A Very Happy Birthday

Family,

Well I will start with the number one question I recieved in my e-mails this week - yes! I did have a very very happy birthday! That morning I woke up and Sr Gardiner and our third (temporary) companion Sr Berchal wished me happy birthday and Sr Gardiner served me up an omelette! Which is a big deal because it was the first omelette she had ever made! That's some loving service for you. I hadn't got anyone's packages unfortunately but I figured that if I had to wait a couple more days or a week it wouldn't kill me - even though it was a little bit of a bummer. Then something surprising happened at district meeting. One of our zone leaders who was teaching the lesson wanted to do an object lesson where he blindfolded a missionary and had their companions direct them toward a suitcase. He chose 3 missionaries to do the object lesson and I was missionary number 3. After my companions had successfully directed me to the suitcase he told me I could open it for the lesson. I was incredibly delighted to see not one but BOTH of my packages!! So I got them the morning of my birthday! Just like back home :) 

So first I need to say a huge MERCI for the packages and everything inside them! I honestly couldn't have been happier! I LOVE the dress and the shoes! I wore them this Sunday for my talk! And I am currently wearing the clothes that grandpa and grandma sent. Also we have already dug into the soups I recieved :) My temporary french companion was shocked that Americans could make their soups taste so good. Most french soups taste just like the vegetable medley they offer...aka carrots. The candy is almost gone because it is so delicious so thank you for that. And I absolutely LOVED the movie Dad, thank you so much. Moving pictures are worth a billion words. Also I nearly cried from laughing so hard some of the clips were so funny. Namely Kiari rapping to grandpa, the little girls karaoke and others - it makes me so excited to see you guys in 6 months!! 

Enough about the best birthday of my life :) Good and bad news up next. Therese had a baptism interview and passed!! She also set a date for this Saturday! However she then sent a text Sunday morning saying she couldn't come to church or be baptized at this time even though she is ready. And she wants us to give her time. So we were fairly devastated by that. We think it has to do with her husband with whom she is separated right now. We are going to try and talk to her and work everything out because she is SOO incredibly ready and she knows SO much. This is the woman that is reading the Book of Mormon for the 4th time and had already stopped drinking coffee BEFORE we taught her the Word of Wisdom because she had heard about it from members. Anyway I am sure next week I will be writing about when her next date of baptism is :) 

Youssouf is still continuing to progress. Unfortunately he is taking a 3 or so week vacation to Maurice so we can't fix a baptism date just yet because we don't know when he will be back. But he is really ready so whenever he gets back he is just itching to get in the water. No really. He asks us constantly when the next baptism is and we always have to try and slow him down because he needs to understand all the teachings and recieve all the lessons and truly be converted. But it's great. I have never seen enthusiasm like that in all my time out here. I would take that anyday. 

So about our temporary companion. You might have heard me talk about Maurice or Mauritius once or twice. They are the same place. The first one is just the english pronounciation and the second is the french way. It is our neighboring island that is just booming with the gospel right now. Right now we only have 4 full time missionaries and a senior couple over there because the country won't allow any more than that number to have visas. Well speaking of visas, it is super difficult to get them for the country. Before the sisters went out, they waited for 5 months! Because Sister Packer went home this week (my trainer), they need to send another sister out to Mauritius and they all ready started the visa work but it's behind. So they had to bring her companion over, Sister Berchal who served on Reunion - St Paul - before she went to Mauritius. And now she is staying with us until someone can get a visa to go over. It's a little bit complicated. But it sufficeth me to say that she is staying with us and is super super awesome. Her family is from the island Guadeloupe in the middle of the carribean but she grew up mostly in France. 

This sunday I was asked to give a talk for our special "missionary sacrament meeting". I pulled most of my material from Elder Clay Christensen's new book "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" - which by the way I recommend that every one go out and read - seriously it is incredibly inspiring and gives us such a vision of what member missionaries SHOULD be! I felt fairly nervous, in part because I had had to mentally translate parts of the book into French to share in my talk. It went really well. I thought I didn't have too much to say and then I recieved a slip of paper from the president saying "Thank you for finishing up" and looked at the clock and realized I had talked us over the hour. And I was only the second speaker. Whoops. I was fairly embarrassed. But my companions assured me that nothing I said was superfluous and a few branch members made nice comments so I didn't die of embarrassement. 

Other than that, not tons of big news mostly we are just concerned about Therese. And all of our amis but a lot about Therese. I hope to have really good news about her next week. Thank you all for your love and support! I absolutely adored my birthday and a large part came from the love I felt even miles and miles away!

Love,

Sr Stewart