I am having a white christmas.....

I have been singing the soundtrack to white christmas for the last week. The sisters song is esspecially fun to change the words to... It fits well in our situation. Please... Watch that movie for me.
I am hoping that Patrick got the carpenters christmas... This is the first christmas without it and I am having withdrawls.
This is SR Bagwell and Elder Rutmans first real winter... I dont think it snows much in the south of France either... So I am the only charleroi missionary who knows how to through a snowball... Well I guess after this last weekend they have picked up the skill but I think it it so weird that they have never built a snowman... I think we should put colored water in spray bottles and spray the snow... Jake and I used to think that was the coolest thing in the world when we were little.
Wow. It sounds like everyone has had a lot of fun this last week. I am so proud of Josh. That is so neat. I cant get the exclamations to work on this computer.. Or any of the formatting. Sorry. It may be an interesting email.
We had the ward Christmas parties this weekend. It was stressful because Charleroi 2 had to try and outdo Charleroi 1 and so they did it on the same day. We started at 3h at CH1. We had 3 amies come and it was good for them to feel the love of the ward family. The amies are Claudias daughters and Chris, a boyfriend of one of the girls. They really liked it. One of the members pulled them aside and really gave it to them. He can say things that we just cant do…. I think it is using the TU form that really gets to them… And we aren’t allowed to. But They are coming along. We have a family night planned with that members family and he will pull out the boys and we will stay with his wife and the girls and that will really help… I love that ward. We sang The first Noel with Elder Rackaton on the piano. It was nice. We had homemade bread babies. I will try and explain that on the phone. But they were the best things EVER. There was a baptisim after. The elders have been working with a less active member with a 9 year old. He is great and really knows his stuff. I really like having Elder Rackaton around because I get to lead the music more and that is a lot less stress… But don’t worry mom. My calling in RS is still the pianist so I get to play a lot.
The CH2 party was… Extravagant. They hired a papa noel…. We sang there too. They gave us CDs. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder where they get all this stuff. They bought their bread babies… Though they were good and the size of my head but they weren’t amazing. There are members in that ward that I just love… There is Guy and his wife Rose. He is so kind and always says very nice things to us. He speaks English so I love to talk to him. Haha The DMP and his family is so amazing… I think it is mostly their party committee that gets crazy.
Sunday morning came and it was a whiteout. We couldn’t see our hands infront of our face. People just shouldn’t go out in that…. But there we were walking up to the church at 9 for ward council. It took us the 35 minutes to walk the one km to the church. Yeah. It was rough.. we made it there and looked at our phone. The assistants called to tell us that church was cancelled. WHAT?? We are already here. Well the Elders were too. Then We walked in and guess what…. So was everyone else. Ok, not everyone but we had 40 people come to church. We had all 3 hours. It was a huge Christmas miracle. Everyone in the ward choir came. It was amazing. They even used the good baby bread for sacrament. It was amazing. The spirit was really strong and people were so united. One less active member couldn’t drive because of the snow so she and her son walked over 2 Quartiers to get to church in the whiteout. She got there after the bread had gone around but one of the men at the table saw her walking in and they waited for her. I know that in writing that out it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it meant the world to her… and to me too. I felt bad. When the CH2 Elders called to make sure we made it home ok… we were in Sacrament. Their ward was cancelled and they did studies at home. I felt bad for them because it was the Sunday before Christmas….
It was a hard week to teach.. A lot of people just don’t want to stand at the door in below freezing weather… But we are trying to be creative. The other day we pulled out our hymn books and walked up to a door. When the man came we just started singing silent night. He listened and talked to us. We are going back over to visit with him and his family this week. Whoot. So cool
Please call me at TEN AM your time. Sr Bagwell is from LA and her fam is calling at TEN AM in Cali. I have 30 min.
The Stake DMP came to CH1 yesterday. He is very nice and I have become very close with his family. He was very concerned about us being busy for Christmas. I guess he had a bad experience on his mission with people not inviting the missionaries over… He made sure we have lots of members taking care of us.
Love you all,
Soeur Hulet

December 6, 2009

GUESS WHAT…. I am staying in Charleroi! Team Bagwell Hulet will continue on. There are a ton of changes, but I am so happy to be here for a few more weeks. The last Sunday of the transfer is when people get calls about training and opening/closing cities. After that people start calling around and start piecing together who will be where. We got a call at 10h05 from Elder Stowers screaming <> and then he hung up. We figured he would train. That will be fun to have someone newer than me in the district. Last night we thought we would stay together; but we kinda thought that someone would come up with us. This morning Elder Perez called and told us that we are staying together. One of the Elders in our district is going up to the office and one is going to Lille another is going to be our new Zone leader. It is sad to have changes, but it is all for the best. It has been an amazing transfer.
Plans for my birthday kinda fell through with so many people having to pack today. Soeur Bagwell and I went to Carrfour and I got a new SD card for my birthday. We are doing something later, but it is nice to have a day to prepare and rest… Last week was insane. We had exchanges. I stayed in Charleroi and Soeur Gagon came to work with me. Then we had Zone conference. Yesterday we had Stake conference in Brussels… So we feel like we did more traveling than missionary work, but it will be nice to get back to normal this week.
The Elders returned everything last night. Thank you all so much for the GPS. I love it!!! I love the body wash that the Gen, Kerry and Miss sent. I used it this morning. I loved it all. Thank you. Merci Beaucoup.
Conference was good. Elder Caussè spoke. He is in the 70. He talked about how our flame needs to be in the Gospel and not the church. He talked about how sometimes people are active in all the different aspects of church but don’t have their testimony rooted in the gospel… that is why people can get offended and stop coming to church. That happens a lot here. I have never see anything like it. It gets crazy because bishopric members get offended by a Sunday school teacher and they stop coming. Hopefully people listened to the talk. I sure did… but that is because he is from Paris and speaks so fast that I had to hold onto the edge of my chair to understand. I decided to listen in French and not get a translator set. I need all the practice I can get.
This morning, during companion study our phone range and is was Sr Brubaker. We thought that was odd so we answered it and she asked to talk to me. Then she and president started singing the real French birthday song to me. That made my day. I love them and I am so glad that they are my mission president. They are so busy, with missionaries in 3 countries and 4 languages but they still call to say happy birthday to each one of us. I really look up to them both.
Tell Sophia Hi for me. I cant believe that her little missionary is home. That is great. I try not to think about how much time has gone by.. Jake is right. This does go too fast.
Well, there is a lot more to say, but I don’t really know where to start… so I guess I will end and try and send pictures. I am sorry that my emails have been a little crazy over the last few weeks. We are so busy I just don’t know where to start… and if you have written me a letter.. I promise that I have written you back… I just keep forgetting to buy stamps. I really need to just buy 50 E in stamps and just not worry about it. Sorry it has been so long.
I was hoping to hear from Jill... I guess she has forgotten about me. I hope she is ok.
Oh! Anne is great. She is really progressing in the gospel. Dominique is quitting smoking so he can be baptized and the Elders have just fixed 2 baptismal dates. This city is on fire. I love it.
Love you all,
Soeur Hulet