Tis the Season ⛄❄🎄

Seasons greetings from your sœur missionaire in Tours! Guys the holiday season is now upon us and I'm so excited to be spending Christmas here in France! Back in October the city started putting up the Christmas  decorations and lights all down the streets so hopefully by the end of this week the lights will be on at night. Just a heads up, expect a lot of pictures in the upcoming weeks of all the lights and whatnot! Christmas markets will be happening too, they've already got the little wooden houses up near the gare and down a shopping street.

Thanksgiving last week was so neat! We had a rendezvous that day with our ami M_____ and we taught him about gratitude. His daughter was there with him and she is just the cutest! She is turning one this Saturday and she is literally the happiest baby I've seen! At the start, we told him that Thanksgiving was something special to me so he asked a bunch of questions about the holiday and he was super interested about it. We all went around and told each other what we were thankful for and we also read a general conference about gratitude (highly suggest reading it) from President Uchtdorf in April 2014 titled "Grateful in Any Circumstances". He loved it and asked where he can get the talk for himself so we helped him with the Gospel Library app. Afterwards he invited us over this Saturday to visit him and his daughter for her birthday! Later on in the evening, we had a Thanksgiving dinner with our amie L_____ and her husband. It was super delicious! It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving meal with the turkey and all of that, it was a French meal which meant that there would be 4 courses. It started with a salad, then to the main meal which was a tuna and tomato quiche (super good!), baguette and cheese was next, then the dessert which was a heaven sent sorbet that I really need to hunt down in a grocery store! We all had a good time together and it was super sweet of this couple to have us over for dinner that night. Throughout the day too, members and amis were sending us texts wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving, literally made my week!

I don't think I've told you guys about Bradley and her whereabouts because she's not in my emails anymore. She's doing good so don't worry. For those of you who don't know who Bradley is, she was my first baptism on my mission and she was a mini-missionary with Sœur Bishop and I for a couple of months. She's also one of my most dear friends now. She used to work for the New York Times as a reporter, pretty dope right? Anyway, back in October, she quit her job there and was then hired by National Geographic so now she's a reporter for them. That job required her to move from France to an island near Madagascar. So right after Sœur Bishop left for Lille as an STL, Bradley left for her new job. She still keeps in touch with me today and she really misses being a mini-missionary. As of right now though she is actually in Utah visiting her mom! Her mom is also planning on moving to...guess where...my home state Arizona! That'll be cool to see her after the mission! All is well with her!

A member invited us over for dinner on Saturday night along with Hervé. We had something called raclette which is something that America needs! It's basically a meal with potatoes, meat, and a specific kind of cheese that you melt and put over the potatoes and meat. What you do is grab a slice of raclette cheese and put in on a little pan that will melt it. While the cheese is melting you get some potatoes and cut them up and also get some slices of ham or other meat and cook that on a platform that is above the melting cheese. Once the meat is done cooking, you put it with the potatoes, grab the cheese and pour it over everything. I love it! That was my second time having it and I was pretty much a pro at how to get things on my plate haha!

Sœur Gallant and I are back at it again with the picture war! The days are getting colder here so when we enter our nice warm apartment at night it makes me super drowsy. Sunday night was freezing. We were walking home from a dinner we had at a members and I was stuffed to the brim. Right when we got into the apartment, we changed into our pjs, went over our P-Day, and I all of a sudden passed out on the couch, it's probably my favorite spot in the apartment! Well, I managed to wake up and move to my bed and the next morning, I woke up and found out how fun of a photo session my comp had when I was snoozing on the couch. She's definitely winning this picture war!

All right folks to end this weekly email of mine I just want to testify how real the Gift of Tongues is. My French has come a long way since the MTC but I still have a lot to learn. It really is a challenge having to learn a new language. That's where prayer and the Gift of Tongues come in. I pray daily to have the Gift of Tongues so that I can communicate with others about how wonderful this gospel is. The catch is that you just don't pray and expect the language to come to you, there's the part where you have to put in effort into studying, practice speaking, and understanding what people are saying. When you put all of that effort into the learning language, the blessing of the Gift of Tongues will come to you. I'm starting to see more of that with my French each week when I work on my French with my companion. I was talking with a member at church the other day and the conversation lasted for about 5 minutes until we had to go to class. On the way up my comp turns to me and asks, "Sœur did you see what just happened?" I told her no because I was talking with a member and she replies, "That's exactly what happened sœur! You understood her and spoke fluent French to her without even knowing it! French is coming naturally to you now!" I thought that she was joking with me but when I think back to that conversation with that member, I realized that there wasn't even a word said in English. Learning a new language is fun but hard at the same time. The Gift of Tongues of one of the coolest blessings on my mission so far. It's amazing what it can help you do. It's a blessing to be here in France learning and speaking a pretty language, and getting to preach the gospel in that language as well.

Passez une bonne semaine tout le monde! Vous me manquez et je vous aime!

Love,

Sœur Hopkinson

samantha.hopkinson@myldsmail.net