A Wonderful Mother's Day

 We just talked to Collin - well, it's been a few hours I guess, but I'm still excited about it! This was the only Mother's Day I  will ever get to talk to Collin on his mission, because last Mother's Day he had just arrived in the MTC and they didn't let the missionaries call their moms then. And next Mother's Day he will hopefully be home! So this was a great day :)

  So Collin just got transferred a few days ago - actually I have kind of a funny story connected with that:  Last Sunday when he emailed us he informed us he was getting transferred, but he didn't know what his phone number would be. He gave us a number that he thought might be his new number but he wasn't sure, so he said to call on Tuesday at 3:00 and see if that was correct and we could set up a time to talk on Sunday. (We get to call him, instead of him calling us) Well, it wasn't the right number, so I called his old number from when we talked at Christmas because I knew missionaries  there would at least know how to get ahold of him. The conversation went something like this:

"Allo, bonjour - (long thing in french.. ending with: Je suis Elder Styles"

"Hi Elder Styles, I'm sorry to bother you - this is Sister Winget. I need to get ahold of Elder Winget"

(long pause)  "Oh... OH! ( I could just imagine him thinking "something tragic must have happened" or "hey, you're not supposed to call here!")   I explained about needing his number for the Mother's Day phone call, etc.  Then I heard papers rustling, apparently he was looking for his number... "Um I'm sorry, but we don't have his number. Do you want to call the Zone leaders - they will have it for sure"

So I called the zone leaders and the conversation went something like this:

"allo, bonjour... blah blah...Je suis Elder Ammundsen"

"Oh Elder Amundsen!  (he was Collin's companion in the MTC) this is Sister Winget! I'n sorry to bother you, but I need to contact Elder Winget."

"oh... OH!  Ummmm"  ( I'm sure he was thinking the same thing as Elder Styles, so I explained the whole thing about the Mother's Day phone call) "Oh! okay... hey Sister Winget! I've heard all about you!"

"I've heard all about you too, and we have lots of pictures of you and a few videos"

"I bet you do!"  then he gave me his phone number. 

 It was so fun to talk to Collin for a quick minute. He sounds like a different person when he speaks french (he answered the phone in french of course). Then we were looking forward to talking to him all week, and we had a nice long conversation with him. He was making fresh lemonade while he was talking to us with lemons that just fell off a tree outside of his apartment. He also has a banana tree in his yard that is loaded with bananas. His new area is right in the city, called Valee de Colone. It's a part of Noumea, the capital city. He likes it because there are lots of people to talk to. He said that crowds of children follow them around. There's lots of unsupervised children just roaming the streets, and that bothers him but there's not much they can do about it. He wants me to send him some french CTR rings and articles of faith cards so he could give them out to the kids, so that will be a fun project for me :)

  His new companion is Elder Green from Oregon. Collin seems to get along well with him already. In fact, Elder Green asked us to call his family and tell them what the phone number was since he didn't get to take care of that due to transfers. So we called the Greens and they were grateful :)

  The above picture is of Collin and a member lady that Collin really likes a lot. That's her husband with the big hair. He's not a member, but they teach him occasionally.  I love looking at those beautiful tropical flowers and the bay with the boats behind him. What a beautiful place to live!  Collin mentioned that he has seen some wild parrots and parakeets, and yellow finches that fly around in huge flocks. Sounds so nice! Also he gets tons of free fruit like papayas, mangoes, passionfruit, oranges, grapefruit, lemons,etc. Yummm! 

    I think I will smile for a week after that wonderful phone call  :D