The Perfect Recipe

Hi everyone! This email might be a bit short because today was a packed P-Day and my memory is drawing blanks on last week but I'll do my best to make this an entertaining email! Here we go with transfer 6! I've made it this far on my mission! The halfway point! CRAZY! It has been a interesting 6 weeks for this transfer. I moved to a new ville, met new people, increased my language skills, became a queen by almost eating a small character in my cake, getting to hear David Archuleta sing, and all the other fun adventures the mission tends to bring. It has also been one of the most humbling transfers for me as well. So many hard moments in the last 6 weeks as well but in the end I learned that they were all for my benefit in growing my faith and trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

I was able to meet a less active wife and her daughter last week for a quick rendezvous. The daughter is 11 but she doesn't look like her age at all. I was so convinced that she was 13 or 14 because this girl is seriously TALL. We were able to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved the lesson. Her mom wants her to be baptized but the only problem is that they don't normally go to church. We don't know exactly why they don't come but from what my comp has told me, the mom keeps pulling the "Oh I'm coming soon" card with us. Hopefully we'll get some progress with them and find a way to get the daughter to church at least so that way she can get into the habit of that.

Here in France, baking is so different. Sœur Hatch and I have had weird luck with baking cookies. No matter what we tried the cookies always ended up being flat. At least they tasted better than they looked. Last week, we were looking through the mission cookbook and we decided to try out this one cookie recipe that seemed promising. Promise fulfilled on that because at the end we got perfectly shaped cookies and we were so proud of them (I may or may not have shed a tear while watching them bake in the oven). The elders had a baptism on Saturday and so we made some cookies and brought them as refreshments. They were all gone within 10 minutes. Turns out that French people really love American goods. From that point on, Sœur Hatch and I deemed that cookie recipe the Perfect Recipe.

I'm pretty convinced that my mission will be full of taking over villes. Today is the first week of the new transfer so we all know what that means: REPERTOIRE! I wake up this morning and find out that I'm staying in Rouen for another transfer and...I'm getting a new companion! Sœur Hatch is relieved to be leaving her bleu ville but she's still in my district so I see her once a week hahaha! That also means I'm having to take over another ville. I did this in Tours so you think I'd get the hang of this right??? WRONG! Even back then I panicked about how I was going to let Tours down and now the same worries are coming back for Rouen. We just barely set a baptismal date yesterday with one of our amies and the fear of that date not working out is still in the back of my mind. I'm hoping and praying with all my might that I can give my best into this ville. I'm excited to be working with my new companion! Her name is Sœur Erichsen and as far as I know, I think she is a transfer ahead of me on the mission. I can't wait to show her around here in Rouen!

Enjoy the pictures of my awesome district and a view of Rouen! I love and miss you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Sœur Hopkinson

samantha.hopkinson@myldsmail.net