AMIS to Members

Where oh Where do I begin!!! Craziest, most stressful, beautiful week of my mission!

On Monday it was the 11 of November which is a big deal in France and everything shut down so no grocery shopping for us! So it was a very laid back Pday and sometimes those are the best kind! We had an FHE with Valérie and the Busseaus at the Church! We taught the lesson and they brought the fun and the dessert! We played minute to win it games and I tell myself that I won because I am really competitive but man those games are hard! How are you supposed to hook a key with a paper clip that is being controlled by a string on a chopstick????? I do not understand but I wasn’t too sore of a loser! It was a fun night though! I LOVE FHE!!!

On Tuesday we have interviews.... AKA a super great one on one conversation with President Poznanski and Sœur Poznanski each! They are really just the greatest examples to me and I love them! We had both the Angers and the Tours zones together and it was great to see so many of my missionary friends! The STLS and another companionship of sisters came up with this rap about how sister missionaries gain weight and it was sooo funny! So the awkward 10 minutes when ALL the sister missionaries were MIA... That explains it! Being a sister missionary is the best!

So now is when the week turns CRAZY!! We had our last official lesson with Valerie on Wednesday and it went great! We had originally planned for her and ThiThanh to both get baptized on the 16th but ThiThanh was stuck in Paris with work so we all just planned for Valerie and were all really excited! We knew that ThiThanh would get baptized but just not at that moment. WELL WELL WELL on Wednesday night ThiThanh called and I talked to her for about 40 minutes and she was saying how she really wanted to come back and get baptized but it just wasn’t possible with work. I told her not to worry and that she could get baptized later in the month. It was so cool because she was just determined to follow Christ and wanted it so bad! We took comfort in knowing that she would be blessed for her righteous desires and it would work out in the future... THE FUTURE WAS THURSDAY!!

We had a RDV with Maria and Joaquim! We have been seeing Maria for a while now but she hasn’t progressed TOOO much! She is from Portugal and suuuuuper nice! Her husband is really nice to us but would never join our lessons and she always just said he isn’t interested. Last week I invited him and we taught them together on Thursday! We taught them about the apostasy and the Book of Mormon and we didn’t think he was really into it because he was just looking down at the Portuguese book of Mormon we gave him the whole time BUT at the end of the lesson right before we had her say the prayer he looked up with tears in his eyes having just finished reading the introduction and said? '' I have a lot to think about!'' and we invited them to Church and they said they would come but lots of people say that but we had hope!

We were supposed to have ward council on Thursday night but then it got cancelled and so we were trying to plan what we would do instead for those hours in the evening... I was just minding my own business trying to make Sœur Horn lunch when ThiThanh called and said that she had finished her work and that she would be in Cholet that evening and wanted to get baptized on Saturday! I couldn’t contain my happiness or think let alone speak French so I had to give the phone to Sœur Horn while I learned how to breathe again! It was true!! SHE WAS COMING BACK!!! It is a hidden miracle that ward Council was counseled so we could have the evening with ThiThanh and get her prepared for Saturday! So we spent the evening with her and taught her anything she needed!!

Friday is supposed to be our weekly planning but we had SOO much to do for the baptisms! We had to change EVERYTHING to be the plural form in French! SOO stressful because literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON we had for the program to give a talk, prayer, or play the piano called and cancelled. So we had to change the program a million times and call a million people to try to get them to prepare a talk for the next day! Then we had to get the District Leader in Angers to come and interview both Valerie and ThiThanh and it was just a lot to do in not a lot of time! After the interviews we went to our Cambodian family for dinner! Who knew that Cambodia has their own style of crepes!?

Then the day of the baptism ThiThanh and we headed to the Chapel in Angers and the baptism was beautiful! Seeing those two ladies in white was sooooooo great!! EVERYTHING ran smoothly at the baptism and all of the 8 missionaries in my district sang and it was a GREAT baptism!! SOO much love and happiness!!! After the baptism there was a relief society activity and it was perfect because Valerie and ThiThanh were just chatting with all of the women like they were old friends!! Proud mom moment??? CHECK!!!

Yesterday was just the top of a GREAT day! At Church relief society went great and we were just hoping the whole time that Maria and Joaquim would be there for sacrament. I gave them a call during Sunday school and they said that they were on their way! So we ran out and waited for them and when I saw their car I may have danced in the parking lot and later found out that the whole ward saw.... Oops?

Sacrament was great and turns out that the Akos live on the same street as Joaquim and Maria and they were all able to sit together! The receiving of the Holy Ghost was beautiful and the Spirit was so strong! After Church when ThiThanh and Valerie have officially gone from amis to members and our other two amis were there it was great to see because everyone was just talking to everyone!!

We went by Joaquim and Marias last night to get a photo because they leave to Portugal for a bit and they were amazing! THEY LOVED Church and wanted to make sure that it is at the same time and place every week and they are just amazing!! Maria kept thanking us for changing their lives but it wasn’t us! She said that he has been reading the Book of Mormon every night and they are just soo great!!

I LOVE being a missionary!! Sooo blessed and soo Lucky to be in Cholet with these people at this time! I am soo happy and really really blessed!!

Thank you all for your love and support! This is probably jumbled because I don’t have a lot of time and I frantically write so hopefully it makes sense!

Love,

Sœur Emily Johns