Gifts

Happy Birthday to Me!! It isn’t my birthday??? I am getting gifts... MUST BE CHRISTMAS or my mission birthday!! Either way, I ACCEPT! Okay so I just reread that and I sound like Eloise at Christmastime and then I remembered that I am a missionary and working on being selfless so let’s restart!

Cholet is becoming pretty!!! It hasn’t quite earned having its own postcards yet but one day I know it will! But until then it is Christmas and the whole town is decked out in lights and pretty things! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas and people are just happy and I KNOW that it is because everyone is remembering Christ and that makes people happy! Cholet being pretty makes me love it here even more!

On Tuesday we had our final district meeting of the transfer which means... PICTURE TIME!! I have LOVED my district and really feel soo lucky to have always been in a good district and surrounded by amazing missionaries! The Chinese elders are both leaving and going back up to Paris and Soeur Horn goes home on Wednesday! So my new district is going to be quite different! Also on Tuesday we found out that our cat with ThiThanh died... It was a sad day. I thought cats have 9 lives so maybe she was on her last one!

As of today Soeur Horn has 2 days left and we have 12 days until Christmas!! The FINAL countdown is here!! I am excited for Soeur Horn to be with her family but boy am I going to miss her! She has been really good to me the past three months! But since my companion is leaving... I AM GETTING A NEW COMPANION!! Her name is Soeur Hill and she has I think two transfers left! She trained my MTC companion Soeur Denning so I have heard good things about her! I am excited to have her as my companion!!

So as a missionary we don’t only focus on baptism. We are really here to help everyone become closer to Christ. That means non members, less active members and members. Really our objective is to help people. So we have spent a lot of time teaching people who are no longer active in the church and to help them in any way that we can. WELL yesterday two women who haven’t been inside the church for SEVERAL years came to sacrament!! It was a Christmas miracle! It was really cool and people just welcomed them. That is something I really like about the ward here is that no matter if you are a member, ami or less active you are going to be loved and welcomed like you are their family! Perks of Cholet!

Okay so onto the gift part... On Tuesday it was my 8 month mark as a missionary. So a wonderful couple in the ward got me a present! A nutella cookbook!! Happy Birthday to me! Man has the time gone by and I can’t believe that I am nearing my halfway mark! Also my Christmas package from my family arrived. Pre-wrapped gifts and all! Our Christmas tree is filling up nicely and I love Christmas! But really I love it because of Christ! We have been able to share the DVD Joy to the World with people and it reminds me what the true meaning of Christmas is. I am so lucky to be a missionary right now and share Christ with everyone that I meet! I love being a missionary!

Remember that week that we met a ton of Muslim men?? I don’t remember if I included that or not but anyway there was a week that every time we got on a bus or at the bus stop Muslim men would talk to us. Bad combination because we don’t contact men or Muslims.... BUT we ended up meeting up with a set of Muslim missionaries a little bit later because they had some questions and it was really nice. Well this past week we met up with them again and this time we swapped books!! We got them each a Book of Mormon in Arabic and they gave us the Qur'an in English!! Another great gift! It was really cool because we are both curious about the others religions and so we just asked one another questions and we were able to teach them a bit about who we are! I love making friends!!

Thank you ALL for your prayers and support! I am definitely feeling the love and appreciate you all! I am soo happy and soo blessed!!

Love,

Sœur Emily Johns

Artwork that Emily's companion has done for her

Getting Colder. She said right after this picture it went to -2.5