C'est pas grave parce que tu as les beaux cheveux (update #49)

Why did she title her blogpost like this?   I have no idea.   The translation is, "It does not matter, because you have the beautiful hair."   I'm guessing there's a story to go with it, but she forgot to tell what it is! 

**************************

Hello everyone!!

This week has been so cool. Soeur Rutter is one of the coolest people ever. I thought/ hoped we would get along well, but my expectations are exceeded 100x over. She's really smart, likes to watercolor, has read the color code and seen the Ted talk on vulnerability, and is an incredible missionary. So life is great :)

Some highlights this week include:
One day when we were walking to hunt down a less active, drilling with sweat, an overwhelming scent of chocolate chip cookies hit us like a wall. For about a solid 10 minutes of walking it just smelled like straight deliciousness. It was the best thing ever. We sadly never found the source, but whatever it was, it made our day and covered at least a solid square kilometer with delicious chocolate smell. It's the little things hahah.

After we failed to find the source of happiness we still had an hour before our next rendezvous so we decided to pass by a random pin in our electronic map. We didn't know if it was an ami, less active or what. It just said "famille Tsutskiridze." We went and knocked on the door and it became clear that it was not the family we were looking for, but it was another Albanian family. I have never met people so kind and welcoming. Upon seeing "Jesus Christ" on our plaques they immediately invited us in. For an hour we tried our best to communicate with their broken French/ English. They gave us fruit and water and we're just so genuinely happy. They came here as refugees from Albania, have seen so much violence, and have next to nothing in worldly possessions, but they were some of the happiest people I've ever seen. We showed them a video about Jesus Christ because pictures are a pretty universal language. I have never seen someone's face light up so much as that sweet Albanian mother when we showed her the video. She made sure all her 3 kids were watching and was pointing things out to them the whole time. It was such a huge testimony to me that our happiness really is not subject to our experiences or possessions, but rather our faith and relationships.

Leaving this Albanian family we were so excited to have found people so humble and faithful and kind, but we had no way to communicate with them. We started asking around the ward for people who speak Albanian. After a million people telling us no body speaks Albanian, on Sunday we found out that there is someone in the ward next door that served his mission to Albania!! We gave him a call and he's coming with us to visit our sweet family this Wednesday :) Good is good.

In other news we're headed on a plane to Lyon tomorrow for MLC!! Yay.

Last funny experience, our amie Christina was telling us how much she loved speaking Spanish with the last sister missionaries that were here. I told her I was sorry that I couldn't speak Spanish with her and she responded by saying "c'est pas grave parce que tu as des très beaux cheveux" hahaha. (It's okay because your hair is really pretty). So my one saving quality as a missionary is my long hair lol. It was really funny.

We have to run and have dinner with our favorite Soeur Petit for her 68th birthday, have the best week ever. Life is great with Soeur Rutter here in Bordeaux. Love you all!!
Soeur Goold

Here are pictures from her p-day today!     They hiked with some Elders at a chateaux and park. 

They found a dam and Cami introduced her fellow missionaries to her weird mother's goofy dam humor.   

They ate canneles, which apparently are a Bordeaux specialty. 

She said that this park reminded her of Virginia.   

Sent from my iPad

In the Swiss Alps (update #32)

Bonjour from the Swiss Alps!

There have been a lot of firsts of my mission this week. Some good and some bad and between the two I think it's made for one of the best weeks of my mission. I don't really know how to organize my thoughts, so I'll just make a list.

1. I WAS ALONE FOR 7 MINUTES! 

Yes, as a missionary this is front page news. And not good news because you never want to be alone as a missionary. We were on our way to a rendezvous with a member, as usual we split up to do some contacting on the bus (try and start conversations about the gospel and find new people to teach). Anyway, Soeur Goreeba was at the front of the bus while I was more towards the middle. The bus filled up super quickly so there ended up being a lot of people between me and her. Long story short, neither of us realized it was our stop until the last second when Soeur Goreeba yells back to me "Soeur Goold, c'est là!" (it's here) I quickly said goodbye to the guy I was talking to and try to hop off the bus,  but I was a second too late, the door was already closed with my companion standing on the other side. At this point there's nothing to be done except wave to Soeur Goreeba on the curb as the bus pulls away. There's not really a good way to describe what it feels like to be alone on a bus as a missionary, but it's the weirdest thing ever. We ended up reuniting halfway in between the two bus stops, both of us laughing hysterically because it's the first time either of us has been sans collègue de puis LONG TEMPS (without a companion in a long time). So, yeah, that happened.

2. Next story is from Saturday. Saturday was honestly just one of those days that I woke up and didn't want to be a missionary. I just felt like I'm not good enough at anything, I don't speak good enough
French and I'm too tired to try today, I don't have the skills to teach people about the gospel, I want to see my family, I want to take a nap, blah blah blah, me being selfish. these days don't happen very
often, but I think it's worth documenting because of what happened next. The whole morning I was just kind of struggling, not in the sobbing, melt down sort of way, but just in the my heart wasn't all in it sort of way. As the day went on, it ended up being a BEAUTIFUL day. Spring in Switzerland has got to be one of the closest things to heaven that exists. Then as the evening rolled around, we had the
chance to go to the baptism of an 11 year old girl named Jolie. There's nothing like going to a baptism to bring the missionary fire back. And this particular baptism came from almost the exact same story as Kelly B. (who got baptized my last weekend in Val de Saône) so it was especially near to my heart. By the end of the baptism I was feeling way better when our amie, Sophia showed up for
our rendezvous.

Us with Sophia! 

S. is golden. She was baptized into a Christian church in China and when she came her for her studies she wanted to find a church here in Switzerland. Her teachers warned her not to go to any church besides their church, but one of her friends randomly saw our church and told her she should come. God literally brought them through the doors of the church. It constantly blows me away that we spend all day trying to contact people on the street, hunt down less actives, find people who are ready. And the ones who are really prepared ALWAYS seem to come to us on their own. Anyway, in our lesson with S. she just talked about her faith and how God has really directed her life, but
she feels like something's missing. She told us that it never felt right that there were sooo many different churches. We taught her about the restoration and she said she believed it was true. When we asked her to be baptized by the authority of the priesthood she said "honestly, I feel absolutely perfect about that."  Honestly, we didn't do much. We just taught her and invited her and loved her, but any missionary could have done that. This perfect lesson was just a tiiiiiny step in S's journey to come unto Christ. And I'm just so incredibly lucky to be able to be a little part of that journey. I don't have words to describe what these little, celestial moments feel like. During the baptism the words of the hymn "venez à Jésus" ("Come Unto Jesus") really hit me "venez à Jésus, il vous écoute, même vous qui ne l'avez pas écouté." (Google translate version:    "Come unto Jesus, and He will listen to you, even if you don't listen to Him.")  That morning I wasn't really listening to Christ. I let myself be discouraged and I wasn't really listening to His invitation to "fear not, believe only." But despite all my weakness, despite the fact that I wasn't my best self, He allowed me to be a part of S's story. To benefit from her faith and to help her find her way to the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I really wish I could describe how that feels, but frankly there aren't words to describe the joy that comes in these little celestial moments. And these little celestial moments that turn into relationships that will last an eternity. Saturday morning I let myself focus on the 18 months that I'm giving up for God.  I hope I never again forget everything that He's giving me.

In other news, in case you were wondering if French is different in Switzerland, here are some fun facts.

- in France when someone sneezes you say "à vos souhaits" (to your wishes) but in Switzerland you just say "santé" (health). So we literally just walk around yelling "health" at people who sneeze.
Pretty funny to me.

- they use different numbers for 70-99. In France 70 is soixante-dix (60 +10), 80 is quatre-vingt (4 x 20), and 90 is quatre vingt dix, but in Switzerland they like to keep it simple and just say septante,
huitante, nonante. It's kind of nice but also super confusing at first As for the accent, it's definitely different but both Switzerland and Lyon are pretty neutral accents so it hasn't been too hard. In fact I
think they speak slower here so all is well, I've heard it's the south of France where the accents get super crazy.

- Switzerland is as proud of their chocolate as you would expect. One time a member (old woman) was offered a French chocolate bar and her reaction was sooo funny. You'd think someone asked her to eat dirt. Apparently Belgium used to be the best chocolatiers in the world but one time their queen came to Switzerland and tried the chocolate and it was all down hill from there. Something about how the Suisse stir their chocolate for a full day.

Well I think that's about all I have time for today. Merci infiniment pour les prières et votre foi. Vous ne pouvez pas voir combien ça m'aide chaque jour. I love you all!!!

Love, 

Soeur Cami Goold

 Here are some more random pictures from the last week:  

They had a mini MTC reunion this past week.   

Soeur J. from their ward has the missionaries over on a weekly basis.  

  Soeur J. is quite a baker! 

Here is a Cami on a train with some other missionaries on their way to or from Lyon for her MLC (mission leadership conference). 

They went hiking in the Swiss Alps today!   Beautiful!   

Cami and Elder P. are the only two Americans of the group.