Oh readers,
As you can imagine, I’ve gotten a little behind. Like a
couple weeks. While I’ll still be updating her emails from the MTC, I wanted to
take a moment to update everyone on her position in the field.
Soeur Chisholm left the MTC Monday the 8th and flew
a total of 14 hours, landing in Paris the next day (I assume). I you follow the
Paris Mission’s Facebook page, you can find the videos of Caytee
arriving in the airport.
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| A kind Utah stranger took this picture and sent it to my parents. |
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| Fresh off the plane (I think) -- photo cred to the Facebook page |
Soeur Chisholm begins her mission in Liege-Belgium with her
companion and trainer Soeur Clawson.
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| Soeurs Chisholm and Clawson -- photo cred to Facebook page |
While my parents are probably panicking at this point, we as
the family are super excited to see Soeur Chisholm begin her journey.
Now, back to the MTC. You readers are missing, like, three
weeks. *blushes shamefacedly*
*
THANKSGIVING IS THIS WEEK! That means NOOOOOO CLAAAAASSSSSS.
We are having a devotional in the morning, a four-hour lunch, and a service
project. The speaker for Thursday hasn't been leaked yet. They are really
keeping it quiet. The choir director here told us that "I'm not going to
say that is starts with Thomas S Monson, but I'm not going to say that it
doesn't end with it." I was like, “Don't get my hopes up!” We do know that
it will be someone from the Twelve, though. I am pumped.
[Little Mormon note, just in case: when she says, “someone
from the Twelve,” she is talking about the Members of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles. They are the leaders of our church with our Prophet at the head. They
speak twice a year at General Conference, but often visit smaller settings, and
it is always an honor and makes Mormons buzz all a Twitter.]
This past Wednesday is was rumored that we had 700 newbies
come in. I believe it. And most of them are English speakers. This week has
been crazy!
My French is coming along, I think. I am speaking as much as
I can during the day. Honestly, sometimes I feel fluent-ish in my head because
I can think French better than I can speak French. I know that it will come,
though, with lots and lots of practice. As for if I will feel
"fluent" when I hit the field or not...I know I will not. My
classroom is in building 4m. My floor has French, Haitian/Creole, and Tahitian.
There are some native French speakers going to Tahiti. Elder Heno and Elder
Dargeounce (I spelled that sooooo wrong, nothing is spelled phonetically in French)
are super fun to talk to and they are great people, but when they speak French
I have no idea what they are saying. I can sometimes pick out a word, and get
so excited. But seriously, French looks one way on paper, and sounds totally
different when you go to speak. EVERYTHING SOUNDS THE SAME. Laissez Tomber,
I'll figure it out eventually, right? Thank you gift of tongues, or should I
say le don du langues.
We have started working on more verb tenses this past week.
Some are easier than others. I think I mentioned the imperfect tense last week
(that doesn't exist en anglais) that still does not make sense. However, the
future tense is a beautiful thing. You literally just take the verb in its
imperative form and add a little ending to it and suddenly instead of saying Je
mange (I'm eating) you say Je mangerai (I will eat.) This week we will be
learning the Active and passive voice, so I will let you know how that goes.
Last Friday, we had exchanges in our district. My companion
for the day was Soeur Matos. All was fine and dandy...until we went in to teach
Torie. Soeur Matos is kind of a take-charge personality. I had been telling her
all day that the lesson with Torie was my lesson, and she was the one coming in
as the exchanged missionaire. Well, we walked into the lesson, and Soeur Matos
sits down and says, "Torie, Soeur Chisholm. Soeur Chisholm, Torie." I
was like... “Uhhhhhhhhhh...what do I do!” I literally said, "Heavenly
Father, I have to say something. Please let me say something." Just then,
like a miracle, Soeur Matos stopped talking, and I have never been able to form
French sentences so quickly since being here. I don't even remember what I
said. The gift of tongues is real, guys.
I was very happy to ma collegue back on Saturday.
I have been working a lot on memorizing. As a class, we
memorized Jacques 1:5 this week, "Si quelqu'un d'entre vous manque de
sagesse, qu'il la demande a Dieu, il donne a tous simplement and sans
reproache, et elle lui sera donne."
[From what I can tell, my sister seems to be quoting James
1:5. Because Jacob 1:5 when translated into French is definitely not the same
thing. She also says don’t mind the spelling, and I’ll just have to say the
same thing. I know no French.
The verse is translated as follows: If any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth
not; and it shall be given him.]
I also memorized, D&C 18:10, Moses 1:39, and I finished
memorizing the First Vision. Reading and memorizing scriptures has really
helped me with French.
Moses 1:39 “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
And while my sister probably means the missionary version of
The First Vision, for anyone interested, you can find Joseph Smith’s story in
our scriptures. Mainly in Joseph Smith—History 1:7-20. Or you could just call up those Mormon missionaries to explain the first vision in a lesson.]
Every Saturday, everyone in the MTC writes a talk in their
mission language, and then at church on Sunday, the branch presidency calls on
one sister and one elder to speak. As we finished le saint-cene, suddenly I got
a feeling that I was going to speak. And sure enough, Brother Dowling said,
"we will first hear from Soeur Chisholm, and then we will hear from Elder
Stewart-Johnson." I was told that my accent was good, and that I gave a
good talk, so yay! It was the first talk that I had written here that was all
in my own French, not French from prechez mon evangile, or our workbooks. It
was really cool. We then sang Je suis
enfant de Dieu [I am a Child of God]
as a district for the special musical number. It was awesome.
Also this week, I have been struggling a little bit with why
I am here and not feeling the spirit as much as I want to be. I had a moment to
sit down and talk to my teacher, Frere Adams in an interview this week, and it
was incredible. I told him my concerns, and he was able to help me sort out my
feelings. He told me that I could be going through this now to prepare me for
some less actives, or a struggling young woman in the field. I started crying
(again), and he look at me kind of funny. I told him that when I was set apart,
I was told that I should make sure to focus on the less actives and the broken
and/or part member families. At this point, he was tearing up also. I feel like
I can go my whole mission without a baptism, if I can strengthen one struggling
family or one struggling young woman, I can be happy.
The MTC is full of ups and downs, but that is what makes it
so awesome.
Oh man! I almost forgot, mom asked about how my district was
doing. We are all awesome. I seriously love them all so much, when we split to
go to our three different missions, I might cry like I did leaving home! My
district is my family. We laugh together; we cry together; we drive each other
crazy; we have some of the most spiritual experiences together. Yesterday,
Elder Martin stole my shoes (because I never wear them in class) and hid them
in Elder Brown's bag. It was right before gym time, too. So I was like, “Nobody
is leaving until I find my shoes!” That motivated the other Elders, and we
eventually found them. Also, yesterday, someone said something funny, right
before we are about to start personal study so we were all giggling. Then, we
sang a hymn, and Elder Bracken started to pray. Elder Martin started to chuckle
which made Elder Landry make a funny noise, which made Elder Carmen laugh,
which made me laugh...it was quite the experience.
[I couldn't find a fun way to incorporate the photos with this post, so I'll just dump the rest here.]
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| Caytee says: Seriously, we love taking pictures. |
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| Awkward Soeur photo, even though Elders are included? |
[And Caytee's story for this is as follows:
This picture started out as being
just Elder Landry and the sisters, but then we remembered that he has to have
his companion in the picture (but he's in a trio) so they all came, and then
Elders Bracken and Carmen felt left out
and it turned into a district picture.
So here is everyone's names
again.
Left to Right: Soeur Ulrich (le
meillure collegue), MEEEE, Elder Landry (the Georgia boy!), Elder Martin (ou
Elder Mouton s'il vous plait), Elder Prophet Brown, Soeur Matos, Soeur Higgins
Front Row: Elder Bracken and Elder Carmen]
I'm running out time, but I do want to give you all a brief
teigmoinage en francais [testimony in French].
Je sais que l'eglise est vrait. Je sais que Joseph Smith a
ete une prophete et il a vu pere celeste et jesus-christ. Je sais que joseph
smith a traduir le live de mormon et il est le parole de Dieu. J'aime le livre
de mormon beaucoup. Je sais que le saint-esprit est esstielle a savoir le
varite.
[Normally, I would turn to my husband and ask him for a
translation, but as this is such a long passage of French testimony, I’ll
just go ahead and leave it alone. I’d
feel guilty demanding this of Nate. From what I can understand, Soeur Chisholm
(and her sister) know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. She knows that he
is lead by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. She knows that Joseph Smith
translated the Book of Mormon, and that he was guided by God. She loves the
Book of Mormon and thinks that it is great. Basically, this gospel is true.]
J'aime le MTC! et je vous aime BEAUCOUP! I pray for you all tous le temps!
Keep working hard, and help the missionaries!
[As I’m going to post like… three times in one day, I’ll leave it
like this. And I do hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was full of gratitude, family,
friends, and food along with a bit of loving and naps.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of the
Chisholms. You can also turn to any Mormon in your area, especially those
Mormon missionaries. They’re always willing and happy to help.]
