Well. I am currently serving in the town
of Victoriaville, about 2 hours east of Montreal. It is quite hot and
humid here during the day, and I am having a BLAST! I'm from Arizona...
bring on the heat! However... I'm very scared for the cold. Below 0?
What is this temperature you speak of? We'll see how I deal with winter
in a couple months :P Oh! And I have tried the poutine! IT IS AMAZING.
The mission president's wife says we are only allowed to eat it once a
month or else we'll get fat. And I can see why. I got some poutine with
bacon in it as well... it was SO GOOD. Seriously... I'm lucky we're not
allowed to eat it more often or I would have gained weight by now. I
don't think my companion likes me very much because I'm terrified of
getting fat so we run a lot in the mornings... we'll see how that goes
:P
In learning a new language, there are many
opportunities to look extremely foolish. I have learned this firsthand.
Elder Boscan (my companion) and I were discussing (or thought we were
discussing) French in the car. And I was talking about what greetings I
should use; but he was talking about the fact that people in Victo don't
refer to it as Victoriaville; they refer to it as Victo.
Well.
We
were calling the members and investigators to introduce me as the new
missionary. And, I thought that the greeting I was supposed to use,
based on the earlier conversation, was "Victo." So the very next call we
had, he introduced me and I yelled, "Bonjour! Victo!"
My
companion just gave me a weird look and made the next call. So... I did
it again. And again. I only realized that wasn't the greeting when I was
talking to him later that day and he said, "Why are you saying that?"
"Saying what?"
"Victo."
"Isn't that how we greet people?"
"...no?"
He would not stop laughing at me for the next day and a half.
We
also got a call from some sister missionaries the other day. I answered
the phone since my companion was in the bathroom. They said something
on the other end of the line, and, since my companion speaks both
Spanish and French, and Spanish is widely spoken in Quebec, and I had
absolutely no idea what was being said on the other line... I responded
with, "I'm sorry. I don't speak Spanish." Immediately I heard very loud
laughter on the other end of the phone. Which did not stop for about 5
minutes.
Yup. So... they were speaking French.
This is gonna be interesting.
Well.
I've had one of the hardest weeks of my life this week. It's been
extremely difficult to try to teach people in a language I don't
understand about something many of them don't seem to want to hear
about. BUT. We do have people who need to hear the message and who keep
me going when it gets difficult. Most importantly, there have been
several times this week where I have found myself in very sincere prayer
asking for help from our Heavenly Father with this task of taking His
gospel to those who need to hear it. And you know what? The harder I
work, the happier I am, and the more I feel like I'm a successful
missionary. It's going to take some time to get used to this way of
life... but with the help of the Savior, I KNOW I can do this. It's that
way with everything in life; the harder we work at something, as we ask
God for help, the more we will progress and the happier we will be.
I
love and miss all of you. This is a difficult thing to do, but I'm
doing it because I love our Redeemer and other people need to know what
He's done for all of us and how we can return to live with Him again.
That's our message, and even though it's hard... I'm gonna share it. You
are all in my prayers each morning and night. Thank you for your love
and support... I really need it. Keep pushing forward, and never give
up! We're never on our own!
En avant!
Elder Bryan McOmber
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