Bonjour! January 2, 2017

Well I am no longer an Hermana but I am whatever you call a sister in
French! Galesburg is great and I love it. It is kind of like a larger
Freeport in that the first person I talked to when I got here offered
us drugs 😶 haha it's great. There is a big community of people that
have come here from the Congo and we are teaching two families from it
and they are so cool and nice. But they speak very very little English
and a whole lotta French! So it is hard to talk to them sometimes, but
we have a family that got baptized about 6 years ago and so they come
to our lessons and translate for us!! They are great. There is a meat
packing factory called FarmLand that brings a lot of people in from
the Congo and gives them jobs at their factory so that's why there are
so many here. One of the families we are teaching knew the family that
are members back when they both lived in the Congo so that is cool!
And the Father of the other family has a brother back in the Congo who
is in the bishopric in one of the wards out there!! So cool.if that
made any sense.. They are very fun to teach. We also teach English
class twice a week to them and a lot of their neighbors as well so
that is cool! That was probably my favorite thing that we have done so
far, it is a really cool experience. Also English is terrible and hard
to explain.
I hope you all had a good New Years and went to church! What better
way to start off 2017 than at church? There was a great talk given at
sacrament about how YES actually you can change. Even if you don't
keep your resolutions it doesn't mean it's over. Every day can be the
beginning of the new year. I don't know really what I am saying right
now. Make your yearly goals, but take them one day at a time I think
is what I am trying to get at.
Sister Wallace is great! She's breaking the mold and is my first
companion to have come out here from California! She is cool
Don't let ur dreams be dreams
Sister Madsen
Also sorry this email is short and terrible.

First off are pictures of Freeports classy art museum

Good bye to Amber!! And Judy! And I saw Keynora and Roschea before I
left as well as Darien

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This is probably the last picture I will take with sister smith for a
long time which is rude. But the four of us got to ride together on
the transfer van for a lil