Octopus balloons and shes and random acts of service opportunities and cathedrals and pirates and bounty gelato

Dear Friends and Family, 

First off, Toulon has been wild this week. It was the Voilles de Toulon this weekend. We've been seeing posters for it ever since we first came here but I definitely did not expect it to be so big.  It happens only once every four years and downtown Toulon goes all out for it. The bay was filled with all kinds of ships. Pirate ships, yatchs, navel ships, a couple submarines, sail boats, barges, and cruise ships and Gigantic older full sail ships like in the movies. So that was a pretty sight. The streets were packed with tourists, the smell of yummy food was everywhere and anything and everything was being sold on the streets. People on stilts were walking around, having fun with tourists, school bands were playing on the streets, people were playing bagpipes and flutes and drums, big concerts in different squares, a man walking across a giant tightrope, people dressed up as pirates and aaaaarhhing all over the place, and sailor stripes and hats everywhere. They had this one presentation thing that was very french. These big white human like creatures, made out of clothe and paper mache and holding lights and with people on top controling them, were walking through the streets. Apparently they are called Elles, or in English, Shes. Yeah, apparently they are supposed to be symbolic of hope, but if it hadn't been during the day when I first saw them, they would have been a little scary and wierd. That's French culture for ya. They are very proud of how artistic everything is, even if they don't even know what it is. Just as long as it is French. French people are very interesting like that. They will complain sometimes about french politics or the school systems or things like that, but they almost seem to brag about it too. I love the French people so much. They make me smile for so many different reasons. On saturday night, we heard that there was going to be a parade thingy, so Soeur Kupfer and I went out to where the parade would be during our dinner time. They had this marine creatures that they inflated up and were controling with ropes and were pbasically having them swim through the streets and later did a little performance with. They had an octupus the size of a building whose arms would bonk people on the head or poke the other animals and the had a giant whale and some fish and a big shrimp and sea horses and some jelly fish and clams.

This week, we have gone on the boat bus twice, which felt a little wierd and exciting at the same time. The second time, some sea water came flying up and totally soaked me and Soeur Kupfer. What a strange experience that was. But we got to pass some less actives in an area that we don't go to very often, because it is farther away. And we got some delicious bounty gelato for dinner and saw some gorgeous veiws. It feels so cool to be walking down a street with the wind coming right off of the sea and blowing past you and the waves practically crashing on the road and palm trees and sand on the other side of the sidewalk. And there are so many fruit trees here. We have a lime and two pomegranites at our apartment that we have just picked right off of an unclaimed tree we have found. It feels like we should be on vacation here and not a mission sometimes. 

This morning we got to visit a couple cathedrals and we visited a really cool one that had these stone carvings that were intertwined with a wooden base to make a full artistic piece. It was very dynamic. We really have some of the coolest p-days here in France. This week we were able to some random acts of service. We helped a ward member with an english presentation that she had to do for the callege she works at and helped a random lady on the street who had her leg broken recently and she couldn't get around her house, and we helped a american mormon tourist find her way to the church and get her bags to the gare. So some cool experiences. We also taught a young family this week, who are awesome. The wife wants to work towards baptism, which we are really excited about and the husband is so nice. They are great.

I love you all! That crazy that you ran in S Mods mother, Mommy! We wondered if you two or if our dads would run into each other at university things at some point.

Dieu vous aime!

Moi aussi!

Soeur Russell