Tuesday, February 25th

HOLY COW! THIS IS MY LAST PDAY IN THE MTC!! I'm so excited!:) I leave next Monday!

So, this week wasn't too extraordinary. We did have the opportunity to teach over Skype on Wednesday and the lady we were supposed to Skype in France had to go to work so we got to teach our teacher's dad! It was so fun!

We also got a new district this week! That was so exciting because we haven't had one in a couple of weeks! They are all going to French speaking Canadian missions so that is pretty cool!

Ok, so everyone says that the MTC is like a bubble - personally I don't think it is that bad, I mean, I DID go to BYU for a whole semester... ha ha but we got to leave to go to the BYU Health Clinic for one of my companions so we were acting all excited to finally be off of the MTC campus!

This week I had the stomach flu from Thursday thru Sunday. It was pretty bad! I got it around Thursday afternoon and so after dinner that day I had to go back to our residence and lay down because I had to keep running to the bathroom during class so my teacher was finally like - go home. Ha ha so on Friday I was determined to stay during all of the classes - and I did! I did have to run out to go throw up and go to the bathroom a lot but I hate laying down and I knew that I needed to teach our amis so my teacher just put a trash can in front of me while we taught... ha ha good times.

On Thursday we got our travel plans! Oh my goodness it was so exciting! And absolutely terrifying at the same time ha ha so we leave on Monday at 11:30 in the morning so that's nice. AND it's a direct flight from Salt Lake to Paris! We got pretty lucky!

I got three more packages this week!! Holy cow thanks so much everyone!! Thanks Aunt Brynn and Uncle Bart and the Johnsies! I LOVE the suitcase connectors and the tags! And thanks mom and dad for my granola and dried fruit package ... You know me too well!

The weather is so bi-polar here. One day it is snowy and cold and the next it is nice. So for some reason this week has been SO "warm" here! It's been great! Our Sunday temple walk was so nice because of how warm and sunny it was!

Yes. I know that I am extremely white! Soeur Williams has this awesome camera that is shock proof and water proof so we took some cool underwater pictures!

It was pretty funny - an Elder thought it was so cool and asked if he could play a joke on his zone so he took the camera and pretended to be taking a picture of us from across the fountain and "trips" and drops her camera in the water and everyone just started freaking out and like running over asking how he could do that! It was pretty funny!

What else happened.. Oh yeah, the Frenchies decided to give everyone an animal that they reminded them of. So Soeur Anzi comes up to me and says pigeon! Everyone starts cracking up and I'm like "Comment est-ce que je suis un pigeon??" (how am I a pigeon) and she says with like the most serious face - you're everywhere with everyone all the time. I just started laughing and asked her if I look like I would eat french fries off the ground and she just smiles. It was pretty funny!

One of the most frightening things happened to me this week. I was in the bathroom and I see a GREY HAIR!! I freaked out and pulled it out and just walk back in to my classroom with like the most shocked look on my face and as soon as everyone sees it they start dying laughing! I think I've aged like 10 years in the past five and a half weeks or something...

So, I've been pretty scared about this next week about going to France and everything because I kept thinking that I am NO WHERE near ready to be speaking a different language completely and sharing the Gospel in that language. But, it has been one of the most spiritual weeks I've had here. It is terrifying, but I have surprisingly been okay.; And I know that the only way I have been feeling this comfort is because of the Lord. my understanding of the Atonement has grown SO much. I know I am no where near close to understanding it. But I know that the Lord is always there for ALL of us if we just turn to Him and put all of our trust in Him. That's something I have learned A LOT so far on my mission - we can't do it on our own. We have to ask our Heavenly Father and our Savior for help.

Thanks to everyone for all the love! It means so much to me to know that I have such wonderful people at home supporting me! You guys are awesome! Have a great week! And remember - the Lord is just waiting to help us, all we have to do is ask!

Soeur Ridd