hey, guess what...

IM GOING TO BELGIUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Liège, to be exact.

 

It's a BIG French-speaking city over by Germany and the Netherlands.

 

So BIG that there are 3 EQUIPES! (2 Elders & 1 Sœurs)  

 

I'M SO EXCITED!

Big city. Big city. Big city. Big city. BIIIIGGGG CITTTYYYYY.

 

Weird that I'm leaving France, right??

 

My new companion is Sœur Foster! I don't know much about her, all I know is she has some pretty dang big shoes to fill after Sœur Garrett. We are in mourning.

 

Vannes is still on fire. We ended this week with a bang.

 

En bref:

 

Adele is progressing A TON. She's a Miracle. We took her over to Felicia's house this week where Joy did her tresses. Now the three of them are best friends and were hanging out today!!! WITHOUT US!!!! Joy and Adele are going to get baptized this next transfer. I have ZERO doubts.

 

Saying goodbyes were so hard, but I don't know. I just feel SO much peace about all of this. It just feels right. And I know all of the people that need to stay in my life will stay in my life because I'll make sure of it. We've already got about 12 different places to stay here when y'all come pick me up. This branch will be in my heart forevs.

 

Ahhh. I really don't even know what else to say. I'll just give you a bunch of pictures to make up for how short and lame this is, deal?

 

I LOVE y'all all so very much!! :)

 

with LOVE,

Sœur Johns

A L'AISE BREIZH. I have so much Bretagne pride by now.

just such a cute place.

last promenade around centre ville

                

Madame Gallois! LOVE her!!!

Michelle et moi! LOVE her. 

 

SOEUR GARRETT!!! LOVEEEEE herrrrrr.

Adele gettin her hair did by Joy.

 

District picture.

Out with a bang?

My FAVORITE feeling as a missionary is to realize why you were inspired to do something. And this week has been FULL of those moments. 

So remember Ludo? The man who got baptized a couple of weeks ago. Remember his wife? Well we've been teaching her and we honestly weren't even sure if it was going anywhere. She is really hard to read and has said about a million and a half times that she doesn't need to get baptized. Wellllllll...this last week we went over and taught her the Plan of Salvation. At the end she looked at us and asked, "Soeurs, why is my heart on fire every time you come over here?" Wait excuse me what did you just say?. Speechless. We explained the Spiritand how it testifies of truth, and she knew that's what she was feelin. We explained that she could always have that feeling with her with the gift of the Spirit after she was baptized and asked her to pray and ask God if that was something she needed to do. We're going over there today right after this to see what happened!!!! I just KNOW that she will get baptized and be a STRONG member of the church for the rest of her life. I feel it. This Gospel has already blessed this family more than words can describe. 

Ready for the next miracle...

SO picture Soeur Garrett and I in a room of 4 huge Africans screaming about the Bible in Pigeon English. Meet Donald. He's an African from Cameroon who looooovveeeesssss the bible and knows it pretty well. Eric, (one of the recent converts) introduced him to the church and he set a baptismal date (supposed to be last Saturday). But lately he is having a hard time accepting the Book Of Mormon because he had "never heard in his 30 years of life that Jesus Christ appeared in America". Last week Soeur Garrett and I went over to Felicia's house to commit Joy, Eric's wife to get baptized, and Donald was there. You still with me? Well once we get there Donald starts telling us all about His doubts about the Book of Mormon. Felicia, Eric and Joy who all have really STRONG testimonies of the BOM start screaming about it and bible bashing hardcore. Soeur Garrett literally had to stand up and call them to order. Hahah. Then we both bore really simple testimonies of how we had prayed and knew that the BOM is true and that it goes along with the Bible. It was crazy how the Spirit in the room changed. Donald agreed to pray about it and come to church the next day, and Joy committed to baptism! Donald came to church and ended up having another huge problem with how the gift of the spirit isn't automatically given to everyone on earth who has faith. Luckily...Miraculously...I have felt really inspired to read the New Testament lately and was able to show him a couple of scriptures that talked about the Spirit being given after baptism by the laying on of hands. He took it really well and just kept saying "Sister I tank you". He will be getting baptized really soon. 

Okayyyyy one more...

Last night we went over to the Mbey's house and taught the Plan of Salvation and Masc committed to baptism. Their family has still never been to church, but I could see the countenance of Frère Mbey change as he heard his son express his desires to be washed clean. We basically begged him to bring Masc to church and he agreed. 

From opening with no Area Book to a full agenda and 4 baptisms, the Lord has USED us here in Vannes. 

OKAY HERE IS THE PROBLEM

Transfers are coming up next Wednesday and it might be my time. And by might I mean I'm pretty positive I'm outta here. Half of me is SO SOOOOO ready to leave because Vannes is feeling a little too much like home and it's getting harder and harder to contact. The other half could literally spend the rest of my mission with these ami's. Words really cannot express how much I love them. This week has been a really funny lesson for me on timing. I have no doubt in my mind that the next missionary who comes into this ville will see 4 baptisms in the first couple of weeks that she is here. I've been trying really hard not to think "why couldn't these people just have been prepared just a LITTLE bit earlier so that I could see them through to the end?" It kind of breaks my heart. I'm coming to terms with being the missionary who found and taught them, and that someone else will be the missionary who gets to see them into the water, but man I just want to be here for it so BAD! Obviously there is a lesson that I needed to learn through this, I'll let you know when I figure it out. :) 

Anyways, I love you all SO much! Emily I cannot BELIEVE you leave so soon. Keep an eye on your mailbox, mmkay? Jenna I cannot believe that you are learning SPANISH now. You are in my prayers every single time. Ask my comp. Hahah. Newport sounded like a blast and it was so fun to see all of the videos of everyone. #classicJS...& Happy birthday DAVE, you old man!!!! That cake was too good to be true. GDYUP. hahahah. But seriously y'all outdid yourselves. & I cannot believe FATHEAD is home from his mission. That blew my mind. And that everyone and their MOM are getting married or pregnant! EVERYONE PLEASE PAUSE YOUR LIVES. k thanks. 

Love you all toooooooo much. 

BISOUS! 

Soeur Johns 

P.S. As I was looking out the window on the train yesterday going to Rennes, I had the craziest realization that I'm beginning to not feel like so much of a stranger anymore in France. It felt completely familiar to be sitting on a train riding across the country side. Who am I? 

 this mangy animal would NOT move out of the road

the mission has done great things for me right?

taking matters into my own hands

 the carrots in Rennes. 

 I'm gunna miss this. 

One day we were just DONE, so we rode the tourist train...save your judgments. Ride of my life. 

if you EVER want a good laugh give a room of French children warheads. (We taught the young-men/young-women on Sunday) 

how COOL is this? Soeur Berthelin in our ward was baptized by Mitt Romney!!!!! I heard about this and naturally called her and made her bring all of her letters to church. And you know what, Mitt's French really wasn't that great either. But I do have a lot of respect for how well he keeps up with his converts! 

I am NOT a vulture salesman.

RANDOM ADVENTURES of the week: 

-my musical adventures continued...I'm now in a band. I play the togo (african drum). No big deal. 

-a TEMPEST TSUNAMI hit Vannes out of nowhere. It looked like we jumped in a swimming pool. We ended up knocking a door and a man gave us Kleenexes to dry ourselves off. Thanks, that did A LOT. 

MIRACLES of the week: 

-Monday night we were walking home and we said hi to a man who was working on his car on the side of the road. He called us to come back and asked us who we were. Once we told him we were the Mormons he got SOOOOO excited and told us that he has tried every religion in the world EXCEPT Mormonism, but that he heard about us on TV and wanted to know more, but didn't know where to look. So obviously we gave him a Book of Mormon and he kissed it and raised it in the sky and was like, 'Praiiisseeee theeee Loorrrdddddd". Hahah. Pray for Vincent and Family. We're going back to teach him tonight. 

-Ludo's 12 year old daughter came to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

REALIZATION of the week: 

Last night we went over to Kate & Alex's house (Mom and daughter who live on our street) and we had a really interesting life chat. They really opened my eye's as to how Mormon missionaries are seen here in France.  

Here are a couple of things they said that struck me: 

"I think you girls have such a hard time because of the Temoigne Jehovah's. The Temoigne Jehovah's always come up to our doorstep and they act so seriously and try to shove their religion down your throat, and then if you've listened to them one time they just come back again and again and again no matter how many times you have told them no." 

"You girls are different because you smile. You laugh. You look like friends. When I said HI to you, you didn't immediately start talking about God and Religion." 

"The boy missionaries here in Vannes hate each other don't they? We always see them around town and the skinny white one is always walking wayyyyyy further ahead of the other." 

To name a few. 

It's just really eye opening because I didn't realize how much people are WATCHING us. It makes me want to act so much more like myself, and so much less like the "stereotypical perfect missionary"

Is that bad?  

But really...I don't think there are going to be very many people joining this church if we walk around scaring people because they see us literally RUNNING down people to "deliver our message". Like VULTURE SALESMEN. 

Every one of us on earth is different. Why in the world are we trying to make the same approach to every person we see? "Hi, my name is Soeur Johns I came from the United States because I have a message that will bless you and your family" (and that will be $39.99...) 

Ew. I hate that. 

This shouldn't take CONVINCING. It should naturally happen out of LOVE. I want the people I teach to join this church, and to stay in this church because it has really added something to their lives. 

Yup, and that's all I gotta say about that. 

Love you all. SO MUCH. 

Love, 

Soeur Johns 

pillar families

Family & Friends! 

This week has been AWESOME! I LOVE VANNES. The fact that I could get transferred out of here in a couple of weeks makes me SICK. I have grown SO close to these people in the past couple of months. The amis and the members are some of my best friends! I'm living the dream. 

So, the theme of this last week for Soeur Garrett and I has been SUDDEN DEATH. We have been teaching A LOT of people lately. A LOT A LOT. And they all love us and want us to see them ALL the time, but the problem is that a lot of them aren't progressing. And they are taking up too much of our time, so we really haven't had the chance to go out and meet anyone new. So this week we booked Rendez-vous with all of them and basically evaluated who we should keep teaching and who we should drop. It was SOOO SOOO hard to drop the people that I love so much, but honestly we should have done this a looonnnnnnggggg time ago. 

I have just been feeling lately that we need to find and teach more families. Because families become the pillars of this church. And we need pillars here in Europe, we need em bad. 

Finding families is hard work, but we've already seen miracle after miracle of people who the Lord is preparing. And we've already had 5 families placed in our path who we've set appointments with to start teaching this week:

One lives on our street. Their daughter went on a study abroad in Canada and speaks English fluently, her mom heard us speaking English on the street and got so excited that she came up and started talking to us. She invited us to come over anytime! Then -crazy coincidence-  we had exchanges and Soeur Garrett was in Nantes and ran into them again over there in the SAME day. They practically tackled her. They are so cute. 

Another family is one of the one's we found in our miracle day of porting last week. It's a young mom and dad with two daughters. 

Another is a Tahitian family that has member friends. We finally got a chance to teach them on Saturday and it went really well and they came to church the next day and really liked it. They've met with the missionaries since 2007. 

ANOTHER is an Albanian family we met on the bus. They moved here to France 8 months ago and are having such a hard time learning the language. They can't find a French-Albanian dictionary anywhere, so we found them a Albanian Book of Mormon and are going over tonight to drop it off. 

And last but not least, a young mom who was Soeur Roney and I's 8:45 miracle. We met her walking with her two kids in our neighborhood and she agreed to let us teach her this week :) 8:45 miracles are SO real.

Amazing huh? Please keep praying for us to find families. 5 is a GREAT start, but I know that there are more who are being prepared for us. 

Another highlight of my week was my exchange with Soeur Roney. Soeur Roney is the definition of a consecrated missionary. She has 2 transfers left and is absolutely inspiring in every way. She has really figured out how to get through to these French people. I can see that she has been blessed by her consistent obedience to mission rules. Ah, I just think the WORLD of her. I was just thinking the entire time I was with her, "Now that's the kind of missionary I want to be". 

Y'all I love this. Everyday is beautiful. My heart is here. 

Avec amour, 

Soeur Johns 

Just a picture of BEAUTIFUL Angers! 

Soeur Judd and I in Angers for transfers! The last PATISSERIE I ate. I'm on a fast. Don't want to talk about it. 

LUDO'S BAPTISM. Happy day. 

The Gentry family. Literally the funniest people I know. Think British modern family. 

Paula loves 'murica

Oh and so does Paul. Her brother. Great names right.

to sum up my mission in one picture...

LOONEY TOONS

QUELLE SEMAINE!

 

I do NOT even know where to begin! Should I start with the BAPTISM we had on Saturday? Or maybe the night we got let in 7 TIMES IN A ROW PORTING, or maybe how one of our Ami's burst in the chapel in his UNDERWEAR screaming at the top of his lungs that he needs to get baptized?

 

Let's start with Ludo. OK, so this follows a little bit with last week's email. 

Here's his story. Frère Gentry is in a band with him and introduced him to the church about 7 months ago. Since he had been investigating he has given up hard drugs, coffee, and was trying and trying to give up cigarettes. He had smoked a pack a day since the age of 14. He had had several baptismal dates, but never felt ready. He finally prayed about a month ago and felt really strongly the July 6th was going to be the day he got baptized. The Elders had been teaching him and we had never seen him (except at church) until last Sunday when he told us that he wanted us to teach his wife and we did. So after we taught her, we still could NOT get him off our minds.

 

Well the next day the Elders call us and tell us that Ludo had smoked again, so they cancelled his baptism and moved it to next week. We were SO MAD because they just seemed like they didn't care even though Ludo had 100 percent desire to quit smoking and had only smoked 1 SINCE SUNDAY after 30 years of smoking a pack a day and he wanted SOOOO bad to stop. So we decided to go back over to Ludo's house on Tuesday and see how he was doing. He was distraught. All the poor guy wanted to do was get baptized on the day he prayed about and the Elders just told him he couldn't. The Spirit just kept telling to me to reassure him that he still could get baptized and that he could quit smoking with the Lord's help. It was crazy, but as I was saying it I just knew it was right.

 

To make a VERY long story short. After about a million and a half calls from the Gentry family, another couple of visits to Ludo's house, and a call to President. LUDOVIC GOT BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY AND THE HOLY GHOST ON SUNDAY:) He has not smoked once since then and swears he is done for life. :) PEOPLE CAN CHANGE! THEY JUST NEED SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN THEM!

 

Do the miracles end there. NO.

 

Tuesday night we went porting and we decided that we were GOING to find a family.

And guess what? We found 7 instead.

Not ONE single door closed on us. Not ONE single person rejected us.

I wish I could describe to you how rare this is. It's like actually winning the stuffed animal out of those dumb arcade games in Wal-Mart, and not just once, but 7 TIMES IN A ROW.

That my dear people, just does not happen everyday.

 

Okay now for the underwear...

 

So we've got this ami.

His name is Cedric.

He is friends of one of our members, Yvelise, and had been taking the lessons a year ago, but stopped.

Recently he came back to church because he knew it was true.

Last week, Yvelise invited him to come over and have a lesson with us and he did and it went really well and we committed him to be baptized.

Naturally we invite him to come and see Ludo's baptism.

He didn't come, but we got a text from him on Saturday night that said something like, "I am a horrible person. I wish I could just be angels like you. I am not happy. I will not be at church tomorrow because I am not in a state to drive"

Little weird...

Well he didn't show up at church

until the end...

when he burst into the chapel in his Looney Toon boxers screaming at the top of his lungs "I KNOW I NEED TO BE BAPTIZED! I KNOW I NEED TO KEEP THE LAW OF CHASTITY! I KNOW I NEED TO STOP SMOKING!"

All of the members are just standing there in the foyer. Shocked.

Oh, but he continues, "WHO IS LUDOVIC? WHERE IS THE LUDOVIC WHO GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY"

Ludo, bless his heart, raises his hand super hesitantly.

Cedric grabs him by the shoulders and starts shaking him and just says, "May God Bless You" and then kisses him and pulls him into an embrace.

Most dramatic thing I have ever seen in my life.

I was so shocked I think I was paralyzed for a second.

Well finally a couple of the men got him out into the parking lot... where he stayed for three hours at one part bawling, at one part skipping around laughing, and at one part blasting a Céline Dion song and saying "Sister Johns translate these lyrics the whole world needs to know what she is talking about", and at one point going around shaking everyone's hands and inviting them to his baptism.

WHAT IN THE WORLD.

Ludo was pretty sure he was on crack.

I have never seen anything like that before in my life.

Yeah, I don't really know what is going to happen with his baptismal date, he probably needs to start obeying the word of wisdom first.

OH and the sister missionaries will NOT be teaching him anymore. Hahahah. My life.

 

Pretty much the theme of my week:

DRUGS KILL.

 

Hahahaha. Just living the dream in France right?

But really I am because SOLDES are going on right now, AKA everything is on sale and we just went shopping for three hours before this with two of the Gentry girls (who are from England) and I found some GREAT stuff :)

 

Hey it's still me.

 

I honestly have never been happier in my life and FOR sure have never been happier as a missionary.

 

A huge part of that is my companion. OH MY GOODNESS. Best team out there. It's just so nice because she is one of those people who I would have been friends with in real life. We both work so hard and only out of love, and we do not take ourselves too seriously. Last week I'm pretty sure we hit the standard's of excellence for MEXICO, but it didn't even feel like we worked hard. We keep things really FUN here in Vannes and our ami's finally LOVE US. It got to the point this week where we didn't even have to schedule rendez-vous, because all of our ami's are scheduling them with US. The Gentry family practically cried on Sunday because they wanted us to come over to eat at their house, but we don't have a single time free until next week :)

 

But for realz, I love that we use the word for friend (Ami) instead of investigator in French because that is really what these people are, my FRIENDS. And friends want to see eachother and spend time with eachother and share the gospel with eachother. It just makes sense.

 

I LOVE THIS. I'M NOT COMING HOME.

(Until next year) :)

 

Je t'embrasse!

SOEUR JOHNS

 

P.S. Pictures are coming next week. I accidently left my camera at an ami's house. Dating strategy cause now we gotta go back. :) Hahaha. But seriously it was an accident I would never do that.

 

 

 

 

 

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