my mind has been blown

It's only been about 4 days since I last emailed, but as always so much has happened. So I could talk to you this week about how we had an awesome lesson with our new portugaise amie Sandra, or how Soeur Maigret fed us healthy food and then gave us sweaters so we wouldn't be cold on the walk home, or how Jean François baptized the love of his life, or how we ate free Chipolte. But let's be real: GENERAL CONFERENCE.

I really felt the overarching themes of this round were pure discipleship, the blessings of burdens, and storms. As always, all of my questions were answered and I have about a million new self improvement projects going into action. I find it hard to answer the question, "What part of conference did you like the most?" because let's be real, it's 10 hours and that's a lot to remember and I love everything. But I can say that my favorite part is the feeling of edification and uplift that it brings. I don't remember everything, but I remember how I felt. I think this principle is why people ever even join the church after meeting with the missionaries. The Spirit is the one doing the teaching. I was having a fear of missing out every time I saw the #LDSconf pop up in the corner of the screen, alas my conference tweets:     

*Thomas S. Monson: You gotta finish what you've already started before you can take on more. #parisfrancetemplecomingsoon

*Jeffery R. Holland: Rejection is a cost of discipleship. Yes it is worth it. #dontiknow #mashedpotatosforlater 

*Ronald A. Rasband: Love. Prayers. Appreciation.

*Carlos H. Amado: Christ heals us one by one. #newfoundappreciationforthickaccents #heyitsme

*Linda S. Reeves: We must make sure that our personal filter is the strongest. #keepitclean 

*Neil L. Andersen: Marriage is not only designed to satisfy adults, but to create families which are the treasures of heaven. #traditionalmarriage

*Henry B. Eyring: Oh, things will work out. #motto

*Russel M. Nelson: Courage not compromise brings the smile of God's approval. #50millionpeoplecanbewrong #totallywrong

*Richard G. Scott: Always seek to strengthen families. Always try to help families be sealed in the temple. #workingonit #janenneshoutout 

*Robert D. Hales: Obedience motivated by true love is what the Lord is looking for and what we must strive for. #ctr #comewhatmay #sensingatheme 

*Claudio D. Zivic: One day we will fall in love with the Gospel and we will no longer run away from lessons, but enjoy them instead. #washescottishorsouthamerican?

*W. Craig Zwick: Let's be real, I probably would have jumped out of the car too. #whatareyouthinking 

*Quentin L. Cook: And the prisoner shall go free. Isn't this a glorious doctrine? #baptismsforthedead #firstcorinthiansfifteen 

*Deider F. Uctdorf:  There is something in us that resists endings because we are made of the stuff of eternity. There are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings. #gratitude #probsmyfav 

*M. Russel Ballard: If we follow-up the Lord will not let us down. #rmdatinghabitsmakesomuchsensenow

*Jean M. Stevens: The Gospel is not weight, it is wings. #heartwrencher #sheissandrabullockofftheblindside

*Gary A. Stevensen: The 4 minute race of life. #goforgold #iwaswaitingforakatehansenshoutout

*David A. Bednar: Is the load I am carrying allowing me to create spiritual traction to get back to my Heavenly Father? #happybirthdayjesus 

*Thomas S. Monson: I've never yet felt a tinge of regret for being a little too kind. Amen to that. #ourbelovedprophet #LDSconf

I am so grateful we have a prophet on this earth. The entire time I was watching conference I was just thinking, "what would we do without him?". Ah, it is just a blessing to know what we know!

Otherwise, I am doing great. Transfers are coming up next week. I kissed the Eiffel Tower goodbye this morning, and went and saw the Tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte at Les Invalides. I am already bracing myself for my next companion because I don't know how I could have more fun with anyone! We are a dream team. But I know that anything is going to be great and I am ready to take it on. :)

Love you all. You are always in my prayers! 

Love, Soeur Johns

 les invalides. the french museum of war

les invalides. 

the tomb of little nappy himself

the beautiful soeur hosking 

I'm going to miss ma fille. 

goodbye my love.  

it was on my bucket list to lick it. it tasted like little Asian fingers. 

look the eiffel tower...again. 

the Poznanski's and I at General Conference 

Sister Andersen and I at the baptism

the day jimmy drowned scott

As you may have noticed I did not email home on Monday. Wellll. It's because we got permission to change our P-day in order to go see the Palace of Versailles. I promise I am not trying to invoke jealousy in your souls, but I may or may not have driven a golf cart around the Gardens. And it was perfect. Not only that but the workers loved us and let us skip all of the lines and get in free and drive the golf cart even though I was supposed to be 24. It sure pays to speak French. :) 

Basically, I haven't had any time to write my email home this week, so I am just going to send the one that Soeur Hosking sent to her family. This is great because, a) you get to hear about my week, and b) you get to get to know my companion. Right? right.

Our week from the mouth of Soeur Hosking: 

This week has been quite a crazy one. So crazy that I had to bring my journal to remember it all. As you may have noted, I did not email Monday. We changed our P Day to Thursday so that we could see the Palace of Versailles!! Oh man was it worth it, but that is the end of the week. All things must start and the beginning *cue really awesome going back in time music*

TUESDAY: This was a struggle morning. We just seemed to be forgetting EVERYTHING. I think we made it out to the bus stop three times before deciding to just leave with what we had for District meeting. We rolled up like 30 minutes late. On the train I told Soeur johns, "Watch this be the day the Zone Leaders come" I am basically a psychic. SO naturally they gave us a hard time for not only being late but forgetting one of the Sodas. Well Whoops. Good thing we are their favorite. For our meal we had hot dogs, I don't know if anyone really knows thig but I LOVE hot dogs. My mom only every bought the healthy kind so when I am presented with regular, I go ham. Elder Eldrige and I have a bond as we basically ate our selves sick to "take one for the team" and finish the hot dogs off. I love hot dogs. Then we got to teach Scott the lesson on Chastity... That was fun... Talking to an 18 yr old about chastity... Good thing I'm not awkward at all! (please note the sarcasm)

WEDNESDAY: Just another crazy day here in Saint Ouen. It was a sack lunch kind of day where we left our house at 11h00 and weren't home until 9h30. But it was a day full of so many amazing people. I feel so blessed to be able to be in the lives of these humans as they come unto Christ. There is nothing better than that. Nothing.

THURSDAY: Soeur Johns had to sign up for her BYU classes. This means we were in Paris by 7h00 to get to a computer. I just want to point out that the McDonalds by our Internet Cafe lies. Their sign says they open at 7h30 but we stood there until 7h45 and nothing came of it. All we wanted was the Breakfast of Champions, is that so much to ask? Then we went home to do some baking for the baptism before meeting up with the Elders for Scott's interview. This kid is such a gem. Thursday night was CRAZY AWESOME. So we had dinner at the Stake Presidents house, of the Paris Stake. Still unreal to me. But anyway, they are just so funny and they spoke in English a bit so I could actually joke with them. Plus for some reason they thought everything we said was the funniest thing every, not that I am complaining. If that were not enough their daughter invited over her best friend and she was ADORABLE. I have no doubt she will take the lessons one day, I just hope to be the missionary! Best night.

FRIDAY: Not a ton went down Friday. Soeur Johns and I got matching sweaters and we basically got stalked by one of the crazy members in our ward, the norm.

SATURDAY: SCOTT'S BAPTISM!!!!!! Oh my gosh it was the best. Scott doesn't show much emotion normally but he was just BEAMING when he showed up to the church, it was so amazing to see. So if that couldn't get better Jimmy preformed the baptism. Recently Baptized, this is his first baptism he has been to after his own Jimmy. I was DYING. Oh Jimmy is the best. Picture this: Our two ami's in the faunt together. Jimmy doing everything so right then placing Scott into the water. On noticing he is not all the was under he pushes him down more! Then he looks  up and goes, "C'est bon?" (good?) Scott was still in the water!! I seriously thought I was going to have to jump in and do CPR on Scott(Don't worry I always carry my CPR mask in my bag) But it all turned out all right. Catherine Michel gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. I could not stop smiling and giggling the entire day. It is so amazing to see this family coming, they aren't all there yet but I know they will be.

SUNDAY: Day light savings. Ben and I are NOT on good terms. We were dragging the entire day. We can not afford that hour. But we lived. I had this moment on the way to church when we were on the train. On stumbles two really drunk girls who sit accross from us. They look about our age and have obviously not been home yet. It was crazy to see the paralell. We are at the same stages in our lives but we don't even live in the same universe. I wonder if that would have been me without the Gospel. Thanks to the Gospel I was sitting on the other side, on my way to church in a country that is not my own where I came to share the gospel. The gospel blesses our lives in so many ways that sometimes we forget how lucky we are. So during Sunday school this rando shows up and we have her sit with us. Afterwards she turns to us and goes "Wait, you guys are the Mormons? Bye" and like runs out. Kay bye! Catherine was made president for our Ami class!! Oh that was the best. Accidentally crashed an African Birthday Party and Doris's house. Oops.

MONDAY: Just another day in the life. Not P Day. Pretty sure members think that we starve because they ALWAYS try and laden us down with food. One of them even tried to give us shoes. Are they trying to say something? I mean I know we look kind of homeless sometimes....

A really recent RM sent us to her sister and there is some serious potential!!!!!! RMs are the BEST.

TUESDAY: APRIL FOOLS. Soeur Johns and I matched HARDCORE. Down to how we did our hair. It was so fun. District meeting meant everyone was on their guard for pranks. So fun. I am loving this place and this district. So much laughter and I love it.

WEDNESDAY: DAY OF FINDING. Our whole Zone took this one day to just go out and find. We prayed for each other every 30 min and it was amazing. You could feel the prayers and support of the other missionaries. We went contacting with this member who we actually thought was really shy. WRONG. She was on FIRE. She had no fear and would stop everyone, no matter what. It was so amazing!!!!! We also had some cool miracles.

           Miracle of the Magnet: Soeur Johns lost her tag. So she was using the magnet of my second tag to hold up her only one left. This means we were both down to only one badge. Walking down the street her badge falls off and the magnet is gone. We can no find it anywhere. that night I was lying on the floor. I know for a fact that it was not there before. That was a miracle. 

           Notebook Miracle: Heading out the door for Ward Counsel I just felt like I needed to bring my notebook. I never bring my notebook. I rationalized that I might want to make a list of something. It sounded so dumb and weird but I felt like I needed to. Turns out a list I had in it was actually needed. Not a miracles are big, a lot of them are small, regarding a notebook or a magnet. But I know if you keep your eyes open that they are there. 

THURSDAY: Now for today. BEST DAY EVER. So basically the Palace of Versailles is so amazing, we could hardly take in all the beauty. The line to get it is about a million years long, but we were asking a guard guy if our passports would work (as our visas generally get us in places free) and he had to ask his supervisor, so he took us to the front. Not only did they work but he said there was no point in going back to the end of the line. SCORE. They like it when you speak French to them. Then we were in awe as we walked through the Palace. Could our day get any better? Yes. Yes it could. WE RENTED A GOLF CART TO DRIVE THROUGH THE GARDENS. It has been my dream to drive a Golf Cart. Today, today that dream was realized in the Versailles Gardens. The man said that you had to be 25 to rent one, but that he could make an exception for Jesus. Literally everything went right today. So we are just driving around, making friends with other Americans in golf carts, basically living the dream. We come to this path with a ton of students and these potholes on the sides. So we have to go other the potholes. they are more like little hills with ditches on the other side. We are driving over them and acting like we are in a huge roller-coaster (but lets be real this was the slowest golf cart ever) To make things better the students begin to cheer us on as we go over these. Yea, we basically had our own fan club.

Hey, it's me again. Soeur Johns. So yes, basically this week was wonderful. Especially the fact that Scott Michel is now a member and that it was Jimmy who baptized him. I am just beaming with happiness and the good kind of pride for all of our recent converts. They are so strong and nothing could make me happier.

I LOVE YOU ALL. 

Soeur Johns

the palace.

living the high life. 

just some more in case you miss my face. 

yeah no big deal just driving my golf cart around the palace of versailles. 

jimmy and scott!!

after the baptism Jimmy took one of the sheep and said "scott" and put it into the fold side. that kid is a crack up. 

another day in the life

these shoes have served me well. 

la vie parisien

I'm trying to figure out my class schedule for BYU today...wait WHAT...so I don't have a ton of time to detail all of our activities of this past week. But I am sending loads of pictures to make up for it. I love y'all with all my heart. && Scott Michel is still doing great and getting baptized this weekend which is just an awesome miracle and a long story.

Bisous, Soeur Johns

Paris is a stunna

My kingdom

My child

Myself

Be our guest

The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of Franceee

Soeur Hilton and I reunited

Paris zone conference

scott, laura, and steve

Another week for the books.

So much to say, so little time.

Let's start with Scott Michel, the son of Catherine Michel. We met with him for the first time without his mom this week and it went awesome. He is a super timid kid, so every time we meet him with his mom she just talked the entire time and we could hardly get two words out of him. When he came to institute a couple of weeks ago, he was more than happy to be talking with people, but you could tell that he was feeling a little uncomfortable. In the lesson, he was still pretty quiet, but was so much better. He is still good for his baptism on the 29th of this month, and we have all of our teaching appointments booked out with him until then. It's a miracle. We taught him in the visitors center in Paris about the Restoration! I always love when people not only accept the fact that there is a prophet on the earth today, but are excited about following him. Scott really is so golden.

Also, we have been meeting with this crazy less active who is turning out to be the BEST missionary ever!! This Sunday she brought her neices and nephews to church. Her niece LOVED it asked if she could be baptized!! We set her for the 12th of April and are going to teach her and her brothers this Saturday! She is already signed up for Girl's Camp, and I gave her one of those cute personal progress holders you sent me mom!! Her name is Laura, and she is a GEM.

I just have to tell you about the highlight of church this week. Meet Steve. Picture this. A big African man in bedazzled jeans and a skin tight polo with the collar popped. Swags into Gospel Principles on Sunday where Elder Mosely asks him to introduce himself, in French, and he just says "oh boy, I don't speak French. But my name is Steve. Good morning everyone" and sits down. Then in the middle of the Sacrament I look over at him and he has his arms crossed and his stunna shades on. Best part. During one of the talks, Steve's phone goes off...Lil Wheezy's Fireman. He doesn't know how to turn it off, so he just holds it down against his leg until Elder Moffit grabs it and turns it off for him. I sure hope he comes back.

We also met a cute family this week that was a referral from church headquarters! The mom is named Virginie and her sister is a member in New York. She lives in an actual house and has 3 beautiful daughters! For the first lesson we basically just sat down and got to know about her beliefs. She is Catholic, decently practicing. And she reads the bible every single day. She is really anxious to know more about the church.

Ah, I am just so excited about all of these people!! The Lord has done nothing but bless us in St.Ouen.   

Tout mon amour, 
Soeur Johns

Faith is trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse

Are y'all ready to hear the miracle of my mission??!!!???

On the night of my missionary going away party someone gave me the advice of picturing a specific person/ people that I was sent to France to find. I took up the challenge and that night I wrote this in my journal:

"Here's what I'm picturing: Family. 2 parents, 5 kids. Living in a cute little French cottage. The parents have tattoos like the one family on the district. I get to come back and watch them be sealed.


I don't even know if that is possible because everyone says that my mission doesn't even teach any lessons, but I know the Lord can do what He wants. Why not get my hope's up?"

Well first I would like to say to all of those haters out there. We teach in the France Paris Mission.

And second, WE FOUND THIS FAMILY THIS WEEK. 

Last weekend we received a cordonné from church headquarters for a lady named Murelle. With all headquarters referrals you can pretty much expect them to be SUPER awesome and prepared, or to not even exist. We called Murelle and set up a RDV for Wednesday. She sounded really adorable, but didn't explain anything to us about why she had requested a visit. As we rode to her house I was thinking "either this lady doesn't live in our sector or we have just never been over here before", but I trusted that it was because the mission office had given the referral to us. When we arrived we sat down in a park, in the SUN (sidenote...it's been 60 degrees and clear sunny skies all week...i am sunburned obvi) and waited for her. I was not expecting her to be at all like what she is. An adorable little French lady with short hair and tattoo sleeves. She led us over to the bus that we needed to get back to her house and started explaining to us how she had watched a documentary on the Mormon church and felt a burning sensation in her heart that told her that she needed to be a part of it. She explained how she loves how structured we are. How she loves the idea that we have a prophet and apostles. How she loves the idea that we can be married for eternity in the temple. How she was moving to Blois in July and had already looked up the address for the church over there!! I practically fainted. Then we got to her apartment...this is where the cute little French cottage is invalid...and met her husband, also tattooed...and learned that she has 5 CHILDREN. WHAT THE WHAT. My people actually exist. And want to be baptized, and sealed in the temple!! We talked about the Book of Mormon, which ironically is the only thing she is not sure about...kind of a problem seeing that it is the keystone of the religion...but we explained how she can pray to know that it is true and that God will give her her own personal witness. And she agreed to start reading and praying about it! I have never been so high after a RDV in my entire mission. I KNOW that it is not by coincidence that I met this family…

here's the catch...they actually don't live in the St.Ouen ward boundaries. Which means we had to pass them over to the Paris Lilas zone leaders (who had actually already received their cordonné as well and were teaching them later in the week). IT WAS SO HARD. I told the elders they have to call me after every rendez-vous...haha. But as much as this sucks, we will still be able to attend their baptism, and it doesn't change the fact that they actually exist and that for some random reason we were able to a little part of their conversion story.

And now I have more desire than ever to find a family in St.Ouen just like them. There is no such thing as impossible. This can, and will happen again.

Other than this this week has been AWESOME. I still don't know why bad weeks are so bad and good weeks are so good. Here are some of the wonderful things that have happened:

-I have a tan...ok sunburn...but its whatev. the SUN is shining. We are going on a bike ride in the Bois de Boulogne after this. 

-Scott Michel, the son of Catherine Michel is getting baptized on the 29th of this month!! 

-We passed by this crazy less active and she had a friend there who is a mom with three kids and we read the family proclamation to the world and the mom LOVED it and was asking us all kinds of questions about the church! 

-We have been running up all of the stairs in and out of the metros. On Saturday night we got to a huge flight and were so tired, but just looked at each other and sang eye of the tiger up the whole thing. pretty much wish there was someone who could have gotten a third person video of that. 

-Joyce fed us RIBS for dinner this week. I can't even describe the hilaria that is that household. They are my favorite. 

My life is not real. I love living and serving here. Paris, although it smells like a giant public toilet, is a dream. I can't wait for y'all to see it.

All my love!

Soeur Johns  

man quiche

short one this week, sorry. 

so basically, this week started great. then I got the stomach flu and/or food poisoning (could have been related to the "man quiche" the elders made for district meeting).

the main points: 

-scott, the son of Catherine Michel, came to the institute FHE with us on monday night and loved it! he stayed even longer than us and all of the people there flocked to him and made him feel so welcome. i don't think the members even understand how much we love them when they do that. 

-Alicia received the Gift of the Holy Ghost and bore her testimony on Sunday. She was glowing. 

-Catherine Michel told us that she was super busy and that she couldn't come to church on Sunday. I was so worried and just thought, "thus it begins", but then at the beginning of Sacrament she walked in. She told me that she was sitting at home and thought, "do I want to be clean this week?" and decided that she needed to make the sacrifice to come to church! TRUE CONVERSION! 

-Soeur Hosking printed off a life sized photo of my face looking very disapproving and put it on a Popsicle stick, now anytime I do anything ridiculous she holds it up and says "soeur johns does not approve". Such a crack up. 

-Soeur Hosking had her Paris legality and is now LEGAL in FRANCE!

now that we are all rested up. Soeur Johnsking is ready to take down this ville. this week is going to be full of miracles, I am entirely convinced.

love you a bunch. 

Soeur Johns

she is such a gem

one year down.

Everything has been going so swimmingly well that I knew a week like this was coming. It wasn't even a bad week, and Alicia still got baptized on Saturday. We have just been so spoiled lately. Had to be reminded that we are still doing missionary work and that everything can't just be handed to us on a silver platter all of the time.

The highlights of the weeks are that Catherine Michel's son Scott came to church and wants to be baptized and that Alicia is a member of the church!!! 

Here is her story...Alicia's mom is named Joyce and she was born into the church. Her dad, older sister, and younger brother have always stayed active and faithful, but her, her brother, and her mom fell away for a little bit. During this time she started living with Alicia's dad and had 4 beautiful daughters. As they started growing up she realized that she needed something to help her raise them and wanted them to have the morals and standards that she learned in the church. So she decided to leave him and come back to the church. As she did this she invited the missionaries to come over and meet her family. They quickly found out, as missionaries do, that Alicia was 12 years old and not yet baptized. They taught her all of the lessons and fixed her for a baptismal date on February 22nd, the same day as her cousin. And that is where I came in. For the past two transfers we have been going over once a week and helping her get started on her personal progress and all of that, but honestly I was just the lucky missionary who got to be there for her big day. And it was a BIG DAY!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY. They are ROCK solid in the church and the baptism was incredible. Felt more like a family reunion than a baptism, and the Spirit there was incredible. Alicia was baptized by her uncle Brian who is also in the ward. My favorite part of the whole night was when Joyce and her Sister got up arm in arm and bore their testimonies together. Her sister talked all about how she always always knew that Joyce would come back and how happy she was to see her family in the gospel and how they would never let anything take them away from it again. And Joyce repeated NEVER into the microphone. JAMAIS. Ahh, I had chills. This is LITERALLY what it is all about. Happy families, forever families.

Also, I HIT MY ONE YEAR MARK. What a year. Never felt more in my entire life. I have not for one day regretted the choice I made to serve this mission. I would not trade ANYTHING in this entire world to have met these beautiful people. They have changed my life and my testimony of Our Savior and His Church forever. I have never done something so hard in my whole life. There are days when I just want to open my eyes and be at home. But I have also never done something that has brought me so much joy. And there are also those days when it feels like it's going too fast and it will be too short and there is no way my brain is going to be able to hold onto all of this happiness and remember it forever. I know that I needed these lessons. As C.S. Lewis says "isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back everything is different..." As much as I feel like the same old far from perfect Kales, I know that Heavenly Father has shaped me and helped me become who He wants and needs me to be. I know that I have done exactly what he has asked me to do, and that is what gives me the greatest peace to know that I am in the right place. And I am not stopping now!! I have these next 5 months to give it my all. Good ole' Napoleon once said, "I will not return except under arches of triumph" and I second that.

Well, I sure do love y'all.

Passez une très belle semaine!

à plus.
Soeur Johns 

 Alicia with her grandpa, and her aunt, uncle and cousins. 

Joyce, Alicia, and the family! 

 alicia 

love this little lady 

 the star 

all the kids!!