she still has not been to church. Tonight when we go see her we will be throwing out her cigarettes and her smoking paraphenalia. Please pray also that Irene will come to church and that she will be able to quit smoking so that she can make sacred covenants with her Heavenly Father! Those are the four that we are seeing consistently but things are a little bit slower with our other amis. We also are still seeing our less actives, including Sr. S. Its kind of funny all the less actives we are working with are sorry old woman, who are either divorced or widowed. Half of them have been coming to church and the other half make up excuses to not come to church. They are all wonderful though. We love seeing them and discussing our testimonies with one another. Sorry I dont have a specific story for this week. Like always I am pressed for time.
Something cool is that tonight I will be sleeping at the mission home, and having my first exchange. Tomorrow Sr. C. (from the MTC) and the office Elders and I will be going to france to get our French Legality. We have to leave at 6:30 AM so thats why we are sleeping there. Then when we get back we have another exchange with the other Soeurs who are here in Geneve. So I wont be back in my sweet bed until wednesday night. I know its going to miss me as much as I will miss it.
The picture attached (just kidding it is not working, maybe next week) are the cutest but most expensive little croissants that i ate a couple of days ago. I also have now tried falafells, which are SOOO good, when we come here as a family we have to go to the marchee on Saturday and get them, they were seriously so good. Also i have had pain aux chocolat, several times, and baguettes. I love it all. Its so good, the only thing I wish is that the bagettes were warm when we got them, but none the less they are good.
Sorry I have to get going but I love you all and hope you are having a wonderful week. Michael, good joke about "H.". Look forward to hearing from you next week.
je vous aime,
Soeur Kimberly Addis
P.s. Mom I got the letter with the pictures last week, as well as a letter from Jill Kelly, Sr. Couillens, and Hermana Wadsworth (the last two were actually two weeks ago but i forgot to tell you last email). Also, please get Allie Campbell Merrill's email for me and Whitney Kelly's new address. Thanks. I love you and will be praying strongly for Grandpa and Uncle Biff. Send them my love.