Friday, June 24, 2011

Ecouté (listen)

You want to know something interesting?

When you throw a little kid in the deep end who doesn't know how to swim,
they might drown.

And if you leave them there, they may just do that.

Unless they are strong.
Although sometimes,
it just never is enough to be left on your own.

I guess this explains me, at the moment. Here I am, thrown into something completely different from my ordinary, thousands and thousands of miles away from my family, my friends, and my entire life pre-Français; and yet while definitely drowning at the start, now that is starting to change.
For the better.

Yesterday and today, I have had the opportunity to accompany Florence at work: She's a teacher.
A kindergarten teacher.

You know what this means, kids? They don't speak English. And how old are they? 5 and 6.
#1 problem: they speak French only.
#2 problem: they have that little kid accent thing. (where sometimes you don't even know what little kids are saying even in your own language)

So yesterday I was basically dying trying to understand what these little kids kept pestering me about, and shooting a thousand questions for me, and all i could say is "Je ne sais pas.." (I don't know) or "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand) or "oui" (yes) or "non" (no). And that was it.

I wanted to crawl in my bed that night and just cry..
But I said to myself,
"Stupid, what are you thinking. Of course you can't do this alone. Don't you DARE cry and pity yourself when you haven't even asked your Father in Heaven for His help."

So that's exactly what I did.

I said my prayers in French last night.

And guess what?
I understood twice as much as I did yesterday, and it required much less effort.
I was able to speak more, and enjoy myself.
I'm learning a lot.

That was my #1 lesson for today. You can learn from it too.
Listen to your heart, when no one else is there to help you.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my little Emily...you are learning so many important, valuable, life-lessons that I felt you could only learn by doing something hard. Forgive me for throwing you in the deep end, but I knew you were strong enough to learn to survive...notice I didn't say "swim"...you might only learn to doggie paddle to the side in three weeks. :) Love and miss you sooooooooooooooooooooooo much. Mom

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  2. i love you emily. you can do this, you can. it's such an amazing experience you are having, learn from it. i'm so proud of you! and jealous of course! your big sis mads is here in orem praying for you. i love you!

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