from the ghetto of belgium to the ghetto of paris

I'M GOING TO PARIS FOR CHRISTMAS!

the transfer email just came through and...i'm leaving Liège and going to st.ouen to serve with soeur francis! so stoked. i've heard that st.ouen is the ghettoest ville in our mission, so that means 2 things: humble people and muslims. yayyyy. 

but it happens to be right in paris, which means that paris p-days are about to HAPPEN. i'm looking forward to that just a little bit.   

i am really sad to leave Liège. these people are just the GREATEST EVER. really. ah, i really wish i had the words to describe to you how much these people mean to me, or how much fun i've had, or how hard i've laughed, or how many crazy things i've seen, or how much spiritual progression i've watched, buttttttttttt I don't, so sorry. 

seriously though, nadine and her golden family are still golden. gigh is still the coolest and most inspiring ami ever, joycely had her interview yesterday to receive her patriarchal blessing, and literally all of our less actives bore their testimonies at church. the spirit is doing some good work on these people. I feel so lucky and extremely blessed to have been here to witness it. i know that Liège is at it's tipping point, and the soeur that is coming here is one lucky duck. 

not only is she getting the best amis but also the best companion EVER. seriously, soeur hilton is just an all around super star. i just adore her guts out, and have learned so much from her. 

y'all missions are the best. the absolute best. i have 0 regrets about deciding to serve, or the mission that i have had. just 100 percent at peace.  

bisous, 

soeur johns  

I think Mormonism is the perfect religion.

can I just tell you...

this was one of the BEST thanksgivings of my life. 

there were so many moments this week where I was filled with so much JOY that i wanted to (did) just scream and jump up and down and do a happy dance. I had so many beautiful confirmations this last week that THIS is exactly where I am supposed to be right now, at this time, and with these people. Our amis are QUALITY. And there is no way they would be progressing this fast without the hand of the Lord himself. 

so y'all know GIGH...well, she had a GREAT time at the young adults weekend in Charleroi and made some solid friends. One of which invited her to be baptized. Gigh told her all of her worries about baptism and not being perfect and sinning again and the whole bit, but this girl just looked at her and said 'I know you are going to do it'. When Gigh was telling us this story, she was just like 'yeah I didn't tell her, but I know I am going to do it too'. AHH. SHE IS SHE IS. We taught her the word of wisdom this week, and she is already living it!! 

and whats more, she didn't show up to institute on Friday for whatever reason and we were pretty bummed, but then one of the members texted us around 9:30 and said that GIGH was there!! She knew that she had missed the lesson, but she just wanted to pop in to see her friends! 

love her. 

also, I'm sure you are dying for an update on our culturally mormon FAMILY. ok, like maybe your not dying for an update because you probably have 1 million and a half sister missionary emails to read, and i'm sure it's hard to keep all of us straight let alone our investigators, but just humor me for a moment. so Peter and Nadine. We were lucky enough to see them again this week. THIS IS MY GOLDEN PRAYED FOR FAMILY. I know it clear as day. Nadine is a PEACH. Honestly, I just feel like I'm sitting down with one of my young women leaders every time we are there. At this moment she is in the process of reading the Book of Mormon, she is doing missionary work on her extended family (and her husband), and she and her husband made a new years resolution to stop drinking, period!! Out of the mouth of Peter, the 'atheist' himself, 'I think Mormonism is the perfect religion'.  

love them. 

Many people have been asking me if it was hard to be away from home for Thanksgiving. And to be one hundred percent honest, not at all. Of course, I ALWAYS miss y'all. But I am taken care of SO WELL here, and I have the best companion, and Thanksgiving was perfect and so much FUN. We got together as a zone in Namur and had a very impressive missionary prepared FEAST, and then we played games. It was so weird, after we ate we were like, 'now we are just supposed to hang out?! What does that even feel like?' We played mafia. hahah. 

after that we went over to the Sheurck family home and had a 2ND feast, that made our missionary prepared efforts look like the minor leagues. It was delicious and missing nothing except black beans and rice. The spirit is SO strong in their home. I want my future home to feel like that. yup; It was the perfect day. 

To make this week even BETTER, I was able to go to Brussels for stake conference and hear from Elder Texiera. He spoke many plain and precious things that cannot be recorded at this time. He is precious, and so inspired. 

Also, we were able to have a sleepover with the Brussels Soeurs aka. Soeur Holmes from my MTC district. Reunion of a lifetime. I love that little thing. 

Well, I love y'all! I am so THANKFUL to have each and every one of you in my life. 

Bisous, 

Soeur Johns 

This thanksgiving it is just TOO easy to find things to be grateful for.

I'm just feeling REALLY blessed of late. This was another week for the books. Thanksgiving is coming up and the Christmas paper chain is getting alarmingly short and Liège is busy setting up it's annual "Village de Noël" in Centre Ville, complete with an adorable Christmas themed Ferris Wheel. It is such a bummer that I will probably be out of this dream land come Christmas time. 

GIGH IS BACK! She fell off the face of the planet for a few weeks there, but we succeeded in seeing her this last Tuesday night. We found out that her life has been really difficult lately. We made some delicious pumpkin scones with her and just talked about life. We invited her to go to the JA (Young Adult) super weekend in Charleroi and she said yes! It was so great, we obiviously couldn't go, but she went with Sariah Scheurch (our recently returned mini missionary) and texted us updates every couple hours. She had an absolute blast and Sariah said she really felt the spirit:) We are going to go see her tommorrow and hear all about it!

Okay...so there is the American lady named Soeur Fonicello...she was in Liège 2 but just barely moved back to the U.S. (Texas to be exact).  She kept telling us about this family she wanted us to go see, Peter and Nadine, but we weren't having much luck getting a rdv with them. We had no idea if these people were even believeing, or wanted to see missionaries. Basically we had pretty low expectations for this family. But then a few weeks ago they showed up after church for Soeur Fonicello's going away party and Nadine started talking to us and invited us over! Well, last Wednesday was our appointment. We had no idea what to expect, except that she was feeding us dinner. Soeur Fonicello had been her cleaning lady, and Nadine had met us once while we were helping Soeur Fonicello move...so we thought maybe Nadine was expecting us to help her clean house? Really we had no idea. We were prepared for anything...at least we thought we were. We couldn't have been more surprized by what actually happened....

We stumbled upon a family that is culturally Mormon.  Nadine led us inside, sat us down with her children and basically said, "Teach them!"  She pulled out worksheets she had written based on the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet for her children to do with us, told us about how every monday night they have family home evening, and when the kids went off to karate she led us back into her "scrapbooking" room, which was filled with Greg Olsen paintings, mormon ads and ensign magazines... She is reading the book of Mormon and has the Relief Society book "Daughters in My Kingdom."  From the way she was talking it is obvious she wants her children to go on missions, literally we could say nothing wrong.  I have never ever felt as good on my mission as I had felt that night!  God really is preparing people.  And members are so powerful.  This is all thanks to Soeur Fonicello!  Nadine even had a "Mormon Mom's" cookbook.  I can't wait to go back and see them again:)  It was really weird, the night before all of this, at Gigh's house, the TV was on for a few minutes and Nadine was on it!  She was in some sort of news story.  It was just really cool because I never watch tv and the one time it was on our soon-to-be investigator was on the screen...so cool!

Okay, what else happened this week. Oh yes, we had "A VERY BELGE THANKSGIVING."  So there is this less-active, Christianne.  She's...well...a little exhuberant... and for months she has been inviting us to have Thanksgiving with her.  It was kind of the last thing we wanted to do.  We wanted to have thanksgiving with the Schuerch's because they are half-American.  Well, last week Christianne asked if we were coming over for Thanksgiving this Thursday, the 21st, we told her that that's not Thanksgiving!  It's a week later on the 28th.  She said she'd already invited a bunch of people. Anyways, It was perfect this way!  So this last Thursday I had my first Belge Thanksgiving.  It was hilarious!  Nobody had any idea what it was actually supposed to be like, or what Thanksgiving was even about.  Soeur Hilton told the Pilgrim story at least a few times, it was kind of difficult in French, haha.  Christianne tried so hard.  She made EVERYTHING out of pumpkin though!  We had pumpkin soup, pumpkin chunks to go with the turkey? and a pumpkin pie that had onions in it instead of sugar.  Seriously I will never forget that night... I can't wait for our American Thanksgiving this week!  There is no such thing as canned pumpkin out here so we bought five giant slices of pumpkin, cut them up, cooked them in the oven and then puréed them. We are taking desperate measures to get pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving!

Well that's it for this week! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with gratitude, family, and delicious (sugary) pumpkin pie!

LOVE YOU ALL, 

Soeur Johns. 

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.