Prayers are needed

So I have been struggling with the language. I had a teacher tell me to say 3 specific prayers a day just on language. He told me to have my family do the same. I would greatly appreciate it if you guys would do the same for me!

I love you!
Cassy

August 26th

Hello family and friends! 

How are you all? Thanks for the all the letters of love and support; it helps a ton! We had 30+ new people come into our zone so we grew again. Which is good because it was really empty the last few days before they had come.

We had a really interesting talk in church on Sunday. Our Branch President's wife gave a talk and she compared baptism with giving birth. I had never heard a comparison like that before. It got a little uncomfortable. I won't go into detail so that I don't make you guys uncomfortable. I felt bad for all the newbies. We told them Sundays and P-Days were the best days and then they had an odd talk to listen to on Sunday. I hope their P-Day goes better. :)

I ran into a Sister on Sunday and she was from Castle Dale. I can't think of her last name, but I know here older sister Rachel from CEU. We sang choir together and she had a beautiful soprano voice. So if you came to the Messiah my second year of college she sang a solo. It was a fun to see her!

So this past Friday the girls in my district had an English fast. Which means we weren't suppose to talk in English unless we had to. It was hard! Often I would start a sentence in English and then I would realize I had talked in English so I often didn't finish them. We are having another one tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it.

It has been rainy and cold here the last several days. One night we had some really loud thunder that woke us up in the middle of the night. Meg, it still wasn't as loud as that one a couple of weeks ago in Price thank heavens :)

That sums up my week. I taught some lessons. They went well. I can speak French better in them than I can outside. Which is good. That is the important part right now.

Love you all!

Cassy

The following 2 pics are of me and my roommates on a temple walk. The one in the middle is Soeur Banks and she is our newest member. The other one is one of us and some Elders that we do a lot with and they are in Soeur Banks' district.

Mission Home Address

When Sister Gardner makes it to Canada, the mission home address is as follows:

Sister Cassandra Jo Gardner
Canada Montreal Mission
470 Rue Gilford
Ste 300
Montreal QC H2J 1N3
Canada

Photos and Mail

Sister Gardner with her first companion, Sister Schmuhl.

First roommates!

The whole district for the Canada Montreal Mission in front of the Provo UT Temple!

Bonjour everyone! It sounds like everyone is having a good week. This past week was not so fun. I have just been sick. Wed. and Thurs. I was very nauseous, enough that I even puked. Not cool and by the end of the week when I was feeling ok I got a cold. So now I just can't breathe or talk. But it's ok. I could have worse things.

So We taught Lupe her last lesson. It went well. My companion is picking up on the French faster than I am, but I feel like we make a good team. 

Funny thing about Lupe, her real name is Soeur Anna McKay and she was our teacher up until yesterday. So we had the final lesson with Lupe on Thursday and then on Friday she came in to be our teacher. My companion and I were not very surprised. We had been talking to some Elders and they said their first investigator was the head of the French language teaching her at the MTC. When talking to another teacher he said that he had played a male version of Lupe and that we would get to know Lupe very well. So my companion and I thought she will be our teacher. What better way to find out where we are on our lessons/French. She is awesome and I'm sad that she won't be our teacher anymore. When they bring in the new districts this week she has to go and teach one of them.

So we had like 30 people leave our zone on Monday. So the cafeteria, gym, and my building have been very empty. It is weird not to see people. Tomorrow we get 30+ people in our district so soon there will be people again. 

Choir has been fun. I was not able to preform last week do to being sick. This week we are learning Savior, Dear Redeemer. It is so pretty! I love the harmonies of it. Again I don't know who is speaking but I know it will be good. 

My companion's name is Soeur Schmuhl. She is from Taylorsville, UT. She is the middle child and the first out of her siblings to go on a mission. Luckily we like a lot of the same activities so we can go to choir or play something in the gym.  We added a new roommate this week. She is a solo missionary so she is placed in a companionship throughout the zone. Since her companions/roommates left Monday she moved in with us. 

The food is ok. I have definitely eaten worse but it is getting old, and I still have 5 weeks to go on it. We will see how long I last. They feed us such big meals. It would be ok if they were more spread out. Oh well.

As far as French goes my teacher Frere Sybrowskie says I'm doing great. He is playing a new investigator for us and he gave us feedback after the first lesson. He says I need to talk more. I prayed and gave my testimony. He told me that I knew all the words just have more confidence in myself. Soeur McKay told us it was a blessing to be learning a foreign language. It is sometimes hard to simplify a lesson. She said the blessing comes from knowing only the basic words means we can only teach basic things and so it doesn't get so complicated. I had never thought about it that way. It was nice to hear. 

Love you all. 

Thanks for the emails!

Soeur Gardner

Tuesday Mail

Bonjour everyone! How is everyone doing? life is crazy here! Steph you were right :) Never had so much sleep but never been more tired! Funny how it works! Heavenly Father has helped with my getting up because we all know how much of a morning person I am.

The French is hard! I feel like my teacher speaks jibberish to me every day! Nothing sticks. I just have to keep reminding myself not to get stressed out and it will come!

Anna, the teachers only speak French to me. We can ask questions in English. My teacher is very good at hand gestures or else I would be in trouble. He is really nice! He served his mission in Montreal. He knows parts of 4 languages. I can't remember what they all are.

My favorite part of the day so far is gym. I get to play volleyball and it is stress free :) It has been a ton of fun. They have other activities you can do but we haven't tried them yet. I'm sure we will try some more at some point. 

Carol, it's funny how your stuff multiplies. I feel like that is what happened when I moved home. For my whole 3 days.

There are 4 girls counting me in my room. We are all is the same district, and everyone in my district is going to Montreal Canada. Next week I will send some home some pictures of my roommates, companion, and district. I forgot my camera.  

Love you all and miss you like crazy! Keep the letters coming. I heard of this website called Dear Elder that you can send letters to me through. I will get them the same day you write, but I can't reply until today, Tuesday. So you will have to do more research on that. 

Good luck with everything!

Bonsoir

Sister Gardner

Part 2

Sorry, I forgot to mention my other favorite thing to do here. I found choir!!!!! Which makes so happy. We aren't aloud to use you mp3 players here so I miss music something terrible! So it was fun to go to choir on Sunday! We have it again tonight and then we preform for the fireside where they bring in a General Authority. I don't know who is speaking yet but it will be good!

I also forgot to tell you about Lupe. So we have practice investigators here and Lupe is my first one. She is so sweet. We've had to give her to lessons in French which is hard. My companion and I write everything we want to say and just read it to her. But she says our French is getting better. :)

Carol, remember you told me to be prepared for the greeting of French people? Well Lupe did that our 2nd lesson. At least I had some warning, but my poor companion didn't and she went first.

Love you all!

Keep in touch!

Soeur Gardner

Entering the MTC

We are taking over the blog temporarily while Sister Gardner is on her mission.  On August 6th, we took Sister Gardner to the Provo MTC.  You basically have just enough time to unload the luggage from the car to say goodbye.  What a bittersweet moment - so proud of her choice to serve, but sad to say goodbye knowing you won't be together again for 18 months!

Sister Gardner with Mary and Mom!

Carol joins the picture.

Sister Gardner would love to hear from you.  Her address while at the MTC is 

Sister Cassandra Jo Gardner
SEP16 CAN-MON
2009 N 900 E Unit 106
Provo UT 84602

Email
cassandra.gardner@myldsmail.net