I have lots to catch up on

Dear family and friends,
I have more time to write this week, thankfully. I am so glad Zach had a good time at EFY! Those are some of my favorite memories. I can be such a spirit filled week if you allow it. Where are you going on vacation? Wherever it is, have lots of fun and eat good food and if it was really awesome, take me there when I come back.
This week has been exciting. The most surreal part was one morning earlier this week. I was making myself breakfast, when I glace at the floor and see a white speck. on closer inspection, the white speck began to wriggle. I called over Soeur M and after examining the living thing on floor, we came to the conclusion that it was a maggot. yes, a maggot on the living room floor. After flushing that one down the toilet, we found another one and another and etc. We went around picking up maggots wriggling across our floors with paper towels for about an hour until we couldnt find any more. They were coming from the trash can, so we threw that away and we havent seen any since. What a strange morning.
Last week, we also got an ami with a baptismal date. Her name is Louise and, if anyone needs and deserves the gospel in her life, its her. She has gone through anything and everything bad a person can go through and, after learning a lttle bit about the gospel, she has dove straight into it. She loves The Book of Mormon and Church. She has a really complicated situation, so we have a lot to sort out before she gets baptized, but she is so excited for it. We also are teaching a few african women and have a lot of potentials that we need to meet with this week.
It was interesting to hear what everyone did for the fourth of July. On the fourth we had a zone conference, so all the missionaries were celebrating together with a couple of patriotic songs and decorations, but otherwise, of course, the french people didnt blink an eye. But we were looking forward the 14 of July, the independence day of France. But apparently, they do a big a big celebration in Paris and a couple other cities, but not St Etienne. We had a Dominos pizza with the Elders, and that night pulled our chairs out onto the balcony to watch some fireworks. We saw like two fireworks pop out from random people celebrating, otherwise, it was like a ghost town. But I did take a moment to apreciate the situation. I was sitting on a balcony in France, clipping my nails by the light of the Dominos across the street, waiting for Fireworks. I can safely say, I have never pictured that setting my entire life.
One really awesome miracle that happened, was that, the first week, while we were trying to visit a member, who wasnt there, we had extra time. So after a little prayer for guidance, we decided to visit a less active on our list who lived nearby. We knew nothing about her, since we had just arrived, but we hopped on a bus, found the address for us and gave us directions, then we walked to this picturesque area tucked away in the hills. We rang the doorbell to her home and the gorgeous lady let us in with a big smile. We had a quick spiritual thought about faith in our broken  french that she participated beautifully in and she shared part of her sweet testimony. Towards the end of the lesson, we found out that she is the ex wife of our ward mission leader and she is currently living with a man. We invited her to church and hurried off for our meeting with our ward mission leader. We were kinda worried it would be a little awkward talking about her with our WML but he was glad we met with her, but didnt seem too confident that she would come to church. The next sunday, she came, and she has come every sunday since. A later time SM and her companion for the day visited with her again, and she started crying and saying how much she loves the church  and how the first time we visited her, we asked about how she found faith in the church, and she knows she has faith and she needs to be growing it and has been coming since to church then because of that and she is trying to decide whether or not she should leave her boyfriend so she can be active. How inspired was our first visit? If we had known she was the exwife of our WML, we may have not visited her or acted the same around her, but we didnt know, we followed a prompting and now she is changing her life for the better. How amazing! The church is true! I know it!
Je vous aime!
Soeur Russell