CRAZIEST WEEK YET

You ready for this...

TUESDAY night I got to go to Angers again for transfers and have a sleepover with SOEUR JUDD and Souer Andersen!!! Made my life. Soeur Judd was my MTC comp, and I sorta knew Soeur Andersen from BYU, so it was great. The next morning Soeur Grewar and Soeur Andersen left and I got to spend the whole morning and afternoon being a missionary with Soeur Judd. It was a dream!!! I just love that girl so much. If I ever do something right I better get to serve with her again at the end of our missions. I am positive we would convert by the millions.

Then we went to the gare and I picked up SOEUR GARRETT and we hopped on a train back to Vannes. (BTW, Y'all I have the Euro train system DOWN by now. With SNCF I can get you anywhere.)

Okay so Soeur Garrett...

Most adorable human alive. Super bubbly and quirky and funny. She is SO GOOD AT DRAWING and wants to work for Disney Pixar. I want her to work for Disney Pixar. They need her. Hmm what else...she is actually TWINS with Erika Brown. She is SO amazingly great with people. If I had a dollar for every person who told her how great her French was, I would be rich. Yeah, so she is pretty much a direct answer to my prayers. She is JUST what Vannes needed & just what I needed. We have already worked SO SO SO hard and had SO SO SO much fun doing it. It's honestly so much more effective like that. I can tell we are going to be quite the little team.

THURSDAY I had done 3 things before 12AM that I never before done in my life. 1) called President 2) Drove 190 kilometers stick shift 3) ate lentils with 6 members of a vegan self-sustainable quaker community and taught them "Je Suis Enfant de Dieu" (I am a child of God) and the BOM. 

My life. LAWLZ.

Here's the story. 2 Sundays ago 2 women show up at church. Alexandria is a 28 year old RM from Connecticut who came to France to learn how to weave and to learn French (she went to Germany on her mission). She is staying with the other woman, Kate, who is a 50ish year old quaker who lives in a self-sustainable vegan community in the middle of France. Alexandria, bless her heart, had given Kate a Book of Mormon and invited her to church. (They hitch-hiked) (No I'm not kidding) There are 8 people who live in their community and one of them weaves and offers a course on weaving and that's how they make their living, and that's how Alexandria found them.

Kay, so Alexandria calls us up on Wednesday morning and asks if we want to come and have lunch with them. We say yes and offer to bring a dessert. And then she tells us they are Vegan, and me being my silly self said I could figure something out. Okay EVERY DESSERT HAS EGGS or MILK IN IT. We brought strawberries.

Anyways, we plug the address into the GPS and figure out that they live about 45 minutes away. No buses. Nothing. They hitch hiked remember? Not allowed in the white handbook.

But, like, we can't pass this up right? 8 quakers who need the GOSPEL.

So me, being...myself, is like "You know what, I've driven stick like 3 times in my life. I think I can do it." (Soeur Grewar and I had been practicing, but still 3 times) But I wasn't the designated driver, so I had to call President up and explain the situation and get permission to drive.

Our Conversation: (Translated from French to English) 

"Hey President" 

"Hello Soeur Johns" 

"So we have 8 people who need the Gospel and we've gotta drive out to them. Can I take the car?"

"Do you know how to drive in France?"

"I've watched the "Driving in France" video twice so I know the rules"

"(Laugh) Do you know how to drive stick?" 

"Yeah, I've driven stick a couple of times before." 

"Alright off you go. I feel good about this. Pray for safety before you leave."

Sweet. I was freaking out. Soeur Garrett was really freaking out. But I did it. Drove us all the way out there to that little vegan community without stalling once. Do you want to tell me there isn't a God who is looking out for us now?? Nope, didn't think so.

So we get to the 'Community' and it is 800 times crazier than I was ever imagining. We drive up and are greeted by Alexandria, 2 bearded men wearing pioneer clothes (Lo, my thoughts went out to you) and 2 shirtless kids. It was NUTS. Then we went in to their 'Cook house' and met the women (also wearing Pioneer clothes). We blessed the food by singing to it and then all went out and sat on the grass and ate.

It was actually really cool to talk about their beliefs. It turns out that Kate was actually the only quaker. Her husband was Muslim. The other couple was Russian Orthodox. and The other couple was kinda agnostic. They started the community to save money and all live together in spiritual harmony with the earth. They grow their own food and sleep in igloo hut looking things on straw layed out on the ground.

We told them about what we do as missionaries and the Book of Mormon, which Alexandria has already explained. Kate was reading it and really seemed to be liking it. We invited everyone else to read it and pray. And then we taught them "I Am a Child of God" because they love singing. It was cool. We plan on calling to check up on Kate's reading. None of them have a car, so I'm not sure how they would get to church...

But they already live the law of consecration, so they've got that going for them... 

My life. 

After them we drove over to the Mbey's who are kindof sortof progressing and taught them a really great lesson on keeping the Sabbath Day holy. And they said they would do it and gave us a specific day when they would come to church.

What a great first day for Soeur Garrett, right????

FRIDAY was great and I would love to tell you everything that happened, but all those stories will have to wait. However, we did go over to a less actives house who we're getting really close with and ate dinner with her and her non-member atheist finance and taught them. THEY ARE AMAZING. We invited them to the branch activity that was happening onSATURDAY and they CAME!!! Not only did they come, but they brought food, totally participated, and were one of the last families to leave. Atheist? NOT FOR LONG. :) We are seeing them again this week on Thursday and are going running with Soeur Temahuki on Saturday morning.

Oh and by the way. We had 5 AMI'S show up to our branch activity. PROGRESSION. 

SUNDAY 2 of our ami's showed up at church and it was AMAZING. The members we're all so excited about Soeur Garrett because she is just so dang funny. It's the best. Also on Sunday Soeur Garrett and I felt REALLY strongly that we needed to go over and visit the Elder's ami who is getting baptized this Saturday. His name is Ludo and he is AMAZING. He has been coming to church since I've got here and the changes he has made in his life are unreal! It was so weird that we we're both feeling like we needed to go see him, but we just couldn't stop thinking about it. So we called the Elders and asked if it was okay, haha. They said yes, and we went over there and it was crazy because he was like, "Sisters. I've been thinking about you all day, I really feel like you need to teach my wife." SPEECHLESS. God is real.

We actually went over and met Adele this morning. We had a really wonderful lesson with her. She's really willing to listen and very open but she doesn't really know a whole lot about the church and has some funny ideas about who we are :). It's going to be tough, but her husband is feeling it, and we are feeling it. So we're pretty excited. We invited her to the baptism and she's going to come.

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

Vannes feels like a whole new world. These last 12 weeks I grew up a ton and learned a LOT about self-motivation. It was really hard and I learned that you just can't do this work on your own. I'm sooooo sooooo happy to be with Soeur Garrett. She is so willing to work hard and I'm so grateful :)

I love you people so much. Don't forget about me okay. 

HAVE THE BEST FOURTH OF JULY EVER OMG I LOVE AMERICA.

GROSES BISES, 

Soeur Kayleigh Johns 

La Nouvelle

I just experienced my first TRANSFER EMAIL MONDAY 

 

Let me just try to paint a picture of what just went down....

speed walk down our street

take the bus to the internet café

RUN up the stairs

throw our bags on the floor

click on Google Crome 13 times

waittttttttttt

13 pages open at once. seriously

log onto myldsmail

sœur grewar starts yelling at me DONT YOU DARE OPEN IT TILL IM ON

I SEE THE EMAIL

I CLICK IT

SCROLL TO FIND MY NAME

 

I'm staying in VANNES.

BUT I got a new companion!  

 

#dramatic

 

For realz though my heart rate hasn't been that high since the MTC mini track  

 

Her name is Sœur Garret.

She's a red head She's been on her mission for a while.

 

That's the only thing I'm going off of right now.

 

I'm so excited. Change on missions is inspired. SOOOOO SOOOOO INSPIRED.  

 

That's all I got to say about that.

 

I'm so excited to show Sœur Garret all around Vannes and meet everyone! We have such a perfect week planned out too, A bit of everything... lessons, dinners, rebroadcast of the leadership training, branch activity, and FINDING. yes.

 

Back to last week...

 

Paris and Belgium were perfect.

I got to eat goufes (waffles), frites, kebab, AND belgian chocolate and see BRUXXELS with some of my favorite people in the world aka. mes MTC sœurs.

 

It was so great to be reunited. They are ALL seeing BAPTISMS. 

 

Side note: Here's the reason missionaries love baptisms:

Not so they can send a picture home and say they got one.

Not so they can impress other missionaires.

Not so they can feel like they did something right.

BUT

Because if an ami gets baptized that means they PROGRESSED. They gained a testimony of the BOM, they came to Church, they are living the commandements! They have CHANGED. And not only that but they have entered into a sacred covenant by a saving ordonnance. That's what I want for every single person that I love. That's why baptisms are such a happy happy thing. "Happiness is only real when shared" Right?

 

Anyways...I am so happy for my MTC Sœurs. I just want the same thing for my amis. And I KNOW I will see some this transfer. I can feel it.

 

Other than that nothing too crazy happened. just the daily grind. I really am going to miss Sœur Grewar. She is an amazing human. I know she is going to finish her mission strong! This has been such a growing time for the both of us. :)

 

Stay tuned. Miracles are about the HAPPEN.

 

Love you ALL so so so so so so so so so so so so so SOOOOO much.

I can't say that enough.

 

Love, Sœur Johns

 

 

BEST B-DAY evs.

Y'all are too good to me.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of my birthday wishes. I wish y'all could all see the smile on my face as I read them. I cried, I laughed, I screamed, I jumped up and down. QUITE a sight for all of the lovely people around me in this internet café :) THANK you for all of the pictures and updates!!! Congrats to all of you people who got pregnant, married, engaged, left on missions, got mission calls, GRADUATED (kenz). I feel like I was just bombarded with everyone's good news and it was the best present EVER! I'm beaming.

To celebrate my 21 years of life I'm going to tell y'all about 21 TENDER MERCIES that happened this week:

Y'all ready for this. duh nuh nuh:

1. RUGBY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP à Vannes this month. Vannes has been SWARMED with Australian and New Zealand tourists who all SPEAK ENGLISH and love Mormon missionaries. We've met the best people this week. & every time the All Blacks see the Elders they start doing the Haaka and it's the sickest. Soeur Grewar is in heaven. We "AUSSI AUSSI AUSSI" everyone we see!

2. Our next TWO weeks in Vannes are completely booked out with appointments!!!! With amis, less-actives and members alike! This Wednesday we even have lunch AND dinner appointments! You would think we were American missionaires or something!

3. ON FRIDAY we have zone training in ANGERS in the Loire valley! Angers is Soeur Grewars bleu ville (where she started her mission) so we are going to go around after and meet all of her converts! I've heard so many stories about them and I am so excited to meet them and bises their little faces!

4. The Teré family (Tahitian less-active we met week one) CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY for the first time since Christmas! They are making me a Tahitian feast tonight for my birthday! Love them so much, they are the chillest family in the world.

5. I get to go to PARIS for 2 days and Brussels, Belgium for 1 next week to do my Belge legality! We get to go on exchanges with another Bleu and so I get to be companions with SOEUR HENSON!! Our wildest dreams just came true! I can't wait to eat waffles, frites, and kebabs! And sleep and see Paris for another two days, this time we are staying right in Paris Centre! Ohh babbyyyyyy babbyyyy.

6. Madame G. (our country dancer) accidentally checked out a movie about Mormon Pioneers this week and was super touched by it! We have a dinner appointment with her and a member family this week. 

7. We finally got to watch the Worldwide Leadership Training that Elder Ballard talked about in Conference and it blew my mind. "Only the home is as sacred as the temple" Everyone, watch it! 

8. I learned how to drive stick!!! Thank goodness I've already had some good instructors :) (also learned how to check the oil, and how to do tire pressure, embarrassing that I JUST learned that)   

9. TWO of our less-actives agreed to start preparing for the temple: Soeur Isme and Frère MBEY! Soeur Isme already met with the Branch Prez! 

10. We sang our song in church yesterday! Joseph Smith's First Prayer to Come Thou Fount...in French. I almost fainted I was so nervous, but we survived and it wasn't too bad :) tears we're shed...not sure for what reason :) 

11. We hardly saw any rejection this week!!! Such a good breather! We got let into homes of 3 less-actives we've been working on since week one! All part-member families and all invited US to come back! One of them even texted me this morning to wish me a happy birthday and it made me cry. 

12. I finally had the chance to listen to the tape recording y'all sent me at the MTC. LOVED HEARING everyone's voices! Kenzie and Aubrey's songs were precious! 

13. Friday we had thunder and lightning for weekly planning. SWEET HOME ALABAMA, BAMA BAMA BAMA WOOOH.

14. Président Poznanski showed up at our district meeting this week and gave us so much motivation! We taught our best numbers ever this week! Prez. is soooo cool. AND so French, "bahhh oui" 

15. The Elders in Vannes showed up at our APT. this morning with a BANANA CREAM PIE WITH SPECULOOS CRUST with a candle on it and sang me happy birthday and it was the sweetest thing in the world. My little frères!!

16. The 1st Counselor of our branch presidency took us out to ice cream this week on the port and my shins and forearms got some sun. Holllaaa. It's been so SUNSHINY here all week. 

17. Today Soeur Grewar and I decided we were going to be Vannes tourists today and went and saw the Cathedral and then shopping around centre, and then to an actual restaurant and ate SEAFOOD. Sometimes you do get a little break on a mission. It was nice :) 

18. I've been dreaming like a mad-woman this week!! I had to start writing them down because they were just so cool. I've had so many inspirations this week come in this special way and I am loving it!!! 

19. Soeur Grewar and I planned out our trips to visit each other in America/Australia. Soeur Grewar wants to see Alabama, Texas, Provo, Nauvoo, Independence, and Newport/Disneyland. I want to watch Rugby and eat kangaroo and prawns off the barbie and go skydiving over the outback. Better start saving now. 

20. OUR MIRACLE OF ALL MIRACLES: We were at our DMB meeting, but left early to get to a Rendez-vous. When we got in the car we realized that we were an hour ahead of schedule on accident. We thought about going back into the meeting, but decided that there was a reason. We both though RANDOMLY of this less-active who we haven't hardly thought about since we've been here. We both just KNEW that we needed to go see her. We got to her house and she let us in, but was on the phone. When she hung up she told us that her sister had been on vacation with her children in Senegal and died of a heart attack and that the kids are stuck over there. She asked us to please pray with her then that they would make it back safe. Soeur Grewar offered a beautiful prayer and Soeur Dreano just kept telling us that we were sent to her by God. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!! 

21. I'M FINALLY 21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so glad I have made it to this and that I can stop just waiting and waiting for this birthday and just move on. I feel like the past 1 1/2 of my life have been centered around when I would turn 21 and be able to go on my mission. I feel really blessed to be turning this age and already have 4 months down. I still feel so young, but I think I've grown up at least a little bit :) I look back to high school and freshman year of BYU and just laugh at how I saw the world. I was so selfish and turned in and wasn't grateful for the little things. I'm so glad I decided to come out here. Missions are so much too handle, and some days I am like "seriously; how am I going to do this for 14 more months," but I know that this is right where I'm supposed to be. This was part of my path. 

Keep it classy my loves,

Soeur Johns 

               Getting you caught up with pictures: 

Dancing cause I'm 21

My banana cream pie

Yummy, yummy in my tummy

Get in my belly

Tim Tam Slams

Heaven in my mouth

Vannes is Perfect

Vannes is the cutest....A little tourist train

Rugby Tourney Flags

I LOVE FRANCE!

Just livin the life

Cathedral

Eating escargos and oysters! yummms

SOEUR GREWAR. Love this girl to deathhhhhhhh

SUNSHINE

Hellooooooo.

 

This week was just bursting at the seams with miracles again! Details will have to wait till story time 2014, but en brief:

 

1) Found a lady this week who had taken the missionary lessons a while back. Why didn't she get baptized?!! Cause the elders told her that Country Dancing is forbidden in our church. WHAT? Naturally HF had to send her a Texan to resolve that concern once and for all. She came to church this Sunday and we're seeing her this week to figure out when she wants to "follow the Example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority..." hahah. MIRACLE, right?

 

2) Mbey family is progressing so GOOD! We went over there this week with Soeur Bouaka (mother's day phone call family) and she became friends with Mamma Mbey right away and got her to stay and hear the lesson for the first time ever!! We testified of Christ and the Spirit was SOO SO strong and Mamma Mbey was "Amening" everything we were saying. She even opened up to us and told us that she was having problems with her 15 year old daughter and didn't know how to handle them. It was so awesome. They told us they would come to church as a family...which they didn't do...but i'm not giving up on them. They are SOO ready for the gospel in their lives.

 

3) Our District President gave us the address of his sister in law a while back and we finally got in touch with her last night. Coolest lady EVER. She's Buddhist and loves the earth and her house is the most perfectly decorated little french cottage...how do I even describe her? Let's just say I found Aunt Julie's long lost french twin. Ahh she's just the best. She knows English but wants to get better at it, so she told us that she wants us to come back once a week and talk with her and she will speak English and we will speach French and we will help each other out with our accents and such. I'm SURE I will have many stories for you about her.

 

Ahhh Vannes is such a good area!! I thought I was going to rot away here, but now I never want to leave!!! And the sun finally came out this week and I don't have to wear a coat, which makes me feel a little more like myself. It is SO beautiful here...I feel like I'm walking around in the pages of a fairy tale!

 

Y'all I really love this. My companion is the best. We see miracles every day. Heavenly Father always puts the greatest people in our path.  and I'm 100% certain that I am supposed to be here. The French culture is changing me.

 

OH AND I MADE SPECULOOS AND NUTELLA NO BAKE COOKIES THIS WEEK.

 

Okay not changing me too much. :)

 

TOUT LE MONDE ME MANQUE! aka miss y'all.

 

Je t'aime,

Soeur Johns

 

écriture of the week: proverbs 3:17

Ephesians 3:17

Have you ever had a moment where in the middle of it you thought to yourself, "How in the world did I come to be in this critical moment of this complete stranger's life?" If you answered yes, I would put big money that you've gone on a mission. This week was just loaded with moments like this, but I'm just going to focus on one because it pretty much flipped my universe upside down. 

Tuesday afternoon Soeur Grewar and I were walking from a lesson to go pass by an ami when I saw a familiar face out of the corner of my eye: PATRICIA. The first lady I ever mustered up enough courage to talk to on the bus during our second week here. We almost didn't even go over to her because we weren't sure if it was even her, but both of us got that little burning feeling in our hearts. Well it was Patricia alright, sitting on two duffel bags on the side of the road with a black eye and bruises head to toe. She told us immediately that she had been abused by her boyfriend, just left him, and had no friends, no family, and nowhere to go. You could tell that she was so tired and spent. Soeur Grewar got on the phone right away, called the Branche President's wife, and found a battered women's shelter. Then we took Patricia's bags and walked a solid mile or so to find the place. When we got there they put us in the waiting room and Patricia laid on my lap and just started bawling. I started rubbing her back and just looked at Soeur Grewar like, "how in the world do we help her?" I sat there in silence for a second and then pulled out the Book of Mormon and started reading from Ether Ch.12:27-the end in the best French I've yet to speak on my mission. It was in this moment that I actually realized how much I believe in this book. I wasn't sitting there reading it to her because it's what I felt like I was supposed to do as a Mormon missionary, but I was reading it to her because I knew with perfect clarity that these words could help her and that they were the words of God. After I was done reading she just laid there for a second and then sat up and took the Book of Mormon and kept going. We had a Rendez-Vous that we had to get to, but we set up a one with her for the next day to start teaching her how to change. Since then she has found a place to stay and we've met with her twice already. I can testify that there is no way we could have been in Patricia's life save it be by the hand of God. Heavenly Father loves that little lady so much that he sent us to her in time of greatest need to literally carry her burdens, help her find a place to rest, and offer her a new beginning through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God is love. 1 John 4:8.  

Love is really what missions are all about. You could go throughout every day following every principle of preach my gospel, being exactly obedient, and knowing your scriptures through and through, but if you don't love the people you serve it is all in vain, and the only person you end up serving is yourself. 

Christ loved us so much that he atoned for our sins and continues to watch over and abide with us. Does the world understand how much this means!!? He will not leave us comfortless, all we have to do is knock. 

On a less serious note....

Here are the 5 most random things I did this week:    

1) had a sleepover in Nantes with Soeur Alley. AKA went on a sister exchange. Nantes is BEAUTIFUL. I literally tracked next to a castle. I was laughing to myself thinking "this is what everyone back home thinks that I do all day" What a life. Soeur Alley was awesome as well. Super inspiring.  

2) Gave the Holy Ghost talk at a baptism on Saturday. What?? Yeah the Elders had a baptism. I have no idea why but the convert chose me to give the talk. First talk in French. Had to happen some day. 

3) A sister in our ward just left on her mission to St.George today, and the family asked the missionaries to prepare a slide show on America. (I prepared the food slide, naturally) I also had to give my testimony at the end in English, IT WAS SO HARD!!! Every time I would try to start it it was in French. Hahaha. Good thing no one could understand me because I said the most awkward things, "I uhhhhh know that Joseph Smith was a uhhhh prophet a long time ago and I'm uhhhh really grateful for the Pioneers?" Hahahah. I think I'm just going to stick with French. 

4) WE DID IT, we sang our song. Oh boy was it painful!! Hahahaha. Don't worry, it's recorded! But no one will see it until my funeral. :) 

5) Taught a bunch of lessons and did a bunch of other cool stuff, but I don't have time to tell ya!! None of our amis have dropped us yet! YEHAW. 

Je t'embrasse, 

Soeur Johns 

P.S. I don't think I've told y'all enough how much I love my companion. Literally every single day I just love her more. I am NOT excited that transfers are in a month. Companions are by FAR the easiest part about a mission so far.  

Precious Sister Grewar

French Countryside

Beautiful Yellow Field

Castle in Nantes

We forgot our dress shoes after tennis and had to teach the lesson in our Nikes!

Miracles happen once in a while when you believeeeeeee (baby down on dreamstreet)

HOLA.

Yesterday was a bank holiday...again. So the internet place was closed that's why this is comin at ya a day late.

First off, KELSIE owwwww owwwww what a babe. I'm so DANG happy for y'all. may or may not have shed a tear looking at the pictures just now. 

Alors, my weekly update:

Let's start with a good laugh: Guess who is singing in church next Sunday...Ocapella...harmonizing with Soeur Grewar and the Elders...singing the melody. Hey it's me. I'm so glad I had the foresight to put singing in church on my bucket list or I would have had a heart attack when they asked us too. Hahahaha. YOLO. Don't worry I'm totally sticking my tape recorder under the pulpit cause this will only happen once. :) Oh, the life of a missionary.

This last week was too good too be true.

I'm just going to list the miracles that happened:

1) FHE with the family from our ward and their neighbor went SO well. Their neighbor is so awesome and so NORMAL! She reminds me of a classic McKinney mom. & She's praying right now to know if the BOM is true, how great is that? Soeur Grewar shared her conversion story with her and she LOVED it. She's Catholic, but doesn't really practice and she want her kids to find God so she's looking for a way. I think we can help her out with that :)

2) We book 7 lessons last Tuesday for today alone!! We are about to allez-y and start teaching right after this and I'm SO HAPPY. Heavenly Father is so so so good and He keeps His promises. I've been asking Him since day one to help us be more busy and fill our days with good things to do, and finally this week we have so much going on we hardly know what to do with ourselves! :) So many people in this Ville are ready to hear this Gospel, it's amazing!

3) We finally had a chance to go out and teach the 13 year old who has been coming to church every week and her family. Her dad, older brother, sister in law, and sister are converts to the church, but her mom is pretty against it...or so we thought! We went over to their house and talked to them about the temple and how families can be sealed together forever, and all of them were like "yeah we want this how can we have it"!!! And then we asked them to be baptized and they were like "oh never mind". Hahaha. But then we explained WHY we have baptism in the first place and they said that they both wanted it, but they just weren't ready yet! The dad just bore his testimony so strong after that about how he KNEW that one day he would have the blessing of kneeling in the temple with his family and the spirit was so strong. The oldest daughter also told us that she is thinking about going on a mission!! I told her we could help her practice with her family ;) It was really awesome and we are going back there next week to teach them again!

4) There was a baptism yesterday for the son of the new Madagascan family who just moved into our branch! It was so beautiful and I've never been more aware until now how much a baptism means! They invited us over last night to do FHE, eat Malagash food, and PLAY TENNIS with them. My life was complete. They are the CUTEST people. I want to put them all in my pocket.

5) THE MIRACLE OF THE WEEK. MADAME PIERRE SHOWED UP AT CHURCH YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought we were never going to see her again and then boom, she just walked in to the chapel and my jaw dropped. She told us that she had woken up at 6:00 that morning and heard a call from God that told her to go to the Mormon church. She totally participated in all of the lessons and even cried in Relief Society!! I am so happyyyyyy. We are going to go see her after this and see if she wants to join the church or something :)

So Y'all, when people tell ya that European missions are hard, believe them. But when they tell ya that European missions don't teach or baptize or eat with members or make you happy ITS just NOT TRUE :)

I'm grateful every single day to be out here. This is the best thing I could be doing with my life right now. This is the most beautiful country in the world, and while only 30% of the population believe in God and 5% go to any church at all, the Lord has still directed us to find people to teach who are ready for His Gospel. If that isn't convincing evidence that this is the Lord's work and that we have the true Gospel, I don't know what is! I have been reading Acts and I just keep realizing more and more how 1) the Lord's true church has always been a missionary church and B) how much I can relate to Paul and all of the other apostles who were the first missionaries of this church. Everything they said and did is exactly what we are taught to say and do: "Preach by the Spirit."
 The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever y'all. He had His missionaries back then, and he has them now. I feel so blessed to be out here doing this and helping to bring all these wonderful people to a knowledge of the truth!

LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH! Kendl, Lo, Jen, Rinners, Kenz, Mads, Kalish, and Erika reading y'alls emails are SUCH a strength to me!! I'm so happy we're all doing this together! :)

AVEC AMOUR, 

Soeur Johns

P.S. I have the WORST track record for getting bised (the kiss on both cheeks) by men. 3 times this week. THEY CORNER ME IT'S SO AWKWARD.

Note for Maman: If you happen to be sending me a package anytime soon (like maybe for June 10th or something) could you sneak in a black Stila eyeliner like the one Kenzie uses? I am nearly out and it is the best one cause it stays on your face through rain/tears :) Love ya Momma! I'm so SO happy you liked your present:) 

When they say Paris France is a hard mission, THEY MEAN IT :)

Chère famille et amis,  

first off, IT WAS SO GOOD to see your faces yesterday!!! made my life. everyone looked so good....even dad. hahah. 

Hanging up was so hard. I didn't want to do it and after we just sat there and both cried for a minute but then we walked out and Soeur Bouaka had made us crepes and chocolate cake and I just kindof forgot to be sad. fk. 

I seriously can't believe that Aubs is driving and that she already got pulled over. hahaha. I am so proud and SO scared that she is following right in my footsteps. :)

Ahh and Kenzie you are already so good at guitar that was amazing I wish I could have heard more, I can't get over it. BYU better watch out. 

Mom you looked so good and I actually beat myself up because I'm pretty sure I completely forgot to wish you a Happy Mother's Day. I'm the worst. I hope you know how much I love you and wouldn't pick another person in the world to be my mom! :) & you looked way too good as well. must be all of that boxing. 

Dad, Soeur grewar and I were laughing so hard on the way home at how much you have stalked us and our ville. You knew everything there is to know about Vannes. Too good. & thanks for all the great advice you KNOW how bad I need it.

For the rest of you wonderful people who didn't get to see my face yesterday i'll give you a petit update on this week: 

I learned lesson #20932034243 this week. I think it will be one that I will learn time and time again: When you have a bad week where it seems like NOTHING is going your way you should get really excited, happy, and grateful because you can know with certainty that a miracle is on the way. 

Oh my goodness did that happen or what. 

This week was awful. Every person we tried to see cancelled, no one called us back, Madame Pierre dropped us like its hot, and everyone who we went looking for wasn't home. It was just door after door after door of "Ça me n'intereste pas", and I couldn't take it. I felt like I had been straight up abandoned and that I was the worst missionary in the world. Literally, I'm not exaggerating it got to the point on Friday I was just laughing at how bad it was we had gotten 1 cordonne for the WEEK. I felt like every person who we knew in the ville had just up and moved or something and I'm not going to lie I wanted to do the same. 

We had one Rendez-vous scheduled for the week on saturday with a less active family who lives about 45 minutes out of our ville. So we drive (oh yeah we have a car now, score) over to their house and knock on the door and guess what. NO ONE ANSWERS. 

But then we figure out we accidentally went to their neighbors house and then we found their house and they let us in. 

Hello beautiful family of 7 children who all aren't baptized and are all way too happy than usual to see us. 

We start talking to the dad and ask him why he's not coming to church and stuff like that and it turns out that he's a cardiovascular surgeon who is always on call. He told us that he wished that he could come to church, but that the chapel was too far away and that if he went and got called in he would be putting lives on the line. He shared his conversion story and how he knows that the church has given him everything and that he wishes he could go to church. Sticky stuff. 

Then we told him we wanted to share a message with his family and he called everyone over and made them sit down in the living room and asked one of his daughters to say the prayer. Then we pass out Livre de Mormon's to the whole family and give them pencils to mark things while we read. 

PAUSE, this is not a NORMAL lesson already. In France normal is sitting at some old ladies table as she spills her life story and tells you why she doesn't believe in God and then allows you to pray with her. 

Anyways, then we start reading Alma 32 about how faith is a little seed (we actually hijacked a lesson that Sister Woomer gave to the YW when I was like 15 where she brought seeds and showed us how tiny our faith needs to be to let Heavenly Father start to grow it. So thanks for being awesome Sher-bear!) All of the kids were totally engaged and marking and asking questions. There was a point in the beginning of the lesson where I tangibly felt the Spirit enter the room. It was unmistakable, as real as if another person actually walked in to join us. I knew that everyone else was feeling it to and I just wanted to cry I was so happy. At the end we asked all of the kids if they would continue to read their scriptures every night and start to grow their faith in Jesus Christ and they all said they would! Frère Mmbay LOVED IT and invited us to come back later in the week and teach them again. We told them that next time we were going to talk about what we do after we develop faith in Jesus Christ aka be baptized. :) Then we all knelt down and closed with a prayer. 

I'm not kidding I felt like I was filming The District. 

That lesson was worth every single trial we had gone through before and every single trial I can now expect to go through this week because it was just TOO GOOD. I love being a missionary! I don't feel like I'm a good one yet at all, but practice makes perfect right? 

Ahh soo good. Pray for this family! We are going to see them get baptized I just KNOW it. 

Welp I'm all out of time as usual. Love you all SO MUCH:) 

Soeur Johns