September 22, 2014

This was a great and a crazy week ( I feel like I say that every week...).  Things are going great at St. Pierre, everyone has been talking about how they can’t believe how much the branch has progressed since January, it’s like magic has started happening:D  That made me super happy and grateful because sometimes it can be hard to see if things are progressing when you are in the middle of them, but I am proud of how hard my companions and I have worked and of how far things have come. 

Thursday morning I got an unexpected phone call from the zone leaders that changed everything. They had just gotten my visa for Mauritius and had bought my plane ticket for the following morning.  So I packed my bags and had one last afternoon in St. Pierre before heading off to ST. Denis to spend the night before heading to the airport Friday morning.  I did not get to say goodbye, but I think I prefer that because I am a big crier.  I wrote a few letters to different members/investigators with my testimony in it, and I wrote my testimony in a Book of Mormon and gave it to our neighbors Natalie and her son tom (who plays piano like Mozart:)  whom we had become very good friends with.  She was very touched and it was a tender moment.  In the car my companions told me that I should call a few people to say goodbye but I ended up having to abandon this idea fairly quickly because I was crying too hard to speak.  I had been worried at times that I may not be serving with my whole heart, might, mind and strength but in leaving St. Pierre I knew that I had.  My heart broke as I thought of the life I was leaving behind that I would never have again and I prayed that I would be able to see all of those people that I love again one day.  My companions, sister Liu and Sister Thomas spent the whole day plotting about how to keep me from going and I was touched by their love for me and their sadness to have me leave.

The flight went well and I got to Mauritius safely.  It is a whole new adventure and a whole new life here and I am excited and ready to love the people just as much as I did in reunion.  I am grateful that I grew up in the army because I think that it helped me to learn to really live where I am and to appreciate the beauty and the depth of human relationships and then to rely on the Lord to know that when we have to leave that it is not the end because we will be able to see each other again with our Heavenly Father after this life.

Mauritius was colonized by England (it is its own country now), so everything official (government related) is in English but all of the people speak French.  Also there is a creole here which is totally different from the creole a la reunion so I feel like I’m starting all over, but it’s pretty exciting:)  it is super different here, I feel like it’s a whole other world but I am not exactly sure why it feels so different.  The money here is called rubees:)  We live in an absolute palace, I will have to try to send pictures next week.  I love the people already and we have a super cool branch:D  I am in a city called Rose Hill:)  I will try to tell you more about it next week, but I am happy and doing well and wish everyone a fabulous week as well!

Love,

Soeur Wilson