hey, just some things about collin :)

hey y'alls

sorry we've been lazy about posting, we've just been.... well lazy.
collin's been doing really well, and we got to talk to him on christmas and all that fun stuff. he's also singing in a choir. here's a quote that we should have posted when it happened

"Hey! What's up? Well I too am in a christmas choir.. We'll be competing against other churches in the area or something. It's actually really good... usually french speaking people sing very badly. like, seriously. But this choir is going well. I'm really excited for it. I'm actually among the best in the tenors, which i think is funny. i kind of lead the section at times. it's really fun singing in french. i love it."
so yeah, that's the skinny on the choir. today we got a picture of him singing in it (up there ^ ^)
there's more stuff that my mom probably wants on here, but i'll let her handle it, because i want to get back to my dinner :)
thanks for not getting after us for our lazyness about posting :D

here's THIS week's email :)

Oh yes so i didn't give ya'll a rundown of my week. I put my shirt in the washer and it got a little bit messed up. I turned it inside out, didn't use a ton of soap, only washed it with like 2 other things, put it on cold water only, and did a slow cycle. also dryers don't exist in New Caledonia, so i put it out to dry... and the BEHIND part of the shirt is alll messed up. i'm sad. all the pictures are alright for now though. i've stopped wearing it for the time being.

We had a lesson with a lady named Natalie.. I think I may have mentioned her before. We taught her once before, and since then 2 rendezvous with her fell through.. but this one worked out. she actually cancelled things to keep her rendezvous. It was really awesome. We walked in and before we even started the lesson, she said um, can I have a book of mormon? I really want to read it!! And we're like WAWAAATTT?!?!?!? That is the keyword!!!! We had actually that very morning, put our testimonies in a Livre de Mormon just for her, and brought it with us. I got the warm fuzzies handing it to her and we were really really happy. She had read our pamphlet all the way through twice since our last meeting, started reading her bible again, and noticed the Lord has already been blessing her. She only faught twice with her husband this week, which is down from every day. She was smart enough to attribute this to BLESSINGS instead of coincidence. I'm really really happy about it. The only problem is, she says she can't see us until January. Which worries us. she's going to be out of town and stuff. but we're still goign to stop by to make sure seh's allright.

also we met this guy.. he was a reference given to my companion months ago and he was never ever there.. for some reason (the Spirit) he pulled out his old planner from Ducos and decided to call him on Saturday. It turns out his wife was being stalked or somethign wierd so they never answer the phone to numbers they don't recognize. but today he answered. He's golden. He doesn't smoke or drink, and he's already married. Those are the 3 problems we have with every single investigator ever in the history of New Caledonia. He's friends with lots and lots and LOTS of active members. he sees their good examples and wants to see what's up with them. so then we show up.. he told us he asked one of his friends (who is the 1st councillor in the branch in Tontouta- my old branch) to give his little son a blessing, who was really sick. he excercized his faith and his son is healed. he already has a testimony of the Priesthood. Dang. Golden. I'm thinkin we'll baptize him.

We also taught a lady named Marie-Claude, which i think i already told you about.. maybe? i don't know. anyway, (which made me think about Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise... I actually taught a guy named Jean-Luc in Paita, and met a guy in paita whose last name is Picard. Not the same guy, but both names. awesome, EH??) .. we found her daughter during porte a porte, and kept trying to get a rendezvous but she wasn't really that interested. one day we gave a little kid in the house one of our pamphlet things on the restoration (which means restaurant in french... someone gave a talk about the Joseph Smith Restaurant a couple months ago. i want to eat there! in french it's retablissment.. re-establisment) and left our phone number. ironically, we came by one day and the girl we found originally was not at all interested, but her mom, read the pamphlet twice, loved it. she has already been to church before and saw the missionaries years and years ago and really wanted to get in contact with them again. and then poof we show up at just the right moment. ! We were excited. unfortunately she didn't keep our rendezvous for saturday, which was a shock, but we'll try for the next saturday.

Ummmmmm mhmmmmm... other than that, a giant flying cockroack flew on my head a couple weeks ago at a members house, and i ran out of the house. it was funny. this week we got harrassed by like 10 different drunk guys. once the police actually helped us (usually they do absolutely nothing but give speeding tickets)... but as usual, i'm totally safe. for some reason i'm never scared of these guys, even when they're yelling don't ever come back here again! First and last time in my neighborhood! etc. they're drunk anyway and don't remember ever talking to us. i think it's funny.

Um........ I ate a pizza with potatoes and shrimp on it.. i gave out a book of mormon in vietmamese, i learned some more phrases in tahitan, (including big crap), I got told i speak french really really well, and got told that i don't speak very well but i make do with what i have. :D ha ha. i ate more raw fish, poured coke out the window on a little kid (ha ha, long story) and .... hmm... i found out that the members think i'm cool.

well that's it! ya'll have a great week!

here's from the 7th :)

Hi! I'm gonna give a rundown of what happened this week, in case you're interested. This week monday me and Elder Manarani had adventures in Noumea center. We ran around town looking in souvenir shops for random crap and found some cool junk to send to y'all for christmas. We made it back home by bus, having taken all the right busses all day. Awesome! We had never taken a bus to centre ville and were kind of scared, but we made it there and out alive!

We also bought these glue traps for cockroaches and there's like a million in all of them. i'm really happy to see them suffer. they move their little antennas around for days but can't move. and to taunt them a little bit i put a jelly bean in one of them and they all got really excited and tried to rip off their legs but didn't succeed.

I forgot to tell you last week, i did my first talk in sacrament meeting in FRENCH and it was really scary but went really really well. people still tell me that i did a really good job.. 2 weeks later, that's much beyond the required courtesy "good job" so that must mean i actually did well.

we had Zone Conference with President Ostler and President Baxter (mission president, area president and 70) and their wives and it was really really awesome.

Also French is going really well. However I realized I don't understand when French people talk!!! Like, france french people. It's really sad, but i only understand the island accent and vocabulary. and if i were to speak to a proper french person i would definitely sound like a hillbilly, cuz people use a very different (and very incorrect) grammar here. I'm scared to come back and say that i speak "french" and then people will find out i speak "Francais outre mer" outer sea french. meh, whatev. it's alright. it works alright for me, cuz i have never ever taught a french person. they're all really really really mean and hard headed. island people are amazing.

i've been learning a couple phrases in tahitian lately.. it's really awesome. i accidently mix in english when i speak really fast with my copmanion and don't realize it, and he does exactly the same with tahitian. it's funny, i'll say um, was that french??? and he'll say what?? oops!

we only taught 2 lessons this week, but one of them was really really good!!!! We have 2 new investigators.. Marie-Claude and her daughters, whose names i can't remember. they were really excited when we came to the door, had already read the pamplet we have on the restoration, and were ready with questions. they're pentacostal and don't understand the need for organized religion, but we'll fix that. :D we have another rendezvous on Saturday.

That lady that we found that said she had been praying and then we showed up, we saw her finally for the second time yesterday. her schedule is sporatic but she's really excited for us to teach her. we dont' have an appointment but we'll teach her sooner or later and i have a feeling that she will benefit greatly from our message.

We sang in the choir Sunday, and also sang for this Wallisan guy and his family. His daughter is in our Branch, but most of his family is not members. He has been really sick and they thought he was going to die, but he got a blessing and now is doing much better. They asked us to come sing for him. We found out that the doctor said he needed to start speaking, cuz there is this problem in his throat. he hadn't spoken since he got sick months ago and the very first time he spoke was while we were there!!!!! He really apprecitated it and we were happy to be there. we're going back next week too.

um... yeah, i think that's everything that's happened lately. :)

newest email from collin

I had a really good birthday. Elder Manarani took me out for brunch at this "Snack asaitic" that is right by our house. There aren't very many restaurants outside of Noumea Center, but there are these "Snacks" that is just a little restaurant. We ate really really well... I ate a "Steack Frite Salade au Sauce Champinions", which I think I spelled wrong, but it was just steak, french fries, a little salad, and the steak had this really good mushroom sauce on it!! Mmm! Then we went and did service (which we do every Thursday) for this lady who lives in Robinson (a missionary sector not to far from us, where our district leader is) and we cut hedges. It was really fun and I fell in the hedge and thought I was going to die but I'm fine :) It's like a 15 foot tall hedge and I fell all the way to the bottom! Ha ha. I wasn't hurt or anything, but it was really funny. Then they surprised me with some cake, and sang happy birthday. This guy who served a mission in New Caledonia like 40 years ago told us stories.... :) They were way funny. So one of them was he was doing porte-a-porte with his companion. They knocked on this door and this big woman was facing away from the door watching tv. They tried to introduce themselves but she wouldn't listen. Eventually she called her daughter out to tell the missionaries to go away. She said well, I'm sorry, I'd like to talk to you but my mom is catholic and we don't accept missionaries. But the companion wouldn't give up! he kept saying no, it's important for your family! meh meh meh. She kept apologizing, and he kept insisting. Eventually the big lady got out of her chair. She pulled out this cross necklace and a locket thing and said look. We're catholic. This is Mary, this is Jospeh, and this is Jesus. Okay? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost GET OUT! (Degage!!) SLAM door. Ha ha ha!

Later that day we tried some porte a porte, to no avail as usual. We eventually went home and found that Elder Amundsen and Elder Troutman had paid our apartment a visit.. They switched everything around!! Our desks were switched, they switched our beds, and everything in our closets! It was way funny. Elder Amundsen left me some pictures and wrote me a little card and they brought me a little cake with Matches as Candles. Ha ha! I was really really happy. Elder Amundsen is amazing and I'm really happy to have him as a friend.

Later that night we had this big thing of Letchi
(this little fruit that grows on trees here.. About the size of a plum, it's red, and it has a pointyish skin on it. You have to peel it off and there's this white fruit meat stuff inside, and a big seed. I don't really like them that much, but everyone else loves them and they literally grow on trees so they're in great great GREAT abundance.) and we gave it to our nice neighbors. Turns out it was the dad's birthday and they gave us 3 big slices of cake.. not knowing it was my birthday!

So that brings the cake count up to 3. Then I started making my cheesecake, but didn't have time so I had to put it off. I actually didn't end up eating it until 8-9 pm yesterday. :( Sorry. But I did eat that cake the neighbors gave us on my birthday, along with cake at service. Anyway, it ended up being a really good birthday. Everyone seemed to remember too, and that's all that really matters to me. As long as someone thinks about me or something.

Oh and we got video of unwrapping my awesome presents, and doing the candles with the CD of y'all singing happy birthday. :D:D:D It was almost like you were there!!!

Thanks for everything! I really really like the shirt, and I have fun explaining the people to my companion. I wear it every night. :) Don't worry about me ruining it in the dryer, that is something that simply doesn't exist in New Caledonia!

OH and also.... You were REALLY lucky that package didn't get searched at all!! I found out that they would have had to unwrap every present and look inside, and they probably would have just sent it back!!! But luckily they didn't search it at all! Oh and by the way... Don't ever send raw meat of any kind to me. Um, yeah. Didn't think you would, but just.. yeah. We had trouble with a package someone sent to a missionary here that had meat in it. Weird.

Also, I don't think I'm getting any of the letters people are sending to me these days. I think the post is being super super gay. Could you put a notice on my blog for me? (haha. done and done. :D)
I would like everyone to know, that I ALWAYS reply to every letter I get, and if you don't get a reply within 2 1/2 months, that means I Didn't get it and probably never will. I want people to like photocopy the letters they send, and if I never get them they can resend them, or forget about it. But if someone thinks I'm not sending letters to them anymore, it's not true and it's just because I never got the letter. also, make sure to always remember the CEDEX on the end of the address. (Mom, you forgot this one!! I'm lucky my package got to me.. :O)

Elder Winget
Bureau de la Mission
BP 15154
98804 Noumea Cedex
New Caledonia

The most important parts of the address are 15154 and 98804 so make sure you write these very clearly. Also it might help to have very plain white envelopes, with nothing written on it besides the addresses. I don't know if this is the problem or not, but just an idea.

alright.

Anyway, so I will tell you a short story. I went on an exchange with a missionary who had been here for only about 3-4ish weeks and is really terrible at french. It actually went really well. I was really scared, but it was fine! I got a taste of being a trainer. I felt weird speaking in english all day, and forgot how to say some words! I was not able to pray in English and did it all in French! He asked me lots of questions and I felt really really smart when I was able to answer them! It was really fun and made me feel really good and confident as a missionary and in my French skills.

Here's Collin's birthday present

Tomorrow we're sending out Collin's birthday package. It's cutting it a little close for New Caledonia, but we'll just have to pray it will get there in time. His mail situation has improved a ton, so I'm not too worried.

  So, here's the final product! Channing was kind enough to model it for the blog. On the front of the t-shirt is a copy of his nametag, and on the back are pictures of everyone, or at least all the pictures we could get with the time we had available! If we missed you, I am so sorry... there's always Christmas... The back of the t-shirt says "We're behind you 100%"  ha ha ha...get it? It may be corny, but I know Collin will love it. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed pictures! We know some of you wanted to be on Collin's shirt but didn't get to respond to our email, so we kind of cheated and took some pictures off Facebook :P 

 So Channing and I were at Missionary Mall getting Collin some ties for his birthday today. They are having a huge tie sale, and a bunch of really nice ties are only $1.99! So we had a lot of fun picking out  some ties he would like. If you've ever been there, you've probably seen that they have pictures up on the walls of missionaries all around the world. Well, we brought in that crazy picture of Collin reading Le Liahona and they put it up on the wall right above the drinking fountain. So if you ever go to Missionary Mall and you get thirsty, you will get your chance to see Collin's insane grin!

Mean people and cockroaches

Here's some crazy, typical pictures of Collin -reading "Le Liahona"( hmmm, he must really like that magazine!)

  And another of him  as a half-dressed, proud American (note the tiny American flag in the background)

The third one, the one with a bunch of graffiti around him, prompted me to write "please tell me that's not your apartment!"  Collin says, " About the graffiti... it's everywhere. That wasn't my apartment, but basically anything that doesn't move, anywhere in Noumea, has graffiti even thicker than that. But it's not scary like LA or NYC, people just see graffiti in movies and think that's what you do."

  Here's some more news from yesterday's email:

"I did get transferred to Vallee du Tir, so it was more or less like  starting over completely. We have no car, so we take the bus and walk. It's actually not so bad. And as it turns out, we get to keep all the members, so we still eat chez les membres (at members houses) most every night. And we get to get picked up by the magic Elder Ammundsen (his MTC companion) for church and activities. He's so rad! I see him most every day.

  We started out with NO investigators, no leads, and... nothing. We started going through our Area Book and found some "ancien amis" ...old investigators? and called the promising looking ones.  We have 5 rendezvous for next week! We're very excited!  We're teaching a lady named Madame Tokyo, and she's basically like Isma from " Emperor's New Groove".  She is like a million years old. Except for she is nice and she is black.

 We also did a porte a porte and found a new ami.  AND I had my first experience with getting yelled at by a French person. We went to go knock on this door and this lady looks over at us and yells, "Not this door, not even in your dreams!" i didn't understand exactly what this meant at first, but my comp explained it to me and I was kinda sad. But then right after that we found our new ami (investigator BTW) so all is well!

Our apartment was INFESTED 

with cockroaches at first. It was nasty and dirty and I immediately got to work cleaning. Before I think I wouldn't have cared, but after living in super nice super clean Paita, I about went freakin crazy. So I've cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. Elder Manarani was excited to have a clean freak companion. Also I fixed the ceiling fans, and the cold water in the shower. So our apartment is a million times better. But even though it was much cleaner, we still had a ridiculous number of cockroaches. So this morning I got down and dirty and super cleaned the kitchen. And I found their...NEST.  had a bad feeling about moving the frige, but ever since the first day in there I knew they must be back there. So I moved the frige, and they all started pouring out from behind. Hundreds, I swear! So I got out the poison and started spraying profusely. Those buggers are IMPOSSIBLE to kill. Any other bug dies instantly with that poison, but with them you have to drench them in it and it only slows them down. Nasty! So I swept and mopped everywhere, and killed all the cockroaches, and everything is sparkly clean."

Mom's note: "Eeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

(cringe and shudder...)

Elder Winget's Halloween

Here's Collin with the 2 green pumpkins he and Elder Manarani ( the guy with the gummy tongue and fangs) carved on Halloween.  Even in the South Pacific some people celebrate Halloween, but it's not as widespread as it is here. Collin said some of the other missionaries got trick-or-treaters, but he was disappointed that none came to their apartment. :(

 Collin and Elder Manarani don't have to travel back and forth between 2 apartments anymore. They are in the Vallee du Tir (sp?) apartment now, and Elder Amundsen and his companion are in the Ducos apartment. Collin's excited to have Elder Amundsen close by, since he was his companion in the MTC. 

  Unfortunately, I don't have much news this week.  Collin said he typed a big long email, and just when he was about to send it, the server shut down or something, and he lost the whole thing! He had to start all over and he didn't have much time left! He did manage to email us some great pictures.  I've been having trouble trying to post them all at once for some reason, so I'll send the rest in another post.