kales takes paris: 2014-02-16

Ma chère famille et mes amis,

Lundi. P-day, then we went and met Doris. An amazing lady from Nigeria who Soeur Thibault and I met on exchanges. She is a mom with 5 kids. The last two are three year old twins. They were super scared of us because "it was the first time they had ever seen white people".....hahah would not have expected that to happen to me on my mission in France. They must not get out much.

Mardi. So remember that Pastor from last week? Well, turns out that Madame Cherif is also a part of his congregation. She went back to her church last week raving about the two american girls who come to her house and teach her about the truth, and supposedly Madame Bernard chimed in about how she adores us as well. Well, coincidentally she was invited over that night to her Pastors house to eat, and has been visited by him regularly, and given a bunch of church materials that she can't read. Oh man, we died when we heard that.

Mercredi. We had ZONE CONFERENCE and interviews. We talked all about the primary song, "if you chance to meet a frown..." and how attitudes and desires determine your success. And it's SO TRUE, they do!! Once you just give yourself over to the work, everything becomes so happy and great things just happen. In my interview with President he told me that to him I am "the happy soeur" and I took that as the best compliment I could get. He also told me that due to BYU's start date he is sending us home a half-transfer early. At first I didn't know how I felt about it cause I don't want to ever regret not doing a whole 18 months, but then I realized that was psycho and that it is going to be SUCH a blessing to spend 2 weeks in Mckinney with y'all vs. 2 days. So I am officially coming home the 31st of July (harry potter's birthday) hope that doesn't throw anything off. It was SO weird to talk about coming home. That has been the last thing on my mind, especially serving with Soeur Hosking who just got here. ANYWAYS...that night we had the BEST LESSON EVER with Eric and Frère Poznanski and set Eric for baptism the 15 of March!!!!!!!!!!! With Eric it's not if or when he is getting baptized it's if or when he is going on a mission! He is prepared as it gets. And asks the best (and some of the strangest) questions ever.

Jeudi. We went and said goodbye to Audrey who is going back to Illinois for the next three months. I know she is going to come back a baptized women and that is the best thing that could happen. Nothing else too crazy happened on Thursday other than I fell down the stairs on the RER and was picked up by an Asian tourist. We also visited Alicia, who is getting baptized this Saturday! :)

Vendredi. OH VALENTINES DAY....hahaha...BEST v-day ever. Literally don't think it will ever ever be topped. haha. In the morning we went up to Versailles to do my 2nd year legality. After which we went to the best pâtisserie I've yet to try in France. Since it was valentine's day and a friday we got two pastries...chocolate almond croissant and pistachio eclair...okay maybe that was a little (wayyyy) TF, but they were divine. The night before I had thought to call Anne (our lady who is in love with the Catholic Priest) and ask her if she had anyone to spend St.Valentin's with because if not we would love to spend it with her. Being Anne she LOVED this idea and invited us over to eat. We got there and started chatting as normal and gave a little lesson on "true love" aka. charity & the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We thought that she must have forgotten that she had told us she would feed us so we started wrapping up and getting ready to go when she said "okay, get your coats on were going out to dinner!!" Lo and behold, she took us out to a steak dinner at a SUPER fancy French restaurant. She knew the owner and announced to him that we were Americans, so he sat us at the best seat in the house and treated us like royalty the entire night. We ate soup and bread, steak and potatoes, and finished with a yummy desert. I even got proposed to by the bar tender down on one knee with a rose in his mouth. Don't worry, I said no.

Samedi. CATHERINE MICHEL GOT BAPTIZED!!!! Everything went off without a hitch and she is so happy to be a member of the church. I love how happy our ami's are when they get baptized. I love that we didn't have to convince her once that this was the right thing for her to do, she just prayed about it and got an answer and knew for herself. She was glowing and it was precious. We also went out the ghetto, like past the shantys ghetto, and taught new family.

Dimanche. Catherine Michel received the gift of the holy ghost! She came back to sit by me after and I asked her how she felt, she just said "I can feel it! He is there" Ahh, love those moments. Another awesome miracle, Olga and her husband came to church again and set a RDV to meet with us this week :) ALSO, there is this man in the ward named Jean Francois and he has a girlfriend who had been coming to church every week for the past month. I thought that the Elders were meeting with her until she turned to me after Sacrament meeting and said, "hey, I think I want to get baptized here in St.Ouen what do I need to do that?" WHAT!!!!!! We are meeting with them on Saturday to talk details! Also, Alicia passed her baptismal interview!!! It made the 2 hours we spend porting in the rain that night easy as pie.

Seriously, we are being so blessed right now!!! St.Ouen is on fireeeee. As Soeur Hosking likes to say "we own this town and are evicting Satan."

Y'all. I love YOU. Congrats tay bay bay on the engagement, Lo, for being 22 ooooh ooooh oooh oohh, and Aubs for killing it as always at the track meet. Stay strong, keep it classy, and see you in 5.

Bisous, Soeur Johns