It is Finally Beginning to Feel Like We Really Belong!

Hello to Everyone...we miss you all!

Yes, we are truly adjusting to our new home, our new responsibilities, our new friends and neighbors, and our new life as missionaries in this amazing land.  The people here are very polite and respectful (unless they are driving, and some even then). We have been especially impressed with the children, who all make an effort to come up to us, shake our hands, greet us, and welcome us.  They are so warm and loving.  When we visited a branch last Sunday, I went into Young Women's.  There were four YW present and we all stood in a circle and held hands as we repeated the YW theme together.  I, of course, was blinking back the tears as my heart could not help but think of my YW in Utah.  I so wish I would have brought my camera so you could see how darling they were.  As I said before, everyone gathers outside after the meetings, they take pictures of each other, talk and laugh together, and bring treats to share.  It is another hour before we leave for home, and we love it because we have time to get to know the members and their guests.

While we were visiting after the meetings, the most amazingly wonderful thing happened.  Brent was visiting with some members, one of whom had served a mission in France.  They began talking about members they both knew there and Brent mentioned a family he had baptized toward the end of his mission by the name of  Defaye.  (This is a family he had stayed in contact with for over twenty years and then, all of a sudden, they never returned his letters and he never did know what had happened to them.)  Another member then said, "Brother Payet's wife's name was Defaye and she was from France." When we got home, hardly daring to even hope it was the same family, Brent called brother Payet.  They exchanged information and realized that brother Payet's wife was the granddaughter of Brent's "French family."  She called her father, who now lives in Montreal, Canada, and he said, "Of course I remember; his name was mentioned frequently in our home."  Brent had to come half-way around the world to find out what had happened to those he so dearly loved.  They were in the car together, were hit by a truck and both killed; brother Defaye had always said that he never wanted to live a day without her by his side and he got his wish.  We were humbled after the phone conversation and so grateful for the blessing that had come from a casual conversation following church.  We are looking forward to a personal visit with sister Payet to hear more about the family.  Brent has a photograph of her grandparents being baptized in the Sarthe River in France, which he will copy and send to her when we return home.  Brent was thrilled to hear that they had been temple workers in the Swiss temple; Brother Defaye had served as a sealer there.

We think of and talk of all of you often and would love for you to make a brief comment on our blog.  It is just so fun to hear from those back home.  The site won't allow us to send a message back to you, but please know how much it means to us.

I read a while ago that life begins at the end of your comfort zone; if that is true, Brent and I are REALLY LIVING here!!!!!!    :)

A Bientot....(sorry, I misspelled it last time)

Brent and Joan... castaways on Reunion Island

The morning view from our sliding glass doors. We see the sun rise each morning out of the Indian Ocean; I know; it's hard to take!  The steeple below is our chapel in St Denis, one of five chapels on the island.

Just have to hug those beautiful children after church.

A soiree at a members home with her relatives who are not members.  This is a picture of the sister and the two zone leaders singing an opening hymn, #179 in the French hymnbook, the only place this particular hymn can be found.  It is to the music of "Going Home" and the French title is loosely" Come to Me.
  So very beautiful.  It is my new favorite hymn.

Dinner with the Ampelaissa family.  Look into their eyes; they are such wonderful people.  The daughter, Jolie, wants to serve a mission.

The "missionaries" after church.  The two on the left are both from Tahiti and speak very little English; the elder in the back is from Arizona, and the sister is from California.  The two old people are from Utah!

We are really TRYING to establish a routine!

Hello Everyone,

Greetings from paradise where the palm trees sway in the trade winds, the flowers cascade over the walls here like blooming waterfalls, the sparkling Indian Ocean gently laps the beaches, and frere and soeur Heap are desperately trying to establish some semblance of normalcy.

The week after we arrived, the branches on La Reunion held seminary and institute graduation.  A CES representative from South Africa was the guest speaker.  The church tries very hard to properly recognize those students who go the extra mile to attend and meet the CES requirements and the members are so proud of them.  Brent and I felt extremely fortunate to be able to be a part of it.  We were able to meet the presidents of all five branches on the island and have since been trying to visit each one (maybe I should say "find" each one).  I know you are saying "What?", but the roads here are narrow, winding ribbons that have no pattern or logical layout and the drivers here are all crazy.  We feel like we are part of NASCAR at worst or the bumper cars at Lagoon at best.  Many times we end up lost or wandering, but as they say here, "Ca marsh" (it works).

The next week the mission president and his wife  - President and Sister Adams, absolutely wonderful people - arrived for a zone conference.  This involved four days of meetings with branches, visits with members, going on splits with the elders and sisters, the zone conference itself, which included a meal for everyone which was my responsibility, a departure dinner for the mission president and his wife with an elder who was leaving for home the next week, also my responsibility, and arrangements and presentations, all in French, which were Brent's responsibility.  Our heads were spinning, but, hey, sleeping here is never a problem.  By the day's end, we are totally exhausted and grateful to be able to stop trying to think in French.

How is the language coming?  It is a constant struggle for both of us.  Brent, of course, speaks French, but not well enough to make him feel totally comfortable, and more is expected of him than of me.  I am really lost most of the time.  I can understand about every sixth word because they speak so rapidly here.  It is so frustrating to be part of a dinner party or a church meeting where everyone is talking and you are just sitting there with a throbbing head.  The worst part is wanting to connect with people, to hear their stories, to empathize with their feelings, to let them know how much you care about them and not being able to.  It will come; I know we will be blessed if we do our part, but that is difficult because we have been so busy that by the time we get home, we are too tired to study.  I know; we sound like junior high students with our lame excuses!

We sent our first two elders home this week; met two new elders at the airport the next day; warmly welcomed them, oriented them, fed them, introduced them to their new companions, hugged them and sent them off to finish their day porting in their new areas.  Our hearts were bursting with pride and love for them...so new and wide-eyed!

The learning curve is huge and Brent and I are jumping up and down on our tip toes just trying to catch on to the bottom end of it.  I made chocolate pudding for Brent yesterday.  It took me 11/2 hours because I had to look up almost every word in the instructions and convert all of the measurements from the metric system.  Did you know that 50 cl is two cups?  Neither did I!

What a great and marvelous experience to serve here.  We have never worked so hard, but we know it is where we are supposed to be.  Missionary work is truly a gift of love...not for those we serve, but for us.

Au Biento!

P-day hike to du Piton de la Forunaisse (mountain of the furnace, the volcano).  We had to leave at 3:30 AM, reached the trailhead at 6:30, and hiked for six hours to the top of the volcano and back.  There was a slight eruption in 2010, so we were actually hiking over the hardened lava flow.  Some fissures along the trail were still giving off heat.  Amazing hike, but the best part was the time spend talking with each missionary.

We survived the first ten days...barely, but gratefully.

Hello to all of you, wonderful family and friends!

I know I should have posted sooner, there is now so much to cover, but the reason for not doing so is part of our saga.  We lost - or it was stolen - a small carry on while we were trying to navigate the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris with our other 220 lbs. of luggage, (no, it didn't transfer automatically; we had to pick it up and haul it miles and miles, up staircases and down escalators and through turnstiles!) and it contained a little bag with all of our converters, chargers, connecting cords, etc.  When we arrived in La Reunion we had no way of hooking up to anything or to anyone, but now I THINK all of those problems are solved and we are back in the convenient world of technology and all it can do for us.

It was immediately obvious that we were half a world away from home as we stood at the sliding glass doors in our apartment  looking down the hill onto the city of La Reunion with the Indian Ocean glistening beyond, (no balcony, just doors and a railing to keep us from falling four stories to the concrete below) and hearing the Muslim call-to-prayer and also the bells from the Cathedral for Mass.  It was truly amazing to walk the streets here and see literally a melting pot of nationalities, religions, and cultures.  Some of our missionaries, from Tahiti and the West Indies, don't speak English; our branch president is Chinese; the branch members are from everywhere, speaking several languages, with only a few speaking any English.

Last Sunday we were warmly welcomed into the branch and we nestled into our seats for Sacrament meeting anxious to see how much we, I especially, would be able to understand of a meeting conducted solely in French.  After the branch president welcomed everyone and we sang and prayed, he again stood and announced that Elder and Sister Heap would now speak.  I sat there stunned and Brent nudged me and whispered, "Stand up and walk up to the microphone; you're speaking."  I really doubted whether I could stand up, I have no idea how Brent felt, but we did stand and were very blessed to be able to express - in French - very humbly some heartfelt emotions about being there as couple missionaries.

You are all in our hearts and prayers daily.  Au revior for now.

Lowlight of the Week:
Early in the morning,  I washed our sheets in our little washing machine and hung them on the railing to dry while we worked.  Short, but mighty, microburst of rain that day...so no dry sheets.  Oh well.

Highlight of the week:
 Soeur Heap:  A new sister missionary from the West Indies, Soeur Opeta, had an appointment to receive her patriarchal blessing.  She asked me to accompany her, and although I could only understand about a quarter - or less - of what was said, I felt the strength and spirit of both the blessing and the missionary.  What if I hadn't come?

Frere Heap:  Being invited to the St Marie Branch President's home for an incredibly delicious French Creole dinner and Family Home Evening with his ten-year-old twins.  Beautiful family!
  

The building visible above the trees is our apartment building.  

The first morning after our arrival we were, of course, wide awake at 3:00 AM wandering around our apartment, trying to get organized.  After a while, I noticed a slight glow out over the ocean and realized that we were going to see an Indian Ocean sunrise...This is what we witnessed from our apartment our first morning as missionaries!  

I rushed out after church to take a photo of some members.  No need to worry.  Everyone was gathered out under the palm trees, visiting, passing out cookies, enjoying catching up with one another...in no hurry at all to leave.  We could take a lesson here!

Again...just feeling the love!