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 

Paris. Vannes. Rennes. Nantes.

Bonjour!

 

This week.

 

Let me break it down for ya.

 

Monday: P-day in Paris.

Tuesday: Legality in Paris and the reunion of all reunions with Soeur Judd.

Wednesday: May Day. Everything was shut down because it's France where literally every other day is a public holiday so we just contacted people at the port the whole day & then had a mangez-vous with my Tahitian less active soul sister who I love and has the most adorable children.

Thursday: District meeting and EXCHANGES with Soeur Miller...qui veins de TEXAS. more on that in a moment.

Friday: Exchanges and train ride back to Nantes to pick up Soeur Grewar & then work

Saturday: Weekly planning & work

Sunday: Church & work

 

So needless to say we didn't get as much done last week as we would have liked. But regardless of all this. Vannes is COOKIN. Soeur Grewar and I are quite the team. I love my little Aussie so much. She is teaching me heaps.

 

Side note: We found Veggiemite at an African market. I can't say I hated it.

 

Okay soooo....

 

Yesterday we walk into the Chapel and a member walks up to us and asks us if we can come over to FHE at her house next week because her best friend is interested in the church and wants to meet us. "Oh sorry, no we are way to busy porting and running people down on the street, maybe next time." NOT. I actually teared up. Our branch is too good to us.

 

THEN our District President pulls me to the side and tells me that he's been waiting for missionaries like us and gives us like 7 contacts and tells us that he wants to have a big missionary party thing and invite all his friends. He also gave us a huge package to go take over to his less active daughter so that she was forced to meet us. Then today he invited us to go to the District activity with him and his family next week.

 

THEN THEN THEN. Cherry on top. WE FIND OUT THAT A NON-MEMBER 14 YEAR OLD GIRL HAS BEEN COMING TO CHURCH THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE HERE. I thought she was a member. Basically her Dad joined the church about 7 months ago with her 17 year old sister. The mom was investigating too and I actually don't know if she ever stopped or if it was just because we got transfered in. (Vannes was not the most organized area in the world when we got here) Anyways, we are eating dinner and teaching the family on thursday. PRAY FOR US.

 

Other than that Madame Pierre is progressing. Okay to be absolutely honest this lady is kooky as kooky gets, but she is also golden as golden gets. I love her so much. We went and visited her on Wednesday and it turns out that she has read all the way through 2nd Nephi in the BOM. She was talking all about the Nephites and the Lamanites and it was blowing my mind. She really wants to come to church but she doesn't have a car and said she wouldn't be comfortable going with a stranger. So next lesson we are bringing a member, bien sûr. Here are just a few of the other phrases that came out of her mouth that literally made my jaw drop: "you two are just like angels" "I'm an insomniac but ever since I read the BOM I have slept for 7 hours a night" "I want to come to church" "I feel like I've always known you girls". I'm literally sitting there smiling so big. Here's the catch with her though. She talks and talks and talks and talks. And we try so hard to teach her, but she doesn't really listen to us for more than like 10 seconds. So what we do say to her is super bold, but it's really tricky to actually teach her anything. We are praying to figure her out. She also gave us the names and numbers of all of her children so we are going to go visit them this week and see if they can help.  

 

But yeah. The Church is true.

Okay so exchanges were SO SO fun. Soeur Miller was great and we drank DDP and ate Mac and Cheese and talked about how much we loved Chicken Express and Sonic. But the best part....

 

So we go over to visit Winona our less active with the boyfriend. (She is SO 16 it kills me) We get there and Winona is back in her room so we are talking in the kitchen with her mom. All of the sudden I look over at their little yorkie dog and watch it HIKE ITS LEG and pee all over Soeur Millers foot. Her. Face. PRICELESS. Soeur Le Divenach saw the pee, but didn't realize that it had actually peed all down Soeur Millers leg.  It was one of those moments where you can't laugh because poor Soeur Le Divenach already felt so awkward that her dog just peed on the floor. But I almost DIED trying to hold it in. When she ran to the other room to get a mop I literally laughed so hard I almost peed on the floor. That visual will stay in my head for the rest of my life. Soeur Millers face. Hahaha. Im laughing so hard writing this just thinking about it.

 

#missions

 

Oh by the way. I can kind of sort of speak French, so that's weird.

 

Alright times up. Love you all. Thank you for the letters and packages and constant support. Y'all keep me movin:)

 

Je vous aime!

    Soeur Johns

tower d'eiffel

sup Eiffel Tower

Soeur Grewar and Moi

jumping for joy!

The Arc

Notre Dame

Just two little Texans noming on some DP and Mac and Cheese

We are clearly not from around here

My face after eating Vegemite

 

 

PARIS or bust

MA FAMILLE!!!!!

Okay. This letter is going to be very short right here right now because:

A) I'm typing on a French keyboard and it takes me a million tries to write one word

B) I'm in PARIS. I have to do my legality for France tomorrow and since Vannes is so far away they let us come sleep in Paris for the night and do P-DAY here. So as much as I would love to stay and chat...I can see Notre Dame and it is calling my name.

So this week my mission and I had a DTR and...

I'm really starting to love it.

SOOO much happened this week. SOOO much progress.

Basically we followed up on Glustaime and had lunch with her! (I swear our ami's and inactive's cook for us more than the members) She has had a really hard life and suffers from depression, but she told us that everytime she is with us she feels hope and she feels happy. && She loves the Book of Mormon!! We are going to try to get her to come to church with us this Sunday!

We also found another person to teach. We both forgot his name...so we call him the shed man. I don't really know the whole story, but he used to live in a house and then he moved to an apartment so every day he runs this little antique shop of all the stuff that won't fit into his apartment. Kinda weird, but whatevs. We went in there one day and started talking to him and he told us that he thought that all of the religions were true so there was no point in joining one. Music to my ears. Then we testified of the Restoration and gave him a BOM. He was really interested and said he would read it. It was the first time I really had the opportunity to testify my heart out and it was amazing.

Other than that we have a couple of really solid potential families & we have been doing a lot of less-active work and two of them came to church on Sunday. One is a 16 year old girl who found herself a non-member boyfriend and now she doesn't want anything to do with the church. So we took her out for Crepes for her birthday and talked about life and she really opened up to us and it was so amazing. Love her.

Okay. Time is up!! Sorry! I promise I will write more juicy details next week!

KENZIE you looked beautiful at PROM and I love the hair!

à beintôt:

SOEUR JOHNS 

My mission advice to any girl who is thinking about serving

Kenzie, Emily and any other girl who is thinking about serving…

Missions are hard. Really hard! Nearly unbearably hard. The MTC, not hard. The MTC was awesome every second. The mission has awesome moments, don’t get me wrong, but it also has moments where you are in the lowest low you have ever felt. Moments where all you want to do is crawl back into Mom and Dad’s bed and never ever grow up and never leave their side again.

That being said, I know that this is where God wants me. That is my first piece of advice for you. Find out clearly if this is what God wants for your life. That takes a strong measure of spiritual preparation. Study how to receive revelation and follow each principle with EXACT obedience. A good place to start would be Richard G. Scott’s talk, “How to Receive Revelation Through the Scriptures” and prayer in the Bible dictionary. You are going to need to work hard for clear and crisp revelation.

You are going to need to give yourself to much fasting and prayer and study and TIME. It’s a process, not meant to happen all at once. My process took a solid 8 months and it was not easy, and I gave up a wonderful boy to be here.

The second thing you must do is rid your thoughts of absolutely every fantasy you have about what a mission is.

I’ll tell you what a mission is: It’s work. Mental, physical and spiritual work.

You don’t have You time. You don’t have the privilege of saying, “I’m tired, my feet and all my muscles kill I’m just going to lay down.” You don’t have the privilege of using a cell phone when you actually really need it (we have an old one for our team, but can only call/text no Google maps) You don’t have the privilege of sightseeing. You are on a mission to work. To follow the rules even if you don’t understand why. To live and be around another human 100% of the time (and I’ve had good humans to be around) You are here to talk to people who don’t think you are precious. You are here to do things and say things that you wouldn’t necessarily want a stranger to do and say to you.

But, if you come here with a TESTIMONY and the desire to work and especially with a knowledge that the Lord wants you where you are then you will be given the strength to endure the hard times and appreciate the good times.

A testimony is really the key. Build your testimony in the simple doctrinal truths. Know that the Book of Mormon is true. Know that God loves you. Know that families can be together forever. Know the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Know that the Savior atoned for the sins of the world. Know that we have and had a prophet. Know that the Priesthood is real. Know that the church is true, every auxiliary. Know that the temple is the house of God and the work that is done there is real. And know that this gospel is not only true for you, but for everyone else as well.

It is crucial that you understand that a mission is not synonymous with a fun and exciting adventure. It is NOT a study abroad. It is NOT a good way to learn another culture or another language. It is NOT a good way to pass the time while your boyfriend is on a mission. It is NOT a good way to run away from problems at home. IT is NOT even a good way to become a better person. A mission is work. It is soul-stretching, physically exhausting and mentally draining work.

BUT, IT IS THE LORD’S WORK. It is teaching me so much. I have never been so converted to this gospel in my life and I have never been closer to our Heavenly Father. I’ve already seen miracles. I genuinely am developing characteristics of charity, faith and diligence that I don’t think would be possible to develop any other way for me personally. I am blessed and see the hand of the Lord daily. I am slowly but surely learning how to feel the spirit to guide me to people who are prepared for this message. I have never known my scriptures better. I have never loved my family and desired to live with them forever more. I’ve never felt more love for strangers. I’ve never come to a better knowledge that every other person on this earth is loved the same by God as his child. I’ve never cried more. I’ve never been so bold. I’ve never stood so starkly for anything. I’ve never lived so simply. I’ve never wanted more people to have the gospel.

If those are the types of things you truly desire in your heart, I can testify that those are the things my mission has done for me already, and I think a mission could be a good path for you.  If you are coming here for another reason, Good Luck.

(Mathew 10:39. ..the only reason you go. You can’t come looking to find yourself.)

Also, you would be wise to prepare better than I did. Take much less thought to your mission wardrobe and spend time preparing to go through the temple, spend time going on splits with the sister missionaries. Spend time knowing your scripture mastery.  If you are trusted (not blessed) enough to learn a language spend time studying that language instead of worrying about eating at your favorite restaurants for the last time. Worry about strengthening your muscles and legs to walk with heavy bags. Just be practical.