Butter(flies), Pidgin French, and Hidden Blessings

October 25, 2020

Rebonjour mes amis!

I can't believe how fast this week went by!  But hey, I guess that's something I'll just have to get used to as a missionary. My life is starting to feel a lot like listening to the scriptures, because time is definitely moving at 1.75x speed haha. It's hard to believe that I've only got two weeks left in the MTC; I'm going to miss my district and my teachers so much! I can already tell that my time in the MTC will be a highlight of my mission, but I'm still super excited to get into the field and start sharing the gospel with others. As the amazing Frère Benchley put it: missions aren't always "rainbow, sunshine, and butter(flies)," but that just means it's even more important to treasure the good times. And yes, he did accidentally say butter instead of butterflies hahaha. His words were so inspiring, though, that Elder Labit and Elder Fairchild are making t-shirts for our district and our teachers with his quote on them. 

Speaking of Frère Brenchley, he actually served his mission in Montreal, and he's been telling those of us that are heading there a little bit about life in the Great White North. The first thing I'll say is that the Québécois accent is bizarre, like so weird I honestly don't know how to describe it. I guess it sounds a little bit like a combination of French and Mandarin or some sort of Asian language. I would say that Québécois French is to Parisian French what a Southern drawl is to BBC English, but that still wouldn't adequately describe the disparity between Canadian French and French from France. I'd encourage all of you to watch a youtube video or something comparing the two, because they sound different enough that it's almost comedic. In all honesty though, I'm actually really excited to learn the "pidgin French" of Montreal. I'm also excited to try the most quintessential dish of French Canadain cuisine: poutine! For those of you who've never heard of poutine, it consists of french fries covered in cheese curds and smothered in gravy - and whatever other toppings you decide to put on it. I know what you're thinking, "that sounds disgusting!" At first, I wasn't convinced either, but after hearing Frère Brenchley gush about it, I'm willing to give a shot, so stay posted for the day I finally get to try authentic poutine!

I feel a little bit like Mormon and Moroni writing this week's email, because I can only record a hundredth part of everything that's happened over the past seven days. There were lots of funny moments and powerful spiritual experiences, but, looking back, I can see a theme that many of them had in common: recognizing the subtle ways that God blesses us. 

Last week I talked a lot about pronunciation in French, and this week I want to share a little about a topic that's even more fascinating and which relates quite well to this week's theme. Unlike Spanish where the main way to ask a question is through intonation, there are a few grammatical rules for forming questions in French, and one of the most common methods is called inversion. Inversion is basically swapping the order of the verb and the pronoun in a sentence in order to form a question, like switching vous allez to allez vous. I thought this concept was just silly until I realized that we do the same exact thing in English when we say "are you" instead of "you are" or "can you" instead of "you can." I was reminded of a quote Frère Bennet shared with me that says something along the lines of, "you can't truly understand your language until you try to learn another." My eyes were opened to notice something that I'd been doing without thinking for my entire life. I noticed other stuff too while we've been learning French, like the fact that we don't really pronounce the "t" at the end of words like cat, hat, mat... etc. This whole time I've been making fun of the French for not pronouncing half of every word when I don't even pronounce half of my own name! 

This same concept came up in a more spiritual setting this week during one of our practice teaching lessons. We've been teaching a woman named Ines about the idea that God is loving Heavenly Father and that we can communicate with him through prayer. When we started explaining that God doesn't always give us obvious answers or answer to our prayers or answer them in the way we might be expecting or even hoping for, I shared a couple of experiences from my own life where the Lord has blessed me in subtle ways. The most recent example came from this week during our first practice teaching session that was entirely in French. It wasn't like the spirit made brand new words that I'd never even learned before pop into my head or gave me a perfect understanding of what was being said, but I was somehow able to almost always understand the gist of what Dorothée (the lady we were teaching) said and get my point across even when my limited vocabulary got in the way of me finishing a sentence. The Gift of Tongues can be subtle, but I know that the assistance it gives is very real and very tangible. I also talked about the way God blessed me during some of the hardest and loneliest parts of my life by helping me find things that brought me joy, such as music, and helping me to meet friends who truly made me feel like I belonged. I may not have been able to see how God was blessing me during those trials, but looking back it's clear that he was helping me in ways I hadn't expected.

This week I'd invite all of you who read this letter to reflect on ways that God has blessed you in your life that maybe you've never noticed before and to look for the subtle ways that God blesses us in our daily lives. Remember, all good things come from God! I know that if you try to look for and identify the blessing God has and is giving you, you will be blessed with increased happiness and be better able to see and feel the love that God has for you! That's all for this week (Sorry for the very lengthy email! This thing's way longer than I was anticipating. Hopefully Mr. Reese would be proud haha).

Love you all,

Elder Jackson 

P.S. We played 20 questions this week as a break during one of our classes, and I chose butter as my item (to pay homage to Frére Brenchley's unforgettable quote of course). I thought it would be pretty simple to guess, but I accidently caused a philosophical debate after I tentatively answered yes when asked if my item was a breakfast food. Many people in both my district - and even my own family - called me crazy for calling a condiment like butter a breakfast food. But to those who say a condiment can't be synonymous with a specific meal of the day, I would ask, do you consider syrup a breakfast food? As someone who has eaten eggo waffles everyday for breakfast for pretty much 98% of my life, I would say yes! Syrup is a breakfast food! And if syrup can be a breakfast food, then why can't butter?! Personally, I can't imagine eating toast, pancakes, or waffles (three of the most iconic breakfast foods known to man) without butter. In the end though, I don't really care whether people disagree with me that butter is a breakfast food, because, the truth is, real butter doesn't matter anyways since spray butter is just waaay better 

Pictures: 

Meeting (some of) My District in Person! 

Chili's (without) the Boys

Akimbo Ice Cream Cones

On the Letter Writing Grind