49th email from France (St. Raphael)

Hey, everyone sounds like you had a good week- us too! We just finished a little meeting with our district, everyone came here. It was good but it's probably the last time we're gonna see a sister missionary from Tahiti, Soeur Mahuru, so that was sad. Shes going home in two weeks at the end of this transfer. We ate together after. It was good but they made us this dessert with marscapone- kinda like whipped cream but nastier- so now i feel pretty bad! We had a good week, we were able to organize another little Tahitian night but this time it was just the wifes and us. It was really fun. We ate all together and joked around. They're all really chill. Our most solid member family is going back to Tahiti this week for good so thats gonna be hard for the branch and for all our amis Tahitian. So Sunday we were at the church and there is this member thats been talking about taking us to this mountain thats not to far away and maybe eating together and chilling a little so he asked us if we could and we didn't have anything planned so we figured why no. We went to his house after church and ate the left for this mountain. When we were in the car he's like "we can go see our old friend the hermit". I understood what he said but figured he was joking or something and we were both like "oh ok whatever". So we get up there to this little trail thing and we start going up a little then hes like " yeah, he lives up here not to far". Then we asked him a little more and he says "yeah, there's a guy that lives in a little cave up here, REALLY, he's a hermit." So we continue up the mountain and there it is sure enough just this cave with a door and kinda plexiglass windows all plastered into the sides of this cave. So the member knocks on the door and sure enough they really did know each other. They have been friends for a while. It was just an old guy thats been living there for 43 years and people bring him groceries and he doesn't leave. He used to be a Catholic priest or something and then he was excomunicated and that's his way of repenting- just living all alone out there. He played his little instrument and sang for us - a little funny french guy but the whole thing was pretty weird. He's Frere Antoine at the rocher de roquebrunein (if you want to look on the internet I'm sure he's there) He said someone had him singing on youtube but really it's quite the thing to see! Last night a really cool young family invited us to come over. They live in between here and Cannes so we had to take a bus but it was really good and they had a roqoulette to eat, which is always really good! I've had it a few times. They have lots of potatoes and ham and other meats then a machine that melts cheese and you pour it on top- pretty good. We have been eating good in our apartment. Also we have used our grill alot. We just bought a bunch of steaks so well be experimenting with those. Last week we did pretty good with our marinated pork. As for our amis, we have quite a few! They just all are doing good and progressing. It's just very slow. We seem to be talking about all the basic things alot, trying to get people to come to church. Yeah, awesome that Alex's papers are almost in. I'll probably write him an email with all the stuff I wish I had known. Mostly about what to bring. I have way to much stuff to lug around. Y'all seem to be having fun and going out alot. I really liked Dad's bathroom story! Oh, Rome is going to be fun! I'm sure your gonna like that. I'll start looking for a suit but I'm not in a big hurry. Sand boarding sounds fun! Well hey, thanks for everything! Love y'all, I promise I'll write all about our amis next week. I'm out of time. Taylor