Whew!

Well, as you all know I set my goals for 2010 and one of them was to give my testimony in French. My dear husband misunderstood my goals and thought they were for January! Ugh! He was scheduled to preach for the first time (in French) on Sunday. A couple of days before he so sweetly volunteered for me to give my testimony as well. Thanks, sweetie, you're the best. ;) I wrote out my testimony in English then did my best to translate it into french. Then, I gave it to Madame Claire to make sure it was right. I was very nervous to say the least. I love to give my testimony, but pronouncing things in french was a very nerve wracking thought for me! Madame Claire so graciously prepared me and Patrick to make sure we were ready. She said for the first several times we speak publicly we will just read what we have on the paper. The ab-libbing, outline type of speaking will come soon enough. I was so thankful for my paper! I read my testimony and I think it went pretty well for my first time.

Patrick did fantastic! He preached a message on "How to identify a Cult" I was so proud of my sweetie. He seemed very poised and confident, but he said on the inside he was extremely nervous, too! The children and I also sang "Abide with Me" in french and quoted our memory verse together as a family. It was a good beginning to our speaking French!

We were so thankful Madame Claire came to hear us. She normally attends her church on Sunday mornings, but chose to come hear us for this special occasion. She enjoyed being able to see Silas at church. She held him while Madame Lucie fed him some chocolate cake. He loved it! I asked Madame Claire if she would like a cup of coffee. She said "After I'm done with my joy" (talking about Silas!)

Everyone at church is so encouraging. Madame Sylvie is a sweet encouraging lady that we've enjoyed getting to know. She's one of the english speakers at our church. Although, those days have come to an end. Pastor Roy announced to everyone that we've come to the next stage in our learning french. There will be no more speaking english to us!! Whew! That's what we need, to be forced to speak! We'll see how it goes.

Another blessing is that today in class we started the advanced grammaire book (Niveau avance) Can you believe it!!! Madame Claire said we have so much french in our heads, now it's time to get it to come out on our tongues. That's the hard part. When we speak it feels like we're in slow motion. People have to be very extremely super duper patient to hear what we have to say. And it may be something as simple as "Did you have any cake?" It's helping us to have our class every other Sunday night with the kids. They're very helpful with our french and are teaching us new words. French is going well for us, but we still have a very long ways to go. It's all a process, but it's definitely a long one!