Tuesday, June 03, 2014

gold to cold, and cold to gold.

OH y'all. 

I cannot wait for you to meet the Roeun Branch. They are something else! We had a lot of good member bonding time this week, and actually a lot of good lessons, and now that I'm thinking about it we met a lot of really good people too. This week was just really GREAT.  

play by play? 

MONDAY night we went over to the Bertrand's. Literally if my future looked like theirs I would be A-OK. :) They are the most adorable young couple with 6 kids and they are sooooo strong and FUN. And they really grasp what the Gospel is all about and it is so refreshing! President Bertrand is a volunteer firefighter and is in the process of sharing the gospel with a bunch of his co-workers! Remember the wedding from a couple of weeks ago? Those are their friends. I love people who are brave enough to share the gospel! 

TUESDAY we taught Ludivine. She was being taught by the other sister equipe, and is preparing for baptism on the 28th of June so please pray for her! She is awesome and JUST what the church here needs. She is 28 years old, a nurse, and just really responsible and normal. Love that!! We talked about the Plan of Salvation, more specifically Christ's Atonement, and she asked the BEST questions. She was working this Sunday, but she still asked if she could swing by the church and drop something off for the branch luncheon even though she couldn't stay! Sounds like a future leader to me! :) That night we went over to the Bitanga's and taught them our hand trick for the 10 commandments and then over to the Warengheins to eat with them and their daughter and son-in-law. It was TOO much fun. 

WEDNESDAY we met a lovely muslim lady from senegal on the bus who is curious about our message, we ported into a nice muslim man who works as a manager of a restaurant and interested to hear more, a 22 year old atheist who wants to take a tour of the church and learn more about what we do as missionaries, a student from Cameroon who studied abroad in Canada and has a Mormon friend over there who talked to her a little about the church already, and a cute protestant lady named Deborah who thinks what we are doing is cool. We also met up with Camille, Wendy, and Anne-Zoé! Ah, I just love them so much. They agreed to come to church next week! Progress. We also taught the Kalobe family! They literally treasure their Book of Mormons. They have been reading it together every day and love it. They still could not make it to church this week though :(

THURSDAY was kind of a struggle. We chased down a bunch of people with little luck. But we did have a lesson about the 10 commandments and keeping the Sabbath day holy with an old ami named Juliette. yeah...she still didn't come to church so I don't know how well that went. haha. Unreliable people will be the death of me. That night...is just a story for another day. 

FRIDAY morning we were walking to the church to teach a lesson and we contacted a lady on the way. She was PRECIOUS. she agreed immediately to come and take a tour of our church with us. She grew up protestant with her dad as the preacher and she said that our church reminded her a lot of the one that she grew up in. One of the first questions she asked us was "Do you have hymnals?" Haha. We don't get that one like EVER. We sat down with her and sang a couple of hymns and she cried. She prayed for us at the end and thanked God that she was able to meet two "women of God" in this crazy world and that she knows it is not a coincidence. We are meeting with her this week. :) After that we saw Ludivine again and it went great and then we had DMB meeting. We taught Nina that night about Christlike attributes and as usual she just ate it right up!! We are praying hard to know what is REALLY stopping her from getting baptized. 

SAMEDI. We had a lot of people frudge us, but managed to have a great day of finding quand même. ALSO, a lady on a segway gave us coupons for free tacos and we went and ate them for dinner that night. tender mercies. The best part of the day was our lesson with Rachel!! Who knew she was actually SO interested! We watched the Resto film, invited her to be baptized, and she came to church the next day!! Yay!! Finally someone who is into this!! 

SUNDAY was interesting. We missed the sacrament looking for one of our amis haha and had to take it after church in the Branch President's office. whoops. We also had a branch meal after church and it was so fun to be around the members. I LOVE OUR BRANCH. 

Yeah! That was our week! I hope that y'all are doing great! I am so sad about the ward change, but I know that the Lord needs y'all in the 2nd ward and that you are going to rock it. Plus, what could be more fun than BISHOP NAHOO? It will be great. M5 forever. 

gros bisous, 
Soeur Johns 

The Bertrand Family!

Sometimes this is what porting feels like.

Rachel, we love her and her coconut beignets

Souer Berge playing badminton with the members

Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my.

Transfer news.
No changes. So yes, we are the happiest campers. 

On top of that the other soeur companionship got taken out of rouen, so basically our number of amis just doubled. 

Goodbye lunch and dinner hours. 

Hmm/ what words could I even use to describe this week? out-of-the-o.r.d.i.n.a.r.y that's for sure. We spent more time in prefectures getting legal in this country than doing anything else. But I can officially stay in France until 2015 now, so... see you then? 
Cool miracle with the kalobe family this week. We had a lesson with them this week about the Book of Mormon and we brought one of our members named tarolin with us. Turns out that both Tarolin and Mr.Kalobe played professional football. Insta friends. The lesson went great and the family is excited to start reading together every night. The only thing that is holding this family back right now is that they haven't come to church. We are working on it.

We also had a great last minute lesson with noella this week. someone else fell through so we texted her to see if she wanted to meet with us and she did! love it when that happens. it just so happens that fr.bitanga, our dmb, was at the church early for a meeting so he taught her with us. He is the most incredible teacher. ever. We taught the restoration and her questions were incroyable. The spirit was so strong as we were talking about Joseph Smith and it was a confirmation to me, yet again, of the reality of his prophetic call. She was really taking things in but she kept saying, "I don't want to change my religion." I know that she understands that this message will require change, but what she needs to understand is that we are not asking her to change her religion. We want her to stay Christian, but realize that there is so much more than just that!! Christ's real and living church is back on the earth!! There is more that we can do and more blessings than we could ever even imagine. 

Then we saw Laura. It has been a while since we had seen her. we got a text from her saying she wasn't really interested in the church anymore for the moment..we were devastated! She was on the path with a baptismal date! we wanted to hear why the sudden change, so we set up a RDV and went over to her house. She started by telling us that she had watched more conference talks and knows the church is good and one day she may get baptized...which is AWESOME, but she ended by saying that she doesn't feel like right now is her time, nor that she wants to lead a Mormon lifestyle. It is so sad because we know how much this will bless her now! But we respect her agency and just love her anyways! I know one day she will be ready and we don't want to push her or force her to baptism. she has to want it. one day. 

We also had the BEST P-DAY OF ALL TIME. Meet the Warheingans. best. people. ever. they took us to the zoo and packed us a huge picnic. We had a blast. I love member bonding time. & there is nothing quite as pretty as the Normandy countryside from a car window. 

ALSO, I got to go back to ST.OUEN and spend the night because I started my legality in Versailles. It was so good to see Soeur Hosking, she is doing amazing!! She is SPEAKING ON THE PHONE IN FRENCH. miracle child. Also, TEX got baptized! I never thought that would happen, but i am learning fast to never say never. That place is still exploding!! Ahh, also Soeur Hosking just got transferred to LIEGE!! Which means, a) we are living the same mission and i am obsessed and b) YOU GET TO MEET HER WHEN YOU PICK ME UP!! I feel so blessed. 

Other than that this week was pretty steady. Our amis are progressing slowly, but we have a lot of faith that they are going to make it. We are really excited to stay this next transfer and really get things rolling here. I know that miracles are coming. Stand watch. 

bisous bisous, 
soeur johns 

District photo. Trying to hide those double digits. 


The jungles of France. 

Favorite animal. 

Nothing in the white handbook about not holding BABY GOATS.

One more. Doing the family name proud.