you'll wear those all white clothes, you'll look incredible

hello my dearly beloveds.

this week was cray cray. the stars are really aligning over here in st.ouen.

the miracles of the week…

catherine michelle is getting baptized on saturday! it's really happening! she is just the cutest and most prepared ami in the whole world and I feel so blessed to have been able to meet and teach her. this week we taught her about fasting and tithing. between that lesson and the next one she had already fasted AND set an envelope aside with her tithing money in it! she is one of those people who does not waste time. when she knows the lord's will, she does it immediately. i really look up to her so much in that way! also she is pretty much the most popular person in the ward. we hardly even got a chance to talk to her on sunday because all of the members just adore her.

at Noah's baptism one of their family friends, adrienne, came up to us and asked us if we could come over and teach her and her son. that happened this week!! adrienne was a little less than interested in what we had to say, however, her son Eric is AWESOME. he is about 19-22ish, and he had literally 15454321424 questions for us. great questions too. he grew up Christian, but then as he went to school he started noticing that the Christians he knew didn't really live their religion, but the Muslims did, so he thought that they must be right. sad. but basically he expressed to us his deep desire to follow the plan of God and learn more about him, and that He was willing to follow any path as long as he got a confirmation that it was true, and that the people were honest and practicing. hello, the mormons. & he came to church the next day and really liked it!!!

Therize is progressing wonderfully. We had an awesome lesson about repentance this week and the spirit was so strong. she is so willing and ready to change and start fresh. and, she already considers the church her church. so that's awesome!!

we taught Audrey about the word of wisdom on exchanges and she was already living it!! she is so prepared! she is moving back to the USA for 3 months, so we are sending her information back to the elders over there. i think she will get baptized during this time and I am so so happy!!

other than that….

we met with madame bernard and she invited her BAPTIST preacher to join us for the lesson. yeah, literally tried to rip apart all of our beliefs and bible bash with us. i do not know where the satisfaction in trying to prove two young american girls wrong comes from for a 80 year old man, but it was interesting enough. it reminded me of high school and all of his points of debate were nothing i hadn't heard before. I refused to get into it with him and just testified and invited him to read the book of mormon to know for himself that it was "false scripture". yeah, i don't think we've got a taker...but it's really just his loss.

yeah basically, that's all the exciting news for this week. other than that i finally found DOUBLE STUFFED OREOS and ate the whole box in one sitting. well whoops. it was my kick off for 6 months to sexy, okay.

well y'all, I sure do love ya. keep it classy.

bisous, soeur johns

Perfect Day!

for the books

Well hello there another beautiful week in the ghettos of the city de l'amour.

I just LOVE how much happens in one single week on the mission. It is overwhelming in every single way to try to update y'all on everything, but know that whoever wants the whole story just has to throw on sweatpants and read my mission journal with me while eating bluebell cookies & cream. those are my only requirements.

This week started with Soeur Hosking's first mangez-vous. OH man. WHAT A NIGHT. There is a soeur in the ward named Laurinda who was baptized in August, she is portugaise and only speaks portugaise. On monday we were invited over to a portugaise member's house for dinner with Laurinda, Laurinda's husband who is not a member, and another member to eat & give a little spirituel thought. Let's just talk a second for the phenomenon we like to call the French Forcefeed. Which ironically has nothing to do with food. In France, and I'm sure across the rest of the world as well, the members are terrified of sharing the Gospel. However, if you bring them anyone who is in the least bit interested, or even just willing to listen, they will spend 3 hours skipping straight over the PMG basics and diving straight into exaltation, reformed egyptian, and temple logistics. And that's basically what happened Monday night. What started with a simple spiritual thought on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ turned into a deep doctrine debate. It was a disaster. And to make matters worse Soeur Hosking got sick in the middle of it, but we couldn't leave because they just kept talking and talking and talking. Half in French, half in Portugaise. We are just praying that Laurinda's husband will get amnesia and let us over to teach him again.

Members aren't always awful to teach with though. On Tuesday we taught 2 lessons with a girl named Shainy who is AWESOME and helped us so much. We started out by teaching Audrey who is coming along slowly but surely, and then Catherine Michelle who is ON FIRE and is getting baptized next weekend! We taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she was already living it! I just love people like that. She kept saying over and over again how grateful she was that she found the church because she "didn't think that that many people like her even existed in the world." She feels right at home in the church and wants her entire family to be a part of it. Pray that we can meet her husband soon! That night we had a really amazing experience with following the Spirit. Our RDV fell through so we decided to hit the streets and talk to people. We started walking down the street and talking to everyone, but no one was really excited about us. All of the sudden I got the feeling that we were not in the right place, or doing the right thing. I fought it for a while because I thought that maybe I was just sick of getting rejected, but then I told Soeur Hosking and she was feeling the same way. We turned around and literally seconds later we met a lovely women who we stopped and talked to for a good 10 minutes about the Book of Mormon. She was super open and told us that she was excited to read it and try out the promise! I sure hope we hear from her soon. Then we decided to continue following our gut and we felt that we should pass by an ami who lives close to our house. On the bus ride we saw a woman who we had met the night before, but didn't get a chance to really talk to because she had to get off the bus. Soeur Hosking had specifically said, "if we need to see her again, the Lord will provide a way." Annndd He did. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon as well and invite her to pray about it. Even though the ami we had originally planned on seeing was not home, I know that the Lord was guiding us to her through the Spirit.

On Wednesday we had a special conference with Elder Kearon from the Quorm of the Seventy. It was amazing. General Authorities have such a REAL power. Everything he said, and how he said reminded me of Christ. I felt his love for us as missionnaries and gained so much insight from his words. It was amazing. Then we had a lesson with Jimmy and Sarah who informed me that they ARE THINKING ABOUT BREAKING UP. Dang adversary. Not cool. I am so worried about BOTH of them if this happens. But as of Sunday they were still together, and Jimmy passed the Sacrament, so I think it's okay...for now. We also had a lesson with Noah and family and the twins joined us for it!! Finally!!!!!

Thursday...Madame Cherif...oh boy. So you remember that first door we ported, well we went back this week and had a lesson with Madame Cherif. During the lesson she expressed to us about how she was contemplating suicide and then proceeded to pull out everything she would need to do it. I hope this is the first and last time I ever have to talk someone off a ledge. Needless to say we helped her dispose of all of those materials and expressed to her how much the gospel message and the church can help her find joy in her life. She is willing to do what ever it takes and agreed to come to church with us on Sunday. Later on that day we saw Catherine Michelle, Alicia, and Rose and they are doing great.

Friday and saturday...lots happen, but I'm getting bored of writing this email. We are, however, in the process of getting missionnaried by a baptist lady named Mme. Bernard. She agreed to have a RDV with us, but then made us come meet her at a market and tried to get us to help her hand out flyers for her church. She now calls us almost everyday to ask how we are doing and invite us to church. Oh so wierd to be on the other side of things.

Sunday was again SO STRESSFUL. Madame Cherif and Catherine Michelle at church at the same time gave me another run for my money. But it was great, and went super well. Best part however was during a lesson on the temple in Relief Society when a lady raised her hand from the back and said "I'm not a member, actually this is my first time in the church, but what do I have to do to go there and how long do I have to wait?" Ahh yeah, you better believe we are meeting with Olga and her HUSBAND and her FAMILY this week :) Here we comin' eternal family.

Y'all I miss you. I really do. But I know that before I blink I'll be back in your arms, eating real hamburgers and milkshakes, and running as long as I want with headphones and music blasting. Until then I'm going to be baptizing these amazing French, Algerian, Guadelopean, Italian, Phillipino, and African people.

Avec amour, Soeur Johns 
  

Here is the picture of the first conference with elder Kearon
Voici la photo de la première conférence avec elder Kearon.

empty sea district reunion! 

 NOAHS BAPTISM 

the whole fam bamily 

at the opera house! the phannnnnttttoommmmmm of the opera issss herreeeeeee 

 well whoops 

CHIPOLTE. Its a weekly occurance. 

we found milkshakes in france. they were sub par. 

 sometimes I fall asleep with the area book...

this bleu is on fire

There is this thing in our mission that we call: 

BLEU FIRE. Aka. the excitement and good missionary desires that new missionaries have when they get to the field. Uhmm let me just tell you...MY COMPANION HAS GOT IT. Thisssss bleuuuuuuu isssssssss onnnnnnnnnn fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (alicia keys, clearly).

I'm just going to throw it out there and say that this has probably been my favorite week of the mission. 

We literally saw it all.

Let me just give ya a little sample of the kinds of miracles we saw this week...

1) Soeur Hosking invited 2 ami's to be baptized this week!!! THEY SAID YES. Catherine Michelle will be baptized on the 15 of February! And Therize will be when she gets a confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true!! 

2) The FIRST door we ported let us in!!!!! Aka. the FIRST door that Soeur Hosking ever knocked on her mission LET US INSIDE TO PRAY WITH THEM!!! I could not BELIEVE it!!!! It was a beautiful Christian algerian lady who cried during the prayer!!!!!!! and said we could come back!!!!!!! obviously I am a little excited. It was a straight up miracle from above. 

3) 5 of our amis came to church!!!!!! 5. It was actually one of the most stressful days of my life, but so worth it. And they all stayed for the...

4) BAPTISM OF NOAH!!! Noah is such a stud, and the newest member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. What what, what, what. 

5) One of the friends who came to the baptism agreed to meet with us next week, so what's up salvation.

Soooooo St.Ouen may be a wretched ghetto, but it is WHERE ITS AT right now. This ward is just EXPLODING and Soeur Hosking's bleu fire is not helping at all to keep it under control. She is the GREATEST. Literally, the GREATEST. She has absolutely NO FEAR and talks to every single person she sees. We are meeting so many people...okay story time: we knocked on a door and a young man answered it with hair down to his butt and a weed pin on his jacket. We still contacted him because why not, and he said "I don't know how you party, but if you want to come in we can show you how we party"....yeah no. 

Ahh, okay we need to go eat Chipotle and see the Opera house, so we have to go!!!! But I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  

Bisous,
Soeur Johns 

seeing things.

You know it's a good week when your ami has a VISION that the church is true!!!!!!

But let's just start from the beginning...

Monday: P-day. Then we went on exchanges. I was lucky enough to go with Soeur Miller again! I did my first exchange with her in Vannes and she is from Texas, so basically we are MFEO. I love her because she is SUCH a good missionnarie, but she is so chill and doesn't drill you about your entire life story. Also, Soeur Andersen was still staying at the Paris-même apartment at this time, so I basically got an exchange with her at the same time. It was so fun to talk about all of our mutual friends. Everyone and their little sister is married or pregnant. & I'm a nun.

Tuesday: We met Rose at the Visitors center and had a GREAT lesson with her and made a TON of progress. She said that her impeachment keeping her from being baptized is that she wants her whole family to be together in the same religion, but they live in the Philippines. So we asked her if we could sent the missionaries over to them, and she said YES!! She didn't know you could do that! We don't have news on if they have started taking the lessons yet, but she texted us yesterday said she really wants to see us, so that's a great sign :) After Rose, we went and saw Jimmy and Sarah! Jimmy is just glowing! They are so happy and I guess they were unofficially engaged before this, but he proposed this week!! Now she has a ring and they are getting married pretty soon actually :) One step closer to exaltation, ahh yeahhhh. Haha. But BAD NEWS, they are probably moving to Marseilles in the south of France within the month because they want to be closer to Sarah's mom. :( I am not worried about them staying strong or anything, but I am very sad for me. We prayed and fasted with them about it yesterday and they got the answer that it was right. I am going to miss them so much. I might just have to come back to France for their wedding next year, if I'm not having one of my o...JUST KIDDING. After visiting them we went and saw Noah our little miracle child!! He is getting BAPTIZED this WEEKEND!!!!! He is so excited! I'm so excited! :)    

Wednesday: We started out the day by seeing Audrey. She is going through a REALLY hard time right now and needs prayers. We talked to her about faith, and she has a TON of it, but she is really struggling in her life right now because she lives all alone with her little girl and "all she wants is a family who can worship the Lord together." Ah, bless her heart. I really want to take her over to a member's house named Joyce who is in the same situation. I think they could really be friends. After Audrey we went and visited the President of the Relief Society. It was...interesting. She basically told us that she doesn't feel like she knows anything about the gospel and wants us to teach her the lessons. You know you're in France when...haha. But I think that if the Relief Society President needs us to teach her the lessons, that is a worthy use of our time. The members need strengthened too, and I know that if we can lift her, she is in the perfect place to lift all of other sisters in the ward.   

Thursday: Thursday we had District Meeting and then we went and taught Catherine Michelle. The FIRST thing she said when we sat down: "I got my response. I know that I need to be baptized." #what. So basically the night before she had a vision. She saw an old man describing to her that something that was on the earth during the time of Jesus Christ had been taken away, but was now restored and is going forth to all of the world. She interpreted this as the missionaries because we had existed in Christ's time, but now-a-days there are "not a lot of people who do what we do". We helped her see that, in fact, it went even deeper and was talking about the RESTORATION of the gospel by the Prophet Joseph Smith!! Talk about a testimony builder for me! She is in the process of praying about a date! :) MI-R-A-CLES happpeeeennnnnn. Today, all around us. I had to go on a mission to really understand this, but I know that if you just open your eyes you will see them and have experiences like this in your every day life. That night we went and saw Alicia our 12 year old ami who is getting baptized Feb 22nd. Her family is the cutest and I am just so glad to see her mom completely back in action after being in-active for so long.

Friday and Saturday: Were fun. We met with a couple of new amies and we'll see where they go. AND we ate CHIPOLTE. It just opened in Paris. Can we just talk about how I have not eaten black beans, or cilantro lime rice, or carnitas, or anything spicy for that matter in SOO long. It was a gift from heaven. I am going to have to control myself or someone is going to have to roll me home.  

Sunday: Sunday was fun too. We went to church. Jimmy got the Priesthood. Then saw Anne, who is actually turning out to be a little cray-cray, but on verra. Then we went and ate with the Poznanski family with Sarah and Jimmy. Okay, cutest family in the WORLD, and best mangez-vous ever...probably because we had all been fasting the whole day, but still so good. It was so chill and they were really the perfect people to talk to Sarah and Jimmy about their decision to move. Plus they showed us some great pictures of President when he was young. Ah, I got a good little laugh.

Basically this week was amazing! This ville is a MIRACLE ville. I am so sad that Soeur Francis is leaving me, but I am so excited for her to go serve in VANNES, my bleu ville! I feel so blessed to have been able to have served with Soeur Francis. I KNOW that she was exactly the companion that I needed at this point in my mission, and she has blessed my life every single day. She is one heck of a missionary and person!! As for my new companion... I will get to meet her on Wednesday!!! :) 

I love you. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. It's true. It's true. There is nothing better.

Until next week, Soeur Johns 

Also, it's SOLDES again. I may or may not have just dropped some cash-money on some cute RM clothes. Sorry dad, I loooveeeeeeeeee youuuuuuuuuuu.

Trainers !!!
Formateurs !!!

Soeur Johns Meeting her new companion/ trainee

First French sandwiches
Premiers sandwiches français

Saying goodbye to the Soeurs that are going home.

what the mess.

Alright, who's been prayin' for me?!

This week was absolutely every adjective synonymous with INCREDIBLE you can think of. 

NOT ONLY did Jimmy Trésor get baptized and confirmed as the newest member of the church, but we also found 6 new people to teach, set 2 more baptismal dates for very soon, picked up the new missionaries from the airport, gave a Book of Mormon to a gypsy camp, was deathly ill and literally healed by a priesthood blessing, and Rose started really reading the Book of Mormon and has been loving it!! 

Here's the play by play 

Monday. After P-day festivities we went and had an FHE with our amie Rose at the Seymour's house because they speak English (Frere Seymour is actually from Arlington, TX. Small world.) It was kind of a disaster at first. We met Rose at her house in Corbevoie, and walked a solid hour in the rain over to their house in Asniéres. Basically walked our poor amie from Mckinney to Allen, or Provo to Orem. We are just so used to walking as missionaries, but poor Rose was going crazy. When we finally arrived everything went okay. We had a lesson specifically on the Book of Mormon and everyone bore very powerful testimonies. The Spirit was really there. That night we got a text from Rose, "I am very interested to Read 1 Nephi..." We texted her the next morning and asked if she had been reading. She said "Yes of course I'm at the part where they are crossing the sea"! We asked her how she felt when she read it and she said "I'm too excited to know about it!" Ah, amazing! 

Tuesday. During our studies we got a surprise call from President asking if we could hurry over to the airport and pick up the new missionaries because the tire on the mission van had blown out. We made it to the airport in pretty good time, but still 20 minutes after the missionaries were supposed to get off the plane. We were so worried about all of these missionaries who were going to be so lost and freaking out that no one was there to pick them up, so we sprinted through the airport like crazy people. My shoes are super slippery too, and I totally biffed it running around one of the corners. I accidentally screamed when I started falling so a bunch of people turned around and got to watch. Lovely. No biggie though, I got right up and just kept on running. My entire leg has a fat bruise on it, but it hasn't caused any problems. Turns out that it took the missionaries a long time to get through customs, so we made it to the arrivals before they even came out. It ended up being a new couple who was coming in and a Soeur visa waiter. It was really fun to chat with them about the MTC, and SUPER weird to be back at the airport. After that we went and met Denise our cute Mexican friend. We taught her the entire first lesson in a park by her house and I think it went pretty well. We couldn't really tell if she was loving it, or thinking that we are crazy people for believing that Joseph Smith saw God, but only time will tell. That night we passed back by the cute Portuguese family we found through Christmas caroling and gave them a Book of Mormon in Portuguese. They are the nicest people I've ever met in my life. I am so excited to teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel this week! I know it's my job to say this, but I think it is just what they are missing in their lives. 

Wednesday. At the beginning of the transfer we received a cordonné from Church Headquarters for a girl named Audrey who had been taking the lessons in the United States and wanted to continue. We finally got in contact with her this week and started teaching her!! She is THE cutest thing, and LOVES America right now because of her trip. We're talking American flag pants, American flag tablecloth, American flags in every house plant, it was cute. Turns out, her Mom had joined the church after she moved to the States (Springfield, IL), and her brother just got baptized on January 1st. She knows a lot about the church because of them and knows that she needs to pray and read the Book of Mormon to gain her own testimony. Golden. She practically teaches us the missionary lessons even though she learned them in English. Way to go Elder Jones and Fulston! After Audrey we went and had a lesson with Jimmy on Tithing, and he had his baptismal interview. As always he was more than eager to keep this new commandment and was asking very practical questions about how to fill out the form, when he needs to pay it every month, etc. His interview went super well, and it was so cool to be out in the hallway with Sarah, and see her freaking out about how she never thought she was going to be able to get married in the temple, but now...it was HAPPENING. The best. After Jimmy we headed over to visit a less-active named Marie. She had come back to church for the first time in years the week before, and had told us that she wanted to return to full activity and go to the temple. We can work with that. I really loved how she said it, "I spent my time in the belly of the whale, but now I'm out and I'm ready to get serious about following the will of God for my life". I feel like that is such a common thing for members of the church, we all have our moments where we stray a little bit away from the Gospel/commandments and spend some time in limbo land, but if we really have a testimony we always come back. At least I know that that has happened to me. Anyways, sorry tangent, MARIE is back. And she has 3 beautiful unbaptized children who she wants to bring with her...we will get to them in a moment. 

Thursday. I woke up Thursday morning as sick as a dog. But we had a zone conference and exchanges, and so I knew I wasn't really going to get any rest all day/night. I felt really bad because the Zone Conference was all about persevering with a positive attitude, but I pretty much just wanted to curl up in a ball and die. At the end I asked for a blessing, and in it I was promised that this sickness would not hold us back from doing any missionary work. As usual, God held up His end, and while I didn't feel better immediately, we were still able to teach the two lessons we had that night and they went so well!! Also we canceled exchanges, so I got to sleep in my own bed. That night we taught a lady named Therize for the first time. She was contacted on the street by the Elders, and is super legit. Because I was sick, we taught her a really simple and short lesson about the Book of Mormon, but it was so powerful, and made me wish I was sick all of the time so I could teach like that. It's amazing what happens when you really rely on the Lord. 

Friday. I woke up Friday morning feeling like a million bucks and my testimony of the Priesthood really grew a ton. That morning we had a great lesson with Catherine Michelle!! She is so cool. Then we had a final lesson with Jimmy before his baptism and it went great. My favorite question was this: "Jimmy, you're about to get baptized, do you have ANY last questions?" "Yeah, actually I do. But like it's not about the Gospel, I really am ready. I was just watching TV yesterday and I saw that American eggs are white! Why are American eggs white and French eggs are yellow?" Seriously, n'importe quoi. He is so ridiculous. The best part of the lesson was the closing prayer. Jimmy said it and when he said the worlds "tomorrow is the big day where I get baptized in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," the Spirit really entered the room and I got mad goosebumps.

Saturday. The Big Day!!! We started out however by seeing Audrey again. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she really ate it up. She was going to a funeral later that day, and so it really applied. I am so excited to see her get baptized. She is one of the most prepared people I've ever met. Then we headed up to the church to fill up the font and get everything ready for the baptism. Naomie and Eloise who the Elders were teaching were getting baptized the same day, so everyone started showing up (including Catherine Michelle and Anne!!). Except that at 4:30 Jimmy and Sarah were still not there!! Satan had to have one final go at them and trapped them in the Metro. Luckily they got out and made it about 15 minutes later. Satan 0, Jimmy and Sarah 1. The baptism was AMAZING. Such an amazing moment! And so many members were there!!!! It was cool too because Elder Toledo from my MTC district was one of the Elders who was teaching Eloise and Naomie. We had a moment where we were just like: we would have NEVER imagined this sitting in the MTC a year ago! It was the bestttttt. 

Sunday. Jimmy. Confirmed. Marie walks up to us right after and sets a baptismal date for her son Noah for the 26 of January, and tells us that we need to come teach him all of the lessons. And that we also need to teach her two twins. What. The. Mess. So down. Then we went and ate lunch with a member and accompanied her to a gypsy camp to give them food and a Book of Mormon she had ordered for them in Romanian. She is THE cutest thing. We had a lesson with Anne, our Catholic lady that night where she informed us that she believed that the Catholic church was not true and that she wanted to be a Mormon. Well, she said it, not me. But we can work with that.

I just really feel so blessed right now, and so undeserving of all of these miracles. This work is real and I know that it is the Lords. 

I love y'all too much.

Love, Soeur Johns 

   

people can change.

let's talk about JIMMY.

When we met him we weren't super sure his heart was in the right place. He was taking the lessons for Sarah, his fiancé, but she kept telling us that she could tell that he was just doing it for her, and that if she wasn't in the picture he would never join the church. But we kept teaching him. It seemed like week after week he would look just a little bit nicer at church, ask more and more sincere questions, and look brighter. We could tell that he was gaining his own testimony and that he was the one who was actually lifting Sarah up. This week we met with them on Friday and we could tell that something was wrong. We planned on teaching the law of chastity, but before we began I felt really prompted to tell them that Satan was working hard on them at this moment because he could see that they were only a week away from taking the first step towards their eternal family. They opened up to us about how they were both losing confidence in their relationship, had considered breaking up several times the past week, and that Sarah even had thought about flying back to Guadeloupe and giving up on everything. They both sincerely wanted to find a solution and more importantly to find peace. It was crazy how it all fit together because the lesson on the law of chastity is really more about finding peace and happiness in your relationships than anything else. We were able to testify that we KNOW that living the gospel blesses marriages, and that living the gospel and being sealed in the temple are the BEST things you can do for your relationship, ever. Things loosened up a little bit with them by the end of the lesson, and we invited them to an FHE with a member family the next day. I was SUPER glad to see them holding hands when we met up  to go. The FHE went really well. They fed us a huge African feast to begin (complete with fofo, nkaski, hibisus juice, lamb, chicken legs, and these weird avocado looking things). While we were eating the parents shared their conversion story. I hadn't realized that they had only been baptized 3 years ago. Frère N'sieté talked about how he had grown up in a catholic non-practicing family (same as jimmy) and that he really found ALL of the answers to his question in the gospel. Jimmy was listening intently and even told him that he felt the same way. The actual FHE lesson was pretty funny because Frère N'sieté just went off in African preacher mode and I'm pretty sure he didn't take one single breath in the whole 50 minutes he was talking. I was worried that Jimmy & Sarah were getting bored and regretting their decision to be there, but turns out Jimmy was so touched that he had a dream that night about God, and some of the things Frère N'sieté was saying about Him. He dreamed that God gave him two paths, one was with Sarah and the Gospel, and the other was continuing life as it was before. AND GUESS WHAT PATH HE CHOOSE?? The right one. The next day at church he showed up in slacks and a suit coat and personally invited every ward member to his baptism. He even had an interview with the bishop to talk what he and Sarah need to do to be ready for the temple. I can't even believe how converted Jimmy is to this gospel it is incredible!! His baptism is on Saturday and we are so excited!!! 

PEOPLE CAN CHANGE!

Another evidence of this fact came this week when we had a sleepover with the soeurs from Vannes, my first ville! They told me that Christiane was getting baptized!!!!!! Seriously, I thought that there was NO hope for this lady. We probably dropped and retaught her at least 7 times while I was there. I remember one time when I invited her to be baptized and she straight up said that she would never ever do that! Well... she is eating those words! She has quit smoking, drinking coffee, and has been to church every week. She even told them to tell 'the other soeurs' sorry that she was so rude to us!! Of all the people we found and taught in Vannes, Christiane is by FAR the last one I would have even pegged to be baptized. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Other than that it was a pretty crazy & miraculous week.

We...

-celebrated Soeur Francis' 20th birthday at 'the Village' of Disneyland Paris, and ate dinner with the characters at Café Mickey. Hahah. I've never met a single person in my life who loves Disney as much as Soeur Francis. 

-spent New Years chilling all day and catching up on letters because, let's be honest, the last letter I wrote was probably 3 months ago...keep your eyes open my friends. 

-saw the Eiffel tower sparkle

-met the first women who was baptized in Sri Lanka. 

-ate Raclette, aka. one of the yummiest things I've ever put in my mouth. 

-taught a less active and her daughter who came to church the next day!!! their situation is actually really sad. Her parents converted to the church when she was 9 and she was really strong, but then she moved to Paris, and married a muslim man from Egypt who she met on the metro and is at least 30 years younger than her. While we were there teaching the lesson he rang the sonnerie, and when the less-active told her daughter it was her dad she screamed "au secour" which means "HELP". He had the WORST feeling about him. He asked his daughter to come over and give his a 'bisous' (french version of a hug) and she wouldn't even look at him. Then he had the audacity in front of his family to ask us out to a restaurant. It was disgusting. I really want to help this little family out, but we are NOT going back there if he is home. 

-set a goal to fast from English and speak French all day Saturday, morning to night. I thought my brain would explode. This week we are doing 2 days. 

-had a lady from Madagascar walk into the church asking if it was 'Evangelical' and looking for some of her friends. We told her it wasn't, but invited her to stay anyways and she did, for all three hours!! They pulled out the D&C, Book of Mormon, and Pearl of Great Price in the first 5 minutes of the first lesson. I just laughed. Gave me a run for my money trying to explain everything to her. She was making a lot of comparisons with her pentecostal church, and I'm not sure how much she really enjoyed it because she didn't accept our invitation to pass by and bring her a Book of Mormon, but hey, it was a miracle anyways, and I'm sure she will never forget it. 

-taught a lady who is pretty high up in the catholic church (she met the pope last month), but loves Mormons. She wants us to teach her Catholic Priest the Plan of Salvation because he is having a really hard time with the fact that his mother might die. I can't wait. Have you ever heard the talk 'conversion of a catholic priest?' well that is what's about to happen. 

-met a girl who we are going to teach tomorrow who is from Puebla Mexico. Her name is Denise and she is the CUTEST thing.

Well that's all folks. I love you SO much!!

Bisous, Soeur Johns

  

happy 2014.

First things first.

KENDL. bearded with a surf board. no you dinnnnt. you are an inspiration to us all. 

BROOKE. babe. you're married. maybe my first thought when I woke up Saturday morning was, "It's not too late". I'm just so glad Kenz caught that bouquet for me.

The happenings of this week. 

-I ate foie gras. TWICE. aka. you force feed a duck until it's liver explodes and then you eat it's liver. yummmm. but really, if you know me you know I can pound through anything, but that was hard to choke down. I also ate caviar, oysters, sea snails, shrimp with the eye balls, quail, and cooked prunes, and more. These french people are just too fancy for their own good. I could really have just gone for a good ole' Taco Bueno tamale.

-I was able to sleep in on christmas morning! best present ever. I woke up at 6:45 and literally forced myself to turn over and go back to sleep. I made it until about 8. It was glorious. We get to do the same on New Years. No complaints.

-Seeing you was THE BEST. Naturally I thought of about 10301930 things I wanted to tell you after we hung up. but it's chill. Mothers Day is in 4 months. not counting. but I am. I am so greatly blessed that I was placed in our family. Y'all are my everything.

-JIMMY is still going strong for the 11th! We had a lesson on the word of wisdom this week, and in his words, "coffee makes me too nervous, tea is nasty, smokers smell bad, and every time I've been drunk I've regretted it." that solves that. He even told the bishop to announce his baptism in church. He is super prepared. :)

-From Thursday to Sunday we ported, contacted, and the likes with the general response of "on a pas le temp, nous sommes EN FAMILLE" translation: no. But it's okay, cause I had a beautiful Christmas anyways and I really felt the love of our ward, our amis, my wonderful comp, and heavenly father. 

Sorry this is so short, with no pictures AGAIN...this internet café is ghetto. Just know that I love you. I'm doing so well and that GOD loves us all. Let's make 2014 the best year of our lives. Deal?

okayyyyy byeeeeeeeeeeee.

Kales. (Soeur Johns)

Also, I saw the Louvre today. That was rad.