Training

Hello All,

So I'm just going to come out and say it: this has probably been mentally the hardest week so far of the mission. I'm a trainer! The new girls arrived this wednesday and it has been really really different - and pretty tough. Luckily, they brought back my best friend (Sis Gardiner) to my area and she is also training so we are in it together. Training is hard! My new trainee doesn't speak French and so now I'm carrying the load mostly by myself. I think the hardest thing though is the pressure I put on myself, because I don't want to let her down and I feel a lot of responsibility for making sure that everything goes peaches and cream for her mission. Which I know isn't realistic but doesn't stop me from trying. Mostly I'm taking it one day at a time.

So in coordination with training, our area also got split so now I'm working about half the area...and have half the amis. Like I said it's been a tougher time and period of transition. 

My new trainee is named Soeur Isham and she is American. She studied french a little bit in highschool and then for 6 weeks in the MTC. She is super enthusiastic and positive which is great and she really loves Disney. She is really great - I'm the one struggling with training because I feel so insecure in what I'm doing. Before there were always two other companions to back me up or give ideas or add to lessons - and now it feels like there is just me. And that is hard. 

We have known for quite a while that the HEaps would be leaving. We helped drop them off at the airport. It was a pretty emotional night because the Heaps have essentially been our grandparents out here and saying goodbye was hard. To add on top of that with all the changes we were already feeling unsettled and unsure of ourselves but now to know that we can't turn to the Heaps everyday for advice, was a pretty big blow. A new senior couple is getting here this wednesday and we are excited but know it will be different. Plus it will take them a while to learn the swing of things and most likely WE will be the ones giving THEM tips. 

I did another musical number collaboration with Sr Gardiner and her violin in church yesterday. We sang/played this hymn called "Souviens-toi, mon enfant" which means "Remember my child" and is about living in the premortal existence and accepting God's plan and then sharing the gospel here on the earth with those we knew before. It's really beautiful, and the melody comes from Dvorak's New World Symphony. Unfortunatlely I didn't film this one but I don't think I'd be able to figure out how to send it anyway. Maybe next time.

Love,

Sister Stewart