Week 71 (6/8/20): Mouse traps and tickets for the LONG way round

All right everybody buckle up for another crazy email about Sœur Cate's random adventures !

So this week wasn't actually that crazy, we did our usual contacting on Facebook and we've done a lot of studies and things like that. Just like normal for confinement We try to do a lot of contacting, but I find that even in confinement, the mission is still the same as when you're not in confinement. There are times when you find a lot of people, and times where you find to no one and that's just how it is. But we're really grateful that at least the elders in our sector are finding and teaching a lot of people, so there are still people being taught in our Ward. In fact, there's a baptism on Saturday ! We're so excited 😁 And one of the people we've been teaching for about a month FINALLY started reading the book of mormon by himself this week, which is such a blessing ! God is a lot less likely to give us answers until we put in some sort of effort, and sincerely seek the truth, so I'm excited that now he's seeking opportunities to receive answers from God.

There's a pizza store right next to our apartment building, and it's really really really really good. My personal favorite pizza is a goat cheese and honey pizza, which is honestly one of the best things I've ever eaten. We decided to go get some this week and I was soooooooo happy !! We made a whole party out of it and watched a missionary devotional while eating pizza and speculoos ice cream so honestly I think I've peaked in life after that.

We did get lost today while we were headed towards this big grocery store because while there are a couple of corner stores, we can't get all the things we need there. So we went to walk to this bigger store that's further away (because though we were allowed to use buses for a few weeks, we are no longer allowed to by the European missionary leaders) and we got lost. We ended up hiking just short of the highest point of the city. It was a stunning view, with wild flowers and fields close to us, the city of terracotta roofs a little further out, and then mountains tall and blue in the distance. So it was beautiful, but it was long and hot and sweaty. After shopping, we weren't sure that we were going to make it home, but luckily the elders were there and they showed us the actual way home so we didn't get lost. Blessings 🙏

Funny story time- the elders called us last night asking about a member and how a meeting had gone with them when suddenly we heard, "what was that" and then "oh my gosh there's a mouse !!!" They were freaking out 😂 We later got videos of them trying to catch the mouse including getting him inside a box only for him to climb back out of the box because they didn't close it and the screams and shrieks were honestly like quality entertainment. So glad it's them, not us, my companion and I would die...

Anyways, I hope y'all can read maps and avoid unwanted rodent encounters !

Love ya,

Sœur Cate

Week 70 (6/1/20): WE'RE LEAVING CIVILIZATION BEHIND !!

Hello everyone !

So this week was pretty fun 😊 We did get the sad news that we aren't allowed to use public transportation, for a little while. That's for all the missionaries in Europe unfortunately. But we did end up going for a walk to a nearby lake 😁 It was about an hour and a half, which was long, but it was really really beautiful ! We were walking through countryside, so there were fields of wildflowers and river crossings and vineyards and it was just in general very pretty 😊 We took lots of good pictures that we'll be able to use on Facebook and we spoke French the whole time and discussed ideas for Facebook page. And other things we can do to do missionary work despite confinement, so it was over all really fun and pretty productive.

We also had another lesson with our friend from Belgium, and we taught the plan of salvation. He will probably take a little a while to accept everything and to understand the importance of the restoration, but it's cool to see the things he already accepts so readily.

The other really big thing that happened this week was that we got to take the sacrament for the first time since March 17th ... which was a long time ago 😅 We got to go over it to a member's house with his mother, and the four of us had a really cute little sacrament. Both of the members are very good singers, so we sang hymns beforehand, and it was honestly heavenly. My companion and the member hosting us sang the melody, his mom sang alto, and I sang tenor up an octave, and the chords were just heavenly !! So so good. It invited the spirit so so beautifully, and it was such a blessing to take the sacrament again. It was cool to reflect on the how much more I value the sacrament now because before, it was just a normal part of my life. Something that happened every week, that I kind of took for granted. Now I appreciate more. How special it is to be able to renew the promises I made with God, and to be reminded of those promises to be a witness of him, to remember him always and to keep his commandments. That little sacrament meeting was a really special experience ❤ And then they fed us a delicious Tahitian dessert afterwards, because the son served his mission in Tahiti, so like yeah. Honestly one of the best rendez-vous of my mission 😊

Anyways, I hope you guys are doing amazing, I love you !

Sœur Cate

Week 69 (5/25/20): Sunshine, mosquitoes, and charcoal face masks

Bonjour tout le monde !
Whoa, can you believe I only have 11 weeks left ? That just really hit me this week, like, I'm officially an old missionary. That's so weird, I feel like I just left ! Time flies when you're having fun, right ?
We had a really good week, like, the sun is out ! And sunshine is good for my soul 🌞 The only unfortunate thing is that the mosquitoes came out too, and there are a LOT. So we bought bug spray, after bite cream, and one of those tennis rackets that electrocutes mosquitoes, so we're properly ready for summer 🤣. I can't wait to run around our apartment with that thing like a crazy person 😂

We had a really great lesson yesterday with a guy I've been talking to online. We called and read the book of mormon together, and discussed some of his questions. I love the truth in James 1:5 and Moroni 10:3-5. We really can ask God for ourselves. And if we're sincere, and we do our best to learn for ourselves, he'll let us know what's true. I'm so glad we don't have to walk alone. And I'm excited that he's committed to reading the book of mormon and asking God for himself. Which opens him up to soooo much revelation, and so many blessings !

There's also a woman who was taught by the missionaries a couple months ago, and we finally got ahold of her this week ! It's actually really interesting, because her boyfriend is a member that recently returned to church. He'd been away for a LONG time, but he started coming back right around the time I left Perpignan (October of last year), and now his girlfriend is learning more ! It was so incredible to learn that despite the fact that she hasn't had contact with us, she's been reading the bom of mormon and general conference, and talking with her boyfriend about the gospel. It just goes to show, you never know what miracles God has going on behind your back ! And you never know when someone will change, and decide to come back.

One of the highlights of this week was facilitated by my fabulous companion Sœur Pulman. She gave both sets of elders in our districts supplies to do charcoal masks, and we did a district spa night by video call. I don't know that I've been that entertained in my entire life, like, I was dying. We had one set of elders that had a clue, but the other didn't. At all. They didn't know what we meant...
"First, wash your face"
"with soap ?"
"... how else ?"
"What soap, like, hand soap ?"
"... you don't have face soap ?"
"Nah, I use this :" *shows 3 in one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash*
*me and my companion literally completely at a loss for words*
And that was before we even got to the face masks !! 10/10, like it was amazing.

Well, I think that's all the crazy stuff for this week... heck, let's be honest, I never manage to get in all the crazy stuff, but at least y'all get the highlights !
Love you guys tons !
Sœur Cate

Week 68 (5/18/20): 😎 Je vois la vie ... en rose 🕶🏵🌹

Hello everyone !
I hope you had great weeks 😁 Mine was kind of stormy and cloudy and rainy but on Sunday the sun came out, and it was lovely, and today has been lovely to so I'm very happy. I got to go to a shopping center today where I could actually buy clothes for the first time in like 3 months which is important because the season changed. I didn't have many summer shirts or any summer shoes so now I'm much better equipped for the coming summer. I'm very excited for a proper summer here in Perpignan because it's beautiful... and I was here last year so I would know ! 😂

We had transfers for the first time today since March when everything with the virus happened so that was really exciting ! My companion and I are staying together in Perpignan but every other companionship in our district got changed. Us and the two cities nearest to us basically just rotated one person. So one person moved over to from city A to city B and then one person from city B to city C and one person from city C to City A so that was transfers for our district and sector .... It's so weird that Elder Gray is leaving, because he was here for my last transfer in Perpignan (last fall), so he's been here for a long time ! But it'll be fun to have a new person here to shake things up a little bit after so long.

We had a really good lesson online with someone I met on Facebook ! He lives in Belgium ! We are trying to help him meet the missionaries there, but it's still really cool that we can talk to him. We taught him about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was cool to hear his thoughts and opinions. He said he would read the book of mormon and ask God if it was true, so that was really exciting for us ! Now we just have to wait. That was our biggest miracle this week 😊 I'm so grateful to be a missionary and get to talk about God and his plan and like the meaning of life all the time because it has really helped me get a much better perspective on life in general and on the people around me and and why I'm here. Such an incredible blessing and opportunity.

Something else that's funny is my dad just had a mission mission zoom reunion and he found out that one of his old companions was a bishop in Switzerland, and there was a missionary from his ward that was serving in my mission (Elder Aeschbacher). Surprise, he's my district leader, and he was coming down today for transfers ! So I got a picture with him today for my dad, it's crazy what a small world the there is within the church. We're all connected somehow ! It was funny while we stopped by to say hi and grab a picture, one of the elders asked me if my hair was red and then took off his sunglasses and was like "oh, it's just my sunglasses". Then to show me, he took up a picture through the sunglasses. So I now have a picture of me in France through rose colored glasses so you know I've pretty much peaked in my life now 😂😂😂

Anyways I've probably bothered you for long enough. You may have noticed a difference, I'm actually writing this email with the voice recording text to speech so that's why this is longer. And more scatterbrained... for which I apologize, as well as for grammatical and punctuation errors because I did go back over it but like, I'm kind of scatterbrained on P days so anyways I hope you guys are doing super well and I'll talk to you all next week !!
Love ya !
Sœur Cate

Also, a picture of baby ducks, because they made me very happy 😊😊😊

Elder Aeschbacher, Rachel, and her companion

Before her companion cut her hair

Week 67 (5/11/20): The world is our oyster !!!*

*some conditions apply

Hello everybody !!
Guess what ?? We got to leave the apartment without writing up that whole essay ! Yay ! Though now it's illegal to not wear a mask in stores or on public transportation, so we had to get masks. We went to like, 7 stores to try to find them (walked like, a billion miles), but no luck. So we called Jean Brousse, one of the kindest human beings on the planet. He told us that this adorable old woman in our ward, Lucie (that I was great friends with when I was last here) was a seamstress, and she'd made masks ! So he brought us a couple. They're just white, nothing fancy, but they're really well made. So that's exciting ! Those masks are our ticket to freedom, we can go wherever we want now (within 100 km of our home, but like, that's not a problem). And parks are reopening ! So if the weather gets less disgusting (looking at you, week long rain forecast), then we'll be able to explore anywhere we can walk to !

The work moves forward, despite the weird circumstances. We've been able to have a couple really good conversations with people... and a LOT of conversations asking if we were single, if we were married, if our profile picture was us, how old we are, and a number of variations around the same theme. Oh dear. We asked the elders if they'd had the same problems, and it sounds like it's a lot easier to be an elder. Though one of them has been hit on by both a guy and a girl recently. The internet is such a strange place, it's every bit as weird as everyone tells you, and then some.

Other than that, it's been a pretty chill week. I've enjoyed having picture quotes with general conference quotes. Finished Isaiah (bless that man). Thinking about starting Revelations. Why not ?

Love y'all !!
Sœur Cate

Week 66 (5/4/20): May the 4th be with you... and the 11th hurry up and get here

Hey everybody !
I hope y'all haven't gone crazy yet. Or at least not too crazy. I feel like a little bit of crazy was inevitable.

News for this week: there are Elders in Annecy !! So I did a few calls with them this week, helping them settle in and get into all the right group chats and everything, which was surreal. I'll be honest, I kind of thought I'd be going back to Annecy after this was all over, but it looks like the Lord has different plans ! It's also really funny because I have the old Annecy sim card, so I got a bunch of calls from people trying to contact the new elders- the branch president, the zone leaders, the district leader, which was really fun, because I hadn't talked to them for a while. It was beautiful seeing their branch group chat blow up with how excited they were to have missionaries again. And several reached out to thank me one last time, which really touched me. What a blessing !

Other random thing- I've started editing photos on my phone to make picture quotes with scriptures and general conference quotes on them to post on Facebook. I'm just starting to learn how to do it, but I'm having loads of fun, so that's something.

Well, we're going into our last week of full quarantine (unless they extend it again), so if the government is kind to us, we won't need to write out attestations. What is an attestation, you ask ? It's a form you have to fill out every time you leave your apartment. Every. Time. And if you don't have a printer (like your average missionary equipe), you get the great pleasure of hand writing it every time. See the attached picture for an example. It is such a joy. But we might not have to after next Monday !
I hope you all are doing well, and staying safe ! May the fourth be with you !
Love,
Sœur Cate

The lovely attestation

I changed the post card decorations (missionary interior decorating 🤣)

Unicorn cookies

Week 65 (4/4/27/20): Avez-vous pensé à rentrer dans les ordres ?

Hello everybody !
You'll all be happy to hear that I haven't killed the rose bush yet, and I've had tons of fun moving it back and forth between the back room and front room every day, so it gets plenty of sunlight. I've decided to name the rose Eponine. Because she's such a fabulous tragic character in Les Mis, doomed to an unhappy ending, much like plants in a missionary apartment. Because she'll probably end up dead after I leave... which is tragic, but what can you do ? Just because something isn't going to last doesn't mean it's not beautiful.

We have enjoyed finding and posting quotes, and Sœur Pulman painted one so it looked cute. And it spread pretty well, considering we didn't boost it ! So we'll mess around with that more in the future. It's cool to think of random people where never met being touched by something we post.

We also started talking to two new people this week, that we met on the last post we boosted. We called both of them this week, and we had some great starting conversations. One of them is catholic, and before he knew that I wasn't catholic (while we were still chatting online), he asked me if I'd considered being a nun. I joked to my companion, "actually, that's my day job." But all joking aside, he's a really cute old man who loves discussing religion and the bible, so it was really fun. Other than the fact that he has a really hard accent and talks super fast. But I know I can't get mad, because my international mtc district would always say I was the hardest to understand because I talk so fast, so now I'm just getting a taste of my own medicine 😅. It's just extra language study !

It's weird how much this whole quarantine lifestyle still feels bizarre, and yet how normal it's becoming. I think by the time it finally feels normal, we'll be heading outside again, but I feel like life just tends to be like that 😂

Love you tons !
Sœur Cate

A member is learning to do fishing knots 

Proof that i have not yet killed my rosebush