mini-missionnaire

Wow. 

another week gone by. that one went crazy fast. 

okay, so i'm writing this from a sketchy saudi-arabiaesque internet cafe right now and the space bar hardly works, so excuse me if this is kindof short. 

highlights, 

monday and tuesday of this week we had exchanges, so i was in bruxelles again with the lovely soeur bracken. we had a blast together and saw so many miracles. 

then this weekend we had a mini-missionnaire!! her name is sariah scheurch and she is a member from liège who is preparing for her mission, so she received permission to stay with us for the whole weekend and be a missionary!! it was so incredible! seriously, she taught ME so much, and it was just a joy to have her. i cried when she had to leave us. 

...and but its okay because we went and taught her how to ice skate today in preparation for the young adults activity coming up next week. it was so much fun. come to find out soeur hilton can do crazy jumps and spins. it was nuts. hidden talent. 

also, we found a tex-mex restaurant and it was glorious. 

okay besides the point. 

otherwise, this week was a lot of finding, which actually resulted in not a lot of finding. 

that family is just waiting for us, i know it. i really feel like this coming week is going to be miracle packed. 

stay tuned, k? 

love you all more than words can describe,

soeur johns 

 us with our mini missionnaire

 soeur scheurch 

 moi et ma girlllll

 look at all those mormons on that bus 

p-day christmas festivities

me and the comp

 sariah and soeur hilton 

WAIT DOES THAT REALLY SAY TEX MEX?!!!!!!!!!!! tell me you're hungry. 

that is the first burrito i have tasted in months. so good. 

expect the unexpected.

CHEZ MOI, quoi de nuef?

Let's just talk about how CRUEL those cruise pictures were as I'm freezing my butt off over here in Belgium. (see photos below, extreme measures have been taken to stay warm) 

But seriously, it looked like y'all had the time of your lives. Round 2 Summer 2015? if you insist.

Alright so this week our ami's were using their wonderful gift of free agency to not answer our calls, frudge our rdvs, and not roll out of bed on sunday morning for church. 

BUT...we had a really fun week anyways. full of adventures.

In my life, it's my charm or my curse to always find myself in the most random situations, places, and circumstances. Like how I live in the Belgium ghetto right now...let's just talk about how I would have never even dreamed of this...ever.  

Here are just a couple that I found myself in this week...

-Last week I made the mistake of getting on the subject of pizza buffets, big judd's hamburgers, and mcdonald's chicken nuggets with the Motulet and Kapypula families. After which they decided to invite us to their semi-annual mardi-foo (some pizza hut deal) family home evening. Well, we showed up and they were like "OK, Soeur Johns show us what you're made of." Hahaha. Can I ever turn a challenge like that down, uhh never. The worst part was that we had already had a HUGE mangez-vous that morning for lunch, but I still...don't know why I'm admitting this...managed to eat about 19 pieces of pizza.     

Needless to say...I've been practically fasting every day since. 

-I was also able to participate this week in House Hunter's International: Liège. In the next transfer they are planning on putting another companionship of Soeur's into Liège, which means we need a larger apartment. We got to go around on Tuesday with the senior couple touring apartments with an agent. We found two winners. And guess what? They have dish washers. I got excited about it, but then I realized that I would probably be transferred out about a week after the move.  

-We got to go up to Bruxelles for Soeur Hilton's Belgium legality. As we were walking out of the Metro station we saw a swarm of missionaries coming towards us and I didn't recognize any of them. Then all of the sudden I was TACKLED by FRAN one of my friends/ relief society president from BYU freshman year. She is serving in the Dutch speaking mission and they had legality on the same day. One of those small world, are we really in Belgium right now experiences. So great to see a familiar face on the other side of the world. After legality, and as tradition goes we were able to go see Grande Place, Manikin Pis, and eat a delicious Goffre smothered in speculoos. Soeur Hilton cried when she saw Grande Place. That place is stunning. Never ever gets old.  

-We were blessed to have a family home evening with Sariah Schurch and her best friend, who she just began sharing the gospel with, Oceane. This girl is precious and absolutely golden. We started the lesson by having her read the Young Women's Theme, and literally everyone in the room had tears in their eyes. Including her. The Spirit was SO strong. She agreed to come to church and meet with us next week, as Sariah will be serving a mini-mission with us for a couple of days. 

-We found ourselves in the middle of a PARADE in the cutest little town called Visé. They have a festival of lanterns every year to celebrate the fact that they held off the Germans in both world wars. We were invited by our crazy less-active, and seeing that we had a couple of ami's and in-actives to pass by in Visé we decided it would be a great use of our time ;) But seriously, it was incredible and one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. 

And on the train home, who did we meet? Sandra. An awesome African hipster hand model who decided it would be pretty rad to meet with the missionaries. 

YEAH, this week was nuts. really fun. and we found a lot of potential.  

I really just have a testimony of not taking yourself too seriously, and LAUGHING. It is so important to let yourself laugh. and to enjoy life. That's my 2 cents for this week. 

I love y'all so much. You, especially you Grammy Johns, are always, every night in my prayers. I am so blessed to have you wonderful people in my life. I wouldn't trade y'all for anything else. 9 months. Don't blink. 

LOVE YOU infiniment, 

Soeur Johns     

Pounded all of it

Sweat pants under my skirt. I LIVE IN THE TUNDRA

Kelly, our lovely Iranian friend "Soeur Johns, you're from Texas, come build the fire."

Grande Place

manakin pis. round 3

goffres are better than they sound

People over here literally think we put ketchup on everything

Christianne and Soeur Hilton

seriously so fun

lantern festival

encore

Zuster FRAN! Small world.

Bruxelles has the most BEAUTIFUL Christmas shops.

And chocolate shops. I live in a fairytale.

Gorgeous

Chocolate

Wanted to stick a straw in that

A belgian halloween.

This week was just so FUN and full of TENDER MERCIES.

The Lord is just so good to his missionaries over here in Liège.

All three of the companionships here are seeing miracles.

The ZL's baptized Romeo last night who has been taking the discussions for 8 years, Elder Andersen and Elder Brown have an ami from Morocco who converted from Muslim to Christianity, then had a dream about the Book of Mormon before he ever even knew about the church and is now wanting to get baptized, and we are still teaching Gigh. 

My favorite Gigh quotes from this week, 

"Please help me to convert" (During the closing prayer at the FHE we had with the Scherch family on Monday night) 

"Sorry, I'm already a Mormon" (To the Jehovah's Witnesses that showed up on her doorstep)

"Don't worry, I'm never missing it again" (To the institute couple when they asked where she had been) 

This girl has just found her place in the church. It is amazing to see. We talked to her about baptism this week and she doesn't feel ready to commit yet, because she doesn't feel that her job is in line with the commandments of God. She really understands and believes in modesty and feels as though she would be lying to God if she went and got baptized and then continued to show off her body to the world. Talk about a PICKLE. She loves the church and considers it her church already, but is really scared of the concept of baptism because she feels as though she is not ready to commit her life fully to God and covenant to always choose the right. We explained repentance and the Sacrament, but she does have a point that repentance includes change and if she is not planning on changing than that kindof ruins the point. We are just going to keep loving her and teaching her and praying for her. I know something will strike a chord. :) 

MIRACLE OF THE WEEK: 

On Tuesday morning I was laying in my bed because someone set the alarm to 6:15, haha, and I was just thinking about where we needed to be that day. I felt a really strong and clear impression that we needed to go porting on Joycely's street that night. Later on in the day I told that to Soeur Hilton and she had been thinking the same thing!! So of course that night we went and did just that. 

Not only did we find an awesome family who said we could come back, but we also found Christianna!! She is from Camarron and speaks English and we went and taught her two days later and she wants to get baptized! Ah. Miracles. 

Halloween is not really celebrated here. We just had a normal day. Soeur Hilton and I dressed up as each other. It was hilarious and I couldn't help but crack a smile while we were porting and I introduced myself as her. I thought it was so funny to be porting on Halloween. No one offered us candy, but we did find a cool family who said we could come back anytime. :)  

Friday was the best. We got to go up to Brussels in the morning and meet with the Senior Couple because we are moving apartments. They took us out to get hot chocolate and it was just so fun to chat about life with them. Guess who they are best friends with?

Mitt and Anne Romney. They are in the same ward in Belmont together. How cool is that? Then at night the Young Adults had a Halloween party and we went because Gigh was supposed to come. It was dress up, so naturally I couldn't help myself. We dressed up as the sister missionaries of the past. It was so fun. It is always so great to be around the JA.  

Sunday was GREAT as well. Our crazy less active brought her cousin to church and tried to set me up with him......no thank you. But at least the elders have a new ami. :) Then we had a going away party for one of the members who is moving to TEXAS next week and her friends, a BEAUTIFUL family with two parents and 4 children, showed up and invited US to come over!! They just fit in so well and I really think they loved the church! 

Man, I just love this. Every week gets better. 

Love, Soeur Johns 

 We made a paper chain to count down until Christmas. We are a little excited about the holidays over here. May or may not have already started listening to the music. Judge pas. 

Look there's weave hanging off of the bus stop. I live in da ghetto. 

Soeur Hilton dressed up as me for Halloween. That's our apartment in the background. 

Look how green it is here. 

Pre-Soeurs. Happy Halloween. 

Self-explanatory?

 my precious comp

 weelllll helllooooo. 

Looking classy. 

Sariah. Love her. 

The JA 

 Identity Switch. 

 Day 2. Featuring Soeur Hilton as Soeur Johns.

He was really loving it. 

Day 1. Taking down the paper chain. 

je n'ai pas tous mes frites dans le même sachet

TO BEGIN...

I'm staying another in Liège with Soeur Hilton!!!!! 

I am so happy. I did NOT want to leave Liège in the slightest. 

There is just way too much good going on right now. 

And I really wanted to have Thanksgiving with my favorite American family that lives here. 

So beyond happy. 

This week has once again been one of the greats. 

Soeur De Walle came back to church after 32 years!! She is just the cutest little thing in the whole world. & She is so determined to never fall away again. The members were so warm and welcoming and I was just so beyond thrilled to see her light up again. Seeing less-actives re-discover their testimonies has got to be one of the most rewarding things to witness. She also brought her 5 year old great-granddaughter whose mom is atheist. I loved teaching her about Jesus and how to pray and can't wait to have my own kiddos one day. ONE DAY. Breathe Dad, I still got 9 months en mission. :) 

Gigh is really too good to be true. I dare to say, THE most golden investigator the world has ever known. We taught her the plan of salvation this week and she loved it. 

Just some things that came out of her mouth...

"Wait this was a CHOICE to come here to earth, that makes so much more sense." 

"I know up in Heaven I was like 'Hey God, give me as many trials as you want, bring it on'"

"That makes me so happy to know that we don't just stay Spirits forever after we die. We don't just float off into nowhere in peace, that sounds boring" 

"Can I have some more of those pamphlets to give to my friends?"

"I think I'd like to serve a mission one day"

Then she came to institute. Which was DEEP MORMON DOCTRINE 101 this week.  We talked about Christopher Columbus and the BOM. Where it could have been located. Patriarchal blessings. Temple endowment. Baptisms for the dead. Exaltation. You name it.  I was practically not breathing the whole lesson, but in the end it worked out. Gigh being the angel that she is, had about 56646546 questions, but 0 doubts. I am taking NOTES on this girl's faith. It's impressive. 

Oh and on top of all this. She came in 2nd on BELGIUM'S NEXT TOP MODEL this weekend!! She showed us the pictures yesterday at church and was like, "oh yeah, he works for Dior, he is the newest face of Louis Vuitton, he designs for Gucci, she walks for Prada..." And SHE came in 2nd out of 800. She is walking in a show in New York next month. We're going to find her a chapel to visit over there, no worries. She will be the newest member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by then. 

Other than that this week has been a lot of finding. 

We did get let in while we were porting to teach a Jesuit and his wife. THAT was an adventure. His name was Serge, and he reminded me SO much of another Serge I know. :) It was such a fun lesson and we are going back next week to see them again. It is an absolute miracle whenever someone lets us in their door. 

President also came to our District Meeting this week and told us to "FOLLOW THE PLAN" to find a family before Christmas. I was in a pretty sour mood at first because someone jacked my camera with all my mission photos out of my bag on the metro. But President is so cool and always finds a way to pump me up. I KNOW we can. I know if it is going to happen anywhere it is going to be here in Liège. Souer Hilton and I are ready to DO IT. 

Quote of the week: 

Italian lady on bus, "Yes actually, I have a Mormon friend! He liked his mission so much after the first year that he decided to stay for two!" 

Well I love y'all. & I LOVE hearing from you. 

Mom & Dad have a BLAST this week zip-lining across Puerto Rico...

meanwhile I'll just be converting the whole fashion industry to Mormonism.  

Tant d'amour, 

Soeur Johns  

P.S. We have this CRAZY less-active who we meet with and this week and when she was talking about how crazy she is, she used the expression: "Je n'ai pas tous mes frites dans le même sachet" I laughed forever cause it was just SO BELGE. "I don't have all my fries in the same bag." Hahaha. I love it here. 6 more weeks of this, I'm blessed.  

   

  

Hope's are up.

Good news or bad news first? 

Let's start with good. I like that better. 

Gigh is incredible, golden, wonderful, and we will be friends forever I have no DOUBTS. We went over this week and taught her about the Restoration. The spirit was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Everything just made sense to her. We started by talking about prophets, and asked her why she thinks we "don't have them anymore". She responded, "It doesn't make sense! You better be here to tell me that there is still a prophet on the earth." Yes, we are actually!! She came to institute on Friday and got along so so so well with all of the young adults. She was in Brussels on Sunday, so she couldn't come to church, but she is really excited to come next week and learn more about the plan of salvation. Oh, and she is a model. She met the king and queen of Belgium last week at a catwalk. NBD. :) 

This week we were put in touch with Soeur De Walle. She has been less-active for 30 years, but decided recently that she really wants to come back to church and asked her faithful home-teacher, who has visited her the entire time...stud, to send the sister missionaries to help her come back. Her story was SO inspiring. She joined the church after meeting with the missionaries for 4 years and brought her entire family into the church with her... 17 people! She left because of a "bad leader", but has continued more or less living the standards of the church. We brought her a Book of Mormon and committed her to start reading it again, which she was excited to do. She is going to come with us tonight to the FHE for single adults. She really has the desire right now to do whatever it takes to return to activity. She is such a breath of fresh air. No excuses, just simple humility and willingness to change. I love it. 

I also had a GREAT exchange this week. I stayed in Liège with Soeur Matalii and we had SO much fun running around and talking to EVERYONE. Not a ton of takers, but it felt so good to just share the gospel without hesitating. Y'all should try it. :)  

OKay...the not so great news...

Valerie is not baptized. I really don't want to be negative, so I will just have to share this story post-mission. She will be baptized sooner or later, I have no doubts. It will just take some humility on the part of the branch, and her mother. She is still as ready and willing as ever. I know it will happen. It was really heart-breaking though, and I seriously learned a huge lesson through all of this that some things are out of your control.  

Sheri and her 20 family members did not show up at church this week or answer our calls, BUT we will keep trying. I have so much hope for that little family. You could just feel that they have been prepared for the gospel. 

I have always been a really big hater of the phrase, "Don't get your hopes up!". I think it is just about one of the stupidest things we could ever say. Hope is faith in action, and faith produces miracles. I will never stop hoping, and expecting that the people around me will make the right choices. And I am convinced that in doing this I will never stop seeing amazing miracles. I just can't sell people short. There are not enough people in this world who truly believe in others, but I am determined to be one of them! 

I love y'all all so much. I can't believe I hit my 8 month mark yesterday.Time is moving way tooooooo fast.  

Love, Soeur Johns 

La Foire aka. great big fair 20 feet from our apartment. aka. Delicious. 

Soeur Hilton

The whole family. 

 At the fair last week with Valerie and Fam. Redheads. 

SO FLUFFYYYY. 

Puppy kissesssss.  

Isn't he precious? He belongs to Valerie and family.  

 

Gilles baptism! 

Us at Serena's birthday party. :) 

Nicolas!! So precious. 

My drops of AWESOME

I don't even know where to BEGIN with this week. 

You know how you can pinch the hose and make the water stop, but then when you finally let it go the water sprays so hard. I feel like that happened to us yesterday, but with MIRACLES. 

I can't lie, this transfer has been a hard one for me. I have just kind of felt like we were going through the motions of missionary work, but that nothing really spectacular was happening. We were working hard and Valerie and her family were progressing, but other than her we had NO amis and we weren't really seeing success in contacting, (except in finding men for the Elders to teach). On Tuesday night of last week I just sat down with the area book and called probably 200 numbers and found 2 people who were still interested to meet with us. I can't lie I was getting semi-frustrated with myself and with the area. 

BUT THEN...YESTERDAY. The single greatest day of my mission thus far.

Y'all ready for this? Water-hosed in the face. 

Miracle number 1...About 1/2 way through one of the best fast and testimony meetings I've ever been to a beautiful mom and 2 boys walk in. I look up at President Motulat and he just raised his eyebrows, then back at Elder Allecia, same confused look. After the meeting I went back and talked to Sheri a beautiful mom who had seen the Elders on the bus a couple of times and was astonished that there were actually people in the world who would wear Christ's name so boldly. She has thought to herself "I want to be a part of THAT church". She was just glowing when I was talking to her!! And She LOVED sacrament meeting SO much that she is going to bring the whole family of 20 PEOPLE next week. We exchanged numbers, naturally, and she was so excited to meet with us this week and learn more! My favorite part was when she looked over at her sons and said "You like it here?" and they said yes and she said "Okay, this is our church." 

Miracle number 2...While I was in the middle of talking with Sheri a less-active named Katy walked in! She has not been to church in 7 years!!!! We've been visiting her for a while and helped her move a couple of weeks back. Was she alone?...NOPE. She was with her fiancé, Alexandre, who by the way is a FRENCH MOVIE DIRECTOR. They had just gotten back from Cannes. (They are such a hott couple.) Alexandre is really interested in the church and so is her 10 year old son Scilian! She wants to get married in the temple, you know what that means... :) She set up appointments for us to come see her and then to come see Alexandre and start teaching him the lessons!!!!!!!!!!! 

Miracle number 3...TAKES THE CAKE. Sunday we got to witness Gilles Beya get baptized. Right after the baptism we walked out to the bus stop and realized that it wasn't coming for 20 more minutes, so we decided to go back into the chapel and wait cause its FREEZING here. As we were walking in I noticed a girl walking into the church. At first I thought she was friends with the Beya family, but then a Plan of Salvation brochure in English fell out of her bag!!!! I just thought seriously, this is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. I introduced myself and she said that there was supposed to be someone there waiting for her to tell her about the church. "Uh hi yeah I think that someone is ME!!!" We sat down and started talking to her about her beliefs. Oh my goodness, this girl is INCREDIBLE. She is Rwandan and lost both her parents in the Genocide. Her father died with a Bible in his hand and the last think he asked was if he could pray before they killed him. I'm literally crying again writing this. It was the saddest story I have ever heard in my life. She managed to escape with her younger brother and raised him. She said that she had gotten really far away from God, but always knew that he was there and that He was her Father, not just some grand power in the universe. Lately she had been thinking that she needed to get her spiritual life in order, and to learn more about what her parents held so dearly. One day the Elders contacted a man at the Park with the Plan of Salvation brochure. Gigh was watching as the man rejected the message and went up to Him after to ask if she could have the brochure, and VIOLA. She is so amazing! After our lesson she was like "my goodness, I came here to get the time for church next week and ended up pouring my soul out to two strangers. I would have never expected this" (Yeah neither would we :)) It was so amazing! We were instantly friends and she is SO prepared for the gospel. I asked her if she had ever been baptized and she said that she had had a lot of opportunities to be baptized in her life, but it never felt right. But that it was definitely something she would want to do! 

Miracle 4...I JUST got a LDS.org referral and I think it is from a lady we met on the train this week!!!!!! And a member just called to give us a reference...seriously WHAT is happening?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

The Lord is truly gathering His sheep and hastening His work. Our schedule is now so full over here in Liège Belgium we can hardly keep up. This work is miracle work. It is the Lord's, and it happens on HIS timetable and not my own. I have really seen a change in our 2 branches after this conference. They are engaged. I believe that when the ward or branch is spiritually prepared the miracles will FLOW. 

Also, sorry to leave y'all in the dark about Valerie and her family!!! Valerie is the daughter of a less-active in the branch. She is really awesome and has SUCH a strong testimony of the Restoration. She is getting baptized this coming Saturday! Please pray for her!!! Her children were supposed to get baptized with her, but they aren't quite ready yet. We went to the Foire (a big fair RIGHT in front of our apartment) with them this Saturday...best member present lesson ever...and it was so fun. I seriously love this family to bits and pieces. It is so beyond surreal that we are preparing for another baptism this weekend. I just feel so blessed to be here, and witness all of these wonderful people choosing the right at the same time. 

I love y'all so much. I REALLY felt your prayers this week. I seriously felt angels holding me up, and I know that the Lord is watching over us. 

Love, Soeur Johns 

I love conference.

I have been so overwhelmed this week with love for God. This was probably one of the most spiritually refining weeks of my life. I KNOW THAT HE KNOWS ME. All of my questions were answered and I feel such a resolve to give God my all for the rest of forever. 

General Conference was amazing. 

Anyone who does not agree, getttt outtttt. 

Let's talk about it. 

I felt so spiritually uplifted as a WOMAN. 

I felt so much desire to share the Gospel with ALL of my friends, and EVERYONE in Belgium. 

I felt so much drive to ENDURE to the end, not just on my own but constantly bringing others with me along the way. 

I felt the Spirit teach me things I need to do right now to help my area.

I felt that God knows each one of the people we are teaching right now by NAME and that he LOVES them more than I can understand. 

It was GREAT.

If you haven't watched it, you should do that RIGHT NOW. 

Other than that, 

Valerie and Erynne are still good to go for their baptisms on the 19th of October!!! They are so awesome and I love them so much. 

Ah, running out of time!! 

I love you all. I miss you so much. It was so fun to think about y'all all over the world listening to conference at the same time as me :) 

oh and WELCOME TO THE WORLD PADEN SPENCE. I feel like an aunt. Haha! 

Love, 

Soeur Johns