Week 6, Transfer Info and More!

Bonjour

I have been in French Guyana for six weeks! We got our transfer call on Saturday. Transfers work a little differently here in the W.I.M. than other places because transfers usually involve planes. We don't have a transfer meeting like most missions because we are spread out over so many countries. We get transfer calls! We got our call Saturday afternoon from President Mehr telling us that we are staying in French Guyana but, we are getting a new sister missionary, Sister McDaniel! We are going to be in a trio and Sister Riley is going to be double training!! She is flying into Trinidad today and then to French Guyana on Thursday!!! We are so excited! I met her in the MTC because she got there a few days before I left. Most everything else is staying the same down here in Guyana. One Elder who has been here for about a year is being transfered to St. Martens but that is it.

This past week was great. I finally got to meet the rest of the French side sisters over skype. We (Sis Riley, me, and the zone leaders) had to take a trip to the border of Suriname and French Guyana to take care of some passport stamp issues. We spent seven hours in the car. We got stuck in a rain storm on the way back. Rain here is definitely nothing like rain in the states.

We have had some cool teaching experiences this week. After finding so many contacts last week we have some promising new investigators. We visited one woman who we found who had said he had a lot of extended family who were members. We were teaching her and her 17 year old son came out and she told us he was a member of the church! He was baptised when he was 8, but once they moved to French Guyana from Peru he couldn't find the church so he found a different church to go to. We were so excited and we hope the rest of their family will want to be baptised.

On Tuesday before district meeting we got a call that one of the Elder's investigators in Cayenne was being kicked out of their house so they needed help moving. They were living in an area of illegal shacks basically and the government was making all 150 people move out. We spent the morning helping them get everything out of their house and move it to another house in another area. I can honestly say it was something I never expected to do in my life, helping illegals move. There were news crews all over the place; one of the Elders ended up in the back of the news report on TV. He had a few members call him and tell him. As we were helping a lot of people were wondereing why a whole bunch of well dressed white people were helping people move out. Service is not something a lot of people understand down here. A lot of people are really suprised when we ask if we can help them with anything. Some people down here are very friendly and kind, others aren't.

I was so excited to hear you got to meet Sister Riley's family! I have heard all about them and they sound pretty awesome! Right after emails we are going to print out the pictures of you together so we can hang them on our wall!!

We are excited to keep working hard down here. I hope all is well back in the states; Love you all.

Soeur Banks