A Muslim, Christian and Atheist

No, this is not some racist joke. This is how I spent my Friday night. With marijuana as well! Welcome to the missionary life!

So Thursday was a slow day and we were going back through old area books and found that someone named Julienne had requested a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we called her and scheduled a time to see her Friday evening. We were super excited! We took this long train to Rambouilet and may have accidentally been in first class and the whole time we were paranoid we would get kicked out and have to pay all this money so we devised a plan that if that happens I would just speak my bad French and hope that they feel bad for me and let us stay. That never happened so we had a nice train ride to Rambouilet and then a tour bus ride to the tiny town of Huniere.

Once in the town we called her and she said she could come for us so we were thinking SCORE not having to walk far. We waited at the bus stop and then we see a young man and woman walking to us. They were like 25ish and they introduced themselves as Julian and Elsa. Julienne turns out to be Julian and a man. We go to their house and meet Claire who is Muslim and find out that Elsa is atheist and Julian is Christian! We had a great conversation! They had seen the Broadway play The Book of Mormon in London and wanted to learn more! I had this joke rehearsed after I heard it the first time so I cleverly pulled out the Book of Mormon and said "the book is always better" and laughed so that they would laugh too! I don’t know how interested they are in the gospel but it is good that they just want to learn more about things they are not knowledgeable with. Respect to them! The ladies started smoking pot and my comp and I just kind of ignored it but after we were dying and couldn’t figure out if pot is illegal in France. SO someone please let me know!!! If it is illegal we would have said something because we are missionaries but if it isn’t then we could just talk about it in a later time with Word of Wisdom. It was a lovely evening and hope to see them again!

That night we were just doing our nightly thing. Just recently we discovered that our apartment has a phone that people can call from the building lobby and ask to be let in. We may have spent an afternoon playing with it and it is exciting stuff! So Friday we were writing in our journals and our phone buzzes. IT NEVER BUZZES!! I was dared to answer it and it was this group of people speaking bad English and French in weird accents asking my name and telling me I need to come down. I hung up and we were scared. NO ONE knows where we live except the mission and no one needs to come to our place because we go to peoples home. We were peeking out the window waiting for some annoying French kids trying to prank missionaries to come out when I saw the BENARDS!!! They are a really good family friend from home! They are in Europe for a few weeks and thanks to my address being on fb to get letters they were able to come to my apartment!! It was so great and I loved seeing them! They took us to lunch on Saturday and it was yummmmmy and my first restaurant as a missionary! GOOOOOD weekend!

Elder Ballard is coming on Tuesday and I can’t wait to hear from an apostle of the Lord! I am sure I will have amawzing spiritual stories to share next week.

I got letters!!! Turns out our mailman isn’t tricking us and just sometimes letters are delayed! Thank you to everyone who has written me and please everyone continue!

I love you all! I love being a missionary and I love Versailles. The people are so great and I really am happier than ever! Thank you for the love and support!!

Love,

Soeur Emily Johns