Are y'all ready to hear the miracle of my mission??!!!???
On the night of my missionary going away party someone gave me the advice of picturing a specific person/ people that I was sent to France to find. I took up the challenge and that night I wrote this in my journal:
"Here's what I'm picturing: Family. 2 parents, 5 kids. Living in a cute little French cottage. The parents have tattoos like the one family on the district. I get to come back and watch them be sealed.
I don't even know if that is possible because everyone says that my mission doesn't even teach any lessons, but I know the Lord can do what He wants. Why not get my hope's up?"
Well first I would like to say to all of those haters out there. We teach in the France Paris Mission.
And second, WE FOUND THIS FAMILY THIS WEEK.
Last weekend we received a cordonné from church headquarters for a lady named Murelle. With all headquarters referrals you can pretty much expect them to be SUPER awesome and prepared, or to not even exist. We called Murelle and set up a RDV for Wednesday. She sounded really adorable, but didn't explain anything to us about why she had requested a visit. As we rode to her house I was thinking "either this lady doesn't live in our sector or we have just never been over here before", but I trusted that it was because the mission office had given the referral to us. When we arrived we sat down in a park, in the SUN (sidenote...it's been 60 degrees and clear sunny skies all week...i am sunburned obvi) and waited for her. I was not expecting her to be at all like what she is. An adorable little French lady with short hair and tattoo sleeves. She led us over to the bus that we needed to get back to her house and started explaining to us how she had watched a documentary on the Mormon church and felt a burning sensation in her heart that told her that she needed to be a part of it. She explained how she loves how structured we are. How she loves the idea that we have a prophet and apostles. How she loves the idea that we can be married for eternity in the temple. How she was moving to Blois in July and had already looked up the address for the church over there!! I practically fainted. Then we got to her apartment...this is where the cute little French cottage is invalid...and met her husband, also tattooed...and learned that she has 5 CHILDREN. WHAT THE WHAT. My people actually exist. And want to be baptized, and sealed in the temple!! We talked about the Book of Mormon, which ironically is the only thing she is not sure about...kind of a problem seeing that it is the keystone of the religion...but we explained how she can pray to know that it is true and that God will give her her own personal witness. And she agreed to start reading and praying about it! I have never been so high after a RDV in my entire mission. I KNOW that it is not by coincidence that I met this family…
here's the catch...they actually don't live in the St.Ouen ward boundaries. Which means we had to pass them over to the Paris Lilas zone leaders (who had actually already received their cordonné as well and were teaching them later in the week). IT WAS SO HARD. I told the elders they have to call me after every rendez-vous...haha. But as much as this sucks, we will still be able to attend their baptism, and it doesn't change the fact that they actually exist and that for some random reason we were able to a little part of their conversion story.
And now I have more desire than ever to find a family in St.Ouen just like them. There is no such thing as impossible. This can, and will happen again.
Other than this this week has been AWESOME. I still don't know why bad weeks are so bad and good weeks are so good. Here are some of the wonderful things that have happened:
-I have a tan...ok sunburn...but its whatev. the SUN is shining. We are going on a bike ride in the Bois de Boulogne after this.
-Scott Michel, the son of Catherine Michel is getting baptized on the 29th of this month!!
-We passed by this crazy less active and she had a friend there who is a mom with three kids and we read the family proclamation to the world and the mom LOVED it and was asking us all kinds of questions about the church!
-We have been running up all of the stairs in and out of the metros. On Saturday night we got to a huge flight and were so tired, but just looked at each other and sang eye of the tiger up the whole thing. pretty much wish there was someone who could have gotten a third person video of that.
-Joyce fed us RIBS for dinner this week. I can't even describe the hilaria that is that household. They are my favorite.
My life is not real. I love living and serving here. Paris, although it smells like a giant public toilet, is a dream. I can't wait for y'all to see it.
All my love!
Soeur Johns
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