Bonjour-luh.
So this week has gone by pretty fast, I have to pull out my journal here, everything in the mission field becomes a blur after a while. So I'll pull out some crazy stories. Here we go.
We visited a less active member who is a professional artist. Apparantly he is the most well known artist in Quèbec. He is into abstract art and such, it's cool. He told us the story of how he decided to come on a mission. Or, rather, how it was decided for him. He wanted to go on a mission, but his father would not let him go. So the member called up his stake president and told him the news. Some twenty minutes later, Ezra Taft Benson walks in and begins to talk to his father. Benson sees a chess board, sitting on the coffee table. Turns out the boys' father is the region champion. Ezra Taft Benson says -how about we play a little game of chess. If I win, your son goes on a mission, if you win, he stays. - Benson won.
We have had a lot of dinner appointments this week. And a couple with some spanish families. I now know what Dad was talking about when he told us he used to throw up after dinners on his mission. Spanish people will never. stop. feeding you. I find that a majority of my prayers nowadays include the sentence -Lord, please help me eat all of this food.-
For some reason, people around here love Cream of Carrot soup. Which is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. It has the texture and consistency of baby food, and tastes like Carrot, honey, salt and garlic, with a tang of soy. Man, that was difficult.
So big news! The last week of this transfer E. Perry and I are heading up to Quèbec city, for a whole week! I guess there is a big "symposium" going down, and every year the city selects a religion to showcase, this year it's our turn. So they are pulling in the Quèbec city missionaries and the nearby surrounding missionaries to help at this big...thing, to present material, teach lessons, all sorts of stuff I guess. I hope I can speak french by then.
The quèbecois accent is close to being unlocked. Here are a couple things that have thrown me off the most when talking to people. "Luh." Similar to the article "le" which can mean he, it, the. They stick is on every sentence they spit out. Sometimes multiple times. It's like saying like in english like all the time.
Bien oui luh, je vuex luh, luh très grand voiture luh. At first out here I tried to direct translate everything. so.... good yes the, I see his, the, very big car it.
By the time I even figured it out, the conversation was over. Sometimes they even just say "Luh Luh LUH luh!" kinda sing song like. It means various different things. And instead of saying "tu" which means "you" they say "toy" which, to them, means you. ou est-ce que toy viens? WHAT.
But in general, I like quèbecois much better than regular french, it's much more fun. Correction, it will be much more fun when I finally get it down.
English class was crazy this week, because The two chinese ladies, the regulars, asked us if we could tell them a story out of the bible, they thought they were very intriguing. So I asked them 'have you heard the story of Adam and Eve?' 'Oh yes, it is very popular in china'
So we ended up teaching two chinese ladies and the iranian muslim man the plan of salvation. They had some very difficult questions. Like "What is Devil?" "What is God?" Why just put two people on earth, why not many people? "Your God is all powerful, why does he not stop wars?"
And the hardest ones came from the muslim "After that, for eternity, we do what?" or. "Where did God come from?"
The Chinese ladies just thought it was a hoot. They would giggle at certain parts and were just fascinated. The Muslim was very nice, "that was very interesting." That was it. But holy cow, it is so difficult explaining to people who have never heard of God or Satan or Jesus Christ. It takes careful teaching and lots of thought.
No more tripod! E. Oropeza headed home yesterday to catch his brother's wedding! He's a great missionary, but things are so much nicer with just two missionaries, now it doesn't look like a gang is beating down your down everytime we go knocking!
Church is getting better, I'm able to understand more, so that's good!
That is about it for this week, more to come I'm sure. That's too bad about mom being sick, or about Noah losing the race there. E. Perry is sick as well, I hope I don't catch it. But I will.
Peace be the Journey!
E. Holm
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